UPDATED: VALENTINE FROM IRAN

Israel will be 'wiped off earth' if it attacks Iran: Revolutionary Guards
TEHRAN (AFP) - Iran will wipe Israel "off the face of the earth" if it dared to attack the Islamic republic's nuclear facilities, a spokesman for Iran's powerful Revolutionary Guards was quoted as saying.

"The United States is showing off by threatening to use its wild dog, Israel," the public relations head of the Revolutionary Guards, Commander Seyed Masood Jazayeri, was quoted as saying by the Iranian student news agency ISNA.  "They will not hesitate to strike Iran if they are capable of it. However, their threats to attack Irans nuclear facilities cannot be realised. They are aware Tehran's reaction will be so harsh that Israel will be wiped off the face of the earth and US interests will be easily damaged," he warned.

SEE: Iran Starts Atom Tests in Defiance of EU Deal
Iran has broken the seals on nuclear equipment monitored by UN inspectors and is once again building and testing machines that could make fissile material for nuclear weapons, Western sources revealed Monday. Teheran's move breaks a deal with European countries under which Iran suspended "all uranium enrichment activity." (Telegraph-UK)

SEE: Iran's Quest for the Atomic Bomb
It has been two years since a group of Iranian exiles accused Iran of hiding a secret atomic weapons program from UN inspectors, and diplomats and analysts say Tehran is only getting closer to the bomb. "Iranian leaders got together after the Iraq war and decided that the reason North Korea was not attacked was because it has the bomb. Iraq was attacked because it did not," a Western diplomat said this week, citing intelligence reports. Uzi Arad, director of Israel's Institute of Policy and Strategy and a former senior official in the Israeli intelligence service, said it was time the IAEA stated openly that Iran is pursuing nuclear arms - which it could one day use to destroy the Jewish state. "Anyone who suggests differently is under illusions," Arad said. "At which point will the IAEA state the obvious?" (Reuters/Washington Post)

SEE: AXIS OF EVIL, PART II
Iran will go nuclear during the next presidential term. Some Americans wishfully think that the Israelis will do the dirty work for us, as in 1981, when they destroyed Saddam Hussein's nuclear reactor. But for Israel, attacking Iran is a far more difficult proposition. It is farther away. Moreover, detection and antiaircraft technology are far more advanced than they were 20 years ago.

There may be no deus ex machina. If nothing is done, a fanatical terrorist regime openly dedicated to the destruction of the "Great Satan" will have both nuclear weapons and the terrorists and missiles to deliver them. All that stands between us and that is either revolution or preemptive strike.

Both of which, by the way, are far more likely to succeed with 146,000 American troops and highly sophisticated aircraft standing by just a few miles away — in Iraq.