De Borchgrave's report quoted a poll of conservative Republicans by a conservative web-based news service, which showed overwhelmingly strong support for bombing Iran. Almost 60,000 people took part in the poll and 88 percent agreed that Iran poses a greater threat than Saddam Hussein did before the Iraq War. To the question, "Should the US undertake military action against Iran to stop their (nuclear) programme?" 77 percent replied yes, 23 percent said no. Forty-five percent said that military action should be taken by the United States, while 35 percent wanted Israel to do that. Twenty percent said neither. As for whether US efforts to contain Iran's nuclear weapons are working, 93 percent said they were not, while 89 percent said the US should not rely solely on the UN.

According to de Borchgrave, "Israel has developed some 100 Jericho-II medium-range ballistic missiles (which entered service in 1989). Jericho II's range varies from 1,500 to 3,500 kilometres, depending on payload weight. They are deployed in underground caves and silos. Israel has several satellites in orbit - Ofeq-1 through Ofeq-5 - that were launched by Shavit space launch vehicles (SLV). The first two stages of the Shavit were Jericho II missiles. There are unconfirmed reports of an upgraded Jericho-3 missile with a range of over 3,000 kilometres.

What does McCain think we would accomplish - other than a new parading of our moral superiority - by so public an insult to Putin and Russia as a Bush boycott of the St. Petersburg summit? Do we not have enough trouble in this world, do we not have enough people hating us and Bush that we have to get into Putin's face and antagonize the largest nation on earth and a co-equal nuclear power? What is the purpose of this confrontation diplomacy? What does it accomplish?

Eisenhower and Nixon did not behave like this. Nor did Ford or Bush's father. Reagan called the Soviet Union an "evil empire" once. But the Soviet Union we confronted in those years was hostile. Until lately, today's Russia was not. Yet the Bush boys are in their pulpits, admonishing the world's sinners every day.

What is their beef with Putin's policy?

In January, Putin decided to stop piping subsidized gas to Kiev and start charging the market price. Reason: Ukraine's president, elected with the assistance of U.S. foundations and quasi-government agencies, said he was reorienting Kiev's foreign policy away from Russia and toward NATO and the United States.

If you are headed for NATO, Putin was saying to President Viktor Yushchenko, you can forget the subsidized gas.

Now this is political hardball, but it is a game with which America is not altogether unfamiliar. When Castro reoriented his policy toward Moscow, Cuba's sugar allotment was terminated. U.S. diplomats went all over the world persuading nations not to buy from or sell to Cuba. Economic sanctions on Havana endure to today. We supported, over Reagan's veto, sanctions on South Africa. We have used sanctions as a stick and access to the U.S. market as a carrot since we became a nation. What, after all, was "Dollar Diplomacy" all about?

Cheney accuses Moscow of employing pipeline diplomacy - i.e., using its oil and gas pipelines to benefit some nations and cut out others. But the United States does the same thing, as it seeks to have the oil and gas of Central Asia transmitted to the West in pipelines that do not transit Iran or Russia.

"(N)o one can justify actions that undermine the territorial integrity of a neighbor," declared Cheney in Vilnius. How the vice president could deliver that line with a straight face escapes me.

Does Cheney not recall our "Captive Nations Resolutions," calling for the liberation of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, which, though free between the two world wars, had long belonged to the Russian empire? Does he not recall conservative support for the breakup of the Soviet Union? Does he not recall conservative support for the secession of Slovenia, Croatia and Bosnia, and more recently Kosovo, from a Serb-dominated Yugoslavia?

What concerns Cheney is Moscow's support for the secession of Abkhazia and South Ossetia from Georgia. Georgia's president was also elected with the aid of pro-democracy NGOs, mostly funded by Uncle Sam. All these color-coded revolutions in East Europe and Central Asia bear the label, Made in the U.S.A.

When Cheney says, "No one can justify actions that ... interfere with democratic movements," he is hauling water for Freedom House, headed by ex-CIA Director James Woolsey, and similar agencies, which Putin wants shut down or kicked out of Russia for interfering in her internal affairs.

We Americans consider the Monroe Doctrine - no foreign power is to come into our hemisphere - to be holy writ. Why, then, can we not understand why Russia might react angrily to our interference in her politics or the politics of former Russian republics?

The effect of U.S. expansion of NATO deep into Eastern Europe, U.S. interference in the politics of the former Soviet republics, and U.S. siting of military bases in the Balkans, Eastern Europe and Central Asia has been to unite Russia and China, and undo the diplomacy of several successive U.S. presidents.

How has this made us more secure?

If we don't want these people in our backyard, what are we doing in theirs? If we don't stop behaving like the British Empire, we will end up like the British Empire.

"I'll tell you, they are not concerned with nuclear programs ... They are themselves engaged in nuclear activities and they are expanding day by day. They test new brands of weapons of mass destruction every day," Ahmadinejad told a news conference after meeting Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono.

"Big powers pretend (they) are concerned, but it's a big lie," the Iranian leader said.

Iran is under pressure to rein in a nuclear program it says is for peaceful purposes but some countries fear is really aimed at developing weapons.

Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim country, has offered to help mediate on the issue, Yudhoyono and his spokesman said.

"We can cooperate well in reducing the tension and move toward continuing talks and negotiations," Yudhoyono told reporters.

Spokesman Dino Patti Djalal said "Iran was very receptive" to Indonesia's offer to help mediate.

"We hope it will happen. We need to breathe new life into negotiations," he said.

CARROTS AND STICKS

Speaking of a letter sent to President Bush, which Washington shrugged off as an attempt to divert attention from the nuclear issue, Ahmadinejad said sending it was the right decision and that he had no comment on the U.S. reaction.

The United States has pushed for international action on the issue, and with a group of nations including China and Russia has authorized Britain, France and Germany to work on a package of carrots and sticks to entice Iran to change its program.

President Bush received the 18-page letter from Ahmadinejad on Monday, the first publicly announced personal communication from an Iranian president to his U.S. counterpart since the 1979 Islamic revolution.

Despite Washington's initial cool reaction, analysts say the letter might buy Tehran more time to pursue its program and improve its standing as a regional leader.

Indonesian Vice President Jusuf Kalla met Ahmadinejad on Wednesday and told reporters that "Indonesia will take a role behind the scenes for peaceful purposes on Iran issues."

He also said without elaborating that Indonesia supported nuclear programs for peaceful use.

Kalla plays an influential role in Yudhoyono's administration and helped broker a successful peace deal last year in Aceh province, where a separatist rebellion had simmered for decades.

Despite the attention to the nuclear issue, the prime stated purpose of Ahmadinejad's visit to Jakarta is not the nuclear issue but development of economic ties.

Iran is in the process of investing several billion dollars in the oil and gas sector of fellow Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) member Indonesia and both countries are eager to boost trade.

On Friday, Ahmadinejad is due to fly to Bali for a meeting of the Developing Eight group that also includes Indonesia, Nigeria, Malaysia, Egypt, Turkey, Pakistan and Bangladesh.

Economic development, including peaceful uses of nuclear energy, figure high on the agenda for the meeting, which will end on Saturday.

The International Institute of Strategic Studies, for its part, estimates the number of warheads as being "up to 200".

The Nuclear Threat Initiative, a US advocacy group co-created by Ted Turner, the founder of CNN and a former senator, believes Israel's nuclear arsenal "is comparable in quality and quantity to that of France and the United Kingdom."

An unknown number of ground-to-ground missiles, comprising short range Jericho 1 and medium range Jericho 2 missiles, forms Israel's strategic force.

The country also acquired three diesel-powered, Dolphin-class submarines -- a non-nuclear variety -- at the end of the 1990s. Each vessel has the capacity to launch six torpedoes. They can also spend up to a month underwater.

"There is no evidence that their weapons are anything other than conventional, but the nuclear option has been considered since 2003," Eldridge told AFP.

In a hardening attitude towards Tehran, Deputy Prime Minister Shimon Peres warned Tuesday Iran risks its own destruction if it tries to destroy Israel.

Peres, a former Nobel peace prize winner, fired a warning shot across the bows of hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad by saying his call for Israel to be wiped off the map would not go unanswered if it was translated into action.

Rice and Douste-Blazy were to discuss a draft resolution on Syria that Paris and Washington want to present to the UN Security Council, according to officials traveling with the two.

Paris wants the resolution to remain focused on Lebanon and concentrate on three main objectives: the implementation of Security Council resolution 1559 calling for an end to Syrian influence on Lebanon, support for Lebanese dialogue, and a demarcation of borders between Syria and Lebanon.

Washington however is pushing for a resolution that puts broader pressure on Syria, and hopes to include pressure on Iran, which supports the Lebanese Shiite Muslim group Hezbollah.

Separately Washington has accused both Iran and Syria of taking insufficient action to prevent armed opponents of the US-led coalition from slipping into Iraq.

The text would require "parties and states" close to Lebanon to cease any interference in Lebanese affairs, according to a draft resolution which circulated among UN officials.

Rice, Douste-Blazy and a handful of advisers also discussed financial assistance to the Palestinians as well as Iran's controversial nuclear ambitions.

Douste-Blazy did not participate in discussions Tuesday held by the Middle East diplomatic quartet -- which comprises Russia, the United States, European Union and United Nations -- that endorsed the creation of a temporary mechanism to deliver badly needed assistance to the Palestinian people suffering under a cutoff of Western aid to their militant government.

The United States and EU have frozen aid to Hamas, which they consider a terrorist organization, until it renounces its armed struggle against Israel and recognizes the Jewish state's right to exist.

French President Jacques Chirac has earlier written to leaders of Israel and the quartet asking for the creation of a World Bank account to channel aid to the Palestinians.

Aziz pledged that Pakistan would continue to retain its deterrent capability to guarantee peace in the South Asian region. He said that the defense of the country was on topmost priority of the government, fully endorsed by the entire nation.

Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf sent a special message to congratulate the missile test team and said the entire nation was proud of their brilliant performance, the report said.

A Pakistani military spokesman said in a statement that the test was carried out to confirm the missile's ability fulfill additional technical parameters beyond those achieved in the Shaheen II's last test 14 months ago in March 2005.

The Shaheen II is a two-stage solid fuel missile which can carry nuclear and conventional warheads with "high accuracy."

The test came two days after Pakistan and India concluded a three-day session of negotiations in the Pakistani capital Islamabad to discuss confidence-building measures between them in their nuclear program and other areas. However, the two nations failed to reach the agreement they had sought on reducing the risk of accidental or unauthorized use of nuclear weapons.

He added: "I have full confidence in Dominique de Villepin's government to carry out the mission I have set it, and I expect him to accelerate further his actions."

There was no mistaking that Chirac was talking about a politico-legal imbroglio that is threatening his conservative government called the Clearstream affair, though he did not mention it by name in his short statement.

The affair started as an investigation into the alleged money-laundering of bribes paid from the sale of warships to Taiwan but has since ballooned into a dirty tricks scandal laying bare political divisions in the ruling UMP party.

At stake is who might succeed Chirac in presidential elections next year.

Recent reports suggested that Villepin -- a Chirac protege -- used the Clearstream investigation to smear his chief rival, Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy.

An article in a French investigative weekly, Le Canard Enchaine, on Wednesday homed in on testimony in the case from a spymaster involved in the investigation who reportedly said Chirac had a secret account in Japan holding 45 million euros (57 million dollars).

Both Villepin and Chirac have denied the allegations targeting them, but the surprise declaration from Chirac on Wednesday was the strongest counter-attack yet offered by the president -- and a sign of how deep the threat is to his rule.