Iran will begin large-scale air defense war games on Sunday to help protect its nuclear facilities against any attack, a senior commander said.

Brig. Gen. Ahmad Mighani also suggested Iran could itself produce an advanced missile defense system which Russia has so far failed to deliver to the Islamic Republic and which Washington and Israel do not want Tehran to have.

Iran believes Russia’s delay in supplying high-grade S-300 missiles was due to pressure by Israel, not technical problems as cited by Moscow, Mighani said.

“We are hopeful the Russians will ignore the pressure of the Zionist lobby,” Fars news agency quoted him as saying on Saturday. Iran refers to Israel as the “Zionist regime.” The military maneuvers will last for five days and involve both the elite Revolutionary Guards and the regular armed forces against a hypothetical enemy, Iranian media reported.

The United States and Israel have not ruled out military action if diplomacy fails to resolve the row over Iran’s nuclear program.

Iran, which says its nuclear program is solely to generate electricity, has threatened to hit back at Israel and US if it is attacked. “This week’s air defense maneuvers will be held with the intention of protecting the country’s nuclear facilities,” Mighani said, Fars reported. State television said the defense drills would “ensure better protection” for these facilities. Arab News

President Barack Obama said Sunday that “time is running out” for Iran to sign on to a deal to ship its enriched uranium out of the country for further processing, and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said he still hopes to persuade Iran to send its enriched uranium to his country.

If that plan fails, however, Medvedev said other options remain on the table. While he did not cite those options, the Russian leader has said further sanctions against Iran were possible if it did not open its nuclear program to inspections to prove it was not trying to build a bomb.

Obama and Medvedev, meeting on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Cooperation Council, said Iran was one of the topics they discussed.

“Unfortunately, so far at least, Iran appears to have been unable to say yes to what everyone acknowledges is a creative and constructive approach,” Obama said. “We are now running out of time with respect to that approach.”

Russia and the U.S. are among six nations leading an effort to ensure Iran does not use what it maintains is a civilian nuclear program to develop an atomic bomb. But Moscow also has close ties with Iran and is helping build its first nuclear power plant, forcing Russia into a delicate balancing act.

Fears about the nature of Iran’s nuclear program were heightened in September with the disclosure of a uranium enrichment facility near the holy city of Qom. U.N. inspectors visited the site last month, as the United States continued quiet preparations for the possibility of stiffening U.N. sanctions or those the United States has applied on its own.

Iran agreed to the inspections during a landmark meeting with the U.S. and other world powers at the beginning of October in Geneva, where the idea of Tehran shipping uranium to Russia for further enrichment was first raised.

Under the plan, Iran would send 2,420 pounds of low-enriched uranium to Russia in one batch by the end of the year in order to receive the nuclear fuel it needs for a research reactor that makes medical isotopes.

The United States supports such peaceful or beneficial uses of nuclear technology in Iran but has long suspected that part of the Iranian nuclear development program is aimed at covert production of a weapon.

The isotopes arrangement is a way to buy time and build confidence on both sides. By Western estimates, the plan would take put amounts of the low-enriched uranium Iran has stockpiled out of reach for conversion into the highly enriched fuel needed for nuclear weapons.

The arrangement is not a guarantee that Iran could not develop a bomb if it chose to, but is thought to delay the likelihood of that breakthrough. The deal would be the most tangible payoff for Obama’s program of careful outreach to Iran this year, a diplomatic overture dimmer by political violence and alleged vote-rigging in Iran’s elections last June.

Iran’s diffuse political power structure has been in disarray since the election and the unprecedented street protests that followed. Squeezed by dissent inside the country and by international pressure over the nuclear program from outside, Iran has given conflicting signals.

Iranian politicians have rejected the proposed deal but the government says it is still considering it.

“The recent actions of this country (U.S.), presenting unimportant and irrational proposals in the nuclear issue which they have called just and fair, all indicate that the alleged change was nothing but a deceitful symbol aimed at deceiving naive politicians,” Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani said Sunday in Iran.

Obama said he and Medvedev agree that the U.S. and Russia will continue to urge Iran “to take the path that leads them to meeting its international obligations.”

Obama added, “We can’t count on that, and we will begin to discuss and prepare for these other pathways.”

Medvedev said the U.S. and Russia are not satisfied with the pace of the effort and reiterated Obama’s point about reaching an end to it.

“In this case, our goal is clear: It is transparent, up-to-date, peaceful program – not a program that would raise questions or concerns from the international community. We’re prepared to work further and I hope that our joint work will yield in positive results,” he said. “In case we fail, the other options remain on the table in order to move the process in a different direction.”

Mike McFaul, an official with the White House National Security Council, told reporters at a briefing in Singapore that a timetable for sanctions against Iran was not discussed.

The administration prefers international sanctions if Iran balks but also quietly supports legislation in Congress that would give Obama a broad new array of authority to target Iran’s energy sector by penalizing foreign firms that sell and ship refined petroleum products to Iran. The regime is heavily dependent on gasoline, kerosene and propane imports.

The legislation would also allow the administration to go after insurance and reinsurance concerns that cover oil tankers and their cargo. The U.S. could also target companies that provide Iran with covert technology used to crack down on protesters and democracy advocates as it did during demonstrations last summer after a disputed national election. Asbury Park Press

Europe may send 5,000 more soldiers to Afghanistan, Britain’s prime minister said Friday – affirming support for the NATO mission as the Obama administration nears a decision on increasing American troop levels.

The announcement came as the Taliban struck again in the capital. A suicide car bomber blasted a U.S. convoy near an American military base in Kabul, injuring nine American soldiers and 10 contract security guards. Three Afghans were killed in the attack – the biggest in Kabul in the last two weeks.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown said the NATO strategy must be to encourage a greater role for Afghan forces so that international troops “can start coming home.”

His remarks were made a day after he met with NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen. The NATO chief said that other allied nations have privately pledged more help, but Rasmussen stopped short of saying that countries would send more troops.

“We need our other NATO allies to help,” Brown told the BBC in a London interview.

He said he has been contacting governments both inside and outside the 45-member NATO-led coalition, asking them to send more soldiers to train and mentor Afghan forces so they can take responsibility for security in their own country. He estimated as many as 5,000 troops could be raised from that effort.

Brown has already agreed to send 500 more soldiers to Britain’s 9,000-member force in Afghanistan, despite declining support for the war among the British public.

His assurances that other countries would boost their troop numbers appeared to be an attempt to show the British public that others are willing to assume a heavier burden in Afghanistan, despite public unease over rising casualties and an Afghan government perceived as corrupt and resistant to reform.

“There has got to be burden-sharing amongst the alliance, and I am sending people around Europe to persuade other countries that they should commit more troops,” Brown said. “We are having some success. But as the debate over these last few months has shown, there is a lot more that we have to do.”

NATO said Friday that more troops and resources are needed, but other countries are unlikely to commit more forces until Obama announces his decision.

U.S. toll in Afghanistan

As of Thursday, Nov. 12, 2009, at least 837 members of the U.S. military had died in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Uzbekistan since the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in late 2001, according to the Defense Department. The latest deaths reported by the military: Swanson, Justin J. 21, Marine Lance Cpl.; Anaheim. By Robert H. Reid, San Francisco Chronicle

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has urged his armed forces to be prepared for possible war with Colombia amid growing diplomatic and border tensions.

He said the best way to avoid war was to prepare for it. In response, Colombia said it would seek UN help.

Venezuela blames the tension with its neighbor on closer military ties between Colombia and the US.

Colombia says US forces are there to help in the fight against rebels and drug traffickers.

“Let’s not waste a day on our main aim: to prepare for war and to help the people prepare for war, because it is everyone’s responsibility,” Mr Chavez said during his TV and radio show Alo, Presidente.

Mr Chavez has also ordered 15,000 troops to the border, citing increased violence by Colombian paramilitary groups.

The BBC’s Jeremy McDermott in Bogota, Colombia, says that normally such declarations would not cause alarm, but because of the current tensions there are fears of a possible spark on the border which could lead to further violence.

Frozen ties

In response to Mr Chavez’s comments, Colombian President Alvaro Uribe said his government would seek help from the UN Security Council and also the Organization of American States.

“Colombia has not made nor will it make any bellicose move toward the international community, even less so toward fellow Latin American nations,” a statement by Mr Uribe said.

Ties between Colombia and Venezuela have been frozen since July when Bogota said it would let the US army use its military bases for anti-drugs operations.

The agreement has caused alarm among some of Colombia’s neighbours, who object to an increased US military presence in the region.

When news of the deal first broke in August, Mr Chavez warned that “winds of war” were blowing across the continent. BBC News