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TEL AVIV - The United States is raising the stakes in its bid to
halt Iran's nuclear program, putting the issue on a "pressure track",
says the chief of US Central Command General David Petraeus.

The US and other world powers are drumming up support for a fourth
round of United Nations sanctions against Iran for its refusal to comply
with repeated ultimatums to suspend uranium enrichment and to agree to a
United Nations-backed deal involving Iran's nuclear fuel being enriched
abroad.

The UN's nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency,
meets this week to discuss a tough new report on Iran by its new
director general Yukiya Amano. (See IAEA heaps pressure on Tehran, Asia
Times Online, February 23)

Petraeus said the Barack Obama administration intended to "send the
kind of signal to Iran about the very serious concerns that the
countries in the region and, indeed, the entire world have about Iran's
activities in the nuclear program." In parallel, his commander, Admiral
Mike Mullen, the chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff who just
returned from the Middle East, made a point of warning that any military
strike against Iran would not be "decisive" in countering Tehran's
nuclear program.

The top US military commanders were speaking on the eve of talks in
Washington with Israel's Defense Minister E... >>>