Put this together with the still-developing Iran story and you begin to see a general picture:

"Palestinians Halt Push on War Report"
By Neil MacFarquhar for the October 3, 2009 New York Times

UNITED NATIONS -- In a startling shift, the Palestinian delegation to the United Nations Human Rights Council dropped its efforts to forward a report accusing Israel of possible war crimes to the Security Council, under pressure from the United States, diplomats said Thursday.

The Americans argued that pushing the report now would derail the Middle East peace process that they are trying to revive, diplomats said.

"We don't want to create an obstacle for them," Ibrahim Khraishi, the Palestinian ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva, said by telephone from Geneva, where the Human Rights Council is based. "We want to get a strong resolution to deal with the report in a good manner to get a benefit from it."....

....in a compromise, the body is expected to pass a resolution Friday presented by the bloc of Arab and Muslim states that any action will be delayed until the next meeting in March.

....Michael Posner, the new assistant secretary of state for democracy, human rights and labor, would not comment Thursday about the negotiations.

In a speech to the council this week, however, Mr. Posner called the report "deeply flawed" and criticized the council for what he called a fixation with Israel. But he concluded by saying that fair reviews on both sides would build confidence.....

Mr. Khraishi, the Palestinian ambassador, said that if a resolution were passed now insisting that the General Assembly or the Security Council deal with the matter, as the report itself recommends, it would most likely face an American veto....

"There was a tremendous amount of pressure on all members by the Americans," said an Arab diplomat, who requested anonymity according to diplomatic protocol. "The Americans wanted something to finish it; the compromise is to defer it, which means it is still alive."

...Behind their show of unity about Iran's clandestine efforts to manufacture nuclear fuel...is a continuing debate among American, European and Israeli spies about a separate component of Iran's nuclear program: its clandestine efforts to design a nuclear warhead.

The Israelis, who have delivered veiled threats of a military strike, say they believe that Iran has restarted these "weaponization" efforts, which would mark a final step in building a nuclear weapon. The Germans say they believe that the weapons work was never halted. The French have strongly suggested that independent international inspectors have more information about the weapons work than they have made public.

Meanwhile, in closed-door discussions, American spy agencies have stood firm in their conclusion that while Iran may ultimately want a bomb, the country halted work on weapons design in 2003 and probably has not restarted that effort -- a judgment first made public in a 2007 National Intelligence Estimate....

from

A Nuclear Debate Brews: Is Iran Designing Warheads?
By Wlliam J. Broad, Mark Mazzetti and David E. Sanger for the Sept. 29 New York Times

This is not news to anyone who was reading outside of the blogosphere on the topic for the last 5 or so years, especially European sources that covered IAEA and Iranian diplomatic news. There never was much risk that the USA was going to bomb or invade Iran, and Europe was always a bit more seriously worried about Iran's cat and mouse game. (Unless Bush died and Cheney became president, of course--but then one could visualize him bombing and going to war with nearly everyone, no one would be safe then.)

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....Al-Zawahri's eulogy was the terror group's first acknowledgement of the death of one of al-Qaida's main partners in Pakistan's tribal area where top leaders of the terror movement are believed hiding.

Al-Zawahri praised Mehsud for his role in mobilizing fighters in the region, and challenging "the new crusaders and their agents," in reference to the NATO forces and the Pakistani and Afghan security forces.

"To the Americans, their allies and their slaves in Afghanistan and Pakistan, I say you may have killed (Mehsud) ...but you did not kill Islam or holy war," al-Zawahri said, listing 10 of Mehsud's contributions to the jihad cause.

....Al-Zawahri didn't name the successor but appealed Muslims around the world to follow Mehsud's footsteps, and urge Afghans to come out in support of the Taliban.

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