This morning, we reported preparations by Iran to launch a nuclear war against Israel and Israel’s determination to neutralise any such attack through a considering pre-emptive strikes against Iran using a new war technology known as electromagnetic pulse (EMP).

Indications that Iran’s threats are not being taken lightly by the world’s only surviving superpower, the United States of America, emerged this evening when US President Barack Obama warned Iran that the America will “do what we must” to frustrate its plans.

In what could be his last speech to the annual UN General Assembly holding in New York, Obama, under fire from Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney for his handling of Iran’s atomic ambitions, dedicated part of his 30-minute address to warning the Islamic republic that he cannot live with a nuclear-armed Tehran.

“Make no mistake: a nuclear-armed Iran is not a challenge that can be contained,” a yahoo! News story quoted Obama as saying.

“It would threaten the elimination of Israel, the security of Gulf nations, and the stability of the global economy. It risks triggering a nuclear-arms race in the region, and the unraveling of the non-proliferation treaty. That’s why the United States will do what we must to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon,” he added.

The report said that Obama’s “stern comments closely echoed his past warnings, and stopped short of drawing the clear ‘red line’ Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has sought from Washington.”

The US President denounced an anti-Islam video on the Internet that has partly fueled violent demonstrations around the world, including Nigeria, describing the film as “crude and disgusting.” But he explained that he could not simply ban it—and scolded those who denounce anti-Muslim speech but stay quiet when the target is Christianity.

Hear him: “The future must not belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam. But to be credible, those who condemn that slander must also condemn the hate we see in the images of Jesus Christ that are desecrated, churches are destroyed, or the Holocaust is denied.” The statement is believed to be in an apparent reference to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

“It is time to marginalise those who, even when not resorting to violence, use hatred of America, or the West, or Israel as the central organizing principle of politics,” Obama said. “For that only gives cover, and sometimes makes an excuse, for those who resort to violence.”