WarSclerotic

‘Iran won’t back down one iota despite pressure over nukes’ – Haaretz – Israel News.

		Technicians working at Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant in Iran. (AP)

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Saturday said that further United Nations Security Council sanctions would not deter Iran from pursuing its controversial nuclear program, French news agency AFP reported.

Ahmadinejad vowed that Iran will not back down “one iota” despite international pressures over its nuclear program, which Tehran insists is for peaceful purposes and not for developing an atomic bomb.

“They issued several resolutions and sanctioned Iran… They think Iranians will fall on their knees over these things but they are mistaken,” Ahmadinejad said in a speech quoted by AFP.

	Advertisement

“We are not interested in conflicts [but] you are continually demanding things,” he said to world powers, led by the United States, which are seeking to curb Iran’s atomic ambitions.

“They should not think they can put up obstacles in Iranians’ way… I assure the people…that the government will whole-heartedly defend Iran’s rights and will not back down one iota,” he said.

Iran is already under three sets of UN Security Council sanctions over its defiance and refusal to suspend enrichment, which lies at the heart of international fears about its nuclear program.

The process that makes nuclear fuel can also be used to make the fissile core of an atomic bomb.

World powers gave Iran until the end of 2009 to accept a UN-brokered deal to ship most of Iran’s low-enriched uranium (LEU) abroad to be further refined into reactor fuel by Russia and France.

But the deadline was ignored, prompting talk of fresh sanctions against the Islamic republic.

Iran has in return insisted on its counter-proposal of a staged swap of LEU for nuclear reactor fuel.

Iran, Hezbollah and Hamas must wait until Israel is ready – Haaretz – Israel News.
The defense establishment has reported that, based on a series of tests carried out in recent days on the Iron Dome short-range missile defense system, it will be possible to supply the Israel Defense Forces (and, more important, the town of Sderot) with an initial, operational battery as early as this May. Also, Haaretz reported a few days ago on last week’s decision by the cabinet to increase funding for the provision of protective kits (gas masks) to every citizen in the country, beginning at the end of next month.

These are important steps toward improving the protection Israel gives its citizens. However, it will probably take another year, at least, to deploy a meaningful number of intercept systems in the Negev and along the northern border. And according to the planned rate of gas-mask distribution, it will take three years to complete that undertaking. If Iran, Hezbollah and Hamas will only agree to wait politely, we will go into a war three years down the road in much better shape.

The first signs of a change in the enemy’s combat strategy were apparent as early as the first Gulf War, in 1991, when 39 Scud missiles launched from Iraq over the course of more than a month sent Israelis scurrying for their sealed rooms. Hezbollah continued the shelling – by means of short-range Katyusha rockets fired from Lebanon – during Israel’s Operation Accountability (1993) and Operation Grapes of Wrath (1996). The enemy’s use of rockets and missiles was aimed at bypassing a confrontation with Israel’s definitive superiority in air power, intelligence capability and technology.

	Advertisement

In the first years of the second intifada, which began in late 2000, the Palestinians still resorted to terrorism in the form of suicide bombers. But when the IDF and the Shin Bet security service came up with reasonable responses to this, Hamas copied Hezbollah by firing rockets from the Gaza Strip, particularly after Israel’s disengagement in 2005.

The IDF, quite logically, will continue to rely in large measure on a combination of aerial attacks and ground maneuvers, including conquest of territory. However, in the face of a possible onslaught involving thousands of missiles and tens of thousands of rockets, this will not be enough. In such a scenario, Israel will have to rely on four main interconnected elements: intelligence (evaluation and prevention); an offensive operational plan; an active defense (the multilayered missile interception system – consisting of the Arrow, the Magic Wand, which is still being developed, and the Iron Dome); and passive defense (air-raid sirens, fortified security rooms in homes, gas masks). But the IDF’s combat doctrine vis-a-vis these different elements is still only in the development stages. The state comptroller warned about this state of affairs in a recent report.

A key question that arises in this context concerns the division of resources between defense and offense. A report on the country’s security conception, drawn up by the Meridor Committee in 2006, notes the importance of defense against missiles. Defense Minister Ehud Barak has also referred to this repeatedly, since taking up his portfolio again two and a half years ago. At that time, he said that in light of the bad experience following the Gaza evacuation, Israel will have to postpone additional withdrawals from the West Bank until an effective antimissile system can be developed. Surprisingly, the National Security Council, for example, barely devoted time to this subject.

Even in an optimistic scenario – in which Israel develops all the necessary intercept systems and allocates sufficient funding to their acquisition and deployment – a critical time gap has developed in the face of a militant Iranian approach. Tehran’s approach is based on attacking Israel “from far and from near” by means of Qassams and Katyushas from Gaza and Lebanon, and in the extreme case, also with Shihab missiles launched from Iran itself. In such a case, the result would be that the Arabs (and the Iranians) will be one step ahead of Israel in the campaign.

Unless the IDF has an unknown ace up its sleeve, every future clash will entail a massive assault on the home front, in a war that will be hard to win, or in which it will be difficult to achieve a decisive “image of victory.” This will necessitate precise planning in regard to the Israeli public’s stamina and to the logical distribution of resources, in which offense does not always come at the cost of defense.

Progress on the home front

Thorough work has been carried out with respect to the home front in the three and a half years since the end of the Second Lebanon War; Deputy Defense Minister Matan Vilnai is involved and knowledgeable in every phase of this process. Home Front Command has changed its conception radically: In contrast to the period of the war in the north, its focus is now on the needs of the civilian population. Coordination with local governments has also improved greatly, and the establishment of the National Emergency Authority is likely to be a positive development, despite its problematic infringement on powers now held by the National Emergency Economy.

Nevertheless, problems remain with equipment procurement, with the command-and-control capability of the rescue forces and in the municipalities’ preparedness. After the rocket attacks on the Negev during Operation Cast Lead last year, the GOC Home Front Command, Maj. Gen. Yair Golan, declared that the campaign had been carried out in “deluxe” conditions. Home Front Command will not be able to devote the same concentrated efforts and resources in an all-out, multi-front war.

End to zigzags

It is against this background that the decision of the cabinet last week about the gas masks should be seen. It was a logical decision following a six-year series of zigzags, from the collection of the gas masks, to their storage, to their partial redistribution and to the new decision on full distribution. According to the IDF, this will necessitate the doubling of the budget for the project: from NIS 1 billion to NIS 2 billion. Barak, Vilnai, Maj. Gen. Golan and Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi have long recommended such a step. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was not persuaded of its necessity until last week. Golan put forward the plan to distribute the protective kits to 60 percent of the population within three years, with the many attendant problems of such a move: the bureaucratic unwieldiness, the difficulty of supervising the implementation, the inequality between different regions of the country, and the possibilities that would open up for petitions to the High Court of Justice by those who would not be included among the 60 percent.

Netanyahu thus decided there would be no “levels of distribution”: Everyone would get a gas mask. Barak undertook to find the money for half of the additional budget, NIS 500 million, by means of internal juggling of the defense budget. Netanyahu promised to come up with the other half.

This is good news for Israel Post, which won the tender to distribute the protective kits, and for their manufacturers, Shalon in Kiryat Gat and Supergum in Barkan, which will embark on a massive production process. In addition, a precedent was set: Veterans of Home Front Command maintain that they never saw the army spend a shekel of the defense budget on protective equipment. The money always came from external budgets.

The cabinet’s decision was an essential move, says a senior defense source who has been following developments in Home Front Command for years.

“The decision simultaneously informs the country’s citizens that the threat is being handled seriously and shows the enemy that we are prepared. Regarding the rate of development of the elements involved in our response to the threat,” said the source, “widespread distribution of the masks is the only realistic option – particularly if there is a reasonable possibility that we will see escalation here in the years ahead.”

One contributing factor here was undoubtedly the impact of the Winograd Committee, which investigated the management of the Second Lebanon War. After the severe criticism leveled at the Olmert government and the General Staff by the committee (and by the state comptroller, Micha Lindenstrauss, in reports on the home front) – neither the politicians nor the generals have much stomach today for assuming unnecessary risks. Equipping the public is therefore the default option, though it also attests to the scale of the past failure. Owing to the delay in developing a response to the rockets, protection will probably still focus, initially, on gas masks and sealed rooms, even if their effectiveness is limited in the case of attack with conventional, as opposed to chemical, rockets.

In fact, the question of the distribution budget is far from resolved. A simple clarification with sources in the Finance Ministry reveals that it has not been apprised of the protective-kits decision, and is unaware of a budget source that has been earmarked to underwrite the extra half-a-billion shekels promised by the prime minister for this purpose. In general, treasury sources are amazed at the changing assessments of the defense establishment concerning the cost of the distribution project.

What will happen in the case of an emergency that necessitates immediate distribution of the masks? The Defense Ministry’s agreement with Israel Post includes a clause that allows Home Front Command to take over this process should there be any urgency, and to distribute them itself via hundreds of stations across the country. In the last round of discussions, four years ago, about storing the masks in depots, the army made two promises to the political echelon: that Military Intelligence would provide sufficient warning before there is a concrete risk that chemical missiles will be fired, and that it would possible to distribute gas masks to the entire population within a few days.

The state comptroller was severely critical of this forecast. Now Home Front Command is promising that in an emergency, it will be possible to complete full distribution of the gas masks within a few weeks.

Three years ago, Israel surprised itself by not anticipating that its sharp response to the abduction of reserve soldiers would lead to a protracted war with Hezbollah. According to surveys provided to the U.S. Congress, the nuclear facility that North Korea built for the Syrians – which Israel bombed in 2007 – was unknown to Western intelligence until a late stage. Israel will have to take into account the limitations of its intelligence in providing an early warning.

Summer 2010 is the defense establishment’s target date for completing home front preparedness, but a review of the threats shows that such preparedness, however much improved it will be in comparison to summer 2006, will still be only partial.

AD: The Inevitable War With Iran by J. D. Longstreet , 1/8/10.

Friday, January 8, 2010

The Inevitable War With Iran
Middle East piece by J. D. Longstreet

A war with Iran is “a given.“ It is as some say: “a “fait accompli.“  Just exactly who the combatant nations will be remains to be seen, however.  My crystal ball is a bit cloudy in that area of prophecy.

We are fairly sure Israel will be one of the combatants and even though the US protests that it does not want a fight with Iran, I don’t see how it can be avoided.  Even if the current US Presidential Administration will not assist Israel in a war with Iran the Obama Regime WILL assist Saudi Arabia!

We never seem to learn, here in the “good ole USA.”  We still insist on getting more people killed on both sides of a conflict than is necessary to settle the dispute. That is especially true when we have the misfortune to have a liberal/socialist/communist/progressive in the White House and those with the same political philosophy control the national legislature.

“How is that?” you may ask.

Well, those of the President’s political persuasion believe they are smarter than anyone else on the planet and this self-deception leads them to be made fools of EVERY SINGLE TIME!  They simply cannot accept that ANYONE is smart enough to deceive them… ever.  And therein lies their Achilles Heel.  Our enemies simply use political jujitsu on liberal American politicians and “statesmen” and they “roll” our guys every time.

To tell you the truth, folks, it is downright embarrassing!

President Teddy Roosevelt set the gold standard for dealing with that part of the world back in 1904.  When Mulai Ahmed er Raisuli, the commander of a band of Berber insurrectionists, kidnapped a middle-aged American man and his stepson, who, by the way, were not harmed, Teddy issued a statement and sent a copy of it to Raisuli which said: “Perdicaris alive or Raisuli dead!“ – and sent an invading force of US Marines to back it up. The hostages were released unharmed.  Even then the “diplomats”, the “statesmen” were advising Teddy not to do that.  They, as today, wanted to talk to Raisuli.

Today we have two wars raging in the Middle East and a third country, Iran, doing everything they can to bait the US and Israel into war.

Now, here’s the thing:  IRAN REALLY DOES WANT WAR!  They long for the return of the Third Immam.  But their belief insists upon great devestation in the world before the Third Immam will return.  Their national leadership is dedicated to this and they will continue their drive to create a nuclear bomb some are already calling the “Islam Bomb.”  They are rapidly developing missiles capable of striking Israel, some of the eastern European countries and, of course, US military bases in the region.  The minute they have the bomb, have it strapped to one of those missiles, they WILL fire it at Israel.  There is absolutely no question about that.  If thay have more than one, the second will be targeted at US military bases around Iraq and Afghanistan.

The Saudis are scared witless of the Iranians. US politicians believe we need the Saudi oil so we have, whether we admit it publicly, or not, agreed to help protect Saudi Araba from an attack by Iran.

The US is INSISTING upon talking with Iran.  The ego of our “Dear Leader” is of such imensity that he appears to actually believe that no one can resist his oratorical charm and once he vibrates his Golden Tonsils in the direction of the Iranians they will immediately fall into line and no war will ensue.  There is only one thing wrong with that.  And that is—it won’t work.  The President will only come off lookimg foolish, amatuerish, and as weak as he actually is.

In the meantime, while the diplomats jaw-jaw, the Iranians will be building up their strength and, unfortunately, getting that Islam Bomb ready to drop in on Israel.  As a result of all the foot dragging on the part of the Obama Regime, when the killing begins lots and lots more Israelis will be killed than was necessary, and an infuriated Israel will, very likely, nuke the living daylights out of Iran from one end of the country to the other. The blame for the deaths of those Israelis will rightfully be laid at the door to the Obama Oval Office.

A single warning to the Iranian governemt sould be sufficient.  At the same time (as Teddy Roosevelt did) send every available warship in the US Navy’s fleet(s) to stand off shore of Iran, lob a few cruise missiles into Iran—to get their attention—and assure them we DO mean business.

Yes, the US State Department would probably have apoplexy and a few of the “striped pants crowd” would most likely swoon from massive anxiety attacks.

If Iran persists, after the unmistakable warning from the US, then tactical nukes should be used on their nuclear facilities and a few of their government buildings including their command and control centers.

Then go silent.

Not a word.

Not one word should be spoken to Iran.

Of course, there will be caterwauling from the limp-wrists at the UN and certain European countries.  They should be brushed off without a single word from the US in reply.

If Iran persists after the warning… then send in the stealth bombers and wreak havoc in their Persian Paradise and repeat as often as necessary.  When Iran finally pleads for talks, ignore them.  No reply should be our reply.  One of the most effective ways to “contain an enemy” is to keep him “hunkered down” in bunkers.

Now I’m not foolish enough to believe the Obama Regime will do any of this.  No, they are committed to making fools of themselves and embarrassing the rest of us… and in the end, as we said above, a lot more lives wil be lost in Israel AND in Iran.  A President afflcted with an uncontrolable ego and suffering from narsicissim and a good dose of grandiosity can be a real danger to peace. And, like a bull in a china shop, he can do a lot of damage.

Planned bioattack simulation in Israel could be sign of coming biowar, activist warns | Bio Prep Watch.

by Nick Rees on January 8, 2010

Bejjani, noting European diplomatic reports that quoted high ranking Israeli officials, said that the Netanyahu government as well as the Israeli army expect an imminent war against their nation against either Iran, Hezbollah or the Hamas movement, working alone or jointly, by next march.

The diplomatic reports also said that Israel, if faced with no other option, would carry out a preemptive attack against Iran or Lebanon or the Gaza Strip if any threat is made to the safety of its citizens of its infrastructure.

Fears have been raised that one or both sides would employ biological or chemical weapons. Those fears were further raised when Israel, which had previously provided 60 percent of its population with anti-biological and chemical masks, stated that it would no provide its entire population with the masks. Israel said it would concentrate its mask delivery on its second largest city, Tel Aviv, as well as cities and villages around it, which it considers to be among the first targets of any biological attack.

Statements by Israeli officials recently circulated in European diplomatic and intelligence reports, Bejjani said, made it clear that the Israeli army will not hesitate to respond to any biological or chemical attacks. The army said that it would retaliate with similar weapons.

The same reports also say that if Iran uses long-range missiles with biological or chemical warheads, Israel will respond in kind, targeting Tehran and other major Iranian cities not equipped or trained to deal with such a strike.

Interview: A lone voice in the wilderness | In Jerusalem | Jerusalem Post.

After a decade of having watched our conflict morph, he says, from a thorny Arab-Israeli problem to a seemingly unsolvable Muslim-Jewish one, Sheikh Prof. Abdul Hadi Palazzi, the director of the Italian Muslim Assembly and an outspoken critic of Islamic fanaticism and terrorism, has once again come here with a message of hope: Peace is possible between Islam and Judaism, between Israel and the Muslim world based on the Koran and the traditional Muslim sources.

Moderate Muslim Sheikh Abdul Hadi Palazzi.
Photo: David Wilder-Hebron.com

The 49-year-old Sunni scholar was in Israel for three weeks, his first visit in four years, during which time he toured Jerusalem, was a guest of the Jewish community in Hebron, and lectured at Bar-Ilan University and the Israel Center in Jerusalem (sponsored by the Root and Branch, where he is co-chair of the Islam-Israel Fellowship).

The crux of what Palazzi has to say is that Israel exists by “divine right” not only according to the Bible but also according to the Koran. He notes that it is clearly stated in the Koran (Sura 5:21) that God gave the Land of Israel to the Children of Israel and ordered them to settle there. In addition, it is predicted that before the End of Days, God will bring the Children of Israel to retake possession of the Land, gathering them from the different countries and nations (Sura 17:104).

As a Muslim who accepts this premise of the Koran, Palazzi has no problem with Jewish sovereignty over the entire Land of Israel – including Jerusalem and the Temple Mount. During his visit here, he repeatedly urged Israel to assert its sovereignty by building in Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria and wresting political control of the Wakf (the Supreme Muslim Authority) and the Temple Mount from the Palestinian Authority.

While Palazzi’s views are not what one generally hears, his scholarly credentials are impressive. He has a doctorate in Islamic sciences from the Institute for Islamic Studies and Research in Naples (by authorization of the former grand mufti of Saudi Arabia) and authorization to teach (ijazzah) both Koranic exegesis and Islamic law from the University of al-Azhar as-Sharif in Cairo.

Palazzi sees the main problem facing the Islamic world, and also the West, as the dominance of Saudi Arabia and its Wahhabi heresy.

//

With respect to Israel, Palazzi believes that “for the first time in recent years, there is a situation in which time can work for Israel if the Israeli government has the courage to take some steps… including measures once thought inconceivable.”

For starters, Palazzi says that as a precondition for resuming negotiations Israel must insist that the Palestinian Authority accept Israel as a Jewish state. “What is the use of negotiating with someone who does not recognize who you are and what your role is?” he says.

And in the meantime, Israel should keep on building and expanding in Jerusalem and in Judea and Samaria. “It must be clear to the Palestinian Authority that time is not waiting for them. If they refuse to recognize Israel as a Jewish state, then Israel will just keep on building and growing… No country in the world can let foreign countries limit it.”

According to Palazzi, there is nothing in Islamic law that prohibits non-Muslims from the Temple Mount; Israel must assert its rights there. “Jerusalem is the capital of the State of Israel, yet Israeli Jews are not allowed to walk freely on the Mount in their own city. Israeli sovereignty of the most important part of Jerusalem is in name only.”

Moshe Dayan made the initial mistake in 1967 by leaving control of the Temple Mount in the hands of the Jordanian-appointed Wakf, but Oslo made the situation even worse when the Palestinian Authority seized control of the Wakf and appointed its own grand mufti of Jerusalem, says Palazzi.

Since then, the PA has been systematically denying that there ever was a Jewish temple on the Mount.

In the long term, Palazzi feels that the only possible solution to the Temple Mount is for Israel to promote and develop its own Israeli Muslim scholars, trained abroad in a friendly Muslim country, to become local imams and eventually the mufti. “The Israeli government should appoint the grand mufti of Jerusalem and not the PA. This is what is done everywhere else in the world, even in non-Muslim countries. In France, the Muslim Supreme Council is appointed by the French president.”

PALAZZI THINKS the time is ripe for Israel to take these steps because of a number of new developments in the world.

The rise of Shi’ite Iran and its alliance with Hamas and Hizbullah have changed the dynamics for Saudi Arabia, a major funding source for Islamic terrorism. “Wahhabis are more against Shi’ites than against Jews and Christians,” Palazzi explains. “The fact that Iran wants to acquire nuclear weapons and become the regional power is a problem not only for Israel but also for the Saudis. Some 90 percent of the oil in Saudi Arabia is concentrated in the area of the country inhabited by Shi’ites, a Saudi minority without rights. The Saudis see the problem with Shi’ites in Yemen and in Oman and feel surrounded. This is why they are not investing as much in anti-Israel terrorism as they did before. The anti-Israel verbal level is the same, but they have no real intention of supporting the start of a new intifada.”

And while there is always the danger that Iran will try to do something, Palazzi believes that Israel is in a strong position not to come under physical attack right now.

However, the attitude of the Obama administration toward Israel has weakened the country politically. “It is telling that in Cairo, Obama made a very soft declaration about Iran but reserved his most violent comments for Israel, calling the position of the Israeli government concerning settlements really negative. Nevertheless, I don’t think a US president can go much beyond this.”

With Obama tied down in Afghanistan and with Iran, Palazzi believes that he will not really be able to press Israel much further.

In Europe, there is a rising demand that the PA account for the billions in funding it has received from the EU. Palazzi claims that in the face of the current economic situation, public opinion is turning against endless funding of the PA. “This is the reason why the decision to fund the PA is made by the EU and not the individual countries. That way, European politicians can say to their constituents, ‘It was not our government that decided but the EU, and we can’t oppose the majority of the union.'”

PALAZZI WAS born in Rome to a non-observant Muslim family of Syrian origin that had been living in Italy for more than a century. During his studies in philosophy at the State University of Rome, he became interested in Islam. Upon graduation, he went to Cairo to study, where he was a pupil of Sheikh Muhammed al-Mutawali as-Sharawi, one of the most outstanding Islamic scholars of his time. Sharawi felt it was necessary for the Muslim world to develop positive relations with Israel. He was the man who convinced Egyptian president Anwar Sadat to initiate relations with Israel.

When Palazzi returned to Rome four years later, he found a changing Muslim community, with extremists beginning to take control. “This is when I started to distinguish my position from theirs. I took a clear stand that there is no problem with the existence of Israel and in developing good relations with the Jewish community,” he recalls.

Often accused of being a lone voice in the wilderness, Palazzi points out that apart from Iran, no Muslims are criticizing him. He has received invitations to attend conferences in Saudi Arabia and has discussed his views in Malaysia, Indonesia and Turkey. He has also been invited to conferences throughout Europe and had speaking engagements in North America. He maintains an Internet site and receives many inquiries from Muslims around the world.

“The path of peace and tolerance is hard. There is a Hadith [narration of Muhammad] that says that the time will come when learning will be as one wandering in the desert. If someone is teaching the original Sunni Islam, he has to be doing it by himself. The Wahhabis are affluent and have unlimited funds for propaganda and organization. On the practical level, the situation is very difficult. But there is hope for change,” he says.

This change will not come quickly. If oil is replaced as the main source of energy, leading to the Saudis’ losing a great part of their wealth or the regime collapses, the restoration of real Islam will only be a matter of time, according to Palazzi. The situation in Iran – if the regime collapses and a pro-Western government replaces it – would also be a game changer. Then a new generation of Muslims in the West, no longer under foreign influence, would be free to lead the way to a return to real Islam.

Even so Palazzi, working on a shoestring budget with volunteers, is encouraged. “I see some real changes in Italy,” he relates. “When Iran called for the destruction of Israel, we were able to hold a large demonstration outside the Iranian Embassy. We even had other Muslim organizations – Moroccans and Iranian exiles – in Rome demonstrating with us in support of Israel’s right to exist, along with Jewish groups. Not so long ago, I would never have believed this possible – to have such a demonstration and have Muslim organizations other than mine taking part. I also am beginning to see changes in the Italian media with respect to Israel. Little by little, I am seeing the fruits of what I am doing,” he says.

“All these changes together are why I think this is the moment for Israel to move to make its position stronger. This would benefit both Israeli and Arab residents who want to live in peace. And when the day comes when no one will say that the rebuilding of a Jewish Temple is a threat, then there is nothing in Islam against it. The rebuilding of the Temple will be a time of redemption and a blessing for Israel and all the nations,” Palazzi concludes.

DEBKAfile – Obama finally forswears tough sanctions on Iran. Jerusalem says nothing.

January 6, 2010, 12:14 AM (GMT+02:00)

Letting Iran off the US hook

Taking advantage of the ado surrounding the failed airliner bombing and the new prominence of the al Qaeda peril, the Obama administration has finally given up its sanctions strategy for averting the rise of a nuclear-armed Iran. US secretary of state Hillary Clinton was tasked with the public announcement: “The Obama administration wants to keep the door to dialogue open with Iran,” she said Jan. 4, then added a remark which let Iran off completely of the American hook: “…although the United States has avoided using the term deadline, it cannot wait indefinitely to hear form Iran.”

Her words explicitly backtracked on statements by other senior administration officials, including National Security Adviser James Jones, in recent interviews that Tehran’s deadline for responding to international proposals expired on Dec. 31. DEBKAfile‘s Iranian sources report that Tehran sees Washington as so eager to reach the negotiating table that it is falling back from effective penalties step by step, including an embargo on refined oils and benzene, and even willing to forgive Iran’s failure to meet a highly publicized international deadline.

“Our goal is to pressure the Iranian government, particularly the Revolutionary Guards elements without contributing to the suffering of Iranians,” Clinton explained.

Threatening Iran’s Revolutionary Guards instead of its regime is nothing but a feeble face-saver, our Iranian sources maintain, since the IRGC, whose financial operations and its management of Iran’s nuclear program subsist on alternative “black market” economic mechanisms is hardly vulnerable to international sanctions.

The Guards command a world network of thousands of straw companies, which defy investigation – even by American experts. Their funds are not moved through banks but around the illegal channels of international crime and drug cartels in countries outside US scrutiny. The IRGC is therefore not afraid of the fading US threat of sanctions.

In Jerusalem, the Netanyahu government persists in clinging to the Obama administration’s coattails on the Iranian nuclear menace, keeping up the pretence that sanctions are still a viable option. On Jan. 2, a senior Israeli diplomat in Washington was quoted as saying that in back-channel conversations “Obama has convinced us that it’s worth trying the sanctions, at least for a few months.”

Another official, deputy foreign minister Danny Ayalon, predicted confidently to an interviewer: “The US will impose sanctions against Iran within a month.”

Two days later, the Clinton statement showed Israeli officials to be woefully lagging behind the times with regard to decision-making in Washington. There, the Iran crisis has been taken back a whole year to square one. Obama administration wasted this year in barren diplomatic engagement against Tehran’s iron resistance to any changes in its nuclear objectives, while the Netanyahu-Barak government frittered the year away by playing follow-the-US leader and keeping Israel on the sidelines of any initiative against an avowed enemy.

By contrast, Iran spent the year celebrating another leap forward in developing its nuclear weaponry and missiles, the while binding its ally Syria and proxies Hizballah and Hamas to mutual defense pacts should the US or Israel conjure up the temerity to strike its nuclear facilities after all.

Iran: Time for tougher sanctions | The Economist.

Jan 7th 2010
From The Economist print edition

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has had his last chance

THE six countries trying to talk Iran out of its dangerous nuclear ambitions—America, Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China—face an unappetising choice. Iran continues to produce stocks of enriched uranium that it claims are intended for a civilian nuclear programme (although it has no nuclear-powered reactor that could use the stuff), but which could make a bomb.

Iran’s president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, was offered a deal by which Russia and France would have taken much of his stock of low-enriched uranium and turned it—safely outside the country—into special higher-enriched fuel for a Tehran-based research reactor. By diminishing Iran’s stockpile, if only for a few months, the deal could have opened the door a crack to confidence-building talks with the six. But the deadline for taking up that offer was the end of 2009, and the hand that Barack Obama has extended to the regime has therefore been spurned.

// <![CDATA[
document.write('’);
]]>

The stakes are all the higher because this issue is a severe test of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). That grand bargain enables countries to make electricity, but not weapons, with nuclear fission. It is up for review this year. If the months tick by with Iran demonstrating to all the world just how easy it is to break the treaty’s rules with impunity, the NPT will finally be done for. The time has therefore come for harsher measures. There are only two options for the six countries: tougher sanctions or military action.

No government—not even that in Israel, whose security is most directly threatened by Mr Ahmadinejad—wants to use force (see article). Military strikes could interrupt Iran’s nuclear effort, but the gains are as uncertain as the costs. They might take out officially declared sites, but intelligence agencies know that there are others too, like the weapons-sized uranium-enrichment plant being built secretly in a mountainside on a well-guarded compound near Qom whose existence was revealed only four months ago. And even if an attack succeeded in penetrating all of Iran’s underground sites—a big if—it could do no more than set back Iran’s ambitions temporarily. After Israel bombed Iraq’s Osirak reactor in 1981, Saddam Hussein redoubled his efforts to get a bomb. Military strikes would also risk provoking a wider conflict in a region that is already worryingly unstable.

More painful sanctions, then, are the only sensible alternative to leaving Iran to enrich its way to the dangerous point where it can declare it has a bomb. But Russia and China—especially China, which has piled money into Iran’s oil and gas industries as Western companies have withdrawn—are reluctant to get tough.

Self-interest is not the only reason to oppose sanctions. Those who favour military strikes and those who would do nothing both complain that sanctions won’t work. Others believe that they would work, but would do more harm than good by encouraging Iranians to rally around the government at a time when the protest movement looks as though it might just bring about change.

But Iran’s protest movement is too little understood to place much weight on such judgments. There is virtually no independent reporting of what is happening inside the country, the demonstrators have no obvious leader and the movement’s fate will greatly depend on splits inside a closed clerical elite. Nor, in places where the facts are clearer, have the consequences of sanctions been predictable. Against Saddam’s government in Iraq, they encouraged the regime to dig in. Against apartheid in South Africa and an embryonic nuclear programme in Libya, they seem to have encouraged change.

If sanctions were used only when their consequences were certain, then they would never be used at all; and uncertainty is no excuse for doing nothing, because that could be just as dangerous.

Damned if you do? Damned if you don’t

Hence the case for policies that punish the regime and spare the people. Existing sanctions have frustrated some illicit imports for its nuclear and missile programmes. Routine searches of Iranian ships and planes at foreign ports and airfields would catch more—and sting too. Banking restrictions have earned the president the ire of merchants and MPs. These can be tightened and extended. America’s Congress favours slapping a ban on gasoline imports which, given Iran’s shortage of refining capacity, could bring the economy to its knees. But that would allow Mr Ahmadinejad to blame outsiders just as he is about to incur the people’s wrath by cutting petrol subsidies. A bar on investment in the oil and gas industry and on weapons imports would be smarter.

Getting agreement for such sanctions will be hard, and not just because of China and Russia. Some officials in Mr Obama’s team have hinted that further patience could yet be wise. Keeping the door open to talks, should Mr Ahmadinejad have a change of heart, is a good idea. But putting off harsher measures will only encourage him to press on. Despite the uncertainty of action, the price for inaction is higher.

Cliff May : Nineteen Thirty Something – Townhall.com.

A few days of vacation in the Rocky Mountains is a good time to catch up on one’s reading. But if I was looking for escape from the issues on which I spend most of my time, I didn’t find it in “Churchill,” the brief but penetrating biography by Paul Johnson, among the world’s greatest living historians. In particular, Johnson’s account of the 1930s holds up an eerie mirror to the present.

Johnson notes that when Hitler and the Nazis came to power in Germany in 1933, most Europeans failed to recognize either the nature or the gravity of the threat. Winston Churchill – retired soldier, popular writer, not very popular politician — was the exception. He understood that unless free peoples acted decisively, they would come under attack, sooner or later.

Churchill was derided as an alarmist, or even a “warmonger.” The well-known economist, John Maynard Keynes, argued that Hitler had legitimate grievances: in particular the unjust Versailles Treaty that had held Germany down since the conclusion of the first great war of the 20th century. Clifford Allen, a prominent British politician, “applauded Hitler,” saying: “I am convinced he genuinely desires peace.” Archbishop Temple of York agreed. Hitler had made “a great contribution to the secure establishment of peace,” he said.

Today, of course, it is the ruling Islamists of Iran who candidly express their aggressive and even genocidal intentions. In speeches and sermons, they pledge to wipe Israel off the map, and vow to bring about “a world without American.” For three decades, “Death to America!” has been the regime’s rallying cry, inscribed also on the sides of missiles whose range and accuracy increase year after year.

And once again, those who would take these threats seriously and act decisively are dismissed as alarmists, or denigrated as warmongers by foreign policy mandarins. Once again, they insist that grievances must be addressed: Did not the CIA meddle in Iranian domestic politics in the 1950s? With American troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, don’t Iran’s rulers have cause for concern?

In the 1930s, the Nazis bought heavy weapons from Joseph Stalin, the Soviet dictator, who could not imagine that Hitler would use those weapons against him a few years later.

Iran’s Khomeinists have been working feverishly to acquire nuclear weapons and the means to protect and deliver them. They have had little difficulty buying what they can’t develop on their own from Russia, as well as from Western European countries whose leaders have persuaded themselves that a nuclear-armed Iran will be someone else’s problem.

Hitler made common cause with Fascists in Italy and Spain, and with the militarists in Japan. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has established close alliances with such anti-American leftist strongmen as Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez and Bolivia’s Evo Morales.

Iran’s war machine includes Hizbollah, which has developed not just as an armed militia inside Lebanon but also as an international terrorist proxy. Our intelligence community appears to know little about Tehran’s relations with al-Qaeda. But there can be no doubt that Shia militants and Sunni militants collaborate on occasion against their common enemies. The recent revelation that Osama bin Laden’s closest relatives — including one of his wives, six of his children, and 11 of his grandchildren — have been living in a compound outside Tehran provides additional evidence, if any were needed.

Johnson recounts that in 1930s Britain, the elites wanted to “leave everything to the League of Nations.” As German military strength grew, such top British government officials as Anthony Eden insisted that the armies of the United Kingdom and France should not expand, as Churchill urged, but should shrink instead, in order “to secure for Europe that period of appeasement which is needed.”

Finally, in 1938, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain engaged the German Führer – “supreme leader” would be a reasonable translation of that title — at Munich, returning home to announce that through his diplomatic efforts common ground had been found, and that “peace in our time” had been assured.

Churchill saw through this fog of self-deception. Chamberlain’s diplomacy, he said, had resulted in “total and unmitigated defeat.” Churchill anticipated that the nations of Central and Eastern Europe would recognize how weak the democracies had become and “make the best terms they can with the triumphant Nazi power.” Hitler would then absorb those nations, and “sooner or later he will begin to look westward.”

Today, foreign policy elites want to rely on the United Nations — which is more corrupt and dysfunctional than the League of Nations ever was. President Obama continues to extend his hand to Iran’s rulers, apparently not perceiving the significance when a spokesman for Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei calls it “the hand of Satan in a new sleeve,” and — adding racist insult to injury — tells the world: “The Great Satan now has a black face.”

Adjustments are being made in the Middle East. In recent days, Ali Larijani, a top aide to Khamenei, has met with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. Turkey’s leaders have signed multiple agreements with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, who serves Khamenei, much as Mussolini served Hitler.

Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri has just spent two days with Assad. He paid this visit, noted journalist Michael J. Totten, with “Hizbullah’s bayonet in his back. Assad’s regime assassinated Saad Hariri’s father, Rafik, in 2005. There is no alternate universe where Saad Hariri is OK with this or where his generically ‘positive’ statements at a press conference were anything other than forced. … When Hariri went to Damascus, everyone in the country, aside from useless newswire reporters, understood it meant Syria has re-emerged as the strong horse in Lebanon.”

The United States, Europe, the U.N. — all had vowed that Hariri’s murderers would be brought to justice. But they haven’t been. The “international community” pledged it would not permit political benefit to derive from assassinations ordered in foreign capitals. But that’s exactly what has been permitted – and licensed for the future.

After Munich, Churchill experienced moments of intense despair. In the past, he wrote to a friend, “the peace-loving powers have been definitely stronger than the Dictators, but next year we must expect a different balance.” Indeed, he said, the democracies were unlikely to survive “unless by a supreme recovery of moral health and martial vigour, we arise and take our stand for freedom as in the olden time.”

Today, taking a stand for freedom would require less. We would need to impose serious sanctions on Iran: A strong bipartisan majority in Congress already has voted for legislation that would put that arrow into Obama’s quiver. The question is: Will he use it?

In addition, it would be useful to provide – at long last — moral and material support to Iran’s courageous anti-regime dissidents. Measures could be taken to isolate and ostracize those most responsible for Iran’s oppression at home and terrorism abroad: the leaders of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, which may be seen as a kind of Iranian Gestapo. Military measures should remain on the table, in case all peaceful means of restraint prove inadequate.

In the end, Johnson’s “Churchill” is inspiring and distressing. Inspiring because Churchill was, finally, vindicated. The Anglo-American alliance recovered its “moral health and martial vigour” and took its stand for freedom. Hitler and the Nazis were decisively defeated. But it’s distressing because Churchill’s spirit is so little in evidence these days, while the views and values of his detractors echo in the speeches of too many Western policy makers.

Just after September 11th, 2001, the British government loaned the White House a bronze bust of Churchill created by the great sculptor, Sir Jacob Epstein. Not long after he entered the Oval Office, President Obama sent it back.

Israel will respond to Iran’s & Hezbollah’s missiles with catastrophic weapons – International Analyst Network.\

07 Jan 2010

This analysis was eritten by Hamid Ghoriafi, Middle East Analyst & Journalist,
Published on 07/01/10 by the Kuwaiti Daily Al-Seyassah,
Translated from Arabic by Elias Bejjani, LCCC Chairman

*Israel is providing her 4.5 million citizens with anti-weapons of mass destruction masks.
*Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak is expecting a war with Hezbollah and Iran by the end of next March.
*The Israeli army fears that Hezbollah might launch missiles with biological and chemical warheads.
*Israel confirmed that its response would include southern Lebanon, the suburbs of Beirut, the Bekaa valley and the heart of the Gaza strip.

Next Wednesday and Thursday, Israel will carry the most extensive training exercise in its history. The aim is to prepare the country for the potential threat of biological and chemical warfare missiles which her military and political experts fear Iran or Hezbollah might launch on the Jewish state, or through a series of local terrorist attacks by weapons of mass destruction targeting Tel Aviv or other major Israeli cities.

The “Orange Flame” is the name that was given to the campaign according to an Israeli media agency. The training is expected to cover Tel Aviv, Ramat Gan and Holon. It will focus on procedures and tactics required to rescue those injured by biological and chemical weapons. This exercise is going to be carried despite the fact that the state’s “Interior Front Command,” is working on the distribution of anti-biological and -chemical masks for the entire Israeli population of 4.5 million.

Hundreds of medical and rescue teams, municipal authorities, hospitals, special army and internal security services units, will all jointly participate in this biggest and most extensive exercise that aims to address potential biological disasters that could hit the country.

The training will involve vital ministries e.g., health, interior, defense, and public affairs. All staff in these institutions will be trained on how to face a catastrophic biological warfare in which thousands of citizens could be exposed to deadly gases. Meanwhile, hospitals in Tel Aviv and other regions like Ichilov, Tel Hashomer and Beersheba, in addition to health organizations and portable clinics will all be ready to receive more than a thousand volunteers who supposedly will be hit with biological gases.

According to the Israeli Haaretz newspaper there will be three major centers in Tel Aviv to accommodate the injured: the House of Danny, the Ramat Gan sports stadium and the Holon club. The training will also include thousands of citizens, civil servants, army and civil defense elements, in addition to doctors and nurses who were trained during the past few months in dealing with internal (terrorist acts) or external (missiles from outside the border) biological and chemical attacks.

Gen. Zeev Snir, who is assigned to represent the Israeli Defense Ministry in supervising the exercises, told the media that: “Our first challenge will focus on containing the damages caused by terrorist acts and biological or chemical attacks, and then identify the type of biological or chemical agent used in a bid that life returns to normal as quickly as possible”.

European diplomatic reports have quoted Israeli high ranking officials saying that the Netanyahu government and the Israeli army command are expecting an imminent war against their country waged either jointly by Iran, Hezbollah and the Hamas movement, or by one of these three bodies after next March. They also stated that Israel might find herself having no other option but to carry out a preemptive attack against Iran or Lebanon or the Gaza Strip or against all the three together in case she feels any kind of danger threatening the safety of her citizens or the country’s infrastructure.

The Haaretz Israeli Daily reported that for years, and especially since the 1991 western coalition war against Iraq, Israeli authorities have been providing only 60% of its population with anti-biological and -chemical masks, with certain exceptions for those residing in vulnerable and dangerous regions in the north neighboring Lebanon and Syria. The daily added that because of the current dramatic developments that are unfolding since the 2006 war with Hezbollah and the escalation of the Iranian nuclear conflict, the Netanyahu government has decided last week to expand the distribution of masks to cover the entire population, without exception, especially those living in densely populated areas in the second largest city, Tel Aviv, including cities and villages around it, which may be among the first targets of any biological and chemical warfare missile attack.

It is worth mentioning that Hezbollah’s General Secretary Hassan Nasrallah has made it very clear in his last speeches that his missiles this time will reach Tel Aviv and beyond Tel Aviv, a blatant reference to Israel’s nuclear reactors in the Negev desert (Dimona).

According to statements made by Israeli officials that were circulated in European diplomatic and intelligence reports, the Israeli army will not hesitate for one moment to respond to any biological or chemical attacks targeting its cities and villages. It will strongly hit the bombing sources of the missiles with similar devastating weapons that could kill, injure, handicap and disfigure thousands of citizens in southern Lebanon, the Bekaa valley, the Beirut suburbs and the heart of the Gaza Strip and its surrounding areas. These reports described this upcoming war as disastrous to all parties.

The same reports stated that in case Iran strikes Israel with long-range missiles carrying chemical and biological warheads, Israel will respond by devastating air strikes and lethal extremely advanced weapons to target the capital Tehran and other major Iranian cities that are not equipped or trained to handle such a disastrous war like the Israeli cities.
The Haaretz said that the “Israeli National Post” and the “National Post Services” companies have lately won tenders from the Ministry of defense to provide around 4.5 million Israelis (i.e. the entire Israeli population) with anti weapons of mass destruction masks before the end of next February with a cost of three billion shekels.

The newspaper confirmed that Defense Minister Ehud Barak and Director of Internal Front, Matan Mellnaii, have taken this decision on an emergency basis due to the deterioration of the situation in the region and the increasing external pressure on Israel. An impending war is on the horizon because both the Iranians and the Syrians have been setting up tens of thousands of missiles in Lebanon and Syria (on the borders with Israel), as well as in Iranian long range missile bases.

Ready – or not – Haaretz – Israel News.

The defense establishment has reported that, based on a series of tests carried out in recent days on the Iron Dome short-range missile defense system, it will be possible to supply the Israel Defense Forces (and, more important, the town of Sderot) with an initial, operational battery as early as this May. Also, Haaretz reported a few days ago on last week’s decision by the cabinet to increase funding for the provision of protective kits (gas masks) to every citizen in the country, beginning at the end of next month.

These are important steps toward improving the protection Israel gives its citizens. However, it will probably take another year, at least, to deploy a meaningful number of intercept systems in the Negev and along the northern border. And according to the planned rate of gas-mask distribution, it will take three years to complete that undertaking. If Iran, Hezbollah and Hamas will only agree to wait politely, we will go into a war three years down the road in much better shape.

The first signs of a change in the enemy’s combat strategy were apparent as early as the first Gulf War, in 1991, when 39 Scud missiles launched from Iraq over the course of more than a month sent Israelis scurrying for their sealed rooms. Hezbollah continued the shelling – by means of short-range Katyusha rockets fired from Lebanon – during Israel’s Operation Accountability (1993) and Operation Grapes of Wrath (1996). The enemy’s use of rockets and missiles was aimed at bypassing a confrontation with Israel’s definitive superiority in air power, intelligence capability and technology.

	Advertisement

In the first years of the second intifada, which began in late 2000, the Palestinians still resorted to terrorism in the form of suicide bombers. But when the IDF and the Shin Bet security service came up with reasonable responses to this, Hamas copied Hezbollah by firing rockets from the Gaza Strip, particularly after Israel’s disengagement in 2005.

The IDF, quite logically, will continue to rely in large measure on a combination of aerial attacks and ground maneuvers, including conquest of territory. However, in the face of a possible onslaught involving thousands of missiles and tens of thousands of rockets, this will not be enough. In such a scenario, Israel will have to rely on four main interconnected elements: intelligence (evaluation and prevention); an offensive operational plan; an active defense (the multilayered missile interception system – consisting of the Arrow, the Magic Wand, which is still being developed, and the Iron Dome); and passive defense (air-raid sirens, fortified security rooms in homes, gas masks). But the IDF’s combat doctrine vis-a-vis these different elements is still only in the development stages. The state comptroller warned about this state of affairs in a recent report.

A key question that arises in this context concerns the division of resources between defense and offense. A report on the country’s security conception, drawn up by the Meridor Committee in 2006, notes the importance of defense against missiles. Defense Minister Ehud Barak has also referred to this repeatedly, since taking up his portfolio again two and a half years ago. At that time, he said that in light of the bad experience following the Gaza evacuation, Israel will have to postpone additional withdrawals from the West Bank until an effective antimissile system can be developed. Surprisingly, the National Security Council, for example, barely devoted time to this subject.

Even in an optimistic scenario – in which Israel develops all the necessary intercept systems and allocates sufficient funding to their acquisition and deployment – a critical time gap has developed in the face of a militant Iranian approach. Tehran’s approach is based on attacking Israel “from far and from near” by means of Qassams and Katyushas from Gaza and Lebanon, and in the extreme case, also with Shihab missiles launched from Iran itself. In such a case, the result would be that the Arabs (and the Iranians) will be one step ahead of Israel in the campaign.

Unless the IDF has an unknown ace up its sleeve, every future clash will entail a massive assault on the home front, in a war that will be hard to win, or in which it will be difficult to achieve a decisive “image of victory.” This will necessitate precise planning in regard to the Israeli public’s stamina and to the logical distribution of resources, in which offense does not always come at the cost of defense.

Progress on the home front

Thorough work has been carried out with respect to the home front in the three and a half years since the end of the Second Lebanon War; Deputy Defense Minister Matan Vilnai is involved and knowledgeable in every phase of this process. Home Front Command has changed its conception radically: In contrast to the period of the war in the north, its focus is now on the needs of the civilian population. Coordination with local governments has also improved greatly, and the establishment of the National Emergency Authority is likely to be a positive development, despite its problematic infringement on powers now held by the National Emergency Economy.

Nevertheless, problems remain with equipment procurement, with the command-and-control capability of the rescue forces and in the municipalities’ preparedness. After the rocket attacks on the Negev during Operation Cast Lead last year, the GOC Home Front Command, Maj. Gen. Yair Golan, declared that the campaign had been carried out in “deluxe” conditions. Home Front Command will not be able to devote the same concentrated efforts and resources in an all-out, multi-front war.

End to zigzags

It is against this background that the decision of the cabinet last week about the gas masks should be seen. It was a logical decision following a six-year series of zigzags, from the collection of the gas masks, to their storage, to their partial redistribution and to the new decision on full distribution. According to the IDF, this will necessitate the doubling of the budget for the project: from NIS 1 billion to NIS 2 billion. Barak, Vilnai, Maj. Gen. Golan and Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi have long recommended such a step. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was not persuaded of its necessity until last week. Golan put forward the plan to distribute the protective kits to 60 percent of the population within three years, with the many attendant problems of such a move: the bureaucratic unwieldiness, the difficulty of supervising the implementation, the inequality between different regions of the country, and the possibilities that would open up for petitions to the High Court of Justice by those who would not be included among the 60 percent.

Netanyahu thus decided there would be no “levels of distribution”: Everyone would get a gas mask. Barak undertook to find the money for half of the additional budget, NIS 500 million, by means of internal juggling of the defense budget. Netanyahu promised to come up with the other half.

This is good news for Israel Post, which won the tender to distribute the protective kits, and for their manufacturers, Shalon in Kiryat Gat and Supergum in Barkan, which will embark on a massive production process. In addition, a precedent was set: Veterans of Home Front Command maintain that they never saw the army spend a shekel of the defense budget on protective equipment. The money always came from external budgets.

The cabinet’s decision was an essential move, says a senior defense source who has been following developments in Home Front Command for years.

“The decision simultaneously informs the country’s citizens that the threat is being handled seriously and shows the enemy that we are prepared. Regarding the rate of development of the elements involved in our response to the threat,” said the source, “widespread distribution of the masks is the only realistic option – particularly if there is a reasonable possibility that we will see escalation here in the years ahead.”

One contributing factor here was undoubtedly the impact of the Winograd Committee, which investigated the management of the Second Lebanon War. After the severe criticism leveled at the Olmert government and the General Staff by the committee (and by the state comptroller, Micha Lindenstrauss, in reports on the home front) – neither the politicians nor the generals have much stomach today for assuming unnecessary risks. Equipping the public is therefore the default option, though it also attests to the scale of the past failure. Owing to the delay in developing a response to the rockets, protection will probably still focus, initially, on gas masks and sealed rooms, even if their effectiveness is limited in the case of attack with conventional, as opposed to chemical, rockets.

In fact, the question of the distribution budget is far from resolved. A simple clarification with sources in the Finance Ministry reveals that it has not been apprised of the protective-kits decision, and is unaware of a budget source that has been earmarked to underwrite the extra half-a-billion shekels promised by the prime minister for this purpose. In general, treasury sources are amazed at the changing assessments of the defense establishment concerning the cost of the distribution project.

What will happen in the case of an emergency that necessitates immediate distribution of the masks? The Defense Ministry’s agreement with Israel Post includes a clause that allows Home Front Command to take over this process should there be any urgency, and to distribute them itself via hundreds of stations across the country. In the last round of discussions, four years ago, about storing the masks in depots, the army made two promises to the political echelon: that Military Intelligence would provide sufficient warning before there is a concrete risk that chemical missiles will be fired, and that it would possible to distribute gas masks to the entire population within a few days.

The state comptroller was severely critical of this forecast. Now Home Front Command is promising that in an emergency, it will be possible to complete full distribution of the gas masks within a few weeks.

Three years ago, Israel surprised itself by not anticipating that its sharp response to the abduction of reserve soldiers would lead to a protracted war with Hezbollah. According to surveys provided to the U.S. Congress, the nuclear facility that North Korea built for the Syrians – which Israel bombed in 2007 – was unknown to Western intelligence until a late stage. Israel will have to take into account the limitations of its intelligence in providing an early warning.

Summer 2010 is the defense establishment’s target date for completing home front preparedness, but a review of the threats shows that such preparedness, however much improved it will be in comparison to summer 2006, will still be only partial.