WarSclerotic

FOXNews.com – Trip to Nowhere.

Defense Secretary Gates arrived unexpectedly in Saudi Arabia on Wednesday—reportedly due to alarm at whatever Vice President Biden said in Israel this week. This comes in the wake of an unusual public admission by Gen. David Petraeus, head of Central Command, who said last Sunday that there are countries in the Persian Gulf that would like the U.S. or Israel to strike Iran militarily to slow its nuclear program. This shows that Middle Eastern governments have no confidence that President Obama’s Iran policy will work. That should concern every American, given that Iran’s Islamist theocracy is the most likely candidate to help terrorists bring a nuclear weapon into an American or allied city.

Over the past month, more than a half dozen Obama administration officials have paraded through the Middle East to showcase the latest iteration of U.S. policy. Like college students taking to the road for spring break, “Diplopalooza” has involved copious talk, together-time and posing, but few real accomplishments.

In addition to the Vice President and Secretary of Defense, the flurry of teas and meetings has featured no less than the Secretary of State, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the National Security Adviser, the CIA Director, the head of the U.S. Strategic Command and Dennis Ross. Their goal? To pitch a set of diplomatic and communications strategies that have no conceivable chance of halting Iran’s nuclear program. And even though this set of talking points is being delivered in part by military and security officials, Iran’s leaders are breathing easy as neither they nor anyone else believe military options are being considered in Washington. Worse, many in the region believe one of Vice President Biden’s goals in his meetings with Israelis was to dissuade them from a military attack on Iran.

The Obama administration approaches this problem with questionable analysis and little urgency. Last month, Secretary Clinton said in Doha that “We see that the government of Iran, the supreme leader, the president, the parliament, is being supplanted and that Iran is moving toward a military dictatorship.” While that sounds like tougher talk, in fact it indicates the Obama administration still believes that there are senior officials within the regime on whom reason will work. The administration thinks this can be encouraged by sanctions. Both assumptions are wrong.

The Iranian government, like any, has cliques and factions, but they are not as deep and exploitable as the White House thinks. Mr. Obama should know better by now. Just last spring, he failed at this when he tried to talk above President Ahmadinejad to Supreme Leader Khamenei. In an April press conference with the king of Jordan, President Obama attributed Iran’s stated goal of demolishing Israel to Ahmadinejad and noted hopefully that it was actually Khamenei who “exercises the most direct control over the policies of the Islamic Republic.” The effort went nowhere. Predictably, neither leader felt any real pressure to join with the leader of the “Great Satan” against his colleague.

The latest effort to imagine a rift into existence is equally foolish. Iranian civilian officials are essentially indivisible from the Qods Force and other quasi-military elements. Trying to divide them would be like trying to divide the leadership of the Third Reich from the SS.

Sanctions also will fail, as they comprise an effort that is too little too late. China and Russia signaled again this week a disinclination to allow sanctions. Mrs. Clinton was also publicly shot down on this matter by Brazil during her visit there last week. Even if sanctions are enacted, it is not plausible to assume they could affect the Iranian nuclear program soon enough—if ever. The time for sanctions would have been a year ago when low oil prices and economic turmoil were having a serious impact on Tehran. That time has passed.

From its beginning, President Obama’s approach to Iran has been centered on image and emotion rather than decisive steps to advance American security. The administration began with the incorrect belief that its predecessor in the White House desired only confrontation and never tried to talk and listen to our adversaries. In the case of Iran, the U.S. in fact has been negotiating directly and through allies for decades. This mistake of believing one’s own campaign rhetoric, combined with a president who radiates weakness, indecision and a level of conceit that prohibits policy corrections, has convinced Tehran that is faces no real consequence from Washington for its actions.

If the Obama administration is serious about the threat of a nuclear-armed Iran, it needs to bring military options into the policy equation now—or at least stop trying to dissuade Israel from employing them. Otherwise, we are pinning our security solely on the device of hope. That emotion is hardly a sound defense.

Christian Whiton was a State Department official during the George W. Bush administration from 2003-2009. He is a principal at D.C. Asia Advisory and president of the Hamilton Foundation. Follow him on Twitter: http://twitter.com/ChristianWhiton

WPR Article | World Citizen: Fears that Iran Wants to Trigger Mideast War.

As the United States steps up its campaign to impose economic sanctions on Iran, fears are growing in Washington and in the Middle East that Iran will try to trigger a new war in the region in order to shift attention from its nuclear activities, throw the U.S. and its allies off balance, and put Israel on the defensive.

Few people, if any, envision Iran launching a direct attack. Rather, the concern is that Tehran will manage to stir up trouble in Israel, the West Bank, Gaza, Lebanon, or even Syria, in order to spark a new confrontation between Israel and one of its Iran-allied neighbors. Even if the most likely scenarios do not include initial involvement by Iranian forces, at least not directly, the possibility that Tehran could join the fray cannot be discounted. And given the unpredictability of armed conflict and the level of tension between the U.S. and Iran, the possibility of eventual American involvement, while unlikely, is not out of the question.

The first high-ranking official to give voice to the worries that have now started spreading in the region was White House National Security Adviser Jim Jones. In an interview with the Jerusalem Post in late January, Jones predicted a series of events that, one might argue, are coming to pass.

“As pressure on the regime in Tehran builds over its nuclear program,” Jones made the case, “there is a heightened risk of further attacks against Israel or efforts to promote renewed violence in the West Bank.” Jones said that Iran, under pressure from domestic opponents and international critics, would likely “lash out” against Israel through Hamas in Gaza or Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Some go as far as to argue that Iran wants to invite an attack against its nuclear stockpiles on Iranian soil. That speculation grew out of Tehran’s puzzling decision on Feb. 14 to move almost all of its enriched uranium, in the presence of United Nations inspectors, to an above-ground plant in full view of spy satellites — and bomber pilots. As one official reportedly described it, it was “as if a bull’s eye had been painted on it.”

The idea that Iran would want to start a war on its own soil is most definitely a minority view. The more likely setting is a clash between Israel and one or more of Iran’s allies. Tehran would favor this, because it would occupy and degrade the fighting resources of the Jewish state and inevitably heat up anti-Israel sentiment.

In order to make it happen, Iran and its friends need a flashpoint, and Israel is clumsily providing a regular supply, with its frequent announcements of new building projects in the West Bank and Jerusalem. There is such an abundance of irritants that anyone interested in starting a new war would find no shortage of excuses.

Jones offered his warning as one more reason for Israelis and Palestinians to restart negotiations — perhaps persuasively so. After all, a stalled peace process offers Iran one more opening to stir up simmering resentments.

Jones is not alone in his concerns, and recent events have added credibility to his views. Worries about a new outbreak of war are being openly discussed not only in the U.S., but also in Israel and Lebanon. And there is talk in Israel that concern over an all-out conflagration was part of the reason why Israel may have decided to take the risk of eliminating Hamas’ Mahmoud al-Mabhouh last January. Mabhouh was a key player in the smuggling of weapons from Iran into Gaza.

If it is true that Tehran wants to light a fuse to ignite the Middle East, Ahmadinejad may have brought a book of matches to a recent meeting of Tehran’s backers in Syria. In late February, the Iranian president traveled to Damascus for a four-way meeting with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and Hamas’ Khaled Meshal. The editor of the pan-Arab daily Al-Quds al-Arabi called the gathering “a war council.”

Only days earlier, the Iranian government reported that Ahmadinejad had phoned Hezbollah’s Nasrallah and advised him to prepare for a confrontation with Israel. “The level of readiness should be to such an extent,” the Iranian president reportedly told the Hezbollah chief, “that if [the Israelis] ventured upon repeating their past mistakes, they will be finished off.” In the case of war, Ahmadinejad reportedly said, “the Iranian nation will stand side by side” with those fighting Israel.

Hezbollah has already warned Israel that a new war would see the Jewish State fighting not only Hezbollah, as in 2006, but the Hezbollah-Syria-Hamas-Iran bloc. Nasrallah has been sharpening the blades of his rhetorical swords, warning Israel that the next war could see Hezbollah’s rockets reaching Israel’s major urban centers and strategic locations, such as Tel Aviv, Ben Gurion airport and the country’s major ports.

Hezbollah has vowed to retaliate against Israel for the 2008 killing of Imad Moughniyah, a top operative in the organization, which it blames on Israel. But the truth is that it’s easy to find a way to start a war in the Middle East. In 2006, Hezbollah triggered one by infiltrating Israel and killing a number of Israeli soldiers in an operation to kidnap two others.

Inside Israel and the West Bank, every day offers an opportunity for resentment, anger and violence. When the Israeli government announced a controversial decision to designate as Jewish Heritage Sites the Cave of the Patriarchs and Rachel’s Tomb — historical sites located in the West Bank — Hamas issued a call to launch a new Intifada against Israel. The call was answered with disturbances in Hebron.

After Friday prayers in Jerusalem last week, Hamas’ wish appeared to be turning into reality, when clashes erupted into pitched battles.

Tensions have increased with Syria, as well. A war of words broke out last month between Israel’s fiery Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman and his Syrian counterpart. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu tried to calm the situation, but Ahmadinejad wants the sparks to continue flying.

Israel does not want a war now. Indeed, it is so concerned about a miscue leading to war that it decided to alter the long-planned Firestones 12 military exercise, canceling the part that included maneuvers along the Syrian border lest Damascus confuse the exercise with the kind of Israeli attack that Iran claims is imminent.

Experience of the Middle East has proven time and again that war can break out almost by accident, even when no one wants one to start. If a key player does want a war, it may prove impossible to prevent.

Frida Ghitis is an independent commentator on world affairs and a World Politics Review contributing editor. Her weekly column, World Citizen, appears every Thursday.

‘Hated Israel will be annihilated’.

Photo by: AP

By JPOST.COM STAFF
11/03/2010 15:48

Ahmadinejad warns aggression won’t save “most criminal regime in the world.”