WarSclerotic

Caroline B. Glick: Exploiting the Crisis.

By Caroline B. Glick

Actually, Obama may have done Israel and Netanyahu a favor
There is an element of irony in the current crisis of relations between the Obama administration and Israel. On the one hand, although US President Barack Obama and his advisors deny there is anything wrong with US-Israel relations today, it is easy to understand why no one believes them.

On the other hand on most issues, there is substantive continuity between Obama’s Middle East policies and those his immediate predecessor George W. Bush adopted during his second term in office. Yet, whereas Israelis viewed Bush as Israel’s greatest friend in the White House, they view Obama as the most anti-Israel US president ever. This contradiction requires us to consider two issues. First, why are relations with the US now steeped in crisis? And second, taking a page out of Obama’s White House chief of staff Rahm Emmanuel’s playbook, how can Israel make sure not to let this crisis go to waste?

The reason relations are so bad of course is because Obama has opted to attack Israel and its supporters. In the space of the past ten days alone, Israel has been subject to three malicious blows courtesy of Obama and his advisors. First, during his visit to the White House last Tuesday, Obama treated Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu like a two-bit potentate. Rather than respectfully disagree with the elected leader of a key US ally, Obama walked out in the middle of their meeting to dine with his family and left the unfed Netanyahu to meditate on his grave offense of not agreeing to give up Israel’s capital city as a precondition for indirect, US-orchestrated negotiations with an unelected, unpopular Palestinian leadership that supports terrorism and denies Israel’s right to exist. Next, there was the somewhat anodyne — if substantively incorrect — written testimony by US Army General David Petreaus to the Senate about the impact of the Arab world’s refusal to accept Israel’s right to exist on US-Arab relations. In the event, the administration deliberately distorted Petreaus’s testimony to lend the impression that the most respected serving US military commander blames Israel for the deaths of US soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan. After Petreaus rejected that impression, his boss Defense Secretary Robert Gates repeated the false and insulting allegation against Israel in his own name.

Finally there is was the report this week in Politico in which nameless administration sources accused National Security Council member Denis Ross of “dual loyalties.” Ross of course has won fame for his career of pressuring successive Israeli governments into giving unreciprocated concessions to Palestinian terrorists. Still, in the view of his indignant opponents in the Obama White House, due to his insufficient hostility to the Israeli government, Ross is a traitor. If Ross wants to be treated like a real American, he needs to join Obama in his open bid to overthrow the elected government of Israel.

These moves would be sufficient to throw US-Israel relations into a tailspin. When combined with the administration’s ultimatum demanding a moratorium on Jewish construction in Jerusalem and its threat to coerce Israel into accepting an Obama plan for Palestinian statehood that will imperil Israel’s security, it becomes abundantly clear that there is no way to make this crisis go away. There is a crisis in US relations with Israel today because the President of the United States has very publically taken a torch to those relations and he responds to any sign that the flames are waning by dousing fresh kerosene on the fire.

And yet, when Obama’s personal animus is set aside and one examines the substance of his actual policies, ironically, there is little difference between the current administration’s policies and those of its immediate predecessor.

In his second term in office, Bush ignored the significance of Hamas’s electoral victory in January 2006 and its takeover of Gaza in June 2007. The US expanded its training program for the Palestinian armed forces and pushed Israel to accept a framework for Palestinian statehood that would more or less push it back to the indefensible 1949 armistice lines.

From 2004, the Bush administration sought to appease Iran into giving up its nuclear program — first indirectly through the negotiations that France, Britain and Germany conducted with Teheran. Then in 2006, the administration began direct negotiations with the mullahs.

Bush personally rejected repeated Israeli requests to purchase refueling aircraft and bunker buster bombs necessary for attacking Iran’s hardened nuclear facilities. And he refused to back Israeli plans to attack Iran’s nuclear installations. So too, Bush stopped calling for regime change in Iran. After the November 2007 publication of the falsified National Intelligence Estimate on Iran’s nuclear program, Bush discarded the possibility of a US military strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities altogether.

n the 2006 war between Israel the Iranian and Syrian-proxy force Hizbullah, ignoring Hizbullah’s membership in the Lebanese government and the Lebanese military’s active support for Hizbullah’s war effort, Bush forbade Israel from attacking Lebanese government targets. In so doing, he forced Israel to fight a regional foe as if it were a local street gang and so rendered the ultimate result of that war — Israel’s first strategic military defeat — a foregone conclusion.

Despite Syria’s open sponsorship of the insurgency in Iraq, its strategic alliance with Iran, as well as its sponsorship of Hizbullah, Hamas and al Qaida in Iraq and Lebanon, the Bush administration sought to prevent Israel from destroying Syria’s Iranian-financed, North Korean-built nuclear facility. After Israel destroyed the installation in Sept. 2007, the Bush administration demanded that Israel keep silent about the significance of Iranian-North Korean-Syrian nuclear alliance.

Finally, the Bush administration denied the inherent hostility of the Islamist government in Turkey. Instead it cultivated the fantasy that this anti-American, anti-Israel, Hamas, Syria and Iran-supporting regime is a trustworthy ally.

Israel went along with all of these US policies despite their strategic madness because Israel wanted to be a team player. The Sharon and Olmert governments and the Israeli public as a whole believed that Israel had an ally in the Bush administration and that when push came to shove, the massive risks Israel took supporting the US’s policies on Iran, Syria, Lebanon, Turkey and the Palestinians would be rewarded.

With Obama of course, things are different. Probably if Obama treated Israel with the same friendliness his predecessor showered on its leaders, Netanyahu would have been willing to walk the plank just as Ehud Olmert and Ariel Sharon did, in the interests of helping his team. But what Obama has made clear in his mistreatment of Israel is that he doesn’t want Netanyahu to walk the plank for the team. He wants Israel off the team.

Although unsettling, this dismal state of affairs has a bright side. It provides Israel with a rare opportunity to stop acceding to US policies that are bad for Israel and the US alike. After all, if the US is willing to instigate a crisis in its relations with Israel over plans to zone for housing units in Jerusalem neighborhoods like Ramat Shlomo and French Hill, then clearly Israel can do no right. And if Israel can do no right in the eyes of the administration, then there is no point in bending to its will. Instead, Israel must simply do what it must to secure its interests.

In the hope of winning over the Obama administration, Israel has kept the Iranian opposition at arm’s length. This should end. Israel should employ covert and overt means to help Iran’s Green Movement destabilize with the aim of toppling the Iranian regime. At the same time, Israel should employ covert and overt means to destroy Iran’s nuclear installations.

This week Senator John Kerry travelled to Lebanon and Syria to raise the prospects of peace talks between Israel and both countries. Rather than applaud his efforts, Israel should point out that Hizbullah controls the Lebanese government and that US support for the Lebanese military and government strengthens Hizbullah. So too, Israel should make clear that since Syrian dictator Bashar Assad is Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s Arab water boy, it is preposterous to call for Israel to surrender the Golan Heights to his regime. Instead of rehashing the same nonsense, Israel should actively support Syria’s Kurds in their bid for autonomy and champion the cause of political prisoners languishing in Syrian jails.

Turkey’s announcement this week that it supports Iran’s nuclear ambitions should be recognized for what it was: An announcement that the NATO member state has joined the Iranian axis with Syria, Lebanon, Hamas and Hizbullah. Israel should respond to Turkey’s announcement by announcing a moratorium on weapons sales to Turkey and so end its counterproductive attempts to paper over the fact that its former strategic ally has become its enemy.

As to the Palestinians, rather than succumb to US demands in the interest of starting doomed-to-fail negotiations with Fatah, Israel should tell the truth. It has nothing to negotiate about and no one to negotiate with. Fatah’s leaders Mahmoud Abbas and Salam Fayyad reject Israel’s right to exist. They support terrorism. They already rejected a “two-state solution” less than two years ago. Aside from that, they lack the support of their own electorate which prefers Hamas’s more direct approach to destroying Israel.

Instead of pretending that begging these impotent adversaries for peace serves its interests, Israel should get off its knees and adopt policies that will enhance its interests. For instance, given that the Obama administration views Ramat Shlomo as the equivalent of Eli and E-1, Israel should build up the neighborhood in Eli that was home to fallen IDF commanders Majors Ro’i Klein and Eliraz Peretz and implement its construction plans for E-1.

Ironically, all of these policies are consonant not only with Israel’s strategic needs, but with the US’s own strategic interests. And since Obama’s hostility towards Israel is not subject to change, rather than focus on winning over the White House, the Netanyahu government should devote its energies to selling its policies to the American people.

Repeated polls have shown that the American public supports an Israeli strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities. By the same token, commonsense policies towards the likes of Fatah, Hamas, Hizbullah, Syria and Turkey, combined with the unapologetic assertion of Israel’s rights in Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria will find a strong core of support in the US that can offset some of the damage Obama is doing to US ties with Israel.

Although much maligned, Emmanuel’s call not to let a good crisis go to waste can be taken as a crass way of saying that every cloud has a silver lining. Israel did not ask for this fight with Obama. It would have been willing to keep up the fantasy that Bush’s second-term policies made sense. But since a fight is what it got, Israel has no choice other than to strike out on its own. As it happens, if Israel does so, not only will it protect itself, it will protect the US from the dangerous policies its leader has opted to pursue.

Sanctions on Iran will fail / The Christian Science Monitor – CSMonitor.com.

Secretary of State Hilary Clinton (l.) and Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin meet at the presidential residence Novo-Ogaryovo outside Moscow, March 19. Russia on Friday said that Iran was letting the opportunity for dialogue with the international community slip away and warned that the Islamic Republic could face new sanctions.

Alexei Nikolsky/Pool/RIA Novosti/REUTERS/File

By Michael Martin, Guest blogger / April 1, 2010

Hillary Clinton telling Iran that the US is looking for sanctions that bite is like telling them they’re going to be grounded and cannot go outside.

Sanctions don’t work as far as political threats are concerned in the Middle East – at best they are “hit or miss.” And as reported in Daniel Ammann’s new book, The King of Oil, Israel got 60-90% of its oil from Iran at a time that they weren’t officially recognized because it was in everyone’s interest to be business partners although publicly they had to “not save face” and remain bitter enemies.

So all this jawboning about Iran does nothing but keep the War Machine moving forward. More importantly, it keep donors’ wallets open for the Dems who may need all the help and support they can get in November.

Officially, the US wants to stop Iran from developing a uranium enrichment program. Iran is the second largest producer of crude oil in OPEC. They can go buy a nuclear weapon or dozens of them. Pragmatically, I don’t think there’s much the US can do but fight this in the headlines.

Iran needs to keep the oil flowing and they will…to China and India or anyone else who needs it. After crude oil, Iran’s largest exports are, ready for this, Persian carpets, pistachios, and saffron and its main trading partners are Japan and Germany.

Secretary Clinton was quoted in the NYT article as saying “parts of Iran’s government are ”a menace” to the Iranian people and the Middle East.” If I didn’t know any better, that sounds a lot like the United States…parts of our government are a menace to me and you, especially the FRB and the CFTC. We have a lot in common with the Persians from that standpoint.

“Clinton said that if Iran developed a nuclear weapon, it would embolden terrorists and spark an arms race that would destabilize the Middle East.” It might be me, but I think poking a stick in their eye emboldens them more than anything else. My guess is that they have them already, not officially speaking.

Politicians will get behind this because they are elected by their donors, not their constituents, but in the end, Iran will stare down the US and win.

Gül lets the cat out of the bag on Iran – Hurriyet Daily News and Economic Review.

US allows Iran its nuclear vision | The Australian.

US President Barack Obama has decided to abandon any serious effort to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. He is determined instead to live with a nuclear Iran, by containment and, if possible, negotiation.

This is the shifting tectonic plate in the Middle East.

This is the giant story of the past few weeks which the world has largely missed, distracted by the theatre of the absurd of Obama’s contrived and mock confrontation with Israel over 1600 apartments to be built in three years’ time in a Jewish suburb in East Jerusalem.

Iran is the only semi-intelligible explanation for Obama’s bizarre over-reaction against the Israelis.

In the Middle East, today, Iran is the story. It is the consideration behind all other considerations.

Obama has not explicitly announced his new position and he and his cabinet secretaries still make speeches saying they will try to prevent Iran acquiring nuclear weapons. But if you look at the statements closely you see a steady weakening of resolve, a steady removal of any threat of any consequence for Iran. Similarly, if you look at the actions of the administration, the sombre conclusion is inescapable.

Given Iran’s missile program, which has no conceivable military use except to carry nuclear weapons, and which can now reach Europe and in due course will have a longer range, the fundamental change in US policy has global security consequences.

It has global security consequences in other ways, as well. It profoundly undermines American strategic credibility, which is the bedrock of whatever global order this troubled planet enjoys.

The troubling realisation that the Americans have given up, or are in the process of giving up, the fight to prevent Iran going nuclear is backed by the best informed security sources in Washington, London, Jerusalem and Canberra.

The bust-up between Washington and Israel only makes sense in this context. Last week, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met Obama in the White House, and also met Secretary of State Hillary Clinton at the State Department. On both occasions, all photographers and all TV cameras were banned. This was a studied humiliation of Netanyahu and all, ostensibly, because Israel announced that in three years’ time 1600 apartments would be built in a Jewish neighbourhood in East Jerusalem. Yet the 10-month moratorium on new residential building in the West Bank which Netanyahu had announced in October to effusive US praise had specifically exempted East Jerusalem.

It is inconceivable that Obama would have treated any Arab or Muslim leader with the same considered contempt that he showed to Netanyahu. I speculated last week that Obama engaged in his furious over-reaction in order to pursue personal popularity in the Muslim world, and perhaps to force Israel to make so many concessions that the Palestinians would come back to negotiations. Although these negotiations would not produce a comprehensive peace deal, at least Obama could claim the talks themselves as a victory of sorts.

I still think these were important considerations but there was a much bigger strategic purpose, as well. In 2008, Israel told Washington it was planning to strike Iran’s nuclear facilities. Washington talked Jerusalem out of the move, not least by showing its own determination to stop the Iranians.

In those days, senior Americans from then-president George W. Bush down, often said that “all options are on the table” in their determination to stop Iran acquiring nukes. All options explicitly included an American military strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities. When Obama spoke to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee in 2008, he said he would use “all elements of American power to pressure Iran”.

He won a tumultuous standing ovation by using a repetition of a key word to emphasise his determination. He said: “I will do everything in my power to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon – everything in my power to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon – everything.” That was Obama’s equivalent to Bush’s “all options”.

Obama doesn’t talk anything like that any more. In his message to Iran on the Iranian new year a few weeks ago, he reiterated his determination not to meddle in Iran’s internal affairs and said the nuclear matter should still be negotiated.

Clinton, in her address to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee last week, spoke only briefly about Iran, repeating a pro-forma US determination to stop it going nuclear. But there was no mention of all options, everything the US could do, or all aspects of US power. Instead, she said that while sanctions were taking a long time to work out at the UN, it was time well spent, and they would show Iran that its actions had consequences.

But the bulk of her speech was all about the Israeli-Palestinian issue.

Presidential and Secretary of State speeches on subjects like this are given a level of attention that wouldn’t be out of place in the preparation of a papal encyclical. The sub-text of Obama and Clinton’s recent speeches can only be that they have decided that the battle against a nuclear-armed Iran is over.

One thing they are determined to do is to stop Israel from taking its own unilateral military action to stop or retard Iran’s nuclear program. Israel has taken this type of action twice before. In 1981, it destroyed Iraq’s nuclear reactor at Osirak. And in 2007, it bombed into obliteration a North Korean-supplied secret nuclear reactor in Syria.

It is impossible to know with absolute certainty what Israel’s intentions were, or are, for the Iranian nuclear program. But for several years the most senior US officials would agree that a nuclear-armed Iran represented an existential threat to Israel. Iran’s rulers, after all, not only deny the Holocaust but have made militant anti-Americanism, confrontation with Israel and even anti-Semitism, defining ideologies of the Iranian state. Iran’s President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has threatened to wipe Israel off the map. Most analysts believe that for all their extremism, the Iranian rulers are rational actors and would not actually use nuclear weapons. But this is a slender analytical thread to ask Israelis to hang their very lives on. And the danger of Iran proliferating some element of nuclear material or technology to terrorists is much more plausible.

This is where the Obama-Israel dust-up comes in. By so isolating Israel, by irresponsibly unleashing a global wave of anti-Israel sentiment, especially in nations which normally support Israel, Obama has made the possibility of Israel considering unilateral action against Iran much more unlikely. The Israelis would weigh such action very carefully. There are many pluses and minuses. By creating the impression of Israel as a besieged, isolated and reckless nation, which the wildly disproportionate reaction to the East Jerusalem apartments accomplished, Obama has made the potential cost to Israel of action against Iran much greater.

Is it fair to conclude definitively that Obama has decided to give up, except for symbolic and meaningless actions, the fight against a nuclear-armed Iran?

Obama might still change his mind – he is nothing, after all, if not flexible – but that is the inescapable conclusion of his actions so far.

He has set so many deadlines for Iran. Each of them has passed and nothing ever happens. There are never bad consequences for the US’s enemies in Obama world, it seems, only for its friends.

Remember, initially, that the Obama administration wanted to wait for the Iranian election in the middle of last year before it exhausted dialogue or went down the sanctions road? Remember then the deadline was September? Remember the proposal for Iran’s uranium to go to Russia for enrichment? Remember the revelation of Iran’s secret nuclear facility at Qom? Remember Iran’s announcement that it intended to enrich uranium up to 20 per cent, a vast leap on the technological road to weapons? Did you notice a couple of weeks ago Iran’s announcement that it would build new nuclear facilities?

And where are we today? Now it is April and Obama is still talking in his feckless way about possible UN sanctions. Anything that is passed by China and Russia at the UN Security Council will be weak and ineffective. A serious US administration would have built a critical mass of like-minded countries to impose crippling sanctions on Iran outside the Security Council.

The only explanation that fits with all the facts is that the US administration is no longer serious about stopping Iran from getting nuclear weapons. James Lindsay and Ray Takeyh, writing in this month’s Foreign Affairs, declare that: “If Iran’s nuclear program continues to progress at its current rate, Tehran could have the nuclear material needed to build a bomb before US President Barack Obama’s current term in office expires.” The Foreign Affairs article, After Iran Gets the Bomb, is important in another way. It demonstrates the drift in the serious discussion in the US. It is no longer a discussion of how to stop Iran getting the bomb, but how to cope with a nuclear-armed Iran.

Here’s something else you should know about Iran. US General David Petraeus, in written testimony to congress, has revealed that Iran is co-operating with al-Qa’ida in Afghanistan and Pakistan, facilitating the movement of its leaders. The Sunday Times of London recently carried interviews with Taliban leaders who were trained in Iran.

There is no chance Obama will produce a comprehensive Israeli-Palestinian peace deal in his first term in office, which is how he would like to be remembered by history. There is every chance history will remember him for something altogether different, as the American president on whose watch Iran became a nuclear-weapons state.

Obama: Evidence shows Iran is developing nukes – Haaretz – Israel News.

Evidence shows Iran is attempting to develop nuclear weapons, U.S. President Barack Obama told CBS on Friday, adding that he felt his administration should continue the pressure on Tehran to cooperate with the international community over its contentious nuclear program.

In an interview to “The Early Show” Friday, Obama said “all the evidence” indicates that Tehran is trying to get a nuclear weapons capacity.

(Watch interview HERE)

With such a capability, Obama said that Iran could “destabilize” life in the Mideast and trigger an arms race in the region, adding that, for that reason, he felt “the idea here is to keep on turning up the pressure.”

“We’re going to ratchet up the pressure and examine how they respond but we’re going to do so with a unified international community,” Obama said.

The U.S. president had said earlier this week he wanted new, stronger U.N. sanctions to be in place by late spring. The president also said he believes the country has become further isolated from the rest of the world since he took office.

Obama’s comment comes after, earlier Friday, Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili said after meeting China’s foreign minister and other officials in Beijing that Iran and China agreed during talks in Beijing that sanctions are “not effective.”

“In our talks with China it was agreed that tools such as sanctions have lost their effectiveness,” Jalili told a news conference in the Chinese capital, speaking via a Chinese translator.

Asked if China backs sanctions on Iran over its nuclear program, he said: “It’s up to China to answer that.”

Jalili also said that international sanctions would not prevent Iran from pursuing its nuclear activities. “Iranians are familiar with sanctions … We consider sanctions as opportunities … We will continue our [nuclear] path more decisively,” Jalili said.

The United States and Israel, meanwhile, have both been making efforts to engage China in pursuing harsh international sanctions against Iran over the latter’s contentious nuclear program.

The head of the Israel Defense Forces’ Planning Directorate, Maj. Gen. Amir Eshel, will make an official visit to China next week to meet senior officials in the defense establishment there.

Eshel, who is in charge of strategic planning and foreign affairs for the Israel Defense Forces, is hoping to present the Chinese with Israel’s view on Iran’s drive toward nuclear military capability.

U.S. President Barack Obama, meanwhile, held an hour-long telephone conversation with Chinese President Hu Jintao on Thursday, in which he “underscored the importance of working together to ensure that Iran lives up to its international obligations,” the White House said in a statement.

The head of Israel’s Military Intelligence, Maj. Gen. Amos Yadlin, recently traveled to China and relayed to his hosts details of the Iran’s progress toward nuclear arms.

The spokesman for the Chinese military, with a rank of brigadier general, visited Israel last week as a guest of his Israeli counterpart.

The Israel Defense Forces considers exchanges with China to be important in softening Beijing’s opposition to international sanctions against Iran – which is suspected of developing nuclear weapons.

Last week China announced for the first time that it would consider going along with sanctions against Iran, even though its final decision will be made following talks in the UN Security Council over the substance of the resolution that will be brought for a vote.

In conversations with Israelis in recent weeks, Chinese officers and officials have made it clear that they both oppose Iran’s drive to acquire nuclear arms, but also any military action to stop the Iranian program. The Chinese also said that they oppose targeting Iran’s nuclear program through sanctions.

The Chinese opposition to sanctions was presented as a point of principle and was justified by the historic experience of the Communist regime in China, which suffered in its early decades as a result of Western sanctions.

U.S. and Israeli efforts are focused on convincing Beijing that the best alternative to preventing a nuclear Iran and a military operation targeting it would be to agree to more severe sanctions – without actively supporting these.

A successful effort to convince Russia, another permanent member of the Security Council, to support the sanctions would result in four of the five members voting in favor of tightening sanctions against Tehran, while Beijing would abstain and not veto the resolution.

China sells arms, equipment and advanced technology to the Iranian military and the Revolutionary Guard, which also make their way to Hezbollah. These include an anti-shipping missile that struck the Israeli gunship Hanit in July 2006.

A U.S. intelligence report on the proliferation of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons and missiles in 2009 was delivered to Congress last week. The unclassified version concluded that the Chinese government has implemented, during the past two years, legislation that is meant to monitor the export of banned items, but enforcement is not complete.

“Chinese entities” continue to sell items “related to missiles” to many clients, including Iran, according to the report.

The improvement in IDF relations with China is striking in view of the cooling of ties between the U.S. and Chinese militaries during the past two months, as a result of the announcement of the Obama administration on January 30 of plans to sell arms worth $6.4 billion to Taiwan.

Even though the United States was careful to stress that the arms in the package are not offensive weapons – Blackhawk helicopters, Patriot air-defense missiles, and mine sweepers – the Chinese responded by freezing contacts between the militaries of the two powers.

The exchange of visits by senior officers from Beijing and Jerusalem also reflects the rebuilding of ties that were strained following the crisis over the cancelation of an early warning aircraft deal in 2000. The sale of the Phalcon radar that ELTA was to mount on a Russian-made Ilyushin IL-76 transport aircraft was vetoed by the Americans.

The U.S. concern then, as it is today, is that China will upgrade its military capabilities to operate far from home.

In recent years Israel has been careful to follow American guidelines and avoid exporting sensitive military equipment to China.

As a result of the cancelation of the deal, Israel was forced to pay China $350 million in compensation.

Talks with Chinese officers suggest that the effects of that crisis have been minimized but not entirely forgotten: One officer said that he was surprised to witness, on arrival at Ben-Gurion International airport, a test flight of the second of the three Phalcon early-warning aircraft that are being supplied to India. A $1.1 billion deal was signed in 2004 following the failed Chinese deal. The aircraft was delivered to India late last week

Israeli unveils tank-defense system of the future – News – World – bnd.com.

FILE – In this May 30, 2008 file photo, an Israeli Merkava tank drives from the Gaza Strip into Israel near the Sufa Crossing. Israel has begun to equip Merkava tanks with the new “Trophy” defense system: a miniature anti-missile system that detects incoming projectiles and shoots them down before they reach the armored vehicles. If successful, the “Trophy” system could radically alter the balance of power if the country goes to war again against Hezbollah guerrillas in neighboring Lebanon. Its performance could also have much wider implications as American troops and their Western allies battle insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan. – AP Photo

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Al Jazeera English – Americas – Obama calls Hu on Iran sanctions.

The US president has called his Chinese counterpart to talk about Iran’s controversial nuclear programme after Beijing agreed to join discussions on possible new sanctions against the country.

Barack Obama and Hu Jintao spoke for about one hour on Thursday, with the US president highlighting “the importance of working together to ensure that Iran lives up to its international obligations”.

Obama welcomed Hu’s attendance at the international summit on nuclear security to be held in Washington later this month.

He said it would be an “important opportunity for them to address their shared interest in stopping nuclear proliferation and protecting against nuclear terrorism”, according to the White House.

China has previously been opposed to a new round of UN sanctions, with senior Chinese diplomats to the UN repeatedly saying diplomacy was their preferred route.

Strained relations

The discussion came with relations between Beijing and Washington strained over a range of trade disputes, internet censorship, US arms sales to Taiwan and the US president’s decision to meet the Dalai Lama, Tibet’s spiritual leader.

Hu told Obama both sides should “respect each other’s core interests and major concerns and properly handle differences and sensitive issues”.

He said that China and the US should make “unremitting efforts towards co-operative, positive and comprehensive” ties, a Chinese foreign ministry statement said.

“Hu stressed the Taiwan and Tibet issues concern China’s sovereignty, territorial integrity, and China’s core interests, and properly dealing with these issues is key to ensuring the healthy and stable development of Sino-US relations.”

The telephone call came as Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator visited China.

In talks with Saeed Jalili in Beijing, Yang Jiechi, China’s foreign minister “urged all sides to enhance diplomatic efforts and demonstrate flexibility, and to create the conditions for resolving the Iran nuclear issue through dialogue and negotiations”.

Iran rejects Western charges that its atomic programme is aimed at developing bombs and insists that its nuclear programme is peaceful and intended only to generate electricity.

US officials said on Wednesday that diplomats from the five permanent members of the UN Security Council and Germany, known as the “P5+1” group, were unified on the issue of Iran sanctions.

Applying pressure

Bill Burton, the White House spokesman, said that the international community would seek to “put pressure” on Iran this spring.

“We’re going to continue that process and the president thinks that this spring we’re going to be able to be in a place where there’s an agreement of those nations to apply real pressure to Iran,” he said.

China’s support, or at least acquiescence, is crucial to securing a new round of sanctions as it is a permanent member of the Security Council with the power to veto any resolution.

But Al Jazeera’s Cath Turner, reporting from the UN headquarters in New York, said the major powers had only agreed to compile a list of possible sanctions to be discussed before a draft resolution is draw up and presented for vote at the security council.

“Looking very closely at what has been agreed on, there is a long way to go until China is supposed to be supporting a new draft resolution for sanctions on Iran,” she said.

“We need to be very careful that we don’t buy into the American language of optimism and trumpeting some kind of breakthrough when really, it’s only a very small step on a very long way to sanctions against Iran.”

Energy supplier

Some analysts say China will push to ensure any possible sanctions do not threaten its energy and trade ties with Iran.

In 2009 Iran was the third-biggest foreign supplier of crude oil to China, which is the world’s second-biggest consumer of oil after the US.

A US draft proposal agreed with its European allies and passed on to Russia and China a month ago will form the basis of discussions on new sanctions.

It targets Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, shipping and other firms, but not Iran’s oil and gas sectors.

Russia, like China, reluctantly backed three previous rounds of UN sanctions against Iran for refusing to halt uranium enrichment as demanded by five Security Council resolutions.

International push for Iran sanctions is too little, too late – Haaretz – Israel News.

A diplomatic turnaround – however cautious, slow and weak – was made Wednesday with U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s announcement that the five permanent members of the UN Security Council, including China, have agreed to discuss a new round of sanctions against Iran.

On Thursday a spokesman for the Chinese Foreign Ministry qualified that statement, noting that Beijing opposes Iran’s acquisition of nuclear weapons but did not give its approval for new sanctions.

Either way, the new sanctions have yet to be agreed upon or finalized, and the potential measures do not include the kind of tools that could affect a change in Iranian policy.

Iranian shipping companies will not be blacklisted nor the international assets of Iran frozen, and oil or gas shipments from the Islamic Republic will not be cut, after these proposals were all rejected by Russia or China. It is more accurate to characterize the potential sanctions as a comprehensive warning against doing business with Tehran.

Its omissions cannot come as consolation to those concerned about Iran’s development of nuclear technology that could produce weapons of mass destruction.

Still, Wednesday’s feat – which must still pass a Security Council vote – is significant in incorporating both Russia and China among those nations which see an Iranian nuclear weapon as a threat, and which are willing to cooperate on finding a solution. Months of negotiation and pressure led by Washington have resulted in a more unified international community even if there is not full consensus over how to confront Tehran.

The accord reached by the Security Council members should give the Barack Obama administration the support needed to impose further sanctions of its own against Iran, and possibly convince several European countries to join the effort, even if only partially.

On the other hand, the fact remains that Iran has been under sanctions for three decades and still managed to develop a formidable technological infrastructure for nuclear power. It’s doubtful another round of sanctions will persuade Iran to stop its project, viewed within the country as part of its national defense apparatus and the source of immense national pride.

Absent full agreement on implementing strict sanctions – and presuming that either an Israeli or U.S. military option is unrealistic – it is essential that alongside sanctions, pathways must be found for dialogue with Tehran. The U.S. president believes the window is still open, and he is willing to pursue negotiations at any time.

And Iran, despite the strident tone it takes against the West, has itself not forgone the principle of negotiation. It is possible that China and Russia joining the group of nations threatening sanctions could serve as a springboard to talks.

Having led the international awareness campaign over the Iranian nuclear threat, Israel should be pleased with the current turnaround, even if its results are significantly lower than what it had hoped. At the same time, Israel’s call for global cooperation against Iran requires it too act as part of the international community in its policies vis-a-vis the Palestinians and the peace process.

IDF trying to boost China ties ahead of Iran sanctions vote – Haaretz – Israel News.

The head of the army’s Planning Directorate, Maj. Gen. Amir Eshel, will make an official visit to China next week to meet senior officials in the defense establishment there. Eshel, who is in charge of strategic planning and foreign affairs for the Israel Defense Forces, is hoping to present the Chinese with Israel’s view on Iran’s drive toward nuclear military capability.

The head of Military Intelligence, Maj. Gen. Amos Yadlin, recently traveled to China and relayed to his hosts details of the Iran’s progress toward nuclear arms.

The spokesman for the Chinese military, with a rank of brigadier general, visited Israel last week as a guest of his Israeli counterpart.

The Israel Defense Forces considers exchanges with China to be important in softening Beijing’s opposition to international sanctions against Iran – which is suspected of developing nuclear weapons.

Last week China announced for the first time that it would consider going along with sanctions against Iran, even though its final decision will be made following talks in the UN Security Council over the substance of the resolution that will be brought for a vote.

In conversations with Israelis in recent weeks, Chinese officers and officials have made it clear that they both oppose Iran’s drive to acquire nuclear arms, but also any military action to stop the Iranian program. The Chinese also said that they oppose targeting Iran’s nuclear program through sanctions.

The Chinese opposition to sanctions was presented as a point of principle and was justified by the historic experience of the Communist regime in China, which suffered in its early decades as a result of Western sanctions.

U.S. and Israeli efforts are focused on convincing Beijing that the best alternative to preventing a nuclear Iran and a military operation targeting it would be to agree to more severe sanctions – without actively supporting these.

A successful effort to convince Russia, another permanent member of the Security Council, to support the sanctions would result in four of the five members voting in favor of tightening sanctions against Tehran, while Beijing would abstain and not veto the resolution.

China sells arms, equipment and advanced technology to the Iranian military and the Revolutionary Guard, which also make their way to Hezbollah. These include an anti-shipping missile that struck the Israeli gunship Hanit in July 2006.

A U.S. intelligence report on the proliferation of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons and missiles in 2009 was delivered to Congress last week. The unclassified version concluded that the Chinese government has implemented, during the past two years, legislation that is meant to monitor the export of banned items, but enforcement is not complete.

“Chinese entities” continue to sell items “related to missiles” to many clients, including Iran, according to the report.

The improvement in IDF relations with China is striking in view of the cooling of ties between the U.S. and Chinese militaries during the past two months, as a result of the announcement of the Obama administration on January 30 of plans to sell arms worth $6.4 billion to Taiwan.

Even though the United States was careful to stress that the arms in the package are not offensive weapons – Blackhawk helicopters, Patriot air-defense missiles, and mine sweepers – the Chinese responded by freezing contacts between the militaries of the two powers.

The exchange of visits by senior officers from Beijing and Jerusalem also reflects the rebuilding of ties that were strained following the crisis over the cancelation of an early warning aircraft deal in 2000. The sale of the Phalcon radar that ELTA was to mount on a Russian-made Ilyushin IL-76 transport aircraft was vetoed by the Americans.

The U.S. concern then, as it is today, is that China will upgrade its military capabilities to operate far from home.

In recent years Israel has been careful to follow American guidelines and avoid exporting sensitive military equipment to China.

As a result of the cancelation of the deal, Israel was forced to pay China $350 million in compensation.

Talks with Chinese officers suggest that the effects of that crisis have been minimized but not entirely forgotten: One officer said that he was surprised to witness, on arrival at Ben-Gurion International airport, a test flight of the second of the three Phalcon early-warning aircraft that are being supplied to India. A $1.1 billion deal was signed in 2004 following the failed Chinese deal. The aircraft was delivered to India late last week.