WarSclerotic

Iran says oil sanctions threat a joke | Reuters.

Gas flares from an oil production platform at the Soroush oil fields with an Iranian flag in the foreground in the Persian Gulf, 1,250 km (776 miles) south of the capital Tehran, July 25, 2005

(Reuters) – The idea of international sanctions on Iranian oil exports is a joke, a senior Iranian official said on Tuesday, adding Iran would not abandon its disputed nuclear work despite mounting international pressure.

U.S. President Barack Obama is pushing for new U.N. sanctions in the coming weeks to pressure Iran to stop its sensitive nuclear activities, which Washington and its European allies believe is a cover to develop bombs.

Iran’s foreign ministry spokesman said restricting Iran’s oil and gas exports — an idea not included in the latest proposals agreed by Western powers — was “illogical” and that all sanctions would fail.

“Countries need oil to guarantee their economic growth … talking about imposing sanctions on Iran’s oil sector is like a joke,” Ramin Mehmanparast told a weekly news conference. “Such a move would hurt other (importer) countries.

“Imposing sanctions on Iran is illogical and a politically-motivated measure … Iran will never abandon its nuclear activities because of sanctions.”

The United States already bans imports of Iranian energy, but the world’s fifth biggest oil exporter has willing buyers around the world. Crude hit an 18-month high near $87 on Monday, reflecting growing confidence of an economic upturn.

A senior executive at the National Iranian Oil Company said on Monday sanctions that disrupted the supply of crude oil would “lead to the intensification and prolongation of the economic recession (in consumer countries).”

The latest draft proposals agreed by the United States, Britain, France and Germany include restrictions on new Iranian banks established abroad and on insurance of cargo shipments to and from Iran.

Commenting on potential restrictions on Iran’s petroleum imports, Oil Minister Masoud Mirkazemi said the country had the refining capacity to avoid that being a massive blow.

“Iran has the capability to produce fuel in case of emergency,” he was quoted as telling Iranian state radio.

OBAMA WANTS “BITE”

In an interview in Tuesday’s New York Times, Obama said he wanted a U.N. sanctions resolution “that has bite” to pressure Iranians over a nuclear program he said “would provide them with nuclear weapons capabilities.”

Announcing new limits on the conditions under which the United States could use nuclear weapons, Obama said it would not apply to “outliers like Iran and North Korea.”

Iran denies it is trying to make nuclear weapons and says it is developing purely peaceful nuclear technologies. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has said he is still open to negotiate with foreign powers, but under strict conditions.

Mehmanparast said he hoped Russia would fulfill an Iranian order for a missile defense system which Israel and the United States do not want it to have.

Analysts say the S-300 could help Iran thwart any attempt by Israel or the United States — which have refused to rule out military action if diplomacy fails to resolve the atomic row — to bomb its nuclear facilities.

Mehmanparast accused Washington of kidnapping an Iranian nuclear scientist who, according to U.S. media, chose to defect.

ABC News reported last week that nuclear physicist Shahram Amiri, who disappeared during a pilgrimage to Mecca in June, had defected to the United States and was helping the CIA.

“America’s connection with Amiri proves what we said in the past, that American intelligence services were involved in this kidnapping,” Mehmanparast said.

Obama resigned to Iranian nukes.

By Stan Goodenough
April 06, 2010

US President Barack Obama acknowledged Monday that the Islamic Republic of Iran – which has repeatedly voiced its intention to see Israel wiped off the map – is on course to obtain nuclear weapons after all.

Speaking to the New York Times, Obama said he was convinced “the current course they [the Iranian leadership] are on would provide them with nuclear weapons capabilities.”

As a consequence of Obama’s appeasement approach to Tehran, America can do nothing to prevent it.

The American’s admission comes after a year during which his administration barely stopped short of public threats to prevent Israel from self-defensively destroying Iran’s nuclear facilities.

Most recently, behind-closed-door coercive tactics were employed during successive visits by Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, Joint Chiefs off Staff Chairman Admiral Mike Mullen and Vice President Joe Biden in order to keep pressure on Israel not to attack.

For his part Obama inherited – and fully embraced – the attitude adopted by the Bush administration in 2004.

According to Assistant Editor to The Jerusalem Post, Caroline Glick: “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 Tehran. 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,” Glick wrote, “Bush discarded the possibility of a US military strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities altogether.” (“Exploiting the Crisis,” by Caroline Glick, The Jerusalem Post, April 2, 2010)

As far back as January 2006, then Prime Minister Ehud Olmert declared that, “under no circumstances, and at no point, can Israel allow anyone with these kinds of malicious designs against us [to] have control of weapons of destruction that can threaten our existence.”

In November of the same year, then opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu sounded a clarion call that went largely dismissed by the rest of the world:

“It’s 1938 and Iran is Germany. And Iran is racing to arm itself with atomic bombs,” Netanyahu starkly warned the United Jewish Communities General Assembly. “Believe [Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad] and stop him,” he continued. “This is what we must do. Everything else pales before this.”

A frequent question posed Jerusalem Newswire by visiting groups is what the Israelis are going to do about the Iranian threat. Notwithstanding international efforts to wear down Israel’s resolve on this issue, the government in Jerusalem remains resolved to not permit Tehran to acquire nuclear weapons.

The Israel Defense Forces are believed to be in constant training for an attack on Iran. It is understood that the result of Obama’s resigned attitude towards the burgeoning threat in the east will leave Israel with no choice but to act on its own.

Scant decades after the Holocaust saw two-thirds of European Jewry washed away, Israel’s leaders are not about to sit back and allow the threat of another act of anti-Jewish genocide to be perpetrated against their people.

Israeli Security-Is Israel Facing War with Hizbullah and Syria?.

Vol. 9, No. 22    6 April 2010

Is Israel Facing War with Hizbullah and Syria?

David Schenker

• Concerns about Israeli hostilities with Hizbullah are nothing new, but based on recent pronouncements from Syria, if the situation degenerates, fighting could take on a regional dimension not seen since 1973.

• On February 26, Syrian President Bashar Assad hosted Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Hizbullah leader Hassan Nasrallah in Damascus. Afterward, Hizbullah’s online magazine Al Intiqad suggested that war with Israel was on the horizon.

• Raising tensions further are reports that Syria has provided Hizbullah with the advanced, Russian-made, shoulder-fired, Igla-S anti-aircraft missile, which could inhibit Israeli air operations over Lebanon in a future conflict. The transfer of this equipment had previously been defined by Israeli officials as a “red line.”

• In the summer of 2006, Syria sat on the sidelines as Hizbullah fought Israel to a standstill. After the war, Assad, who during the fighting received public assurances from then-Prime Minister Olmert that Syria would not be targeted, took credit for the “divine victory.”

• Damascus’ support for “resistance” was on full display at the Arab Summit in Libya in late March 2010, where Assad urged Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas to abandon U.S.-supported negotiations and “take up arms against Israel.”

• After years of diplomatic isolation, Damascus has finally broken the code to Europe, and appears to be on the verge of doing so with the Obama administration as well. Currently, Syria appears to be in a position where it can cultivate its ties with the West without sacrificing its support for terrorism.

In February 2010, tensions spiked between Israel and its northern neighbors. First, Syrian and Israeli officials engaged in a war of words, complete with dueling threats of regime change and targeting civilian populations. Weeks later, Hizbullah leader Hassan Nasrallah pledged to go toe-to-toe with Israel in the next war.¹ Then, toward the end of the month, Israel began military maneuvers in the north. Finally, on February 26, Syrian President Bashar Assad hosted Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Nasrallah for an unprecedented dinner meeting in Damascus.

Concerns about Israeli hostilities with Hizbullah are nothing new, but based on recent pronouncements from Damascus, if the situation degenerates, fighting could take on a regional dimension not seen since 1973. In January and February, Syrian officials indicated that, unlike during the 2006 fighting in Lebanon, Damascus would not “sit idly by” in the next war.² While these statements may be bravado, it’s not difficult to imagine Syria being drawn into the conflict.

The Israeli government has taken steps to alleviate tensions, including, most prominently, Prime Minister Netanyahu issuing a gag order forbidding his ministers to discuss Syria.³ Still, the situation in the north remains volatile. Within a three-day span in mid-March: the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) fired at Israeli jets violating Lebanese airspace;⁴ four Lebanese nationals were charged with spying for Israel against Hizbullah;⁵ and Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi told the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee that the Shiite militia was “building up its forces north of the Litani (river).” Currently, according to Ashkenazi, the border was calm, “but this can change.”⁶

It’s easy to see how the situation could deteriorate. Hizbullah retaliation against Israel for the 2008 assassination of its military leader Imad Mugniyyeh could spark a war. So could Hizbullah firing missiles in retribution for an Israeli strike against Iranian nuclear facilities. The transfer of sensitive Syrian technology to the Shiite militia could also prompt an Israeli strike. Regrettably, even if Israel continues to try and diffuse tensions in the north, given the central role Tehran has in determining Hizbullah policy, a third Lebanon war may be inevitable.

Martyrs Month Pronouncements

In mid-February, Hizbullah held the annual commemoration for its pantheon of heroes, a week of celebrations marking the organization’s top three martyrs – founding father Ragheb Harb, Secretary General Abbas Mussawi, and military leader Imad Mugniyyeh. On February 16 – Martyred Leaders Day – Nasrallah gave a speech where he defined a new, more aggressive posture toward Israel, upping the ante in the militia’s longstanding “balance of terror” strategy. Promising parity with Israeli strikes on Lebanon, Nasrallah threatened:

If you [Israel] bomb Rafik Hariri international airport in Beirut, we will bomb Ben-Gurion airport in Tel Aviv. If you bomb our docks, we will bomb your docks. If you bomb our oil refineries, we will bomb your oil refineries. If you bomb our factories, we will bomb your factories. And if you bomb our power plants, we will bomb your power plants.⁷

With current estimates suggesting that Hizbullah now possesses in excess of 40,000 missiles and rockets, Nasrallah’s threats have some resonance. Raising tensions further are reports that Syria has provided Hizbullah with the advanced, Russian-made, shoulder-fired, Igla-S anti-aircraft missile, which could inhibit Israeli air operations over Lebanon in a future conflict.⁸ The transfer of this equipment had previously been defined by Israeli officials as a “red line.”⁹ It is unclear whether such a transgression remains a casus belli.

In addition to laying out Hizbullah’s new targeting strategy, Nasrallah also discussed his yet unfulfilled pledge to retaliate against Israel for the 2008 killing of Mugniyyeh. Two years ago, immediately after the assassination, Nasrallah declared an “open war” against Israel, swearing vengeance for the group’s martyred leader. However, to date, the militia’s attempts to strike Israeli targets – in Azerbaijan and Turkey – have failed.¹⁰ During his speech, Nasrallah reiterated Hizbullah’s commitment to retaliate. “Our options are open and we have all the time in the world,” he said, adding, “What we want is a revenge that rises to the level of Imad Mugniyyeh.”¹¹

The Damascus “Resistance” Summit

In recent years, meetings between Assad and Ahmadinejad have been routine occurrences. It has also been customary for senior Syrian and Iranian officials to visit their respective capitals – and to sign defense or economic agreements – immediately following meetings between the Assad regime and U.S. officials. So it came as little surprise that Ahmadinejad arrived in Damascus just days after Undersecretary of State William Burns departed the Syrian capital. The surprising part about his visit was that Hassan Nasrallah joined the presidents for dinner.

On the day before Nasrallah’s visit, Assad and Ahmadinejad made great efforts to demonstrate that Washington’s transparent efforts to drive a wedge between the thirty-year strategic allies had failed. In a press conference on February 25, Assad famously mocked U.S. Secretary of State Hilary Clinton and the administration’s gambit to split Syria from Iran, announced the end of visa requirements for travel between the two states, and described “support for the resistance [a]s a moral and national duty in every nation, and also a [religious] legal duty.”¹² He also said that he discussed with his Iranian counterpart “how to confront Israeli terrorism.”

While the Syria-Iran bilateral meeting and subsequent press conference was described in some detail by Assad regime insider Ibrahim Humaydi in the pan-Arab daily Al Hayat, far less is known about what Assad, Ahmadinejad, and Nasrallah discussed during their dinner meeting the next day. According to the account in Hizbullah’s online magazine Al Intiqad, the meeting was about “the escalating strategic response of the axis of the confrontationist, rejectionist, and resistance states” to the U.S.-Israeli threat.¹³ Significantly, this article also suggested that war with Israel was on the horizon.

Resorting to the most extreme decision – that is, launching and setting a war on its path – will decide the final results. In any case, if reasonable calculations prevail, they will lead to producing comprehensive and specific [Israeli] compromises or it will lead to postponing the war which still waits for its most appropriate time for everyone.¹⁴

Based on its analysis of the trilateral summit in Damascus, this Hizbullah organ seems to be suggesting that a war, while not imminent, is inevitable.

The Weak Link

In the summer of 2006, Syria sat on the sidelines as Hizbullah fought Israel to a standstill. After the war, Assad, who during the fighting received public assurances from then-Prime Minister Olmert that Syria would not be targeted, took credit for the “divine victory.”¹⁵ Since then, Syria has upgraded its rhetorical and materiel support for the Shiite militia.¹⁶ Damascus has helped Hizbullah to fully rearm, reportedly providing the militia with cutting-edge Russian weaponry from its own stocks. In this context, Syrian officials have been increasingly trumpeting their support for, and loyalty to, the resistance, so much so that the official government-controlled Syrian press now proclaims that “Syrian foreign policy depends on supporting the resistance.”¹⁷

Damascus’ support for “resistance” was on full display at the Arab Summit in Libya in late March 2010. According to reports, at the meeting Assad urged Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to abandon U.S.-supported negotiations and “take up arms against Israel,” imparting his own experience that “the price of resistance is not higher than the price of peace.”¹⁸ During his speech before his fellow Arab leaders, Assad was equally hard-line in his prescriptions. At a minimum, he said, Arab states should cut off their relations with Israel. The “maximum” – and presumably preferable – policy option, he said, would be to support the resistance.¹⁹

Despite the rhetoric, however, it’s not clear that Syria is presently itching for a fight with Israel. After years of diplomatic isolation, Damascus has finally broken the code to Europe, and appears to be on the verge of doing so with the Obama administration, which recently announced the posting of a new ambassador and indicated a willingness to revise sanctions and modify U.S. economic pressures on Damascus.²⁰ Currently, Syria appears to be in a position where it can cultivate its ties with the West without sacrificing its support for terrorism.

War would change this comfortable dynamic. In the event of an Israel-Hizbullah conflagration, pressures on Syria to participate would be intense. Furthermore, could Syria really watch an Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities without responding? After so much crowing about its support for Hizbullah and its regional ilk, could Syria sit out yet another fight?

Conclusion

While it’s too early to predict the timing or the trigger, on Israel’s northern border there appears to be a growing sense that war is coming. Iran may have an interest in maintaining Hizbullah’s arsenal until an Israeli strike. Likewise, for Hizbullah, which lately has been playing up its Lebanese identity in an effort to improve its image at home, waging war on Israel on behalf of Iran could be problematic. In any event, it is all but assured that a war on Israel’s northern front will be determined, at least in part, by Tehran.

In early February, Israeli Minister of Defense Ehud Barak told the IDF: “In the absence of an arrangement with Syria, we are liable to enter a belligerent clash with it that could reach the point of an all-out, regional war.”²¹ Regrettably, regardless of what happens between Syria and Israel in the coming months, the decision of war or peace with Hizbullah may be out of Israel’s hands.

*     *     *

Notes

* The author would like to thank his research assistant Cole Bunzel for his excellent assistance in the preparation of this article.

1. “Full Text of H.E. Sayyed Nasrallah Speech on Day of Martyred Leaders,” http://english.moqawama.org/essaydetails.php?eid=10225&cid=214.

2. “Syria Will Back Hizbullah Against IDF,” Jerusalem Post, January 6, 2010. Foreign Minister Walid Mouallem echoed this threat in February 2010; see “Al-Mouallem at Press Conference with Moratinos,” SANA, February 4, 2010. http://www.sana.sy/eng/21/2010/02/04/270781.htm.

3. Attila Somfalvi, “Bibi Tells Ministers to Keep Mum on Syria,” Ynet, February 4, 2010, http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3844619,00.html. Netanyahu also reassured Syria that Israel remained interested in peace.

4. “Lebanese Army Fires on Israeli Warplanes,” AFP, March 21, 2010, http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/breakingnews/world/view/20100321-260030/Lebanese-army-fires-on-Israeli-warplanes.

5. “Lebanon Charges Four with Spying for Israel,” Press TV, March 20, 2010, http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=121274§ionid=351020203.

6. Amnon Meranda, “Ashkenazi: Hamas Doesn’t Want a Flareup,” Ynet, March 23, 2010, http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3866883,00.html.

7. “Nasrallah Speech on Day of Martyred Leaders.”

8. See, for example, Barak Ravid, “Israel Warns Hizbullah: We Won’t Tolerate Arms Smuggling,” Ha’aretz, October 12, 2008, http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1009384.html.

9. “Report: Hizbullah Trains on Missiles,” UPI, January 17, 2010, http://www.upi.com/Top_News/International/2010/01/17/Report-Hezbollah-trains-on-missiles/UPI-51221263741141/.

10. See Yossi Melman, “Hizbullah, Iran Plotted Bombing of Israeli Embassy in Azerbaijan,” Ha’aretz, May 31, 2009, http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1089204.html. Also Avi Isaacharoff, “Turkish Forces Foil Attack on Israeli Target,” Ha’aretz, December 9, 2009, http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1133747.html.

11. “Nasrallah Speech on Day of Martyred Leaders.”

12. Ibrahim Humaydi, “Al Asad: Ta‘ziz al-‘alaqat bayna duwal al-mintaqa tariq wahid li-l-qarar al mustaqill,” Al Hayat, February 26, 2010, http://international.daralhayat.com/internationalarticle/112984.

13. “Qimmat Nejad-Al-Asad-Nasrallah: Ayy hisabat ba‘daha?” http://www.alintiqad.com/essaydetails.php?eid=27878&cid=4.

14. Ibid.

15. “Speech of Bashar Asad at Journalist Union 4th Conference,” August 15, 2006,

http://www.golan67.net/NEWS/president%20Assad%20Speech%2015-8-6.htm.

16. In addition to the Igla-S anti-aircraft missile, some unconfirmed reports indicate that Syria may have transferred some of its Scud-D missiles – capable of delivering chemical warheads – to Hizbullah.

17. “Junblatt wa-l-Tariq ila Dimashq,” Al Watan, March 10, 2010, http://alwatan.sy/dindex.php?idn=75718. That support for resistance is central to Syrian foreign policy comes as little surprise: in 2009, Foreign Minister Walid Mouallem volunteered to join Hizbullah. See “Muallem Says He’s Ready to Join Hizbullah,” Gulf News, May 3, 2009, http://gulfnews.com/news/region/lebanon/muallem-says-ready-to-join-hezbollah-1.248887.

18. “Arab Leaders Support Peace Plan,” AP, March 28, 2010, http://www.jpost.com/middleeast/article.aspx?id=171981.

19. Ziyad Haydar, “Qimmat sirte infaddat ‘ala ‘ajal…wa bila za‘al,” As Safir, March 29, 2010, http://www.assafir.com/Article.aspx?ArticleId=3020&EditionId=1496&ChannelId=34736. In an interview following the summit, Syrian advisor Buthaina Sha‘ban declared victory for the Syrian position, saying that “an agreement took place among the Arab leaders in a closed session to support the resistance and reject normalization” with Israel.

20. Ibrahim Humaydi, “Washington tarfa‘ mu‘aradataha ‘udwiyat Suriya fi munazzimat al-tijara al-‘alamiya,” Al Hayat, February 24, 2010,. http://international.daralhayat.com/internationalarticle/112646.

21. Amos Harel, “Barak: Without Peace We Could Be Headed for All-Out War,” Ha’aretz, February 2, 2010, http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1146731.html.

Obama to limit U.S. use of nuclear arms, but not on Iran – Haaretz – Israel News.

The Obama administration will formally unveil a new policy on Tuesday restricting U.S. use of nuclear arms, renouncing development of new atomic weapons and heralding further cuts in America’s stockpile.

But even as President Barack Obama limits the conditions under which the United States would resort to a nuclear strike, he is making clear that nuclear-defiant states like Iran and North Korea will remain potential targets.

“I’m going to preserve all the tools that are necessary in order to make sure that the American people are safe and secure,” Obama told The New York Times in an interview that previewed his revamped nuclear strategy.

Obama insisted “outliers like Iran and North Korea” that have violated or renounced the treaty would not be protected.

The policy shift, calling for reduced U.S. reliance on its nuclear deterrent, could build momentum before Obama signs a landmark arms control treaty with Russia in Prague on Thursday and hosts a nuclear security summit in Washington next week.

But it is also likely to draw fire from conservative critics who say his approach is naive and compromises U.S. national security.

The Nuclear Posture Review is required by Congress from every U.S. administration but Obama set expectations high after he vowed to end “Cold War thinking” and won the Nobel Peace Prize in part for his vision of a nuclear-free world.

Under the new strategy, the United States would commit for the first time not to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear states that are in compliance with the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, even if it is attacked with biological or chemical weapons, according to The New York Times and a U.S. official who confirmed the details.

Those threats, Obama said, could be deterred with “a series of graded options” – a combination of old and newly designed conventional weapons.

Still, Obama is rolling back the Bush administration’s more hawkish policy set out in its 2002 review threatening the use of nuclear weapons to preempt or respond to chemical or biological attack, even from non-nuclear countries.

An exception under Obama’s plan would allow an option of reconsidering the use of nuclear retaliation against a biological attack if there is reason to believe the United States were vulnerable to a devastating attack.

To set an example for global arms control, Obama’s strategy – another departure from Bush-era policy – commits the United States to no new atomic arms development, U.S. officials said.

The United States will, however, increase investment in upgrading its weapons infrastructure, which one White House official said would “facilitate further nuclear reductions.”

Arms control experts see potential for significant cuts in the U.S. stockpile by upgrading weapons laboratories to weed out older, ineffective warheads.

Obama now faces the challenge of lending credibility to his arms control push while not alarming allies under the U.S. defense umbrella or limiting room to maneuver in dealing with emerging nuclear threats from Iran and North Korea.

The review is a test of Obama’s effort to make controlling nuclear arms worldwide a signature foreign policy initiative. It is also important because it will affect defense budgets and Weapons deployment and retirement for years to come.

The strategy was developed after a lengthy debate among Obama’s aides and military officials over whether to declare that the United States would never be the first to use nuclear weapons in a crisis but would act only in response to attack.

Obama appeared unlikely to go as far as forswearing the first-strike option, which will disappoint some liberals.

The review comes a day before Obama leaves for Prague, where he and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev will sign a new START pact to slash nuclear arsenals by a third.

The signing ceremony will occur nearly a year after Obama’s Prague speech laying out his vision for eventually ridding the world of nuclear weapons. Obama acknowledged it might not be completed in his lifetime.

Karzai’s Taliban Threat: Afghan Leader TWICE Said He Might Join Insurgency.

(This is what the US is investing 100,000 troops to protect while allowing Iran to develop nuclear weapons unhindered.  The insanity of Obama’s Middle East policy just keeps getting crazier and more dangerous. – Joseph Wouk)

KABUL — Afghan President Hamid Karzai threatened over the weekend to quit the political process and join the Taliban if he continued to come under outside pressure to reform, several members of parliament said Monday.

Karzai made the unusual statement at a closed-door meeting Saturday with selected lawmakers – just days after kicking up a diplomatic controversy with remarks alleging foreigners were behind fraud in last year’s disputed elections.

Lawmakers dismissed the latest comment as hyperbole, but it will add to the impression the president – who relies on tens of thousands of U.S. and NATO forces to fight the insurgency and prop up his government – is growing increasingly erratic and unable to exert authority without attacking his foreign backers.

“He said that ‘if I come under foreign pressure, I might join the Taliban’,” said Farooq Marenai, who represents the eastern province of Nangarhar.

“He said rebelling would change to resistance,” Marenai said – apparently suggesting that the militant movement would then be redefined as one of resistance against a foreign occupation rather than a rebellion against an elected government.

Marenai said Karzai appeared nervous and repeatedly demanded to know why parliament last week had rejected legal reforms that would have strengthened the president’s authority over the country’s electoral institutions.

Two other lawmakers said Karzai twice raised the threat to join the insurgency.

The lawmakers, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of political repercussions, said Karzai also dismissed concerns over possible damage his comments had caused to relations with the United States. He told them he had already explained himself in a telephone conversation Saturday with Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton that came after the White House described his comments last week as troubling.

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said reports Karzai threatened to abandon the political process and join the Taliban insurgency if he continued to receive pressure from Western backers to reform his government are troubling.

“On behalf of the American people, we’re frustrated with the remarks,” Gibbs told reporters.

The lawmakers said they felt Karzai was pandering to hard-line or pro-Taliban members of parliament and had no real intention of joining the insurgency.

Nor does the Afghan leader appear concerned that the U.S. might abandon him, having said numerous times that the U.S. would not leave Afghanistan because it perceives a presence here to be in its national interest.

Karzai spokesman Waheed Omar’s phone was turned off and another number for him rang unanswered Monday. Deputy spokesman Hamed Elmi’s phone rang unanswered.

The comments come against the background of continuing insurgent violence as the U.S. moves to boost troop levels in a push against Taliban strongholds in the south.

NATO forces said they killed 10 militants in a joint U.S.-Afghan raid on a compound in Nangarhar province’s Khogyani district near the Pakistani border early Monday, while gunmen seriously wounded an Afghan provincial councilwoman in a drive-by shooting in the country’s increasingly violent north.

NATO also confirmed that international troops were responsible for the deaths of five civilians, including three women, on Feb. 12 in Gardez, south of Kabul.

A NATO statement said a joint international-Afghan patrol fired on two men mistakenly believed to be insurgents. It said the three women were “accidentally killed as a result of the joint force firing at the men.”

International force officials will discuss the results of the investigation with family of those killed, apologize and provide compensation, he said.

The two men killed in the Gardez raid had been long-serving government loyalists and opponents of al-Qaida and the Taliban, one serving as provincial district attorney and the other as police chief in Paktia’s Zurmat district.

Their brother, who also lost his wife and a sister, said he learned of the investigation result from the Internet, but had yet to receive formal notice.

Mohammad Sabar said the family’s only demand was that the informant who passed on the faulty information about militant activity be tried and publicly executed.

“Please, please, please, our desire, our demand is that this spy be executed in front of the people to ensure that such bad things don’t happen again,” Sabar said.

In the latest of a series of targeted assassination attempts blamed on militants, Baghlan provincial council member Nida Khyani was struck by gunfire in the leg and abdomen in Pul-e Khumri, capital of the northern province, said Salim Rasouli, head of the provincial health department. Khyani’s bodyguard was also slightly injured.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the shooting, although suspicion immediately fell on Taliban fighters who often target people working with the Afghan government and their Western backers.

One month ago, a member of the Afghan national parliament escaped injury when her convoy was attacked by Taliban insurgents in eastern Afghanistan. Female government officials regularly report receiving threats to their safety. Some women leaders, including a prominent policewoman, have been assassinated.

The Taliban rigidly oppose education for girls and women’s participation in public affairs, citing their narrow interpretation of conservative Islam and tribal traditions. Militants, who are strongest in the south and east, carry out beatings and other punishments for perceived women’s crimes from immodesty to leaving home unaccompanied by a male relative.

Also Monday, the organizer of a national reconciliation conference – known as a jirga – scheduled for early May said it would not include insurgent groups such as the Taliban. There has also been indications it would include discussion of the withdrawal of 120,000 foreign troops in the country.

Ghulam Farooq Wardak, the minister of education who is organizing the conference, said it will focus on outlining ways to reach peace with the insurgents and the framework for possible discussions.

Out of the jirga will come the “powerful voice of the Afghan people,” Wardak said. “By fighting, you cannot restore security. The only way to bring peace is through negotiation.”

KABUL — Afghan President Hamid Karzai threatened over the weekend to quit the political process and join the Taliban if he continued to come under outside pressure to reform, several members of parliament said Monday.

Karzai made the unusual statement at a closed-door meeting Saturday with selected lawmakers – just days after kicking up a diplomatic controversy with remarks alleging foreigners were behind fraud in last year’s disputed elections.

Lawmakers dismissed the latest comment as hyperbole, but it will add to the impression the president – who relies on tens of thousands of U.S. and NATO forces to fight the insurgency and prop up his government – is growing increasingly erratic and unable to exert authority without attacking his foreign backers.

“He said that ‘if I come under foreign pressure, I might join the Taliban’,” said Farooq Marenai, who represents the eastern province of Nangarhar.

“He said rebelling would change to resistance,” Marenai said – apparently suggesting that the militant movement would then be redefined as one of resistance against a foreign occupation rather than a rebellion against an elected government.

Marenai said Karzai appeared nervous and repeatedly demanded to know why parliament last week had rejected legal reforms that would have strengthened the president’s authority over the country’s electoral institutions.

Two other lawmakers said Karzai twice raised the threat to join the insurgency.

The lawmakers, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of political repercussions, said Karzai also dismissed concerns over possible damage his comments had caused to relations with the United States. He told them he had already explained himself in a telephone conversation Saturday with Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton that came after the White House described his comments last week as troubling.

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said reports Karzai threatened to abandon the political process and join the Taliban insurgency if he continued to receive pressure from Western backers to reform his government are troubling.

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“On behalf of the American people, we’re frustrated with the remarks,” Gibbs told reporters.

The lawmakers said they felt Karzai was pandering to hard-line or pro-Taliban members of parliament and had no real intention of joining the insurgency.

Nor does the Afghan leader appear concerned that the U.S. might abandon him, having said numerous times that the U.S. would not leave Afghanistan because it perceives a presence here to be in its national interest.

Karzai spokesman Waheed Omar’s phone was turned off and another number for him rang unanswered Monday. Deputy spokesman Hamed Elmi’s phone rang unanswered.

The comments come against the background of continuing insurgent violence as the U.S. moves to boost troop levels in a push against Taliban strongholds in the south.

NATO forces said they killed 10 militants in a joint U.S.-Afghan raid on a compound in Nangarhar province’s Khogyani district near the Pakistani border early Monday, while gunmen seriously wounded an Afghan provincial councilwoman in a drive-by shooting in the country’s increasingly violent north.

NATO also confirmed that international troops were responsible for the deaths of five civilians, including three women, on Feb. 12 in Gardez, south of Kabul.

A NATO statement said a joint international-Afghan patrol fired on two men mistakenly believed to be insurgents. It said the three women were “accidentally killed as a result of the joint force firing at the men.”

International force officials will discuss the results of the investigation with family of those killed, apologize and provide compensation, he said.

The two men killed in the Gardez raid had been long-serving government loyalists and opponents of al-Qaida and the Taliban, one serving as provincial district attorney and the other as police chief in Paktia’s Zurmat district.

Their brother, who also lost his wife and a sister, said he learned of the investigation result from the Internet, but had yet to receive formal notice.

Mohammad Sabar said the family’s only demand was that the informant who passed on the faulty information about militant activity be tried and publicly executed.

“Please, please, please, our desire, our demand is that this spy be executed in front of the people to ensure that such bad things don’t happen again,” Sabar said.

In the latest of a series of targeted assassination attempts blamed on militants, Baghlan provincial council member Nida Khyani was struck by gunfire in the leg and abdomen in Pul-e Khumri, capital of the northern province, said Salim Rasouli, head of the provincial health department. Khyani’s bodyguard was also slightly injured.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the shooting, although suspicion immediately fell on Taliban fighters who often target people working with the Afghan government and their Western backers.

One month ago, a member of the Afghan national parliament escaped injury when her convoy was attacked by Taliban insurgents in eastern Afghanistan. Female government officials regularly report receiving threats to their safety. Some women leaders, including a prominent policewoman, have been assassinated.

The Taliban rigidly oppose education for girls and women’s participation in public affairs, citing their narrow interpretation of conservative Islam and tribal traditions. Militants, who are strongest in the south and east, carry out beatings and other punishments for perceived women’s crimes from immodesty to leaving home unaccompanied by a male relative.

Also Monday, the organizer of a national reconciliation conference – known as a jirga – scheduled for early May said it would not include insurgent groups such as the Taliban. There has also been indications it would include discussion of the withdrawal of 120,000 foreign troops in the country.

Ghulam Farooq Wardak, the minister of education who is organizing the conference, said it will focus on outlining ways to reach peace with the insurgents and the framework for possible discussions.

Out of the jirga will come the “powerful voice of the Afghan people,” Wardak said. “By fighting, you cannot restore security. The only way to bring peace is through negotiation.”

Iran urges Russia to resist missile sale pressure – washingtonpost.com.

TEHRAN (Reuters) – Iran urged Russia on Tuesday not to bow to Western pressure over the sale of a Russian missile defense system to the Islamic Republic which could protect its nuclear facilities from air strikes.

PoliGazette » Daniel Pipes: When Israel Stood Up to the U.S..

As tensions between Israel and the U.S. “climb to unfamiliar heights,” Daniel Pipes looks back at “a prior round of tensions nearly thirty years ago, when Menachem Begin and Ronald Reagan were in charge. In contrast to Binyamin Netanyahu’s repeated apologies, Begin adopted a quite different approach.”

When the Reagan administration criticized Israel for actually acting in its own interests, Begin lashed out:

“Three times during the past six months, the U.S. Government has ‘punished’ Israel,” Begin began. He enumerated those three occasions: the destruction of the Iraqi nuclear reactor, the bombing of the PLO headquarters in Beirut, and now the Golan Heights law. Throughout this exposition, according to Avner, Lewis interjected but without success: “Not punishing you, Mr. Prime Minister, merely suspending …,” “Excuse me, Mr. Prime Minister, it was not …,” “Mr. Prime Minister, I must correct you …,” and “This is not a punishment, Mr. Prime Minister, it’s merely a suspension until …”

Fully to vent his anger, Begin drew on a century of Zionism:

What kind of expression is this – “punishing Israel”? Are we a vassal state of yours? Are we a banana republic? Are we youths of fourteen who, if they don’t behave properly, are slapped across the fingers? Let me tell you who this government is composed of. It is composed of people whose lives were spent in resistance, in fighting and in suffering. You will not frighten us with “punishments.” He who threatens us will find us deaf to his threats. We are only prepared to listen to rational arguments. You have no right to “punish” Israel – and I protest at the very use of this term.

Pipes concludes:

(5) Politicians in other countries quite frequently attack the United States. Indeed, Hamid Karzai, the president of Afghanistan, did so last week. But his purpose – to convince his countrymen that he is not, in fact, a kept politician – differed fundamentally from Begin’s of asserting Israel’s dignity.

(6) It is difficult to imagine any other Israeli politician, Binyamin Netanyahu included, who would dare to pull off Begin’s verbal assault.

(7) Yet that might be just what Israel needs.

I fear Pipes is right. It’s time for Israel to stand up to Obama.

The relationship between both has turned sour; not because of anything Israel has done, but because of the new president’s apparent dislike for the Jewish nation-state. Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has to stop apologizing and pretending that Obama doesn’t mean wrong. He does, for he’s no friend of Israel.

AFP: Iran missile will strike Tel Aviv if hit: Khamenei aide.

TEHRAN — An aide to Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has said that the Islamic republic will strike Tel Aviv with its missiles if it comes under attack, Fars news agency reported on Tuesday.

“If the enemy takes its chance and fires a missile towards Iran, the dust from an Iranian missile strike will rise in the heart of Tel Aviv even before the dust from the enemy attack settles” in Iran, said cleric Mojtaba Zolnoor, who is Khamenei’s representative in the elite Revolutionary Guards.

Fars reported that Zolnoor made the comments at a mosque late Monday, where he also said Iran’s foes were aware that Tehran “has become a ballistic power.”

Iran has regularly boasted of its missile capability, saying it has an arsenal which can strike regional arch-foe Israel.

Israel and US meanwhile have never ruled out a military strike against Iran to stop its galloping nuclear programme.

France24 – Israel distributes biochemical war protection kits.

AFP – Israel Tuesday began distributing millions of protection kits against biochemical warfare, Deputy Defence Minister Matan Vilnai announced, stressing the campaign was not linked to any imminent threat.

“We have equipped ourselves with millions of protection kits against biological or chemical warfare, and a massive distribution programme for the population started today,” Vilnai told army radio.

“Every family in Israel can receive these kits at home and be instructed on how to use them by Israeli postal workers, at an average cost of 25 shekels (five dollars), or pick them up free of charge at post office counters.”

The distribution came as an aide to Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, quoted by the Islamic republic’s Fars news agency on Tuesday, warned that his country would hit Tel Aviv with missiles if it came under attack.

“If the enemy takes its chance and fires a missile towards Iran, the dust from an Iranian missile strike will rise in the heart of Tel Aviv even before the dust from the enemy attack settles” in Iran, said cleric Mojtaba Zolnoor.

Iran has regularly boasted of its missile capability, saying it has an arsenal which can strike Israel, which along with Washington has not ruled out a military strike to halt Tehran’s controversial nuclear programme.

But Vilnai emphasized the distribution of the protection kits was “not linked to any precise current threat.”

The Israeli government decided on January 5 to distribute eight million new gas masks, one for each citizen, by 2013 and already distributed gas masks to 70,000 residents of Or Yehuda, near Tel Aviv in February.

Israel has long feared chemical or biological weapons may be used against it in a future conflict involving the Jewish state’s arch-foes, Iran or Syria.

The country came under sustained attack during its 2006 war with Lebanon’s Hezbollah militia, when more than 4,000 Katyusha rockets were launched at north Israel in 34 days, sending hundreds of thousands of residents fleeing south.

Gas masks were distributed to Israel’s population during the 1991 Gulf War over Kuwait when now executed dictator Saddam Hussein’s Iraq fired 39 Scud missiles armed with conventional warheads at Israel.

Obama Limits When U.S. Would Use Nuclear Arms – NYTimes.com.

Stephen Crowley/The New York Times

President Obama on Monday discussing his new nuclear strategy, which would limit the conditions for using such weapons.

WASHINGTON — President Obama said Monday that he was revamping American nuclear strategy to substantially narrow the conditions under which the United States would use nuclear weapons.

But the president said in an interview that he was carving out an exception for “outliers like Iran and North Korea” that have violated or renounced the main treaty to halt nuclear proliferation.

Discussing his approach to nuclear security the day before formally releasing his new strategy, Mr. Obama described his policy as part of a broader effort to edge the world toward making nuclear weapons obsolete, and to create incentives for countries to give up any nuclear ambitions. To set an example, the new strategy renounces the development of any new nuclear weapons, overruling the initial position of his own defense secretary.

Mr. Obama’s strategy is a sharp shift from those of his predecessors and seeks to revamp the nation’s nuclear posture for a new age in which rogue states and terrorist organizations are greater threats than traditional powers like Russia and China.

It eliminates much of the ambiguity that has deliberately existed in American nuclear policy since the opening days of the cold war. For the first time, the United States is explicitly committing not to use nuclear weapons against nonnuclear states that are in compliance with the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, even if they attacked the United States with biological or chemical weapons or launched a crippling cyberattack.

Those threats, Mr. Obama argued, could be deterred with “a series of graded options,” a combination of old and new conventional weapons. “I’m going to preserve all the tools that are necessary in order to make sure that the American people are safe and secure,” he said in the interview in the Oval Office.

White House officials said the new strategy would include the option of reconsidering the use of nuclear retaliation against a biological attack, if the development of such weapons reached a level that made the United States vulnerable to a devastating strike.

Mr. Obama’s new strategy is bound to be controversial, both among conservatives who have warned against diluting the United States’ most potent deterrent and among liberals who were hoping for a blanket statement that the country would never be the first to use nuclear weapons.

Mr. Obama argued for a slower course, saying, “We are going to want to make sure that we can continue to move towards less emphasis on nuclear weapons,” and, he added, to “make sure that our conventional weapons capability is an effective deterrent in all but the most extreme circumstances.”

The release of the new strategy, known as the Nuclear Posture Review, opens an intensive nine days of nuclear diplomacy geared toward reducing weapons. Mr. Obama plans to fly to Prague to sign a new arms-control agreement with Russia on Thursday and then next week will host 47 world leaders in Washington for a summit meeting on nuclear security.

The most immediate test of the new strategy is likely to be in dealing with Iran, which has defied the international community by developing a nuclear program that it insists is peaceful but that the United States and its allies say is a precursor to weapons. Asked about the escalating confrontation with Iran, Mr. Obama said he was now convinced that “the current course they’re on would provide them with nuclear weapons capabilities,” though he gave no timeline.

He dodged when asked whether he shared Israel’s view that a “nuclear capable” Iran was as dangerous as one that actually possessed weapons.

“I’m not going to parse that right now,” he said, sitting in his office as children played on the South Lawn of the White House at a daylong Easter egg roll. But he cited the example of North Korea, whose nuclear capabilities were unclear until it conducted a test in 2006, which it followed with a second shortly after Mr. Obama took office.

“I think it’s safe to say that there was a time when North Korea was said to be simply a nuclear-capable state until it kicked out the I.A.E.A. and become a self-professed nuclear state,” he said, referring to the International Atomic Energy Agency. “And so rather than splitting hairs on this, I think that the international community has a strong sense of what it means to pursue civilian nuclear energy for peaceful purposes versus a weaponizing capability.”

Mr. Obama said he wanted a new United Nations sanctions resolution against Iran “that has bite,” but he would not embrace the phrase “crippling sanctions” once used by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. And he acknowledged the limitations of United Nations action. “We’re not naïve that any single set of sanctions automatically is going to change Iranian behavior,” he said, adding “there’s no light switch in this process.”

In the year since Mr. Obama gave a speech in Prague declaring that he would shift the policy of the United States toward the elimination of nuclear weapons, his staff has been meeting — and arguing — over how to turn that commitment into a workable policy, without undermining the credibility of the country’s nuclear deterrent.

The strategy to be released on Tuesday is months late, partly because Mr. Obama had to adjudicate among advisers who feared he was not changing American policy significantly enough, and those who feared that anything too precipitous could embolden potential adversaries. One senior official said that the new strategy was the product of 150 meetings, including 30 convened by the White House National Security Council, and that even then Mr. Obama had to step in to order rewrites.

He ended up with a document that differed considerably from the one President George W. Bush published in early 2002, just three months after the Sept. 11 attacks. Mr. Bush, too, argued for a post-cold-war rethinking of nuclear deterrence, reducing American reliance on those weapons.

But Mr. Bush’s document also reserved the right to use nuclear weapons “to deter a wide range of threats,” including banned chemical and biological weapons and large-scale conventional attacks. Mr. Obama’s strategy abandons that option — except if the attack is by a nuclear state, or a nonsignatory or violator of the nonproliferation treaty.

The document to be released Tuesday after months of study led by the Defense Department will declare that “the fundamental role” of nuclear weapons is to deter nuclear attacks on the United States, allies or partners, a narrower presumption than the past. But Mr. Obama rejected the formulation sought by arms control advocates to declare that the “sole role” of nuclear weapons is to deter a nuclear attack.

There are five declared nuclear states — the United States, Britain, France, Russia and China. Three states with nuclear weapons have refused to sign — India, Pakistan and Israel — and North Korea renounced the treaty in 2003. Iran remains a signatory, but the United Nations Security Council has repeatedly found it in violation of its obligations, because it has hidden nuclear plants and refused to answer questions about evidence it was working on a warhead.

In shifting the nuclear deterrent toward combating proliferation and the sale or transfer of nuclear material to terrorists or nonnuclear states, Mr. Obama seized on language developed in the last years of the Bush administration. It had warned North Korea that it would be held “fully accountable” for any transfer of weapons or technology. But the next year, North Korea was caught aiding Syria in building a nuclear reactor but suffered no specific consequence.

Mr. Obama was asked whether the American failure to make North Korea pay a heavy price for the aid to Syria undercut Washington’s credibility.

“I don’t think countries around the world are interested in testing our credibility when it comes to these issues,” he said. He said such activity would leave a country vulnerable to a nuclear strike, and added, “We take that very seriously because we think that set of threats present the most serious security challenge to the United States.”

He indicated that he hoped to use this week’s treaty signing with Russia as a stepping stone toward more ambitious reductions in nuclear arsenals down the road, but suggested that would have to extend beyond the old paradigm of Russian-American relations.

“We are going to pursue opportunities for further reductions in our nuclear posture, working in tandem with Russia but also working in tandem with NATO as a whole,” he said.

An obvious such issue would be the estimated 200 tactical nuclear weapons the United States still has stationed in Western Europe. Russia has called for their removal, and there is growing interest among European nations in such a move as well. But Mr. Obama said he wanted to consult with NATO allies before making such a commitment.

The summit meeting that opens next week in Washington will bring together nearly four dozen world leaders, the largest such gathering by an American president since the founding of the United Nations 65 years ago. Mr. Obama said he hoped to use the session to lay down tangible commitments by individual countries toward his goal of securing the world’s nuclear material so it does not fall into the hands of terrorists or dangerous states.

“Our expectation is not that there’s just some vague, gauzy statement about us not wanting to see loose nuclear materials,” he said. “We anticipate a communiqué that spells out very clearly, here’s how we’re going to achieve locking down all the nuclear materials over the next four years.”