WarSclerotic

Syria: a new level of threat – Telegraph.

Reports that Syria has supplied or is moving towards the supply of Scud missiles to Hizbollah mark a new and worrying development in the Middle East. Though Damascus yesterday denied it, intelligence sources confirm that the rumours are not baseless. And tensions are undoubtedly running high: Jordan’s King Abdullah II was reported to have told lawmakers in Washington this week that he believed a new conflict between Israel and Hizbollah was near. Israeli alarm at a Scud-armed enemy on its northern border is understandable. Though Hizbollah is already believed to possess long-range missiles, Scuds represent a new level of threat to population centres and Israel’s security installations. Some of them could come fitted with chemical warheads.

Syria has recently been courted by the US and has been making encouraging diplomatic noises. But it must also act tough in the eyes of its traditional allies, including Iran. This two-faced strategy is making conflict more likely. However, Israel too is treading a dangerous path if it is publicly exaggerating the threat from Hizbollah. It would open itself to the accusation that it is diverting attention from its settlement expansion in East Jerusalem, and even of paving the way for an assault on Hizbollah and Syria that would limit the potential for retaliation should it decide to attack Iran’s nuclear sites.

Meanwhile, Barack Obama has not found the right tone. His distancing of the US’s interests from Israel’s, in an effort to force a halt to settlement expansion, is riling Jewish interest groups and encouraging Iran and others to ramp up their anti-Israel rhetoric. This is alarming. Washington must focus on diverting Syria from its dangerous course while prodding the Palestinians and Israelis to resume talks as soon as possible.

U.S. Congressman lashes out at Obama over Israel remarks – Haaretz – Israel News.
Eric Cantor, a leading Republican official in the U.S. House of Representatives, on Thursday lashed out at U.S. President Barack Obama’s remarks about Israel at this week’s nuclear security summit.

Cantor on Thursday lashed out at Obama’s remarks, saying the U.S. administration is manufacturing fights with Israel and pandering to the Arab world.

Obama on Tuesday urged all countries, including Israel, to sign the international Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, or NPT.

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“Whether we’re talking about Israel or any other country, we think that becoming part of the NPT is important,” Obama said. “And that, by the way, is not a new position. That’s been a consistent position of the United States government, even prior to my administration.”

‫Obama also said that unresolved conflicts, such as the Arab-Israeli conflict, affect the United States.

“It is a vital national security interest of the United States to reduce these conflicts because whether we like it or not, we remain a dominant military superpower,” Obama said. “And when conflicts break out, one way or another, we get pulled into them. And that ends up costing us significantly in terms of both blood and treasure.‬”

Cantor responded in a statement by saying, “The administration’s troubling policy of manufacturing fights with Israel to ingratiate itself with some in the Arab world is no way to advance the cause of Mideast peace.”

He added, “What kind of message is sent to the world when our country appears to turn its back on key strategic allies who share our values?”

Cantor went on to say that the list of grievances “supposedly stoking the hatred of Islamic terrorists is endless and evolving.”

“The suggestion that terrorists in Iraq and Afghanistan will lay down their weapons if we distance ourselves from Israel is blindingly naïve,” he said.

“We know this because it’s been tried before. For example, Russia has sided with Israel’s Arab enemies since the days of the Cold War, and today it condemns Israel at the UN, sells arms to Israel’s arch-enemies Syria and Iran, and is attempting to block meaningful international sanctions against Iran’s nuclear program. Did this stop Islamist suicide bombers from murdering 38 in an attack on two Moscow subway stations last month?”

Cantor was also among the members of Congress who on Wednesday called on Obama to impose “crippling sanctions” on Iran over its nuclear program.

Officials from the Senate and the House of Representatives sent bipartisan letters to Obama, urging him to crack down on Iran.

The letters were signed by over three-quarters of Congress with 363 signatures on the House letter and 76 signatures on the Senate letter.

“We urge you today to reaffirm boldly and unambiguously that the U.S. can and will prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapons capability. We call on you to fulfill your June 2008 pledge that you would do ‘everything in my power to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon,” the letters read.

Cantor last month criticized the Obama administration for its public rebuke of Israel during a row over new Israeli construction in East Jerusalem.

Syrian Missile Crisis: Is War Coming? | The Atlantic Wire.

Israel holds largest civilian war drill since 1991 – Neal Ungerleider – Falafel Mafia – True/Slant.

Israeli soldiers from the Home Front Command rehearse rescuing an injured soldier during a drill. Image by AFP/Getty Images via Daylife

Drivers across Israel found themselves stuck in a massive (and unnannounced) “emergency scenario drill” on the busy Thursday afternoon rush hour.

Israel follows a Friday-Saturday weekend schedule, meaning that the Thursday afternoon drivetime is the week’s second busiest after the Sunday AM drive. It is also the time when Israeli authorities held an impromptu massive terrorist attack rehersal.

The war drill was the nation’s largest since Gulf War I and involved the simulation of multiple terrorist attacks and hostage negotiations. All well and good — Israel is in a precarious geopolitical situation.

But interestingly, the drill included simulated gunfire attacks on extras playing “civilians.”

But the scale of the attack rehersal, again, was massive: Tel Aviv’s central freeway was shut down in several sections along with the only highway that connects Tel Aviv and Jerusalem within Israel proper.

The primary highway connecting Tel Aviv with Netanya and Haifa was shut down at one intersection as well, forcing commuters onto low-capacity local roads.

Israelis were not prepared for the drill, Yedioth Aharonoth reports:

The drill was kept secret until Thursday morning, and was expanded by afternoon, prompting especially huge traffic jams in Tel Aviv. Local resident Ofer told Ynet he never saw such unusual sight.

“I’ve been living here for 38 years and I’ve never seen anything like it,” he said. “Tel Aviv is like a pedestrian mall; people are walking on the road like they do in Yom Kippur. Motorists are coming out of their cars.”

“It’s unclear why they didn’t announce it in advance,” he said. “I would have stayed home.”

Vered, another Tel Aviv motorist, said “There’s never been anything like this.” She left the court towards Ramat Aviv, and “after three quarters of an hour I’ve hardly moved.” She also had serious qualms with the police.

“This is what they do on Thursday afternoon? It’s unbelievable. I’ve never been so long in a traffic jam in my life,” she said.

The scale of the drill, which essentially paralyzed Israeli rush hour traffic, begs the question: What are the Israeli preparations for imminent war with Iran, Hezbollah or Hamas that we’re not hearing about? Meanwhile in Israel, a gas-mask credit card scam has surfaced.

Keith Thomson: New Iranian Nuclear Deterrent: Israeli Drone the Size of a 737.

Unlike Iran, which last Friday celebrated its annual National Nuclear Day, Israel tends not to rattle a new saber, at least until unsheathing it for use in battle. Take the Scout, essentially the Model T of the current generation of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs, a.k.a. drones). The system was utterly unheard of outside Israel until its debut during the 1982 Lebanon War, when it rendered Syria’s air defenses helpless.

Yet this February 21, less than two weeks after Iran announced its highly enriched uranium plans, the Israeli Air Force staged a ceremony in honor of the “operational acceptance” of new Heron TP (known internally as the Eitan) UAVs. The Israelis might ordinarily have marked a transaction such as operational acceptance with no more pomp and circumstance than a signature and a nice pen.

It’s reasonable to assume that the ceremony’s intended audience was a thousand miles away, undertaking preparations for National Nuclear Day.

Here’s what they learned: The Heron is 43 feet long with a wingspan of 85 feet, or about that of a Boeing 737. Its range is an astounding 5,000 miles (or deep into Iran and back twice). Its weapons payload can be 4,000 pounds, nearly the weight of America’s much-ballyhooed Reaper UAV. Even more formidable are the Heron’s capabilities for intelligence, reconnaissance and surveillance, for instance hovering nine or ten miles above a target — as long as sixty hours on a tank of fuel — and pointing the way for manned bombers. The system can also jam enemy communications. And it’s fitted with sensors and cameras that, among other things, allow their operators to read a name badge 40,000 feet below, at night.

The Iranians’ reaction to the new Herons? Little more than shrugs of indifference.

Kenneth Katzman, a senior Middle Eastern Affairs analyst for the Congressional Research Service, saw it differently. “They were nervous about it,” he told me. “It’s widely assumed that Israel now knows reasonably well where the silos and nuclear sites are. Iran will have taken the Heron ceremony as indication that Israel is up for a strike, and that the United States supports it.”

The nuclear summit did little to calm the Iranians.

“The amount of international criticism has gotten them more nervous,” Katzman says. “China and Russia have now joined in. In Iran’s mind, Israel might view these developments as a go-ahead to strike.”

It remains to be seen to what extent the threat influences Tehran, but it certainly won’t help a regime facing unprecedented pressure and opposition internally. Heron propaganda videos (like this one) have hit the YouTubes of the world at a time when garden-variety drones have achieved quasi-mythic status in the Middle East. As al Qaeda members have been lamenting lately: Step out of your house, you risk being blown up by a Predator; Stay inside, your house gets blown up too.

The new Heron may be the last thing Iran wants hanging over its head.

EDITORIAL: Nuke danger – Opinion – ReviewJournal.com.

The president holds a summit

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Ronald Lauder’s letter to Obama – Haaretz – Israel News.

Dear President Obama: I write today as a proud American and a proud Jew. Jews around the world are concerned today. We are concerned about the nuclear ambitions of an Iranian regime that brags about its genocidal intentions against Israel. We are concerned that the Jewish state is being isolated and delegitimized. Mr. President, we are concerned about the dramatic deterioration of diplomatic relations between the United States and Israel. The Israeli housing bureaucracy made a poorly timed announcement and your Administration branded it an “insult.” This diplomatic faux pas was over the fourth stage of a seven stage planning permission process – a plan to build homes years from now in a Jewish area of Jerusalem that under any peace agreement would remain an integral part of Israel. Our concern grows to alarm as we consider some disturbing questions. Why does the thrust of this Administration’s Middle East rhetoric seem to blame Israel for the lack of movement on peace talks? After all, it is the Palestinians, not Israel, who refuse to negotiate. Israel has made unprecedented concessions. It has enacted the most far reaching West Bank settlement moratorium in Israeli history. Israel has publicly declared support for a two-state solution. Conversely, many Palestinians continue their refusal to even acknowledge Israel?s right to exist. The conflict’s root cause has always been the Palestinian refusal to accept Israel as the nation state of the Jewish people. Every American President who has tried to broker a peace agreement has collided with that Palestinian intransigence, sooner or later. Recall President Clinton’s anguish when his peace proposals were bluntly rejected by the Palestinians in 2000. Settlements were not the key issue then. They are not the key issue now. Another important question is this: what is the Administration?s position on Israel’s borders in any final status agreement? Ambiguity on this matter has provoked a wave of rumors and anxiety. Can it be true that America is no longer committed to a final status agreement that provides defensible borders for Israel? Is a new course being charted that would leave Israel with the indefensible borders that invited invasion prior to 1967? There are significant moves from the Palestinian side to use those indefensible borders as the basis for a future unilateral declaration of independence. How would the United States respond to such a reckless course of action? And what are America’s strategic ambitions in the broader Middle East? The Administration’s desire to improve relations with the Muslim world is well known. But is friction with Israel part of this new strategy? Is it assumed worsening relations with Israel can improve relations with Muslims? History is clear on the matter: appeasement does not work. It can achieve the opposite of what is intended. And what about the most dangerous player in the region? Shouldn’t the United States remain focused on the single biggest threat that confronts the world today? That threat is a nuclear armed Iran. Israel is not only America’s closest ally in the Middle East, it is the one most committed to this Administration?s declared aim of ensuring Iran does not get nuclear weapons. Mr. President, we embrace your sincerity in your quest to seek a lasting peace. But we urge you to take into consideration the concerns expressed above. Our great country and the tiny State of Israel have long shared the core values of freedom and democracy. It is a bond much treasured by the Jewish people. In that spirit I submit, most respectfully, that it is time to end our public feud with Israel and to confront the real challenges that we face together. Yours sincerely, Ronald S. Lauder President World Jewish Congres

World Jewish leader to Obama: Is U.S. committed to Israel’s security? – Haaretz – Israel News.

		WJC President Ronald Lauder (Daniel Bar-On)

World Jewish Congress President Ronald Lauder has publically questioned U.S. President Barack Obama’s commitment to Israel’s security, in a letter he reportedly drafted with the approval of his close friend Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

“Our great country and the tiny State of Israel have long shared the core values of freedom and democracy,” wrote Lauder, in a letter published Thursday as an advertisement in The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal.

“It is a bond much treasured by the Jewish people. In that spirit I submit, most respectfully, that it is time to end our public feud with Israel and to confront the real challenges that we face together,” wrote Lauder.

(Click here to read Lauder’s full letter to Obama)

In his letter, Lauder asks why the Obama administration has taken such a critical stance toward Israel amid efforts to revive stalled Middle East peace talks.

“Why does the thrust of this administration’s Middle East rhetoric seem to blame Israel for the lack of movement on peace talks? After all, it is the Palestinians, not Israel, who refuse to negotiate,” wrote Lauder.

“Can it be true that America is no longer committed to a final status agreement that provides defensible borders for Israel? Is a new course being charted that would leave Israel with the indefensible borders that invited invasion prior to 1967?”

According to the New York Times, Lauder “said he discussed the letter with Mr. Netanyahu and received his support before taking out the advertisement.”

Lauder is considered one of the closest Jewish leaders to Netanyahu – if not the closest. He is one of the richest Jews in the world, and has been a major donor to Netanyahu during elections over recent years.

During Netanyahu’s first term as prime minister in the late 1990s, Netanyahu appointed Lauder – then a private businessman – as his envoy in negotiations with Syria. In this capacity, Lauder shuttled between Damascus and Jerusalem with messages between the prime minister and then Syrian president, Hafez al-Assad

News Analysis – Obama Speech Signals a U.S. Shift on Middle East – NYTimes.com.

WASHINGTON — It was just a phrase at the end of President Obama’s news conference on Tuesday, but it was a stark reminder of a far-reaching shift in how the United States views the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and how aggressively it might push for a peace agreement.

When Mr. Obama declared that resolving the long-running Middle East dispute was a “vital national security interest of the United States,” he was highlighting a change that has resulted from a lengthy debate among his top officials over how best to balance support for Israel against other American interests.

This shift, described by administration officials who did not want to be quoted by name when discussing internal discussions, is driving the White House’s urgency to help broker a Middle East peace deal. It increases the likelihood that Mr. Obama, frustrated by the inability of the Israelis and the Palestinians to come to terms, will offer his own proposed parameters for an eventual Palestinian state.

Mr. Obama said conflicts like the one in the Middle East ended up “costing us significantly in terms of both blood and treasure” — drawing an explicit link between the Israeli-Palestinian strife and the safety of American soldiers as they battle Islamic extremism and terrorism in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere.

Mr. Obama’s words reverberated through diplomatic circles in large part because they echoed those of Gen. David H. Petraeus, the military commander overseeing America’s wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. In recent Congressional testimony, the general said that the lack of progress in the Middle East created a hostile environment for the United States. He has denied reports that he was suggesting that soldiers were being put in harm’s way by American support for Israel.

But the impasse in negotiations “does create an environment,” he said Tuesday in a speech in Washington. “It does contribute, if you will, to the overall environment within which we operate.”

The glimmers of daylight between United States and Israeli interests began during President George W. Bush’s administration, when the United States became mired in wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Three years ago, Condoleezza Rice, then secretary of state, declared during a speech in Jerusalem that a peace deal between Israel and the Palestinians was a “strategic interest” of the United States. In comments that drew little notice at the time, she said, “The prolonged experience of deprivation and humiliation can radicalize even normal people.”

But President Bush shied away from challenging Israeli governments.

The Obama administration’s new thinking, and the tougher policies toward Israel that could flow from it, has alarmed American Jewish leaders accustomed to the Bush administration’s steadfast support. They are not used to seeing issues like Jewish housing in the West Bank or East Jerusalem linked, even by implication, to the security of American soldiers. Some fret that it raises questions about the centrality of the American alliance with Israel, which the administration flatly denies.

“In the past, the problem of who drinks out of whose well in Nablus has not been a strategic interest of the United States,” said Martin S. Indyk, a former United States ambassador to Israel and the vice president and the director of foreign policy at the Brookings Institution. He said there was an interest now because of the tens of thousands of troops fighting Islamist insurgencies abroad at the same time that the United States was trying to curb Iran’s nuclear ambitions.

“Will resolving the Palestinian issue solve everything?” Mr. Indyk said. “No. But will it help us get there? Yes.”

The administration’s immediate priority, officials said, is jump-starting indirect talks between Israelis and Palestinians. There is still a vigorous debate inside the administration about what to do if such talks were to go nowhere, which experts said is the likeliest result, given the history of such negotiations. Some officials, like Gen. James L. Jones, the national security adviser, advocate putting forward an American peace plan, while others, like the longtime Middle East peace negotiator Dennis B. Ross, who now works in the National Security Council, favor a more incremental approach.

Last week, National Security Council officials met with outside Middle East experts to discuss the Arab Israeli conflict. Two weeks before, General Jones and Mr. Obama met with several national security advisers from previous administrations and discussed putting forward an American proposal, even though it would put pressure on both Israel and the Palestinians.

Several officials point out that Mr. Obama has now seized control of Middle East policy himself, particularly since the controversy several weeks ago when Israeli authorities announced new Jewish housing units in Jerusalem during a visit to Israel by Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. Mr. Obama, incensed by that snub, has given Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a list of demands, and relations between the United States and Israel have fallen into a chilly standoff.

“The president is re-evaluating the tactics his administration is employing toward Israel and the entire Middle East,” said Robert Wexler, a former Democratic congressman who resigned in January to lead the Center for Middle East Peace, a Washington-based nonprofit institution that is working for a peace agreement.

“I don’t think that anybody believes American lives are endangered or materially affected by the Israeli-Palestinian conflict,” said Mr. Wexler, who has close ties to administration officials. “That’s an oversimplification. However, you’d have to have blinders on not to recognize that there are issues in one arena that affect other arenas.”

For their part, administration officials insist that their support for Israel is unwavering. They point to intensive cooperation between the American and Israeli militaries, which they say has allowed Israel to retain a military edge over its neighbors.

The sense of urgency in Washington comes just as many Israelis have become disillusioned with the whole idea of resolving the conflict. Mr. Netanyahu’s right-wing coalition government has long been skeptical about the benefits of a peace deal with the Palestinians. But skepticism has taken root in the Israeli public as well, particularly after Israel saw little benefit from its traumatic withdrawal from Gaza in 2005.

Among American Jewish groups, there is less skepticism than alarm about the administration’s new direction. On Tuesday, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, a powerful pro-Israel lobbying group, publicized letters to Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, signed by 76 senators and 333 House members, that implored the administration to defuse tensions.

In an open letter to Mr. Obama from the World Jewish Congress, the organization’s president, Ronald S. Lauder, asked, “Why does the thrust of this administration’s Middle East rhetoric seem to blame Israel for the lack of movement on peace talks?”

Mr. Lauder, who said the letter was scheduled to be published Thursday as an advertisement in The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal, said he discussed the letter with Mr. Netanyahu and received his support before taking out the ad.

McCain: U.S. Should “Pull the Trigger” on Iran – CBS News.

Arizona Senator Says U.S. Has Been Backing Away from Iran Conflict; Warns Tehran Will Get Nukes without Bolder Action

(CBS/ AP) Senator John McCain said the United States has been backing away from a brewing fight with Iran, while that country moves ever closer to having nuclear weapons.

McCain opened a Senate hearing Wednesday by saying that Iran will get the bomb unless the United States acts more boldly.

Speaking figuratively, the Arizona Republican says the U.S. keeps pointing a loaded gun at Iran but failing to “pull the trigger.”

Military and intelligence officials testifying before Congress said Iran’s accelerated nuclear program could produce one weapon in roughly a year, if the country decided to go that route.

But Gen. James Cartwright predicts it would still take longer than that to make the bomb usable.

Cartwright said that, historically, it takes a country three to five years to make such a leap. Cartwright is the second highest-ranking U.S. military officer.

The timeline he cited Wednesday could be shortened if Iran pursued ways to deliver a weapon at the same time as it worked to build a bomb.

The U.S. government has prepared a new, classified, assessment of Iranian nuclear ability and intent but has not released it yet.

The State Department’s No. 3 official said the United States is working as fast as it can to win new international sanctions on Iran.

William Burns predicted that a resolution will emerge from the United Nations Security Council within weeks. And Burns called the case for new penalties urgent, saying he expects China will agree to some form of sanctions.

The U.S. appeared to have gained support from China, a traditional stumbling block on the United Nations Security Council regarding Iran, during a U.S.-hosted summit on nuclear proliferation this week.

Iran has denied it is seeking a nuclear weapon and maintains its ambitions are strictly energy-related. Tehran has also scoffed at U.S. threats to increase pressure. As the Obama administration welcomed nations to the nuclear summit Monday, Iran was busy celebrating “National Nuclear Day,” reported CBS News correspondent Elizabeth Palmer from Tehran.

Despite the rhetoric brushing aside the prospect of sanctions, the head of the country’s nuclear program, Ali Akbar Salehi, made a candid admission in a rare interview with CBS News.

“Of course sanctions will affect us,” said Salehi, who earned his Ph.D. at MIT in Boston.”But it only will delay our projects. It will not stop our projects.”

“They will hurt,” he added. “Then we will have to come up with our own manufacturing systems.”