WarSclerotic

Almost half of Americans feel Obama does not support Israel – Haaretz – Israel News.

American voters believe U.S. President Barack Obama is not a strong supporter of Israel, a new Quinnipiac University survey revealed Thursday, also showing a large majority of Jewish voters as disappointed with the administration’s handling of the Israel-Palestinian conflict.

While the poll showed 57 percent of U.S. voters sympathizing with Israel, with 66 percent saying Obama should be a strong supporter of Israel, almost half of Americans, 42 percent, said they did not believe Obama was indeed a strong supporter of Israel.

The survey also showed that while Obama enjoyed widespread support for his foreign policy, with a 48 percent approval rating, approximately 44 percent of those asked said they disapproved of the U.S. president’s handling of the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians.

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The poll also showed that Jewish American voters, generally supportive of Obama on other issues, saw the president’s Middle East peace policy in a negative light.

Only 16 percent of Republicans and 33 percent of independents, the survey showed, thought Obama was a strong supporter of Israel, with the majority of Democrats, 53 percent, holding the same position.

Another interesting statistic mentioned in the poll was the fact that, according to Quinnipiac University, the wealthier and older the voter, the more likely they were to question Obama’s support for Israel, also saying that 31 percent of white voters, but 54 percent of black voters, consider the American president a strong supporter of Israel.

“While 50 percent of Jews see Obama as a strong supporter of Israel, only 23 percent of Protestants and 35 percent of Roman Catholics see it that way,” Peter Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute said.

However, Brown added that “one explanation may just be that the President’s low overall approval among Protestants and Catholics contributes to this disparity.”

Clinton: U.S. to advance Syria ties despite reported Hezbollah Scud deal – Haaretz – Israel News.

		Secretary of State Hillary Clinton (AP)

The Obama administration is still committed to improving relations with Syria, despite “deeply disturbing” reports of its moves to aid the Iranian-backed Hezbollah militia in neighboring Lebanon, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Thursday.

Clinton, speaking at a news conference before the opening of a NATO foreign ministers meeting in this Baltic capital, said the administration has concluded that the benefits of sending a U.S. ambassador to Damascus – after a five-year absence – outweigh the costs.

She said the presence of an ambassador gives Washington a better insight into what is happening in Damascus.

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“We have a long list of areas that we have discussed with the Syrians and we intend to continue pushing our concerns, and we think having an ambassador there adds to the ability to convey that message strongly and hopefully influence behavior in Syria,” she said.

“The larger question as to what the United States will do with respect to Syria is one we’ve spent a lot of time considering and debating inside the administration,” she said. “Where we are as of today is that we believe it is important to continue the process to return an ambassador; this is not some kind of reward for the Syrians and the actions they take that are deeply disturbing.”

Some U.S. senators are threatening to hold up the confirmation of the administration’s choice for U.S. ambassador to Syria – career diplomat Robert Ford – because of unconfirmed reports that Syria was transferring Scud missiles to the Hezbollah militia in Lebanon.

Clinton did not confirm the reports. Without mentioning Scuds or Iran, which many believe is the source of the missiles, she described the situation in a way that strongly suggested that the U.S. does not believe Scuds have been transferred to Hezbollah yet.

Clinton referred to “these stories that do suggest there has been some transfer of weapons technology into Syria with the potential purpose of then later transferring it to Hezbollah inside Syria”. Pressed to say whether she meant that the Scuds in Syria had originated in Iran, she replied, “I just said that we have expressed our concern about that.”

Israel, which regards Hezbollah as a major threat, has accused Syria of providing the group with Scuds. A Scud has a far longer range and can carry a much bigger warhead than the rockets Hezbollah has used in the past, and could reach anywhere in Israel from Hezbollah bases in southern Lebanon. Syria has denied the charge, as has Lebanon’s Western-backed prime minister.

Jordan confirms rocket strike in Red Sea port city – Haaretz – Israel News.

Jordanian officials confirmed Thursday that a rocket launched from outside the country struck a refrigerated warehouse the Red Sea port city of Aqaba.

The confirmation came after two rockets were fired early Thursday morning from Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula toward the southern Israeli city of Eilat. This was the first time a rocket has been fired at the resort town in almost five years.

Jordanian Information Minister Nabil al-Sharif said initial investigations indicate the rocket was a Russian-designed Grad that was fired from beyond Jordan’s borders. He said authorities continue to look into the explosion to determine exactly from where the missile was launched.

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Al-Sharif, who is also a government spokesman, said the rocket damaged a refrigerated warehouse on Aqaba’s northern outskirts. No deaths or injuries were reported.

Aqaba residents reported hearing at least two early morning explosions in the city. Eilat residents also reported hearing explosions at around 5 A.M. An Israeli supervisor at the Sinai border instructed police to close down the crossing and to warn tourists in the area.

Security forces and police scoured the area, but found no indication of what caused the explosion. Shortly after, the crossing was reopened to traffic.

The Israel Defense Forces said searches were conducted in the Eilat area after the reports of explosions, but they had found no evidence of anything landing in Israel.

The incident occurred as jitters were high a week after Israel issued an urgent warning to its citizens to leave Egypt’s nearby Sinai Peninsula immediately, citing concrete evidence of an expected terrorist attempt to kidnap Israelis in Sinai.

Israel’s anti-terror office, which issued the warning, maintains a standing travel advisory telling Israelis to stay out of the Sinai desert because of the threat of terror attacks.

An Egyptian security official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to release information to the media, denied reports that rockets were fired from Sinai on Thursday.

Jordan’s King Abdullah II was in neighboring Egypt on Thursday for talks with President Hosni Mubarak. It was not immediately clear whether the leaders would discuss the attack.

The damaged warehouse was at an industrial complex at the entrance of Aqaba, 350 kilometers south of the Jordanian capital, Amman.

In 2005, al-Qaida terrorists used the area to fire Katyusha rockets at a U.S. warship docked in the port there.

The rockets missed the ship but hit a Jordanian military warehouse, killing a Jordanian soldier. Eight al-Qaida terrorists were arrested and later received prison terms ranging from seven years to death sentences.

In 2001, Jordan’s security forces captured Hezbollah activists from Lebanon who planned to fire missiles at Eilat from Aqaba. A year later, an unknown Beirut-based organization said it was planning to bomb several areas in Israel from Jordan, including Eilat, Beit She’an and Tiberias.

The Grad, known as the BM-21 Grad, is a truck-mounted 122-mm multiple rocket launcher developed in the early 1960s in the Soviet Union. Military experts say its maximum range is 40 kilometers (25 miles).

Israel’s defense establishment and the Jordanian security forces coordinated an investigation into the incident, after initial reports Thursday placed the source of the rockets in southern Jordan. No group has yet taken responsibility for the attack.

Biden: Israel won’t attack Iran before sanctions allowed to work – Haaretz – Israel News.

U.S. Vice President tells ABC’s ‘The View’ that ‘everyone agrees the next step against Iran should be the sanctions route.’ U.S. Vice President Joe Biden said on Thursday he expects new United Nations sanctions on Iran by late April or early May and dismissed the notion that Israel might attack the Islamic Republic before first allowing sanctions to take their course. Biden issued the latest U.S. warning to Iran, which is locked in a standoff with the West over its nuclear program, in an appearance on ABC television’s “The View” talk show. “Everyone from the Israeli prime minister straight through to the British prime minister to the president of Russia, everyone agrees the next step we should take is the UN sanction route,” Biden said. “I believe you will see a sanction regime coming out by the end of this month, beginning of next month,” he said. Asked whether Washington was concerned that Israel might attack its arch-foe Iran without U.S. consultation, Biden said, “They’re not going to do that.” He said Israel had agreed to await the outcome of tightened sanctions against Iran, an effort being led by U.S. President Barack Obama. “They’ve agreed the next step is the step we – the president of the United States – have initiated in conjunction with European powers, the NATO powers,” he said. Israel, the only assumed nuclear weapons power in the Middle East, has made clear it is keeping open the military option against Iran even as Washington proceeds on the dual diplomatic and sanctions track. Biden reiterated the administration’s view that China, one of five veto-holding members of the UN Security Council, would support new sanctions on Iran. Beijing has softened its resistance to new measures but has been reluctant to accept punitive steps as severe as Washington wants. “We’re going to continue to keep the pressure on Iran,” Biden said. The West accused Iran of seeking to develop nuclear weapons, but Tehran says it only wants peaceful civilian nuclear power. U.S.: Israel-Palestinian peace failures strengthening Iran On Wednesday, the Obama administration said that progress toward Middle East peace would help thwart Iran’s ambitions by preventing it from “cynically” using the conflict to divert attention from its nuclear program. Drawing an explicit link between Israeli-Palestinian peace efforts and Washington’s drive to isolate Iran, Obama’s national security adviser, Jim Jones, urged bold steps to revive long-stalled Middle East negotiations. U.S. officials hope that shared Arab-Israeli concerns about Iran can be exploited to spur old foes to help advance Israeli-Palestinian peace and restrain Tehran’s nuclear activities and rising influence in the region. Jones coupled an appeal to Israel and its Arab neighbors to take risks for peace with a warning to Iran that it would face “real consequences” for its nuclear defiance. Obama is leading a push to tighten UN sanctions on Tehran. “One of the ways that Iran exerts influence in the Middle East is by exploiting the ongoing Arab-Israeli conflict,” Jones told the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. “Advancing this peace would … help prevent Iran from cynically shifting attention away from its failures to meet its obligations,” he said. The Israeli government, locked in a dispute with the United States over Jewish settlement policy, has made clear it sees confronting Iran as more of a security priority for Washington, and Middle East peace should be handled on a separate track. Jones – while voicing disappointment over the failure to jumpstart U.S.-sponsored indirect peace talks – insisted progress toward peace is a U.S. interest as well. That seemed to echo Obama’s assertion last week that a two-state solution to the decades-old conflict was “a vital national security interest”, adding to speculation that he was considering his own broad peace proposal

U.S.: Mideast status quo is not sustainable – Haaretz – Israel News.

The U.S. State Department responded Thursday to remarks by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who declared Israel would not stop building in East Jerusalem, saying that the status quo in the Middle East “is not sustainable.” Earlier Thursday, Netanyahu announced that Israel does not intend to comply with the American demand that it halt settlement construction in East Jerusalem. “I am saying one thing. There will be no freeze in Jerusalem,” Netanyahu said in an interview with Channel 2 television. “There should be no preconditions to talks,” he added, referring to the Palestinian demand that Israel end all settlement construction before they would be willing to resume peace negotiations. Advertisement Netanyahu’s comments were broadcast on Channel 2 TV shortly after special American envoy to the Middle East George Mitchell arrived in Israel for his first visit in six weeks. Mitchell’s efforts had been on hold due to disagreements over East Jerusalem, the section of the holy city claimed by Israel and the Palestinians. Although Netanyahu was repeating his long-standing position, the timing of the statement threatened to undermine Mitchell’s latest efforts to restart peace talks. Mark Regev, an Israeli government spokesman, denied earlier reports that Israel had officially rejected an American demand for a settlement freeze in Jerusalem. U.S. State Department Spokesman Philip J. Crowley issued a statement following the interview, saying that “we understand that the Israelis have a long-standing position, just as the secretary [Hillary Clinton] has said repeatedly, including in her speech to AIPAC, the status quo is not sustainable.” “Clearly we have asked both sides to take specific actions,” Crowley continued. “That includes the Israelis as well, and this is part of our effort to continue our ongoing discussions on these specific issues. Both sides need to take responsibility and create the atmosphere to allow the process to move forward.” Earlier, in his interview with Channel 2, Netanyahu addressed Israel’s apparently strained relationship with the U.S. of late, saying that “the United States doesn’t agree with us on every detail. There are ups and downs, but we have a very strong relationship that helps us overcome these disagreements.” Addressing Iran’s controversial nuclear program, which Israel views as a direct and existential threat against it, Netanyahu said that “I trust that [U.S. President Barack] Obama understands the Iranian problem. The true test to understanding the problem is a solution that everyone can abide by.” The prime minister voiced doubts that the United Nations can prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons, saying that “I think that the U.S. can impose sanctions on Iran, not necessarily within the confines of the UN Security Council, because I doubt that the Security Council will ever do it.” “The independence of the Jewish people lies in our ability to protect ourselves,” he added. Earlier Thursday, The Prime Minister’s Bureau responded to a Wall Street Journal report that Netanyahu’s government had delivered over the weekend its most substantive response yet to the U.S. request. Obama reportedly made the demand for an East Jerusalem construction freeze, along with other requests, in a tense White House meeting with Netanyahu on March 23. Obama’s administration had seen been awaiting Netanyahu’s reply, while the latter had deliberated with his top ministers on possible confidence-building measures that would allow a revival of peace talks with the Palestinians. According to the report in the Wall Street Journal, Netanyahu rejected the demand on East Jerusalem, but did agree to other confidence-building measures, such as allowing the opening of PA institutions in the eastern part of the city, transferring additional West Bank territory to Palestinian security control and agreeing to discuss all the core issues of the conflict during proximity talks with the PA, instead of insisting that these issues only be discussed in direct talks. Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat called the Netanyahu position very unfortunate and said he hoped the U.S. would be able to convince the Israeli government to give peace a chance by halting settlement construction in East Jerusalem and elsewhere. MK Oron: Netanyahu is worsening U.S.-Israel rift Right-wing lawmakers on Thursday praised Netanyahu for refusing the Obama administration’s demands to freeze construction in East Jerusalem, as their leftist rivals expressed fears that the move would worsen tensions between Israel and the United States. “Netanyahu has said no to the peace process, aggravating the rift with the American administration,” declared Meretz Chairman Haim Oron. National Religious Party Chairman Daniel Herskovitz, however, lauded Netanyahu for his “appropriate Zionist response” to the ultimatum posed by Obama at the two leaders’ meeting in Washington last month. “The future of Jerusalem cannot be subjected to an edict,” Herskovitz declared. Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz, a member of Netanyahu’s Likud party, said that even the Americans know that “the true reason the peace process has frozen is due to the weakness and inability of the Palestinian leadership.” MK Ophir Ekonis declared that Netanyahu’s response to Obama offered “further proof that the Likud is committed to the future of Jerusalem, and expresses a wide national agreement that the Jerusalem is the eternal capital of the Jewish people.” Israel, U.S. secretly working to bridge gaps in peace process Israel and the United States have been conducting behind-the-scenes negotiations in recent days in an effort to find a formula that would bridge their differences over peace negotiations with the Palestinian Authority and America’s demand that Israel halt construction in East Jerusalem for at least four months. According to a senior Obama administration official, the top Middle East policy specialist at the White House, Dan Shapiro, arrived in Israel Wednesday on a secret visit. Shapiro’s delegation also included David Hale, who serves as deputy to U.S. Middle East envoy George Mitchell and is permanently based in Israel. Neither the White House nor the Prime Minister’s Office have officially announced the talks or even Shapiro’s arrival in Israel. Officially, total silence is being maintained, and the Prime Minister’s Office therefore refused to comment Wednesday. But a senior Israeli official said talks with American officials have been conducted throughout the past week – by phone, via the Israeli embassy in Washington and with the White House officials who arrived in Israel on Wednesday. The dialogue between Israel and the Obama administration is to continue next week, when Defense Minister Ehud Barak visits Washington. Barak, who will leave for the U.S. on Sunday, is slated to deliver a speech at a conference sponsored by the American Jewish Committee, at which U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will also speak. He will also hold meetings with U.S. National Security Adviser Gen. James Jones, Clinton and other senior officials. The talks will deal with the peace process and the effort to bridge the disagreements between the U.S. and Israel, as well as the Iranian nuclear issue and weapons smuggling from Syria to Lebanon.

DEBKAfile, Political Analysis, Espionage, Terrorism, Security.

DEBKAfile Special Report April 21, 2010, 5:41 PM (GMT+02:00)

Tags: Iran nuclear US-Iran

US Dep. Defense Secretary Michele Flournoy

The internal debate in the Obama administration flared openly Wednesday, April 21, when US deputy defense secretary Michele Flournoy said: “The US has ruled out a military strike against Iran’s nuclear program any time soon ” – only to be contradicted a few hours later by the Pentagon spokesman, who said the United States had never dropped its military option against Iran’s nuclear program. She had had clearly told a news conference in Singapore: “Military force is an option of last resort, it’s off the table in the near term.” Instead, said Flournoy, the US is hoping that “negotiations and United Nations sanctions will prevent the Middle East nation from developing nuclear weapons.”
This exchange gave the impression of indecision and confusion at the top of the Obama administration on its Iran policy. While president Barack Obama, defense secretary Robert Gates and the chairman of the joint Chiefs of staff Adm. Mike Mullen, insist that all options are on the table if Iran fails to curb its current nuclear activities, the opposite view came from Deputy Secretary Flournoy, who is regarded as a senior, serious and responsible Pentagon official and too experienced to go out on a limb with a key policy statement without the highest authority.
This reversal was first seen in Tehran as a beckoning finger at America’s open door for Iran to return to the negotiating table – Monday and Tuesday, April 19-20, Iran’s foreign minister Manouchehr Mottaki announced his government is willing to go back to talks with the United States and other powers on a deal for its enriched uranium.

But then, Iranian officialdom decided that the storm of controversy in the Obama administration was a trick to put them to sleep. They claim, mainly on the strength of Russian intelligence sources, that a gradual US military buildup is taking place in Persian Gulf waters that will reach its peak in June and early July. This suspicion dictated the mission set the Revolutionary Guards for its large-scale naval exercise which began Thursday, April 22, of defending Iran from seaborne attack.
But if the Obama administration opts for negotiations, it will find Iran’s position on its nuclear program has hardened since the first round of negotiations ended in nothing, and the next round is likely to waste more precious months and end the same way.
Tehran’s only object in seeking to discuss an agreed outcome for the nuclear controversy is to buy time and push away Washington’s drive for tough sanctions. This the Iranians have now achieved.
Fourney’s statement that the United States is counting on UN sanctions to deter Iran likewise plays into Tehran’s hands, because it removes the second bludgeon hanging over Iran’s heads, that of US penalties outside the world body. This is the only remaining option since most of the informed sources quoted by US media in the past week view the administration’s hopes of Russia and China coming around to tough UN sanctions as non-starters.

This wholesale US retreat on Iran leaves Israel as the only country still holding to a military option for putting the brakes on Iran’s progress toward a nuclear bomb.
However, Wednesday, the Wall Street Journal reported that Israel’s political and military leaders are divided on the wisdom of executing this option and attacking Iran without US support.

DEBKAfile, Political Analysis, Espionage, Terrorism, Security.

Robert Gates and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

The statements on Iran made by senior US officials in the last ten days convey so much muddle that one US paper could be forgiven for commenting, “If allies and adversaries are presently confused, that would be understandable.”
At worst, the muddle may be the external symptom of an administration at sea about how to handle the intractable Iranian nuclear issue. Its heads may have come to terms with a nuclear Iran but don’t know how to break the bad news to the American public or its Gulf and Middle East allies, who have been waiting with bated breath for America to do something.
At best, President Barack Obama has not yet decided what to do and is being buffeted here and there by opposing forces.
The week began with the leaked classified memo from Defense Secretary Robert Gates to the White House, reported in the New York Times on Sunday, April 18, in which he pointed out that the U.S. lacks an effective long-term strategy for dealing with Iran’s nuclear progress.
Gates quickly rushed in to set the record straight, saying his memo had been designed to “contribute to an orderly and timely decision making process.”
But as the week wore on, the White House showed no orderly or timely decision-making on Iran.
Addressing a Columbia University forum on April 18, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen, said that a United States strike against Iran would go “a long way” toward delaying Tehran’s nuclear program.
This comment broke away from what senior administration officials had been saying all along, that a military operation would only hold Iran’s nuclear program back by a year or two, at most.

An outpouring of contradictions

Mullen’s comment also contradicted what his deputy, General James Cartwright, one of America’s top uniformed officers, said this week. In his Senate testimony, Cartwright admitted that if Iran decides to go for nuclear weapons, the U.S. may not be able to permanently stop this from happening unless it is willing to occupy the country.
Senator Jack Reed, a Democrat from Rhode Island, then asked the general “whether the military approach was a magic wand.” Cartwright, the vice-chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, acknowledged it was not, adding that military action alone was unlikely to be decisive.
The White House then outdid itself in sowing confusion Wednesday, April 21, when U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense for Policy Planning Michele Flournoy told reporters in Singapore that the U.S. has ruled out a military strike against Iran’s nuclear program “any time soon.”
The administration, said Flournoy, is “hoping instead that negotiations and UN sanctions will prevent the Middle East nation from developing nuclear weapons. Military force is an option of last resort and it’s off the table in the near term.”
Just a few hours later, Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell tried to resolve the glaring contradictions by saying, “I don’t think that’s anything new. It clearly is not our preference to go to war with Iran, to engage militarily with Iran. Nobody wishes to do that, but she also makes it clear it’s not off the table.”
DEBKA-Net-Weekly‘s Washington sources say that Michele Flournoy is a steady, reputable, serious official with valuable experience in leading America’s covert contacts with such parties as North Korea and Iran on the most delicate issues. It is hard to see her talking out of the top of her head on the Iranian nuclear issue without authority from her department head, i.e. Gates.

So how about a cold war against Iran?

By week’s end, the talk about tough sanctions for Iran and Russia and China coming on board had gone up in smoke. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton put the uncertainty on record when she said in an interview with the Financial Times last week, “Can I sit here and tell you exactly what will happen, assuming we are able to get the kind of sanctions we are looking for? No… [We are] trying to work toward some better outcome among some really difficult and not very satisfying choices.”
So, what is left? Is there an Obama administration policy on Iran? If so, what is it?
On Thursday, April 22, the first voices were heard in Washington suggesting that America’s best course would be a policy of containment against Iran, meaning diplomatic isolation backed by the supply of US defense systems to its Persian Gulf allies – some kind of cold war.
These flip-flops are keenly watched by Iran, Saudi Arabia and Israel. The first two have drawn the same lesson – Exploit the indecision and confusion in Washington to further boost their nuclear efforts and shorten the distance to a bomb capability.
The third party – Israel – sees itself driven down the only path left open, which is a military operation to stall Iran’s nuclear program.

DEBKAfile, Political Analysis, Espionage, Terrorism, Security.

King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia

Arab rulers were not listening when U.S. President Barack Obama, Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen declared last week that a Middle East nuclear arms race must be prevented. With the Saudis leading the pack, they were too busy working on their response to the evolving Iranian nuclear threat, which they see no world power curbing.
According to DEBKA-Net-Weekly‘s military and intelligence sources, as far back as the fall of 2009, King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia decided the oil kingdom had better make its own arrangements and develop an independent program as fast as possible against the day that Iran attains its goal of a nuclear weapon.
On Tuesday, April 13, when President Obama warned the 47 world leaders attending his nuclear security summit that the biggest threat facing the United States and the world was a nuclear-armed terrorist organization or loner, the heads of the Saudi royal family were getting down to the nuts and bolts of their own military nuclear program. Assuming Iran was already in possession of the materials and components for assembling a bomb, the Saudis set aside funding to speed the program and reach the finishing line as soon as possible after Iran. Riyadh would then counter-balance Tehran as a nuclear power.
This decision was a victory for Saudi Arabia’s pro-nuclear hawks, defense minister Prince Sultan, who has fought for an independent Saudi nuclear capability since late 2005, and foreign minister Prince Saud al-Faisal, who is against Riyadh’s dependence on external nuclear protectors, like the US or Pakistan.

Obama promises to help Saudi nuclear program

Our sources in Washington say President Obama was not unaware of Riyadh’s decision. The king made sure to keep him au fait of his plans by sending the director of Saudi General Intelligence Prince Muqrin Bin Abdul Aziz to Washington at the head of the Saudi delegation to the nuclear security conference last week.
Muqrin briefed the US president and assured him that King Abdullah stood by his promise to Secretary Gates – when they talked at the royal ranch outside Riyadh on March 10 – to continue to coordinate Saudi nuclear policy with the United States on the basis of a four-point understanding:

1. U.S. assistance will be extended to the Saudi nuclear weapons program. The principle was established, but our sources report that Washington and Riyadh are still working on its nature, substance and scope and are not yet agreed on an acceptable format.
2. When a small Saudi nuclear arsenal is in hand, the United States will provide missiles and aircraft as vehicles for their delivery. The Saudi arsenal contains only an outdated, inaccurate CSS-2 medium-range ballistic missile system purchased from China in 1986, which was not designed to carry a nuclear warhead more than 1,500 miles.
The Obama administration showed it meant business by staging the launch of a Trident ballistic missile, which is capable of carrying fissile nuclear warheads, from an American submarine in Saudi territorial waters in the last week of March.
(See the DEBKA-Net-Weekly 439 of April 2, 2010: US Spreads Nuclear Umbrella over Saudi Gulf).
3. Washington will help Saudi Arabia shroud its program in ambiguity, as it does for Israel.
4. Intelligence-sharing between the US and Saudi Arabia will ensure that no Gulf or Arab nation other than Saudi Arabia acquires nuclear hardware. The Saudi program will frustrate Tehran’s ambition to become the supreme nuclear power representing Middle East Shiites and Sunnis combined by stepping forward as the sole Arab-Sunni power.

Plans for ambiguity, evading IAEA inspections

None of these plans deterred Prince Muqrin from standing up before the nuclear summit and calling for “a Middle East region that should be free from all weapons of mass destruction, especially nuclear weapons.”
With regard to Iran, the Saudi prince stated: “Our brothers in Iran should be aware of the danger of the situation and deal with it very seriously. If they do not have anything to hide regarding their nuclear program, they should give the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) the opportunity to inspect their program and demonstrate it is for peaceful purposes.”
He thus laid out the future Saudi position, apparently endorsed by Washington, that its military nuclear facilities will not be open to IAEA inspection as long as Tehran denies international monitors full access.
In Riyadh, the official Saudi Gazette, Sunday, April 18, published a royal decree by King Abdullah, Custodian of the two Holy Mosques, establishing a scientific center for civilian nuclear and renewable energy to meet rising demand for power and desalinated water. It will be called the King Abdullah City of Atomic and Renewable Energy.
DEBKA-Net-Weekly‘s intelligence sources point out that this grand title refers in practice to a cluster of scientific institutes with the tasks of coordinating national nuclear research and acting as a repository for nuclear talent.
This is exactly what Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad did in 2005. After the newly elected president promised supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to oversee Iran’s development of a nuclear bomb, he set about reorganizing Iran’s nuclear energy agency. By separating the covert military program from civilian projects, he enabled Tehran to claim to this day that its nuclear program is peaceful. In fact, the civilian agency serves the bomb program as its research mainspring and skilled manpower pool. It also provides the experts for analyzing the plans and blueprints for the military facilities’ projects and is there to repair technical glitches.
Riyadh has adopted Iran’s nuclear infrastructure format for its own program.

The King and defense establishment hold executive control

The Royal Decree includes appointments.
Dr. Hashem Bin Abdullah Yamani is named the president of the King Abdullah City of Atomic and Renewable Energy; Dr. Walid Bin Hussein Abu Al-Faraj, vice-president, and Dr. Khaled Bin Muhammad Al-Sulaiman vice-president for Renewable Energy Affairs.
The City’s goal is defined as contributing to “sustainable development in the Kingdom by using science, research and industry-related renewable atomic energy for peaceful purposes.”
The concluding sentence is: “The City will support scientific research and development” – the same sort of catchall measure used by the Iranians for permitting civilian research organizations to furnish their military program with scientific and research support, including manpower.
The king himself has undertaken to directly oversee the new center in his name.
This is made clear in his decree, which assigns the King Abdullah City of Atomic and Renewable Energy the status of an independent legal entity administratively linked to the prime minister (who in Saudi Arabia is the reigning monarch). Its headquarters will be located in Riyadh with branches, offices and research centers within the Kingdom.
The City will also represent the Kingdom at the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and other relevant organizations.
The nascent nuclear organization will have a supreme council headed by the prime minister and most of his cabinet, the deputy premier, defense and aviation minister and inspector general, as well as the ministers for foreign affairs, higher education, petroleum and mineral resources, finance, commerce and industry, water and electricity, agriculture and health.

Links with Washington will go through Bahrain

There is no hint of any separate military program – except for the figure who is to be directly responsible to the royal house, Prince Khaled bin Sultan, assistant minister of defense and aviation for military affairs, and the son of Crown Prince Sultan.
Sunday, April 18, the day after the king issued his Royal Decree, Abdullah accompanied by Princes Saud al-Faisal and Muqrin paid a two day visit to the Bahraini ruler Shaikh Isa bin Salman Al Khalifa – the first since Abdullah ascended the throne in Riyadh in 2005.
DEBKA-Net-Weekly‘s intelligence sources report that this visit was closely tied to Saudi Arabia’s nuclear plans and understandings with Washington. Abdullah used the occasion to announce that Saudi Arabia is donating 2 billion riyals ($266.6 million) to build a medical city in Bahrain.
According to our sources, the medical city will be the back-door channel for Saudi military nuclear liaison with US military headquarters in the Persian Gulf.

DEBKAfile, Political Analysis, Espionage, Terrorism, Security.

US Dep. Defense Secretary Michele Flournoy

US deputy defense secretary Michele Flournoy said Wednesday, April 21: “The US has ruled out a military strike against Iran’s nuclear program any time soon.”  This is the first time a senior administration official has publicly admitted that America has dropped its military option against Iran. Instead, said Flournoy, the US is hoping that “negotiations and United Nations sanctions will prevent the Middle East nation from developing nuclear weapons.”
Addressing a news conference in Singapore, she said clearly: “Military force is an option of last resort, it’s off the table in the near term.”

A few hours later, the Pentagon spokesman denied that a military strike against Iran was off the table, indicating confusion and polarization at the top of the Obama administration on its Iran policy.
debkafile‘s military sources report that Flournoy’s statement contradicts every public assertion by president Barack Obama, defense secretary Robert Gates and the chairman of the joint Chiefs of staff Adm. Mike Mullen, all of whom have insisted that all options are on the table if Iran fails to curb its current nuclear activities. Deputy Secretary Flournoy is regarded as a senior, serious and responsible Pentagon official who is too experienced to go out on a limb with a key policy statement to reporters without the highest authority.
The policy reversal amounts to a beckoning finger at America’s open door for Iran to return to the negotiating table.
Monday and Tuesday, April 19-20, Iran’s foreign minister Manouchehr Mottaki announced his government is willing to go back to talks with the United States and other powers on a deal for its enriched uranium. Turkey has offered its services as broker between Washington and Tehran.
But if anything, Iran’s position on its nuclear program has hardened since the first round of negotiations ended in nothing, and the next round is likely to waste more precious months and end the same way. Tehran’s only object in seeking to discuss an agreed outcome for the nuclear controversy is to buy time and push away Washington’s drive for tough sanctions. This the Iranians have now achieved.
Fourney’s statement that the United States is counting on UN sanctions to deter Iran likewise plays into Tehran’s hands, because it removes the second bludgeon hanging over Iran’s heads, that of US penalties outside the world body. This is the only remaining option since most of the informed sources quoted by US media in the past week view the administration’s hopes of Russia and China coming around to tough UN sanctions as non-starters.

This wholesale US retreat on Iran leaves Israel as the only country still holding to a military option for putting the brakes on Iran’s progress toward a nuclear bomb.
However, Wednesday, the Wall Street Journal reported that Israel’s political and military leaders are divided on the wisdom of executing this option and attacking Iran without US support.

Iran tests speed boats in major Gulf war games | Reuters.

Members of Iran’s Revolutionary guards stand in front of the Revolutionary guards’ ground forces headquarters October 20, 2009.

Credit: Reuters/Morteza Nikoubazl

TEHRAN (Reuters) – Iran’s Revolutionary Guards successfully deployed a new speed boat capable of destroying enemy ships as war games began on Thursday in a waterway crucial for global oil supplies, Iranian media reported.

World

The Islamic Republic, which is locked in a dispute with the West over its nuclear activities, often announces advances in its military capabilities in an apparent bid to show its readiness for any attack by Israel or the United States.

On Wednesday, the Pentagon said U.S. military action against Iran remained an option even as Washington pursues diplomacy and sanctions to halt the country’s atomic activities.

Iranian media said naval, air and ground units of the elite Guards force would take part in the three-day exercise in the Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz. About 40 percent of the world’s traded oil leaves the Gulf region through the strategic narrows.

Western military analysts say Iran may resort to “asymmetric warfare” if it comes under attack, for example by deploying swarms of speed boats to disrupt enemy operations in the Gulf.

State broadcaster IRIB said the Guard put into operation for the first time its “smart and unique” Ya Mahdi vessel.

“The radar-evading, high-speed Ya Mahdi vessel is able to track and target the enemy’s surface vessels in a smart way and destroy them,” it said, adding it was now being mass produced.

A spokesman for the maneuvers, Ali-Reza Tangsiri, said Ya Mahdi was a remote-controlled vessel whose missiles could blow 7-meter holes in any enemy ship.

US SANCTIONS PUSH

State Press TV said the Guards’ exercise in the Gulf would show off Iran’s defensive capabilities and its determination to maintain security in the region.

The ILNA news agency said more than 300 various high-speed vessels took part in the drill, equipped with missiles and rockets and carrying Guards commandos.

“These vessels are regarded as the enemy’s nightmare,” ILNA said.

A hypothetical enemy war ship which had entered Iran’s territorial waters was targeted, seized and destroyed, it said.

Theodore Karasik, research director at the Institute for Near East and Gulf Military Analysis, said the use of swarms of speedboats can be an “effective tool” against the enemy.

“It plays to their strengths. What they are trying to do (in case of conflict) is deny and deter access to the strait and surrounding areas,” Karasik told Reuters in Dubai.

“However, the U.S. and other navies know how to counter this,” he said.

The drills coincided with rising tension between Iran and the West, which fears Tehran’s nuclear program is aimed at developing bombs. Iran denies the charge.

The United States is pushing for a fourth round of U.N. sanctions on Tehran over its refusal to halt sensitive nuclear activities as demanded by the U.N. Security Council, including proposed moves against members of the Guards.

Israel, widely believed to have the Middle East’s only atomic arsenal, has described Iran’s nuclear program as a threat to its existence.

Iran, a predominantly Shi’ite Muslim state, has said it would respond to any attack by targeting U.S. interests in the region and Israel, as well as closing the Strait of Hormuz.