WarSclerotic

The Raw Story | US lawmakers denounce Ahmadinejad visit to New York.

US lawmakers on Friday denounced Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s plans to join a major UN nuclear disarmament summit next week in New York and urged he not be given a visa to attend.

“This is preposterous, and allowing it to happen will make a mockery of the effort to stop the spread of nuclear weapons to rogue states and terrorist groups,” 14 Republican senators wrote to US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

“There is simply no compelling reason for Ahmadinejad to be allowed to enter the United States,” they said. “The US government has the legal authority to deny Ahmadinejad’s request and bar his entry — even if he is transiting only to the United Nations. We ask that you exercise that authority.”

Republican Senator John Cornyn led the group of senators, who wrote their letter after Iran’s UN mission said Ahmadinejad had applied Wednesday for a US visa to lead Iran’s delegation to the non-proliferation treaty (NPT) review conference.

The summit, which opens Monday at UN headquarters in New York, comes as the United States and its partners seek to craft a new UN resolution imposing a fresh round of sanctions against Tehran over its nuclear program.

Iran denies the charges that its civilian nuclear program hides a covert quest for an atomic arsenal, but has refused to freeze uranium enrichment, which can be a key step towards developing a nuclear weapon.

Republican Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen led a bipartisan group of lawmakers from the House of Representatives in condemning as an “outrage” plans to give Ahmadinejad a visa that could let him “preach hate and violence on American soil.”

“Make no mistake: Ahmadinejad?s attendance will make a mockery of a conference meant to stop the proliferation of nuclear weapons,” they said.

“It will also make a mockery of US efforts to secure global support to stop Iran’s nuclear weapons pursuit, and it will turn the conference into yet another forum to attack Israel on a global stage,” they wrote.

“The US must not allow this dangerous tyrant to use our freedoms and our obligations as a host country for the UN to force himself upon our country to spread his message of hate and violence,” said the lawmakers.

Please sign the petition to Obama at:  http://keepisraelsafe.com.

Column One: Republicans, Democrats & Israel.

By CAROLINE GLICK
30/04/2010 15:52

By using support for Israel as a wedge issue in the upcoming elections, Republicans will do more than simply constrain Obama’s ability to harm the Jewish state.

Bipartisan support for Israel has been one of the greatest casualties of US President Barack Obama’s assault on the Jewish state. Today, as Republican support for Israel reaches new heights, support for Israel has become a minority position among Democrats.

Consider the numbers. During Operation Cast Lead – 11 days before Obama’s inauguration – the House of Representatives passed Resolution 34 siding with Israel against Hamas. The resolution received 390 yea votes, five nay votes and 37 abstentions. Democrats cast four of the nay votes and 29 of the abstentions.

In November 2009, Congress passed House Resolution 867 condemning the Goldstone Report. The resolution urged Obama to disregard its findings, which falsely accused Israel of committing war crimes in Cast Lead. A total of 344 congressman voted for the resolution. Thirty-six voted against it. Fifty-two abstained. Among those voting against, Thirty-three were Democrats. Forty-four Democrats abstained.

In February 2010, Fifty-four congressmen sent a letter to Obama urging him to pressure Israel to open Hamas-ruled Gaza’s international borders and accusing Israel of engaging in collective punishment. All of them were Democrats.

In the midst of the Obama administration’s assault on Israel over construction for Jews in Jerusalem, 327 congressmen signed a letter to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton calling for an end to the public attacks on the Israeli government. Of the 102 members who refused to sign the letter, 94 were Democrats.

These numbers show two things. First, since Obama entered office there has been a 13-point decline in the number of congressmen willing to support Israel. Second, the decrease comes entirely from the Democratic side of the aisle. There the number of members willing to attack Israel has tripled.

As discouraging as they are, these numbers tell only part of the story. The pro-Israel initiatives the remaining Democrats agree to support today are less meaningful than those they supported before Obama entered office.

Resolution 34 during Cast Lead was substantive. It unhesitatingly blamed Hamas for the conflict, supported Israel and asserted that future wars will only be averted if Hamas is forced to fundamentally change.

Last month’s letter to Clinton was much more circumscribed. It focused solely on ending the Obama administration’s very public assault on Israel, and ignored the nature of that assault. At the insistence of the Democrats, the administration was not criticized for its bigoted demand that Jews not be allowed to construct new homes in Jewish neighborhoods in Israel’s capital city.

This week, Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat visited Washington. Reps. Eric Cantor and Peter Roskam – the Republican co-chairmen of the House’s Israel caucus – held a public event with Barkat where they voiced strong support for Israel’s right to build in Jerusalem without restrictions.

In contrast, their Democratic counterparts refused to meet publicly with Barkat. They also refused to issue any statements supporting Israel’s right to its undivided capital.

In the midst of administration’s assault on Israel’s right to Jerusalem last month, Representative Doug Lamborn drafted Resolution 1191 calling for the administration to finally abide by US law and move the US Embassy to Jerusalem. Lamborn gathered 18 co-sponsors for the resolution. All of them were Republican.

THEN THERE is Iran. Acting on orders from Obama, House and Senate Democrats have removed from consideration the sanctions bills that passed overwhelmingly in both houses. This week Obama asked congressional Democrats to water down the sanctions bills to permit him to exempt China and Russia. In so doing, Obama exposed the entire push for sanctions as a dangerous, time-consuming joke. No sanctions passed in Congress or at the UN will make Iran reconsider its decision to build a nuclear arsenal.

This, of course, has been apparent for some time to anyone paying attention. And recognizing this state of affairs in January, Lamborn and Rep. Trent Franks authored a letter to Clinton and Defense Secretary Robert Gates urging the administration “to support Israel’s sovereign right to take any action it feels compelled to make in its self-defense.”

Their letter was signed by 22 other congressmen. All were Republican.

Similarly, since November, Rep. Louie Gohmert has been working on a resolution supporting Israel’s right to attack Iran’s nuclear installations. Gohmert’s resolution condemns Iran’s threat to commit nuclear genocide against Israel and expresses “support for Israel’s right to use all means necessary to confront and eliminate nuclear threats posed by Iran, defend Israeli sovereignty, and protect the lives and safety of the Israeli people, including the use of military force if no other peaceful solution can be found within a reasonable time.”

To date, Gohmert has racked up more than 40 co-sponsors. All are Republican.

Recent opinion polls show that the Republican-Democrat divide on Israel in Congress reflects a growing partisan gap among the general public. A Gallup poll conducted in February showed that whereas 85 percent of Republicans support Israel (up from 77% in February 2009), and 60% of Independents support Israel (up from 49% in February 2009), only 48% of Democrats support Israel, (down from 52% in February 2009).

To date, both the Israeli government and AIPAC have denied the existence of a partisan divide. This has been due in part to their unwillingness to contend with the new situation. One of Israel’s greatest assets in the US has been the fact that support for the Jewish state has always been bipartisan. It is hard to accept that the Democrats are jumping ship.

AIPAC also has institutional reasons for papering over the erosion in Democratic support for Israel. First, most of its members are Democrats. Indeed, AIPAC’s new President Lee Rosenberg was one of Obama’s biggest fund-raisers.

Then, too, AIPAC is concerned at the prospect of its members abandoning it for J Street. J Street, the Jewish pro-Palestinian lobby, is strongly supported by the Obama administration.

According to congressional sources, AIPAC’s desire to hide the partisan divide has caused it to preemptively water down Republican initiatives to gain Democratic support or torpedo Republican proposals that the Democrats would oppose. For instance, an AIPAC lobbyist demanded that Gohmert abandon his efforts to advance his resolution on Iran. Sources close to the story say the AIPAC lobbyist told Gohmert that AIPAC opposes all Iran initiatives that go beyond support for sanctions.

And now, of course, as Obama makes a mockery of AIPAC’s sanctions drive by watering them down to nothingness, AIPAC’s sanctions-only strategy lies in ruins. But, again in the interest of promoting the fiction of bipartisan support for Israel, AIPAC can be expected to pretend this has not happened.

And many prominent Republican congressmen are loath to call its bluff. Like the Israeli government itself, Republican House members express deep concern that blowing the lid off the Democrats will weaken Israel. As one member put it, “I don’t want to encourage the likes of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to attack Israel by exposing that the Democrats don’t support Israel.”

WHILE THIS argument has its merits, the fact is that many Democrats remain staunch supporters of Israel. Representatives like Shelley Berkley, Nita Lowey, Steve Israel, Anthony Weiner, Jim Costa and many others have not taken stronger stands in support Israel because, thanks to AIPAC, they haven’t been challenged to do so. If going into the November midterm elections House Republicans were to initiate an aggressively pro-Israel agenda as members like Lamborn, Franks, Gohmert, Cantor, Roskam, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and others are already doing, they would compel Democratic members to join them or risk being criticized for abandoning Israel by their Republican opponents in November’s elections.

And that’s the thing of it. While under Obama bipartisan support for Israel has eroded, popular support for Israel has grown. Indeed polls show a direct correlation between Democratic abandonment of Israel and popular abandonment of the Democrats. What this means is that the partisan divide on Israel is a good election issue for Republicans.

If as projected Republicans retake control of the House of Representatives in November, they will be in a position to limit Obama’s ability to adopt policies that weaken Israel. And due to the widespread expectation that Republicans will in fact take over the House, if the Republicans set out clear policy lines on Israel today, their declared policies will immediately impact Obama’s maneuver room on Israel. So, too, a clear Republican policy on Israel will motivate pro-Israel Democrats to more stridently distance themselves from Obama on issues related to Israel.

Take the Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salam Fayyad’s threat that he will unilaterally declare Palestinian independence in August 2011. To date, Obama has refused to say if he will recognize such a unilaterally declared Palestinian state. Fearing that he may recognize such a state, Israel has gone out of its way to appease Obama.

If House Republicans and Republican House candidates were to collectively pledge to cut off US funding for the PA in the aftermath of such a declaration, they could neutralize the threat. And if they pledged not to fund a US embassy in such a Palestinian state, they would make it impossible for Obama to continue holding his decision over Israel’s head.

As for Iran, if Republicans win the House, they will be in a position to use omnibus budgetary bills to force the administration to provide Israel with the military equipment necessary to win a war against Iran and its allies. This would limit Obama’s capacity to threaten Israel with an arms embargo in the increasingly likely event that the Iranian axis attacks the Jewish state.

In some House races, Democratic abandonment of Israel is already a key issue. For instance, in Illinois, the race between Republican challenger Joel Pollak and incumbent Democrat Jan Schakowsky has been dominated by Schakowsky’s close ties to J Street and tepid support for Israel. And recent polling data indicate that once a long-shot candidate, Pollak is steadily closing in on Schakowsky’s lead.

Exposing the Democrats’ abandonment of Israel will be an unpleasant affair. But it won’t add to the dangers arrayed against Israel. Israel’s enemies are already aware of Obama’s animus towards the Jewish state. Demonstrating that the Democrats on Capitol Hill are following his lead on Israel will not add or detract from Iran’s willingness to attack Israel either directly or through its Arab proxies, or both.

Moreover, forcing Democrats to account for their behavior will have a salutary long-term effect on their party and on the US as a whole. Support for Israel is a benchmark for support for US allies generally. Obama’s abandonment of Israel has gone hand in hand with the cold shoulder he has given Colombia, Honduras, Britain, Poland, the Czech Republic, Japan, South Korea and other key US allies worldwide. In the long-term, it will be catastrophic if one of the US’s two political parties maintains this strategically disastrous policy.

By using support for Israel as a wedge issue in the upcoming elections, Republicans will do more than simply constrain Obama’s ability to harm the Jewish state. They will be setting a course for a Democratic return to strategic sanity in the years to come. And nothing will guarantee the return of bipartisan support for Israel more effectively and securely than that.

The Associated Press: Hezbollah leader won’t say if militants have Scuds.

By BASSEM MROUE (AP) – 3 hours ago

BEIRUT — Hezbollah can strike infrastructure deep inside Israel if a new war breaks out, the group’s leader said in remarks published Friday, but refused to confirm whether or not the militants have long-range Scud missiles.

The missiles have been at the center of new Mideast tensions since Israel earlier this month accused Syria of providing Hezbollah with the Scuds, which have a greater range and can carry a much bigger warhead than the rockets Hezbollah fired at Israel in the past.

Syria has denied the allegations, as has Lebanon’s Western-backed prime minister.

Hezbollah’s leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah indicated that the details of the group’s weaponry are a secret.

“We don’t speak through the media about the rockets we have or their details,” Nasrallah said, according to Hezbollah’s news website. He spoke in an interview Thursday with Kuwait’s Rai TV.

“Do we have what is more or less sophisticated than a Scud missile — these are details I don’t want to speak about,” Nasrallah added. “If a war breaks out … we said we will attack their (Israeli) infrastructure. We are able to fulfill these promises.”

U.S. officials have not confirmed Hezbollah’s possession of Scuds but say they are concerned about its growing arsenal of rockets and missiles. On Thursday, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Syrian transfers of increasingly sophisticated weaponry, including rockets, to militants in southern Lebanon and Gaza could spark new conflict in the Middle East. Like Israel, the U.S. considers Hezbollah a terrorist group.

“Transferring weapons to these terrorists, especially longer-range missiles, would pose a serious threat to the security of Israel,” Clinton said.

Nasrallah assailed those speaking about Hezbollah and the Scuds, saying they have failed to “give any evidence.”

Hezbollah and Israel fought a 34-day war in 2006 that left some 1,200 Lebanese and 160 Israelis dead.

During the monthlong conflict, Hezbollah fired nearly 4,000 rockets at northern Israel, including several medium-range missiles that for the first time hit Israel’s third-largest city, Haifa. Israeli weaponry, including warplanes, destroyed areas in southern and eastern Lebanon and Hezbollah’s stronghold Dahiyeh south of Beirut.

Since the conflict, Nasrallah has said that Hezbollah amassed more than 30,000 rockets and can strike anywhere in Israel — claims that match Israeli intelligence assessments.

In related developments, Syria’s Prime Minister Naji al-Otari said on Friday that Damascus and Iran will remain “steadfast and resist all pressures” exerted on their countries. He spoke during a joint news conference with visiting Iranian Vice President Mohammad Reza Rahimi.

Rahimi pledged Iran would stand alongside Syria in the face of any threat “with all our might.”

The Iranian conspiracy – Israel Opinion, Ynetnews.

Tehran playing up fears of Israeli strike in north to promote Iranian interests

The Iranians openly say that Israel is interested in lifting the rocket and missile threat posed by Hezbollah and possibly by Syria too via a preventative strike; yet mostly of all, according to the Iranians, an Israeli assault would aim to erase the “disgrace of defeat” in the Second Lebanon War (as the Iranians see it).

In order to reinforce their assessment, the Iranians refer to the large and frequent exercises held by the IDF on the northern border. The Iranians are also saying (and Nasrallah declares it publically) that the Israeli offensive is expected to take place in the spring or summer of 2010.

The “warnings” issued by Iran to its allies which border on Israel have a strategic aim: The Iranians wasn’t the global attention as well as that of Security Council members to be diverted away from Tehran’s refusal on the nuclear issue and the preoccupation with anti-Iran sanctions; instead, it will focus on the tension and threat of war that may erupt at any moment between Israel and its northern neighbors. And so, the Iranians can buy more time while erode the severity of the sanctions against them.

On top of it, the global public opinion’s focus on restraining “Israel’s offensive intentions vis-à-vis its neighbors” creates an international atmosphere that makes it harder for Israel to strike Iran’s nuclear site – if it indeed plans to do so in the near future. This is why Iran encourages Syria to boost its arms shipments to Hezbollah. The protests and threats issued by Israel and the US in response to these arms transfers serve Iran’s strategic objectives well.

However, at this time Iran has no interest whatsoever in igniting an actual war between Israel and Hezbollah, Lebanon, and Syria. Tensions – yes; War – no.

This is the case because in an actual war, Israel’s Air Force and the IDF’s ground forces may destroy Hezbollah’s missile and rocket arm; the very same arsenal which Iran funded and assisted to build in order to use it as a means of reprisal against Israel should it strike Tehran’s nuke sites. The same is true for Syria. Iran also does not wish to see Hezbollah lose the dominant status it acquired within Lebanon’s political establishment, should the Lebanese blame the organization for ruining their country.

Iran’s “assessments,” which are meant to serve Tehran’s aims, enjoy an attentive ear in Damscus and in Beirut. They are commensurate with the Mideastern mode of thinking which sees conspiracies (and especially Israeli ones) at every corner; when Iran warns its allies of an Israeli intention to avenge its “defeat” it certainly appears logical, not only to the leaderships in Damascus and Beirut but also to the people there.Mubarak made sure to allay Hariri’s fears regarding Israel’s intentions; the Germans did the same. However, Hariri is not relaxed, and the fuel vapors continue to hover in Beirut and Damscus. Jerusalem, for its part, is doing everything in order to prevent a situation whereby one of the sides rolls down the slippery slope created by the Iranians because of a flawed understanding of reality.

For that reason, Lebanon’s Prime Ministry Hariri has enslited himself to the cause of a campaign of loybbing and pleas in Europe and Arab states aimed at averting “the Israeli attack” becuas eof the Scud transfer. He denies to anyone wiling to listen that the transfer of missiles into his country actually took place.

Yet his hysterical activity is reminiscent of a guilty party; he apparently knows more than He’s willing to say. Yet this did not prevent him from calling German Chancellor Merkel this week in a bid to convince her that the reports about the Scud transfers were unfounded. He is also enlisting support for his arguments in the Arab world and to this aim just attended an urgent meeting with Egyptian Presidnet Mubarak at Sharm el-Sheikh.

‘U.S. told Palestinians it would consider allowing UN censure of Israel’ – Haaretz – Israel News.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas (AP)

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Last update – 13:11 30/04/2010

‘U.S. told Palestinians it would consider allowing UN censure of Israel’

By Haaretz Service

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The Obama administration would consider allowing the United Nations Security Council to censure Israel over its activity in West Bank settlements in order to encourage the Palestinians to participate in peace talks, a Palestinian source told The Guardian on Friday. According to the source, U.S. special Mideast envoy George Mitchell’s deputy, David Hale, told Abbas that the Obama administration views Israeli construction in East Jerusalem as “provocative.” Hale reportedly promised Abbas that the U.S. would consider allowing a Security Council condemnation should such activity continue at a significant level – though he did not clarify what the Obama administration considered significant. This assurance would mean a U.S. abstention on any resolution, rather than a veto, said The Guardian. Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat flatly denied the report. It’s not true,” Erekat said. “We are still talking to the Americans.” Meanwhile, senior Israeli officials told Haaretz on Thursday that Obama told several European leaders that if Israeli-Palestinian talks remain stalemated into September or October, he will convene an international summit on achieving Mideast peace. The officials said the conference would be run by the Quartet of Middle East peacemakers – the United States, European Union, United Nations and Russia – in a bid to forge a united global front for creating a Palestinian state. The summit, they said, would address such core issues as borders, security arrangements, Palestinian refugees and the status of Jerusalem. The London-based Al-Quds Al-Arabi reported on Friday that Syria is opposed to the Palestinians returning to the negotiating table, because “Israel has not made enough gestures of good faith, and in light of the fact that senior officials in Israel have been sounding threats against Damascus and Beirut

Khamenei aide: Iran will never agree to nuclear fuel swap – Haaretz – Israel News.

		Ayatollah Ali Khamenei (AP)

Iran will never accept swapping its low-enriched uranium with nuclear fuel abroad, a senior adviser to the country’s top authority said on Friday, making clear Tehran’s continued defiance in a row with global powers.

Some countries, such as Turkey, have offered to mediate with the West to defuse mounting tension with Iran over the Islamic state’s disputed nuclear activities, which the United States and its European allies fear is a cover for building bombs.

“We must be very naive to trust the West … Why do they insist on swapping nuclear fuel abroad? It shows they have satanic intentions,” Ali Akbar Velayati, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s top adviser on international affairs, told Iran’s state news agency IRNA.

“Iran will never trust the West to send its Low-Enriched Uranium (LEU) abroad,” he said.

Turkey has suggested itself as a third country where the uranium could be exchanged.

Asked whether such a swap could happen in Turkey – a NATO member which borders Iran and is also a temporary member of the UN Security Council – Velayati said: “The West can break its
promises easily … and Turkey cannot force them to fulfil their promises [to deliver nuclear fuel to Iran].”

Iran agreed to a Western offer last October to ship 1,200 kg (2,646 lb) of its LEU – enough for a single bomb if purified to a high enough level – to Russia and France to make into fuel for the Tehran Research Reactor.

Iran later said it would only swap its LEU for higher grade material and only inside its soil, conditions other parties in the deal said were unacceptable.

The United States is pushing UN Security Council members, to back a fourth round of international sanctions on Iran in the coming weeks, to pressure it to curb its nuclear activities. Iran says its nuclear program is aimed solely at generating electricity.

Iran’s foreign minister and the UN atomic watchdog chief met on Sunday to discuss the stalled fuel deal. Sources in Vienna told Reuters that during the meeting Iran made another counter-offer to the deal.

The sources said Iran proposed an exchange on Iranian soil using a lower amount of LEU than in the International Atomic Energy Agency offer. Under Iran’s new plan, this amount could be swapped simultaneously for half of the equivalent reactor fuel, with the rest of the fuel coming later.

Iran started enriching uranium to a higher level itself in February to create fuel for the research reactor. The move brings Iran’s enrichment closer to levels needed for making weapons-grade material – uranium refined to 90 percent purity.

Iran: We’ll ‘cut off Israel’s feet’ if it attacks Syria – Haaretz – Israel News.

Iranian Vice President Mohammad Rida Rahimi warned on Friday that Iran would “cut off Israel’s feet” if it attacked Syria, French news agency AFP reported.

“We will stand alongside Syria against any [Israeli] threat,” Rahimi told reporters during a news conference with Syrian Prime Minister Mohammad Naji Otri in Damascus, adding that “If those who have violated Palestinian land want to try anything we will cut off their feet.”

According to AFP, the Iranian vice president said that “[Syria is a] strong country that is ready to confront any threat,” adding that Tehran “will back Syria with all its means and strength.”

On Thursday, United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton referred to the recent torrent of allegations that Syria had transferred Scud missiles to the Hezbollah in Lebanon, and said that the Syrian President Bashar Assad was pursuing dangerous policies that could unleash war on the Middle East.

“We have spoken out forcefully about the grave dangers of Syria’s transfer of weapons to Hizbollah,” Clinton said. “We condemn this in the strongest possible terms and have expressed our concerns directly to the Syrian government.”

She added: “Transferring weapons to these terrorists – especially longer-range missiles – would pose a serious threat to the security of Israel.

It would have a profoundly destabilizing effect on the region.

“All states must stop supplying weapons to terrorist groups such as Hizbollah and Hamas. Every rocket smuggled into southern Lebanon or Gaza sets back the cause of peace.”

Clinton’s reference to long-range weapons follows reports that Syria supplied Hezbollah with advanced Scud missiles capable of inflicting sever damage on Israel’s major cities – a charge Damascus denies.

She said: “President Assad is making decisions that could mean war or peace for the region.”

Clinton went on to defend America’s recent decision to return an ambassador to Syria after a five-year absence.

“We know [Assad is] hearing from Iran, Hezbollah and Hamas, she said. “It is crucial that he also hear directly from us, so that the potential consequences of his actions are clear. That’s why we are sending an ambassador back to Syria.

“There should be no mistake, either in Damascus or anywhere else: The United States is not reengaging with Syria as a reward or a concession. Engagement is a tool that can give us added leverage and insight, and a greater ability to convey strong and clear messages aimed at changing Syria’s behavior.”

DEBKAfile, Political Analysis, Espionage, Terrorism, Security.

Iranian Navy

Iran announced the firing of five new types of homemade shore-to-sea and sea-to-sea missiles Sunday, April 25 on the third and last day of its “Great Prophet 5” maneuvers in the Persian Gulf and Strait of Hormuz. The Revolutionary Guards Navy’s commander of the exercise claimed all five were fired and all struck a single target simultaneously – a major feat for the Islamic Republic of Iran. Only two of the missiles tested were identified as Noor (Light) and Nasr (Victory) missiles. The third was described as having a range of 300 kilometers, but given no name.
However, American intelligence sources, working from US satellite and aerial recon which photographed the entire exercise, say that none of the five “new” missiles was new; they were all old weapons which have been around for a long time and were simply repainted with new colors and given new names. An attempt was made to upgrade some of them, but these alterations were described as “minor and unimportant” in terms of their operational capabilities.
DEBKA-Net-Weekly‘s military sources reports that US and Israeli intelligence analysts decided to take a closer look at Iran’s “successfully” tested missiles after an excited Iranian broadcaster described the huge missiles on display on giant trucks at a military parade in Tehran on April 18 as “more advanced than the Russian S-300 interceptor” which Moscow continues to withhold from Tehran. The announcer said the Islamic Republic no longer needs Russian favors since it is capable of manufacturing its own superior product.
But then, a sharp examination of the vaunted missiles trundling by revealed cardboard cones or empty canisters freshly painted in military colors.

The Shehab-3 ballistic missile is stuck in its early development

An American missile expert who has been monitoring the Iranian nuclear program told DEBKA-Net-Weekly‘s sources that not since 1960s, when Gemal Abdel Nasser‘s Egyptian Army was wont to parade fake weapons, has any power gone in for displaying phony weapons – that is until the Islamic Republic of Iran tried this out today.
The Shihab-3 ballistic missiles are another case in point. Vaunted by Tehran as its weapon of choice for striking back at US forces and Israel if attacked, and designated to carry Iran’s first nuclear warheads, photos taken in the last two years of the Shihab-3 in parades, war games and at Iranian military facilities, reveal long delays in development. Their domestic industry has not managed to produce a warhead capable of carrying more than a half-ton to one-ton of explosives.
US intelligence analysts rechecked this finding with comparisons of the Shehab-3 displayed farther back than two years, only to find that the program is essentially “running in place.”
According to our Washington sources, Iran owes its lack of progress primarily to Beijing’s promise to President George W. Bush, extended for President Barack Obama, to withhold from Iran advanced Chinese technology for advanced ballistic and medium range missiles. Iran has proved unequal to the task of filling the gap on its own and has to be satisfied with Chinese short-range missile data.

So how has Iran come up with solid-fuel missiles?

But China is only one source, our military sources note: North Korea, whose relations with Iran are kept under tight wraps, is a major supplier of missiles and technology, so too are the black markets in arms trade of the former Soviet republics.
In 2001, Ukraine exported to Iran a dozen 18 x 55 cruise missiles (also known as kh-55 or AS-15) complete with ready-made nuclear warhead casings. The X-55 has a range of 3,000 kilometers.
So, is Tehran running a clandestine parallel program for developing and manufacturing missiles which are never displayed in public parades or war games?
None of the Western officials tracking the Iranian missile program can answer this with much confidence.
But clearly, Tehran is not putting all its ballistic achievements on show. It is a fact that Iran has in the past two years produced missiles that run on solid fuel, such as the Samen-Ghadr-10-1 tactical solid propellant ballistic missile, which has a range of 1,000 kilometers; the Sejil, a 2-stage missile with a range of 2,000-2,500 kilometers; and the Ghadr-110A/Ashura, with a range of 3,500 kilometers.
On February 3, Iran’s Kavoshgar-3 boosted into earth orbit a space capsule carrying a mouse, two turtles and some worms.
It is therefore clear that not all is what it seems in Iran’s missile industry.

DEBKAfile, Political Analysis, Espionage, Terrorism, Security.

Ehud Barak, Robert Gates and Admiral Mike Mullen

“Syria and Iran are providing Hizballah with rockets and missiles of ever-increasing capability,” US Defense Secretary Robert Gates told a news conference which he addressed jointly with Israeli Defense minister Ehud Barak on Tuesday, April 27. “And we’re at a point now, where Hizballah has far more rockets and missiles than most governments in the world,” Gates went on to say, “and this is obviously destabilizing for the whole region and we’re watching it very carefully.”
Barak then said: We (Israel) do not intend to provoke any kind of major collision in Lebanon or with Syria, but are watching these developments closely.”
However, DEBKA-Net-Weekly’s intelligence and military sources report that neither defense chiefs represented the true state of affairs governing the ever-precarious Israeli-Syrian-Lebanese border triangle. According to intelligence reaching Washington from Iranian sources last week, Tehran is reckoned by some to have resolved to ignite a Middle East war within the next three months – May, June or July. Obama administration leaders and the Israeli defense minister, who spent the whole week in Washington, agreed that August may be the date-of-no-return for hostilities to erupt and judge Tehran has opted for this course for five reasons:

To pre-empt a US/Israel strike

1. To preempt a possible US or Israeli military strike on its nuclear facilities, by throwing their military preparations awry.
2. To pre-stage its first military clash with the US and/or Israel in an arena far from home – preferably in Syria or Lebanon, if possible.
3. To distract Iranian and world public attention from the threat of sanctions. A Hizballah attack on Israel, after some days or weeks of bloodshed, would put Tehran in a good jockeying position to parlay a ceasefire for the West’s consent to drop sanctions.
4. A war in foreign lands would give Iran time to attain its nuclear objectives undisturbed.
5. Sheer opportunism: Tehran’s war planners find the current international climate conducive to holding Israel responsible for violent hostilities regardless of the real aggressor. They cite the unhappy state of relations between the Obama administration and the Netanyahu government, the cracks in the close partnership between the Binyamin Netanyahu and his defense minister, Ehud Barak and the open rift between Barak and Chief of General Staff Gabi Ashkenazi – all of which, the Iranians judge, have brought Israel to its lowest point, domestically, internationally and militarily.

Syrian troops moved from Turkish to Israeli border

This line of thinking was laid out at length in a secret phone conversation Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad held with Syrian president Bashar Assad before dawn on Thursday, April 22, which several Western intelligence organizations in the Middle East were able to intercept.
It was echoed in a remark by Syrian Vice President Lt-Gen. Hasan Turkmani Wednesday, April 28, when he inspected the ground maneuvers held jointly by the Syrian and Turkish armies along the northern Syrian border. He lauded the deepening of military ties between Ankara and Damascus because, he said, they made it possible to transfer substantial numbers of Syrian troops from the Turkish border to Syria’s border with Israel in readiness for a military confrontation between them.
The talks at the Pentagon between Gates and Barak this week therefore revolved around two main questions:
A. Israel’s response to certain credible scenarios: A clash with Hizballah which the Syrian president decides to expand by pushing into Lebanon the advanced weapons systems standing ready on the Syrian side of the border, the most dangerous of which are Scud ground missile batteries and mobile Igla-S or SA-18 anti-aircraft missiles; or a Hizballah terrorist outrage against an Israel target at home or overseas in Africa, Central Asia or Europe.
Barak informed Gates that Israel would view any one of these acts of aggression as a casus belli.
B. How to keep this armed conflict from expanding into all-out regional war against Iran or, alternatively, the conditions in which a Middle East war would require America or Israel to attack Iran, separately or together.

Work at feverish pace to prepare logistic base on Diego Garcia

At this time DEBKA-Net-Weekly’s military sources do not have reliable information on what was agreed by Gates and Barak with regard to military cooperation. Those sources have, however, obtained a good picture of the Obama administration’s next steps with regard to the Middle East, the Persian Gulf and the Indian Ocean, having gained new impetus from Iran’s war planning:

• A phased US Navy buildup off Iranian shores.
  US fleets will be expanded in the Persian Gulf and Arabian Sea. The single aircraft carrier in the Gulf, USS Dwight D. Eisenhower, will be joined by two more carriers and their assault forces taking up position opposite Iran by the end of July.
• Diego Garcia prepared as logistical base
  Work is going ahead at a feverish pace to ready the US air and naval installations of Camp Justice, on the Indian Ocean island of Diego Garcia, some 1,000 miles south of the southern Indian and Iranian coasts, to serve as logistical base for a potential US military action against Iran. These island-bases are out of effective range for Iran’s missiles, aircraft and the ships, which makes it possible to deploy there already the American warplanes for a possible air strike, along with ordnance such as bunker-buster bombs.
  The transfer of all this hardware and troops to the Indian Ocean has been rushed forward in recent days.
• In war, Qatari base becomes off-limits US territory
  Washington has privately warned Qatar ruler Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani that in the event of an outbreak of hostilities in the region, its contractual restrictions on the American use of the Al Udeid Air Base, the largest outside America, will be suspended and the facility wil revert to its status during the US invasion of Iraq in 2003.
• US undercover operations in Iran make inroads
  American clandestine agencies have intensified their covert activity inside Iran, believing they have acquired very good sources in the country which they did not have a year or two ago.
  Iran’s intelligence agencies seem to share this evaluation and act as though they feel uncomfortably exposed to a more capable alien surveillance.
  So pleased are America’s spymasters with their improved capabilities that , on Monday, April 26, the Washington Post quoted senior US officials as saying openly: “Iran’s political turmoil has prompted a growing number of the country’s officials to defect or leak information to the West, creating a new flow of intelligence about its secretive nuclear program.”
  A former government official commented: “There is a wealth of information-sharing going on, and it reflects enormous discontent among Iranian technocrats.” He added that among senior technocrats in the nuclear program and other fields, “the morale is very low.”
  That same day, an Iranian nuclear scientist was reported by the Israeli media as having recently defected and requested political asylum – the sort of event that rarely sees the light of day.
• US envoys to brief Arab rulers
  Special US administration envoys are due over the coming weekend and next week to start fanning out through Middle East and Arab Gulf capitals to brief local rulers in person on the new policy the Obama administration is developing for Iran.