WarSclerotic

Op-Ed Columnist – As Ugly As It Gets – NYTimes.com.

By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN

I confess that when I first saw the May 17 picture of Iran’s president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, joining his Brazilian counterpart, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, and the Turkish prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, with raised arms — after their signing of a putative deal to defuse the crisis over Iran’s nuclear weapons program — all I could think of was: Is there anything uglier than watching democrats sell out other democrats to a Holocaust-denying, vote-stealing Iranian thug just to tweak the U.S. and show that they, too, can play at the big power table?

No, that’s about as ugly as it gets.

“For years, nonaligned and developing countries have faulted America for cynically pursuing its own interests without regard for human rights,” observed Karim Sadjadpour of the Carnegie Endowment. “As Turkey and Brazil aspire to play on the global stage, they’re going to face the same criticisms they once doled out. Lula and Erdogan’s visit to Iran came just days after Iran executed five political prisoners who were tortured into confessions. They warmly embraced Ahmadinejad as their brother, but didn’t mention a word about human rights. There seems to be a mistaken assumption that the Palestinians are the only people that seek justice in the Middle East, and if you just invoke their cause you can coddle the likes of Ahmadinejad.”

Turkey and Brazil are both nascent democracies that have overcome their own histories of military rule. For their leaders to embrace and strengthen an Iranian president who uses his army and police to crush and kill Iranian democrats — people seeking the same freedom of speech and political choice that Turks and Brazilians now enjoy — is shameful.

“Lula is a political giant, but morally he has been a deep disappointment,” said Moisés Naím, editor in chief of Foreign Policy magazine and a former trade minister in Venezuela.

Lula, Naím noted, “has supported the thwarting of democracy across Latin America.” He regularly praises Venezuela’s strongman Hugo Chávez and Fidel Castro, the Cuban dictator — and now Ahmadinejad — while denouncing Colombia, one of the great democratic success stories, because it let U.S. planes use Colombian airfields to fight narco-traffickers. “Lula has been great for Brazil but terrible for his democratic neighbors,” said Naím. Lula, who rose to prominence as a progressive labor leader in Brazil, has turned his back on the violently repressed labor leaders of Iran.

Sure, had Brazil and Turkey actually persuaded the Iranians to verifiably end their whole suspected nuclear weapons program, America would have endorsed it. But that is not what happened.

Iran today has about 4,850 pounds of low-enriched uranium. Under the May 17 deal, it has supposedly agreed to send some 2,640 pounds from its stockpile to Turkey for conversion into the type of nuclear fuel needed to power Tehran’s medical reactor — a fuel that cannot be used for a bomb. But that would still leave Iran with a roughly 2,200-pound uranium stockpile, which it still refuses to put under international inspection and is free to augment and continue to reprocess to the higher levels needed for a bomb. Experts say it would only take months for Iran to again amass sufficient quantity for a nuclear weapon.

So what this deal really does is what Iran wanted it to do: weaken the global coalition to pressure Iran to open its nuclear facilities to U.N. inspectors, and, as a special bonus, legitimize Ahmadinejad on the anniversary of his crushing the Iranian democracy movement that was demanding a recount of Iran’s tainted June 2009 elections.

In my view, the “Green Revolution” in Iran is the most important, self-generated, democracy movement to appear in the Middle East in decades. It has been suppressed, but it is not going away, and, ultimately, its success — not any nuclear deal with the Iranian clerics — is the only sustainable source of security and stability. We have spent far too little time and energy nurturing that democratic trend and far too much chasing a nuclear deal.

As Abbas Milani, an Iran expert at Stanford University, put it to me: “The only long-term solution to the impasse is for a more democratic, responsible, transparent regime in Tehran. It has been, in my view, a great con game successfully played by the clerical regime to make the nuclear issue the almost sole focal point of its relations with the U.S. and the West. The West should have always followed a two-track policy: earnest negotiations on the nuclear issue and no less earnest discussion on the issues of human rights and democracy in Iran.”

I’d prefer that Iran never get a bomb. The world would be much safer without more nukes, especially in the Middle East. But if Iran does go nuclear, it makes a huge difference whether a democratic Iran has its finger on the trigger or this current murderous clerical dictatorship. Anyone working to delay that and to foster real democracy in Iran is on the side of the angels. Anyone who enables this tyrannical regime and gives cover for its nuclear mischief will one day have to answer to the Iranian people.

The Associated Press: Israeli prime minister to visit White House.

By ARON HELLER (AP) – 31 minutes ago

JERUSALEM — President Barack Obama’s chief of staff on Wednesday invited the Israeli prime minister to the White House next week, in a sign that strained relations between the two allies are beginning to thaw.

Rahm Emanuel, who was in Israel for a private visit, extended the invitation during a meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Officials in Netanyahu’s office said the White House meeting would take place next Tuesday, after the Israeli leader wraps up a previously scheduled trip to Canada.

Emanuel told reporters the talks would focus on security issues, a likely reference to the Iranian nuclear program, as well as the Israeli-Palestinian peace process.

The president is “asking to extend an invitation to you to come visit him at the White House for a working meeting to discuss both our shared security interests as well as our close cooperation in seeking peace between Israel and its neighbors.”

The meeting will give Obama and Netanyahu a chance to repair a relationship that has been strained since the two men took office last year.

Obama gave Netanyahu a cool reception during his last visit to Washington, even skipping the usual photograph session with reporters at the start of their March 23 meeting.

Relations between the U.S. and its top Mideast ally took a hit earlier that month when Israel announced plans to build 1,600 new homes in a Jewish neighborhood in east Jerusalem during a visit by Vice President Joe Biden. The announcement infuriated the U.S. and temporarily derailed plans to restart peace talks under American mediation.

Obama has pressured Netanyahu, who leads a conservative nationalist government, to halt Israeli settlement activity in the West Bank and east Jerusalem — captured territories that the Palestinians claim for a future state along with the Gaza Strip.

Under heavy pressure, Israel has since put the housing project on hold and imposed an unofficial construction freeze in east Jerusalem. Netanyahu has also announced a 10-month slowdown on construction in West Bank settlements.

The Israeli gestures helped clear the way for the launch of the U.S.-brokered, indirect peace talks earlier this month.

Next week’s meeting is expected to address shared concerns about Iran’s nuclear program, which Israel, the U.S. and much of the international community believe is ultimately aimed at the development of nuclear weapons — a charge that Tehran denies.

Both countries have reacted skeptically to an Iranian proposal — brokered by Brazil and Turkey — to swap low-enriched uranium for fuel rods to power a research reactor. A similar plan proposed by the U.N. in October was intended to deprive Iran — at least temporarily — of the opportunity to use its stockpile of enriched uranium to build a bomb.

On Tuesday Netanyahu called the deal “a transparent Iranian trick meant to distract world public opinion from sanctions by the Security Council against Iran.”

In Washington, White House spokesman Tommy Vietor said Wednesday that Obama will also meet Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas “in the near future,” but no date has been set.

In a related development, Israel said Wednesday it would begin compensating West Bank settlements for damages incurred because of the construction slowdown.

Interior Ministry spokesman Roi Lachmanovich said the state will send around $10 million to settlements to make up for lost revenues from families who would have come to live there had the construction proceeded.

Also Wednesday, the Israeli parliament gave preliminary approval to bills that would strip privileges, like family visits and televisions, from Hamas prisoners held by Israel.

The measures are meant to pressure Gaza’s Islamic militant Hamas rulers to free an Israeli soldier captured nearly four years ago by Hamas-linked militants.

Sgt. Gilad Schalit’s captors have barred any access to him and have allowed him to send messages only a few times since he was seized in June 2006.

In violence early Wednesday, Israeli warplanes pounded suspected militant targets in the Gaza Strip, wounding 15 people, including seven Hamas police, Palestinian hospital officials said.

The Israeli military said it scored direct hits on a pair of tunnels that militants were planning to use to attack Israel.

The airstrikes came hours after Gaza militants fired several mortar shells toward southern Israel and blew up an explosives-laden donkey cart near the border. No Israelis were wounded in the attacks.

Copyright © 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

BESA Center for Strategic Studies.

by Chuck Freilich

EXECUTIVE SUMMERY: The Iranian nuclear threat has obscured the possibility of waging nuclear terrorism against Israel. There is a clear rationale for employing nuclear terrorism and countering it needs calibrated policies of prevention and possibly US-Israeli cooperation. The time to prepare for the Armageddon scenario is now.

For the past 15 years, Israel’s focus on the Iranian nuclear threat has been nearly all-encompassing, eclipsing virtually all other threats. While understandable, this preoccupation may have distracted Israel from a threat which may be no less likely and actually far more dangerous; nuclear terrorism. Unlike “traditional” terrorism, nuclear terrorism poses a catastrophic threat to the state.

Moreover, those most likely to conduct nuclear terrorism (al-Qaeda, Hizballah, Hamas, Iran, and others) may be fundamentally nihilistic and thus undeterrable. As millennial movements who believe that Israel’s destruction is a sacred mission, they may view a nuclear attack, even assuming a devastating Israeli response, to be a worthy means of ushering in a messianic era.

A nuclear terrorist threat against Israel might be designed for:

• Actual Use ג€“ to deal Israel a devastating blow
• Deterrence ג€“ to counter Israel’s conventional superiority and purported nuclear capability, to deter Israeli attacks, or to conduct attacks with relative impunity
• Compellence ג€“ to exert a decisive influence on Israeli decision making during crises or over fundamental issues, holding it hostage by the threat of an attack
• Weakening ג€“ to severely erode Israel’s national resilience due to the ongoing need to live in the shadow of nuclear terrorism
• Back Up ג€“ to strengthen the deterrent value of a state-based (Iranian or Syrian) capability
• Decapitation ג€“ to remove the Israeli political and/or military leadership

The potential means of conducting nuclear terrorism against Israel would be similar to those applicable to other countries (sea, air, and land-based), with one important addition: rockets. Rockets, such as those already in Hizballah’s possession, could be fitted with nuclear warheads. Though unsuited for ordinary military purposes, they could be effective weapons of terror.

Policy Options

Prevention

Prevention includes a variety of intelligence, interdiction, and other offensive measures to detect and prevent a nuclear terrorist capability from being developed or used. If still under development, Israel will have sufficient time to pursue a range of preventative options, alone and in conjunction with the US, from targeted to massive military operations. Once a capability exists, the window for action will be severely attenuated and preventative efforts will have to include any and all capabilities to guarantee success at all costs. While a unilateral Israeli operation might be sufficient if the capability is still being developed, the need for immediate and guaranteed success to thwart an operational capability may require American involvement. The challenges posed by detection and elimination of a terrorist nuclear weapon are hugely difficult.

Deterrence

Deterrence is commonly thought to be ineffective against nuclear terrorism, due to the presumed nihilistic nature of potential perpetrators. However, Hizballah and Hamas, while certainly extremist, have populations for which they take responsibility and have proven over the years to be deterrable. Although their acquisition of a nuclear capability would pose severe threats, such as the ability to terrorize Israel’s population with relative impunity, it does place them in the appropriate context.

Iran would presumably be willing to suffer great losses in pursuit of Israel’s destruction, but would have to take into account that Israel is considered by the international community to be a nuclear power and that a nuclear crisis could lead to a devastating exchange. While a precise assessment of Iran’s cost-benefit analysis is unknowable, it does appear to be fundamentally rational and thus deterrable.

The biggest question mark is in regard to al-Qaeda, whose presumed nihilism may indeed make it undeterrable. It is questionable whether this would truly be the case in the face of threats of annihilation of their leadership and families, Muslim population centers, and sites of major importance to the Muslim world.

Potential perpetrators of nuclear terrorism must be convinced that Israel will preempt/retaliate devastatingly. For Israel, this means a ג€�hoot first, no questions askedג€�policy. Both those clearly responsible for an actual attack (if any) and those reasonably suspected of involvement must be held accountable, and Israel must retaliate with all the means at its disposal. In the absence of irrefutable and immediate evidence to the contrary, Israelג€™s retaliatory policy should hold Iran and/or al-Qaeda responsible with an absence of irrefutable and immediate evidence to the contrary. In the event of a declared nuclear terrorist capability, a stated intention to acquire one, or an advanced suspected one, the known or suspected perpetrator and host country should be attacked in advance with the amount of all of the force necessary to prevent the threatג€™s materialization.

As a global power, the US will be unlikely to adopt such a ג€�o questions askedג€�policy and will require nuclear forensics. Nevertheless, American determination to prevent nuclear terrorism and retaliate devastatingly against those responsible must be beyond question. US declaratory policy on the nuclear terrorist threat to Israel would not need to be significantly different from its posture on nuclear terrorism generally, but could be further elucidated.

US-Israeli Cooperation

As with so many other areas of Israeli national security, cooperation with the US is a primary option for dealing with nuclear terrorism. In this case, however, the US would only be able to provide limited assistance. ג€�xtended deterrenceג€�would have little if any value in the face of nihilistic terrorists. Heightened cooperative preventative efforts, while important, may not suffice when the US lacks a satisfactory response to nuclear terrorism.

Conversely, global American efforts to minimize the threat of nuclear terrorism might be of significant indirect benefit for Israel. These efforts include, inter alia: heightened diplomacy to make better international use of existing diplomatic tools and to adopt new ones; intensified pressure on states to deny terrorists assistance and sanctuary; improvements in control over nuclear facilities, stockpiles and personnel; strengthening the NPT; heightened international cooperation regarding border security, export controls, intelligence sharing, and interdiction; and a variety of covert operations.

Ending Nuclear Ambiguity

Israel is widely thought by foreign observers to be nuclear and any potential perpetrator of nuclear terrorism must take this into account. It is doubtful whether ending nuclear ambiguity would be of significant deterrent value.

Defensive Measures

Israel has an extensive operational homeland security system (Arrow and Iron Dome) and an attacker must consider the probability of interception and massive retaliation. However, if ג€�nlyג€�one nuclear warhead got through, this would constitute unacceptable failure for Israel, rendering defensive measures an insufficient option.

Conclusion

To date, no terrorist group has apparently acquired a nuclear weapon or the materials needed to make one. Al-Qaeda has tried repeatedly, but currently the technical challenges are daunting. This good news comes with a crucial caveat; it is true only ג€�s far as we know.ג€�Even if the risk may be low at this time, the potential costs are monstrous and the threat assessment is likely to change significantly in the coming years. Israel must take into account that a nuclear terrorist threat could emerge in the foreseeable future and therefore devote greater attention and resources to it, in order to develop the necessary doctrine and undertake the preparations possible. The time to act is now.

Chuck Freilich is a Senior Fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School, an Adjunct Professor at New York University, and a former Deputy National Security Adviser in Israel. This perspective is based on a more comprehensive study to be published by the Begin-Sadat (BESA) Center for Strategic Studies.

BESA Perspectives is published through the generosity of the Greg Rosshandler Family.

DEBKAfile, Political Analysis, Espionage, Terrorism, Security.

Tags: Hizballah Israel Syrian missiles

Scud-D smuggled to Hizballah by Syria

A colossal Iran-funded and directed armament program has enabled Syria to field 1,000 ballistic missiles and Hizballah 1,000 rockets – all pointed at specific Israeli military and civilian locations, including the densely populated conurbation around Tel Aviv, debkafile‘s military sources reveal. Syria has smuggled most of its stock of liquid-fuel powered ballistic missiles over to Hizballah in Lebanon, while its own production lines have been working day and night for five months to upgrade its stock solid fuel-propelled missiles, so improving their accuracy. North Korean military engineers and technicians are employed on those production lines.

According to Western military sources, a command center for coordinating a missile offensive against military and civilian targets in Israel has been operating at Syrian general staff headquarters in Damascus since early March with the help of Iranian, Syrian, Hizballah and Hamas liaison officers.

The command center, operating under direct Iranian command, was formally established at a gala banquet attended by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Syrian President Bashar Assad, and Hizballah leader Hassan Nasrallah in Damascus on February 25.  Its primary mission was defined as “target unification” – military lingo for interaction at the command level to make sure that Tehran, Damascus, Beirut and Gaza do not send short-range missiles flying toward the same Israeli target at the same time.

Each of the four has been assigned one of four Israeli sectors and given specialist training in its features.

The new joint command gave Hizballah secretary-general Hassan Nasrallah the confidence to sneer at Israel’s five-day, countrywide home front missile defense exercise, which ends Thursday, May 27.

In a speech on Tuesday, May 25, he said: ‘Israel wants to reassure its people and make them feel strong and properly prepared to stand up to all possible war situations. But this assurance is false. So carry on with your drills,” he said, “but when the rockets start falling on the occupied territories, we’ll soon see how much good they are.”

The command center’s central strategy, say our military sources, is to eliminate the Israel Air Force’s edge by releasing a simultaneous deluge of missiles and rockets from hundreds of stationary and mobile launching sites in remote parts of Syria, Lebanon, Iran and the Gaza Strip.
Most of the projectiles in the Syrian, Hizballah and Hamas arsenals are propelled by liquid fuel and therefore take 50 minutes to 1 hour to load and loose at assigned targets. During this time gap, they are vulnerable to air attack. As a bridging device, western intelligence sources believe the joint command in Damascus plans to attack Israel with synchronized missile fire from Iran and Syria during the time Israeli warplanes are hammering, say, Hizballah batteries in Lebanon.

The thinking in Tehran and Damascus is that the Israeli Air Force will find it hard to tackle three or four fronts simultaneously.

Tehran and Damascus are therefore building air shields around their missile bases and launching sites, for which purpose Assad asked Russian President Dmitry Medvedev to speed up the delivery of the advanced Russian Pantsir anti-aircraft missiles when the latter visited Damascus on May.

Medvedev promised to accede to this request.

debkafile‘s military sources recall that the same Russian Pantsir missiles were ineffective in preventing the September 2007 air strike, by which Israel destroyed the North Korean plutonium reactor financed by Tehran at Al-Azur in northern Syria.

FT.com / UK – Israel war drill fuels Mideast concern.

By Tobias Buck in Jerusalem and Roula Khalaf in London

Published: May 26 2010 03:00 | Last updated: May 26 2010 03:00

WND Exclusive FROM JOSEPH FARAH’S G2 BULLETIN

Deputy prime minister says technology in place to strike Iran

Posted: May 25, 2010

10:01 pm Eastern

© 2010 WorldNetDaily

Moshe Ya’alon

Israeli Deputy Prime Minister Moshe Ya’alon again has sounded the prospect that Israel may launch a pre-emptive strike on Iran’s nuclear enrichment facilities, which Israel and Western countries believe are a cover for making a nuclear bomb, according to a report from Joseph Farah’s G2 Bulletin.

Ya’alon was commenting on a report that Israel has developed an air refueling system that will allow the launch of an airstrike against Iran.

He pointed out Israel now was capable of developing such systems for which the United States had denied technology.

“As far as I’m concerned,” Ya’alon said, “offense remains the best form of defense.”

He said such an attack would include taking out Iranian defenses such as its surface-to-air missile batteries and command-and-control centers.

Only last week in G2Bulletin’s Intelligence Briefs, Ya’alon said Israel considered itself on a war-footing with Iran, even though the word “war” rarely has been mentioned in discussions.

via Intel briefs: Israel says offense is best defense.

‘Recon for attack a warning to Iran’.

IDF air raid siren to sound at 11 am.

A siren will sound at 11 a.m. Wednesday morning throughout Israel to announce the beginning of the Home Front Command’s emergency preparedness drill.

Residents are to go to the nearest shelter when the alarm is sounded and remain there for ten minutes. Hundreds of deaf citizens in the center of the country will also receive page warnings to special beepers to notify them of the sounding of the emergency siren, Channel 2 has reported.

In the event of a real emergency, a second siren will be sounded immediately after the first alarm.

Nasrallah: We will attack ships approaching Israel in future war – Haaretz Daily Newspaper | Israel News.

Hezbollah chief tells supporters the militant group has the capability to inflict as much harm on Israel as it did in Lebanon during the 2006 war.

The leader of Lebanon’s Hezbollah group warned Tuesday his fighters will attack Israeli ships if Israel imposed a sea blockade on Lebanon in any future war.

	Young Hezbollah supporters holding mock ups of Katyusha rockets in front of a portrait of group leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah.
	Photo by: AP

Hassan Nasrallah said his Iranian-backed group was capable of destroying any military or commercial ships heading to Israeli ports.

Israel imposed a sea and air embargo on Lebanon during its month-long war against Hezbollah in 2006, saying it needed to prevent the guerrillas from being resupplied with weapons.

“If you [Israel] put our coasts under siege in any future war, I say all military, civilian and commercial ships heading to Palestine’s coasts on the Mediterranean will be under the fire of the Islamic resistance fighters,” Nasrallah said.

Earlier this year Nasrallah threatened to hit Israel’s Ben Gurion airport if the Jewish state struck Beirut’s international airport in any future conflict.

“[As for] those ships which will go to any port on the Palestinian coast from north to the south, [I say] we are capable of hitting it and are determined to go into this..if
they besiege our coasts,” he said.

“When the world will witness how these ships will be destroyed in Palestine’s regional water nobody will dare to go there just as they will block (others) from coming to our coasts,” he told thousands of supporters.

Nasrallah’s comments come amid a five-day drill in Israel- dubbed “Turning Point 4”- which was launched on Sunday to test the Jewish state’s preparedness against possible missile strikes from the Gaza Strip and by Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Nasrallah said Tuesday that Hezbollah now had the capability to inflict as much harm on Israel as it did in Lebanon during the 2006 war.

On Monday, U.S. President Barak Obama used talks with Lebanese Prime Minister Said Hariri in Washington to warn of the growing danger of arms smuggling to Hezbollah militants.

“The President stressed […] the threat posed by the transfer of weapons intoLebanon in violation of UNSCR 1701,” the White House said in a statement following the meeting.

United Nations Security Council resolution 1701 was passed after a month-long war between Israel and Hezbollah in the summer of 2006 and calls for the disarmament of the Shi’a Muslim group – but despite the presence of a UN peacekeeping force in southern Lebanon, it has yet to be enforced.

Hariri’s first official visit to the United States took place against a backdrop of tensions in the Middle East, U.S. efforts to restart Israeli-Palestinian peace talks and growing momentum toward new international sanctions on Iran, Hezbollah’s major backer.

Lebanon and Syria have said they fear a possible attack by Israel after President Shimon Peres accused Syria in April of supplying Hezbollah with long-range Scud missiles capable of hitting major Israeli cities. Damascus has denied the charge and accused Israel of fomenting war.

Some U.S. officials have expressed doubt that any Scuds were actually handed over in full to Hezbollah, although they believe Syria might have transferred weapons parts.

“We obviously have grave concerns about the transfer of any missile capability to Hezbollah through Lebanon from Syria,” a senior Obama administration official said on Friday, saying the issue would likely be raised in Monday’s talks.

Hariri has also denied Israel’s accusations, while his government has said it backs the right of the guerrilla group to keep its weapons to deter Israeli attacks. Israelhas not signaled any imminent plans to strike.