WarSclerotic

Turkey Shuts Its Airspace to Israeli Military – WSJ.com.

By MARC CHAMPION in Istanbul and CHARLES LEVINSON in Jerusalem

Turkey said Monday that it closed its airspace to Israeli military flights in the wake of the Israeli commando raid on a Turkish aid ship, further squeezing a military alliance that analysts say has become more useful for Israel than for Ankara.

Yet three weeks after the May 31 boarding of the Mavi Marmara severely damaged the relationship between the two countries, Ankara remains cautious about completely severing its military ties with Israel.

On Monday, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan told reporters after a Group of 20 summit in Toronto that Turkey has banned Israeli military flights from its airspace since the May 31 boarding of the Gaza-bound aid ship in which nine Turkish citizens and an American of Turkish descent were killed, the Associated Press reported. Mr. Erdogan was responding to questions about an Israeli plane carrying military personnel to Auschwitz, Poland, that was forced to divert earlier this month.

A Turkish official clarified that military flights would be considered on a case-by-case basis and civilian flights wouldn’t be affected, the AP said.

Immediately after the Gaza incident, Turkey canceled three scheduled military exercises with Israel. Since then, it has warned that ties could be further restricted if Israel fails to apologize to Turkey over the Mavi Marmara affair, among other conditions. But Turkey’s government is wary of rushing to take steps that could harm relations with the U.S., or with its own military industry because of lost potential contracts, analysts say.

“If the U.S. has to choose between Israel and Turkey at one point, it would choose Israel, which would cause further stress” between Ankara and Washington, said Serdar Erdurmaz, an arms expert and former Turkish defense-industry executive at the Turkish Center for International Relations and Strategic Studies in Ankara.

Last week, U.S. officials issued statements to scotch speculation in Turkish media that a deadly attack by Kurdish rebels across Turkey’s border with Iraq occurred because the U.S. withheld intelligence to punish Ankara over its friendly policy toward Iran and shunning of Israel.

The recent divisions are a dramatic reversal from the mid-1990s, when Turkey’s military turned to Israel to help quickly upgrade its large but poorly equipped military. Turkey was at the time embroiled in a bloody war with Kurdish separatists, and in the late 1990s faced threats of war with both Greece and Syria.

Military contracts followed quickly on two 1996 defense-procurement agreements. Among the known deals were well over $1 billion in advanced avionics, long-range fuel tanks and cruise missiles to outfit Turkish fighter planes; a deal to upgrade 170 M60 tanks; and another to provide Turkey with unmanned aerial vehicles. The UAVs are still being delivered despite the latest crisis.

Neither side has ever revealed the precise extent of their military relationship. One senior Israeli official said that at its height, Israel’s annual military sales to Turkey easily exceeded $2 billion a year.

“Everything our military had was on the table at one point,” said former Israeli Defense Minister Ephraim Sneh, in an interview. “They were one of the top five clients of our defense industry.”

Israel’s air force used to train at least two or three times a year in Turkey, over wide-open territory that could simulate action over Iran. “The threats to Israel are now coming from a long distance away, so it’s important for Israel to be able to train flying long distances,” said retired Maj. Gen. Eitan Ben Eliyahu, who commanded Israel’s air force from 1996 to 2000.

Turkey, for its part, gained from Israeli intelligence. The 1999 capture of Kurdish rebel leader Abdullah Ocalan, who is still in a Turkish prison, was widely attributed to help from Israeli intelligence. Access to Turkey gave Israel’s military a perch and listening post on the borders of Iraq, Syria, and Iran, some of Israel’s most worrisome foes.

Mr. Erdurmaz said the loss of Israel as a partner would hurt Turkish arms firms that have strong ties there, but not fatally. The companies have “matured” since the 1990s, he said, and because of technology transfers, are able to operate and produce much of the Israeli equipment themselves.

Similarly, he said, the context for the relationship has changed as Turkey transforms its foreign policy and opens up to neighbors in the Middle East, many of them foes of Israel. Despite the recent upswing in Kurdish rebel attacks, threats to the Turkish military—the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s second-largest after the U.S.—have decreased dramatically.

Already, in 2007, the regular long-range training flights for Israeli pilots stopped as Turkey began to shift its foreign-policy stance. According to an Israeli Defense Ministry official, there are now concerns within the Israeli defense establishment that some of the technology given to Turkey—once a powerful ally—could wind up in Iranian hands.

Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About An Israeli Attack On Iran (But Were Afraid To Ask).

Marla Singer
Zero Hedge
June 28, 2010

At least back in 2009 the most promising targets for damaging the Iranian nuclear program, specifically the weapons related development, were Plutonium production facilities (characterized primarily by the Plutonium Production Heavy Water Nuclear Reactor in Arak) and facilities critical to the “Nuclear Fuel Cycle” (most obviously the Uranium Enrichment Facility in Natanz and the Uranium Conversion Facility in Esfahan).  The Center for Strategic and International Studies’ Abdullah Toucan released a detailed report comparing the mission requirements of strikes on these (and other) facilities with Israel’s capabilities and concluded the mission was within Israel’s grasp operationally.1 Normally we would call this report a “must read,” but instead we’ve read it so you don’t have to, as well as added some of our own research and secondary sources.  The report also examined the ballistic missile strike option and delved into some of the political and instability costs that an attack would extract (which we ignore for the purposes of this discussion).  Those sections are well worth reading, even if the political reality on the ground has changed since early 2009.

The Esfahan facility converts U3O8 to UF6 (Uranium Hexafloride), an interval product on the way to producing highly enriched (read: weapons grade) material.

The enrichment facility at Natanz is a gas centrifuge plant used (in theory) to process UF6 into 3-5% concentrations of U-235 for use in light water reactors (which has the unfortunate side effect of producing some 90% U-235, read: weapons grade uranium).  This is the famous underground centrifuge facility.  It isn’t clear exactly how many centrifuges Iran is operating here (or elsewhere), but 1,000 is enough to produce around 20 kg of highly enriched uranium per year.  Iran admitted to the IAEA that it had 3,800 operational centrifuges here in late 2008.  About 7,000 are thought to be operating today.  Iran publicly aspires to installing 50,000 centrifuges in the Natanz facility in “the next few years.”  The exact number is something of a mystery.

In addition, once operational, the Arak heavy water reactor has the potential to spit out about 8kg of weapons grade plutonium per year.  It is expected to become operational this year or in 2011, and after some warm up, would be at near full capacity to generate electricity (and plutonium) in 2013-2014.

How Much?  How Long?

The amount of fissile material required to create a nuclear weapon varies by the method of initiation.  In the case of the simple “uranium gun” (using high explosive to propel one sub-critical uranium projectile into another sub-critical uranium mass such that the total mass is super-critical) 20-25 kg of highly enriched uranium is required.  As a practical matter, more is likely to be used in a working weapon.  While the simplest design, the gun method is highly inefficient and not thought to be practical for plutonium weapons as plutonium’s higher neutron emission rate means that plutonium criticality begins long before the masses meet.  Uranium has similar issues that must be overcome with sufficient uranium projectile speed.

The amount of material required for a weapon can be reduced by shifting to an implosion type weapon.  In this case, rather than using two sub-critical masses, a single sub-critical mass is squeezed together until it becomes super-critical.  High explosive is typically used, and the weaponization process is therefore complicated by the design and precision milling of high explosive around a fissile core with sufficiently symmetric detonation to squeeze the core evenly into a small mass.  Timing of multiple detonators in the high explosive around a fissile core is the key engineering challenge for these weapons, but as little as 15 kg of high enriched uranium or 6 kg of plutonium is theoretically sufficient to enable a crude implosion weapon.  Again, practical weapons will be likely to require more.

Efficiency of the reaction is a major factor in yield, and inversely proportional to weaponization development time.  Crude weapons are not likely to be efficient, and at the low end one might assume 10 kiloton yields for smaller weapons.

Bear in mind, however, that one does not have to create an actual fission weapon to cause quite a bit of trouble.  Even conventional explosives, when used to spread highly enriched material, have the potential to render wide swaths of land uninhabitable for long periods.  In this context, adding the “weaponization development” time required to design and test a working fission bomb might be a bit of wishful thinking.

Picking Targets.

The centrifuges required to produce weapons grade uranium are a particularly vulnerable part of the nuclear fuel cycle, particularly while operating, as it takes very little in the way of physical trauma to destroy one.  In addition, given their precision manufacture and the difficulty in replacing them, they are at least partially vulnerable to bottleneck and control via sanctions or embargo.  Additionally, it is highly complex to spread individual centrifuges out, meaning they are usually operated in banks of over 1,000 and “cascaded” into one another to produce more and more enriched product.  This presents a tempting, concentrated target.

Clearly, the Iranians recognize the alluring nature of the Natanz facility, given the lengths they have gone to in order to protect it.  The enrichment facilities were initially built 25 feet underground with 75 feet of dirt above concrete ceilings and walls in 2003.  Reportedly the facility was further hardened in 2006.  AAA sites now ring the area making “spot the Iranian air defenses” good sport with Google Earth.2

So we’ll take 600,000 some square feet of concrete building…
and it’s gone.  (Iran’s Natanz facility 2003-2004)  Golf course planned in 2012!

There Goes The Neighborhood!
Air Defense Sites (probably a combination of Skyguard radar controlled
35mm and 23mm Anti-Aircraft Artillery) sprout up SE of Natanz between 2006 and 2009.

Valuable Iranian Real Estate Near Natanz
The Evolution of an Anti Air Site (probably radar controlled 35mm) 2005-2009

35mm AAA Near Natanz3

Both Arak and Esfahan are above ground, and therefore vulnerable facilities.  But even in the case of the Natanz facility, the 5,000 GBU-28 penetrating munition is likely enough to deal with even the thick earth/concrete defenses.  The issue is one of size.  At over 646,000 square feet of underground facility more than 20 would be required.  Of course, any significant losses among the strike aircraft would limit the damage.

The Limits of Iranian Air Defense?

Amusingly, Iran is rumored to have acquired 10 Pantsyr S-1E systems from Syria in 2007.  These mobile, tracked units are generally thought to be effective for critical facility protection and can be deployed in linked networks.  This is comic given what appears to be the total ineffectiveness these systems demonstrated against the Israeli attack on Syrian facilities in September of 2007.  Presently, the rumor is that the Israeli’s used sophisticated jamming and/or cyber attacks on the advanced Russian weapons to blind them completely during the raid.4 It is not clear that Pantsyr systems were the only anti-air to be defending the Syrian site either.  The Pantsyr is the next generation of the SA-19 system and many anti-air systems use radar and fire control units similar to the Pantsyr’s 1RS2-1E and 2RL80E units.  Potentially vulnerable also are the Russian Tor-M1 systems, of which Iran has liberally partaken.

Traditionally, the “Southern Route” for an Israeli attack (across the southern end of Jordan, into Saudi Arabia and then Iraq or Kuwait through to Iran) was discounted given the political ramifications of overflying Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Iraq.  Despite this, if the Israelis are determined to conduct the attack unilaterally, and rumors of Saudi permission for an overflight5 6 prove true (the Saudis denied this in 2009 and 2010)7 8 the only operational constraints would be the possibility of American fighter aircraft (which are the only armed aircraft flying over Iraq at present) and air defense units firing on Israeli strike groups, or Jordan picking off the plans during their short transit.  It is difficult to imagine American units firing on Israeli planes (especially since any Saudi agreement was almost certainly mediated by the U.S. State Department), making this route a potential “beg forgiveness instead of ask permission” approach.

Assuming the use of Israeli F-15E aircraft for GBU-28 delivery an attack on Natanz, Esfahan and Arak would require about 30 ground attack aircraft (a mix of F-15Es and F-16Is) and 40 anti-air defense and anti-air fighters (probably F-16Cs).  This works out to basically all of Israel’s F-15E craft and a good slice of the F-16s on hand, but it is far from impossible.

Obviously, assistance from the United States would reduce the mission load, and increase the margin for error.  But will it be forthcoming?

1. 1. Abdullah Toukan, “Study on a Possible Israeli Strike on Iran’s Nuclear Development Facilities,” Center for Strategic and International Studies (March 16, 2009).
2. 2. “The Bluffer’s Guide: Fortress Iran” by “Planeman” is essential reading (and viewing) for the amateur air-defense analyst.
3. 3. Source: Planeman
4. 4. “Israel Shows Electronic Prowess,” Aviation Week (November 27, 2007).
5. 5. “Saudis give Nod to Israeli Raid on Iran,” The Sunday Times (July 5, 2009).
6. 6. “Saudi Arabia Gives Israel Clear Skies To Attack Iranian Nuclear Sites,” The Sunday Times (June 12, 2010).
7. 7. “Riyadh Denies Israel Overflight Report,” Foreign Policy (July 7, 2009).
8. 8. “Saudis Deny Report They Will Allow Israeli Planes Over Country,” Israel National News (June 13, 2010).

The Associated Press: Iran postpones any nuclear talks until late August.

By NASSER KARIMI (AP) – 4 hours ago

TEHRAN, Iran — Iran will not hold talks with the West over its nuclear program until late August to “punish” world powers for imposing tougher sanctions against the country, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Monday.

He also vowed that Iran will retaliate should its ships be searched over suspicions that the cargo may violate the new sanctions approved by the U.N. Security Council earlier this month.

The European Union and U.S. Congress followed with new punishing measures of their own to discourage the Iranian government from continuing its uranium enrichment program, which they fear could be used to produce a nuclear weapon.

Iran insists its program is for peaceful purposes.

Ahmadinejad accused the world powers of approving the latest sanctions to give them the upper hand in talks over the issue.

“We call this bad behavior,” he said, adding talks on the issue would be postponed until the end of the Iranian month of Mordad, which would be about Aug. 20. “This is a fine to punish them a bit so that they learn the custom of dialogue with our nation.”

The Iranian leader also set three conditions for an eventual resumption of talks, saying countries who want to participate should make clear whether they oppose Israel’s purported atomic arsenal, whether they support the Nonproliferation Treaty and whether they want to be friends or enemies with Iran.

However, he said, participation in the talks was not contingent on the answers.

The U.S. and its allies accuse Iran of seeking to use its civilian nuclear program as a cover to develop atomic weapons. Iran has denied the charge.

The new U.N. sanctions call for an asset freeze of another 40 additional companies and organizations, including 15 linked to Iran’s powerful Revolutionary Guard and 22 involved in nuclear or ballistic missile activities. The resolution also bans Iran from pursuing “any activity related to ballistic missiles capable of delivering nuclear weapons.”

It also bars Iranian investment in activities such as uranium mining, and prohibits Iran from buying several categories of heavy weapons, including attack helicopters and missiles.

The sanctions, the fourth imposed by the U.N., came after last year’s push to get Iran to accept a U.N.-drafted plan to swap its low-enriched uranium for higher-enriched uranium in the form of fuel rods, which Tehran needs for a medical research reactor.

At the time, the swap would have significantly reduced Iran’s low-enriched uranium stockpile and delayed any weapons-making capabilities.

Instead, Iran opted for an alternative plan backed by Turkey and Brazil that included the uranium-for-rods exchange but didn’t mandate a halt on Iran’s enrichment process and fell short of U.N. demands.

Ahmadinejad also suggested that other countries should be invited into the talks, which currently consist of the permanent members of the U.N. Security Council and German — a possible reference to Turkey and Brazil.

Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guard, the country’s most powerful military force, has warned in recent days that it will retaliate should Iranian ships be searched.

Ahmadinejad reiterated that warning.

“We reserve the right to retaliate,” Ahmadinejad said. “We were not interested in getting to this stage. But if some insist (on going in this direction), experience has shown that we can defend our rights. They will strongly regret any action they may take.”

Ahmadinejad also scoffed at assertions Sunday from U.S. intelligence chief Leon Panetta that Iran had enough material to make two nuclear bombs.

He said stockpiling nuclear weapons was “politically retarded” and warned over possible accidents with the U.S.’s own vast nuclear stockpile.

“A country that cannot cap an oil well, how can they stockpile thousands of atomic bombs inside the U.S. and other countries?” he asked, referring to the oil gushing into the Gulf of Mexico.

He offered the help of Iranian experts to contain the breach.

Copyright © 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

I’ve Never Seen Israel Like This | The New Republic.

Jerusalem—I visit Israel at least once a year, so I have an opportunity to observe changes in the country’s concerns. Never before have I sensed such a mood of foreboding, which has been triggered by two issues above all—the looming impasse in relations with the United States and a possible military confrontation with Iran.

In response to American pressure that began shortly after President Obama took office, the Netanyahu government agree last November to a temporary and partial freeze on construction in East Jerusalem and the West Bank, which averted an immediate crisis. The freeze expires in September, however, and it will not be renewed. As I write, the central committee of the Likud Party is meeting to consider a resolution supporting renewed construction in all parts of the country. Netanyahu has signaled that he will not oppose the resolution, which its proponents describe as a way of pinning him down and removing all ambiguity about Israel’s future course. The Prime Minister is scheduled to visit the United States in early July and to meet with President Obama. In the face of an Israeli stance that will torpedo the current proximity talks in the fall, what will the president say to him? If Netanyahu leaves Washington without a clear sense of the U.S. stance, he and everyone else will interpret it as a signal that he can stay the course at minimal price.

There are persistent rumors here that the Obama administration hopes to bring down the current Israeli government and replace it with a more tractable coalition. Don’t hold your breath. The potential new coalition member–the Kadima Party headed by Tsipi Livni—will not join unless Netanyahu fundamentally alters his stance in the negotiations with the Palestinian. Headed by Avigdor Lieberman, the hardline forces in the current coalition will not accept Kadima unless it accepts a tough government platform including the transfer of Israeli Arab villages to a new Palestinian state in return for the incorporation of major West Bank settlements into Israel. Netanyahu’s stated position is that he will accept Kadima as an addition to the coalition but not as a replacement for Lieberman and Company. To bring about a new coalition without the hardliners, the Obama administration would have to threaten Israel with measures at least as tough as the ones George H. W. Bush and James Baker implemented two decades ago against the Shamir government, risking a huge domestic political backlash.

Looking farther east, most Israelis—including many who are very dovish vis-a-vis the Palestinians—believe that only military force can prevent Iran from becoming a nuclear power in the near future, and they cannot understand why the United States resists this conclusion. According to Ha’aretz, eyewitnesses on the ground support a recent report from the Times of London that Saudi Arabia has agreed to open its airspace to Israeli aircraft “as part of preparations for a possible attack on Iran.” (Israel refused to comment on this report, which the Saudis of course have denied.)

A few months ago I participated in a day-long exercise, organized by the Brookings Institution, simulating the aftermath of a surprise Israeli attack on Iranian nuclear facilities. The outcome wasn’t pretty—a forceful Iranian attack on American allies throughout the region and a serious rift in relations between Israel and the United States. The Israeli team hoped that the United States would back them with military measures against Iran that the American team refused to initiate.

In both these areas, the Obama administration has been playing for time. But the sand in the hourglass is running down quickly. Some time this fall, an administration headed toward a midterm election with a faltering economy and negative developments in two war zones may confront a genuine Middle East crisis. We can only hope that its contingency plans are in place and that they’re better than BP’s.

Rothman: U.S.-Israel Alliance in Better Shape Than Before – Roll Call.

Today, modern Israel faces some of the toughest challenges it has encountered in its 62-year history. Chief among them is Iran’s threat to the Jewish state’s very existence. But — especially in the past several months — there has been progress in defending against, deterring and preventing Iran from fulfilling that evil objective.

On the continuing threat side, Iran-funded and directed Hezbollah and Hamas still have more than 50,000 rockets on Israel’s borders and continue to seek even more sophisticated weaponry to position against Israel, as evidenced by the recent transfer of Scud missiles to Hezbollah by Syria and Iran.

But the most terrifying and real threat to Israel is the possibility that Iran’s deranged President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will succeed in acquiring a nuclear weapon and use it to realize his long-stated objective of wiping Israel off the map.

All of this underscores the importance of what has now been achieved: the strongest military and intelligence alliance between the U.S. and Israel in recent history.

There is no question that the relationship between Washington and Jerusalem is not perfect — but when has it ever been? (See Ariel Sharon’s 2001 comment that “Israel will not be Czechoslovakia” and Ari Fleischer’s rebuke that President George W. Bush “believes that these remarks are unacceptable.”)

However, concerning military and intelligence cooperation — where the rubber meets the road, where issues speaking to Israel’s very existence hang in the balance — the U.S.-Israel relationship has never been stronger. I feel comfortable making this statement as a member of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense and the Appropriations Subcommittee on State and Foreign Operations, which appropriate all spending for the U.S. military and all foreign aid, respectively. My position on these subcommittees affords me the opportunity to be in regular contact with the highest levels of all U.S. and Israeli diplomatic, military and intelligence agencies. The weekly and sometimes daily classified and unclassified briefings I receive inform my views about the true status of U.S.-Israel relations.

America’s boycott of Durban II, the 2009 United Nations conference against racism, and its dismissal of the U.N.’s Goldstone Report on the conflict in the Gaza Strip as “unbalanced, one-sided, and basically unacceptable,” along with our support of an Israeli-run investigation of the recent Gaza flotilla incident have helped shield Israel on the international stage. And over the past 18 months, America’s own improved international standing has helped secure a broad international consensus to confront Israel’s, the Middle East’s and the world’s greatest threat: Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons.

Israel’s qualitative military edge, which eroded under previous U.S. administrations, has been restored and improved, with more help on the way. The Obama administration’s outreach to Russia has resulted in an agreement that Russia will not deliver its S-300 anti-aircraft system to Iran, a game-changer in Iran’s balance of power with Israel.

Also, months of aggressive U.S.-led negotiations in the U.N. have yielded a new sanctions regime against Iran that will allow for even greater sanctions against Iran’s financial, military and energy sectors from the Europeans, the United States and other nations.

There is more. Last month, President Barack Obama allocated an additional $205 million to permit Israel to position additional short-range Iron Dome anti-missile batteries throughout the Jewish state. This is on top of the more than $3 billion in military aid that Israel will already receive from the U.S. this year, plus more than $200 million in additional money for the U.S.-Israel joint missile defense systems, including the long-range Arrow systems and the medium-range David’s Sling. In allocating these additional funds, President Obama is building on my efforts to enhance U.S. support and cooperation for Israel’s missile defense system against Hamas, Hezbollah, Syria and Iran.

Not only that, but there is an unprecedented high level of U.S.-Israel military and intelligence cooperation. A powerful demonstration of the strength of the U.S.-Israel relationship was demonstrated in October of 2009, with Operation Juniper Cobra, in Herzliya, Israel. At that time 1,400 U.S. servicemen and servicewomen were sent to Israel with 10 U.S. warships, bringing the highest U.S. military and intelligence command officers with them to coordinate with their Israeli counterparts to conduct live-fire testing of practically every missile defense capability in the U.S. and Israeli arsenal.

The Obama administration and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have declared that a nuclear-capable Iran is unacceptable and that they will work to prevent it. In fact, last Wednesday, Uzi Arad, Prime Minster Netanyahu’s national security adviser, acknowledged that “the United States is determined to prevent Iran from becoming nuclear. There is determination there. There is activism.” Both countries also hold that a policy of containment is not an option.

In that regard, there have been recent public reports that Saudi Arabia will let Israel overfly a portion of its territory, should Israel feel it necessary to undertake military action against Iran. This follows in the footsteps of Egypt, which has allowed Israeli submarines and missile ships, as well as U.S. aircraft carrier battle groups, through the Suez Canal into the Red Sea. These vessels have the capability of launching cruise missiles armed with both nuclear and non-nuclear warheads. And several months ago, the U.S. delivered advanced anti-missile batteries to four Persian Gulf states, operated by American crews.

Ahmadinejad should now clearly understand that Israel’s new relationships with the U.S., Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the other Sunni nations in the region, and Israel’s more effective and comprehensive missile defenses will make it difficult, if not impossible, to exercise his sick and deranged calculus whereby Iran would be willing to trade the lives of a million Iranians for even a few thousand Israelis. If he acts and takes that gamble without effect, he will pay a terrible one-sided price.

While it would thus require a suicidal Iranian leader to consider attacking Israel, unfortunately, President Ahmadinejad may be such a leader.

And so, clearly, there still remains a long way to go before the Jewish state’s security is assured. We therefore must continue our vigilance in keeping Israel’s security at the forefront of U.S. foreign policy. But genuine progress has occurred in recent months. It is important not to be overlooked, ignored or belittled.

Rep. Steven Rothman (D-N.J.) serves on the Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense and the Appropriations Subcommittee on State and Foreign Operations.

Did Iran Just Blink? – New Europe.

If I was the Supreme Leader, I would be preparing now for a military attack against several of the country’s nuclear facilities. The warning signs of such an attack are mounting. My planning would proceed on several levels – diplomatic, intelligence, military and, most importantly, domestic politics.
After years of threat and sanctions against Iran, intelligence analysts face a problem in understanding just when and where the attack might happen. Richard Betts captured the essence of this problem in his 1982 book Surprise Attack: Lessons for Defense Planning, by reference to the term “wolf at the door”. After long periods of hostile rhetoric and diplomatic or military mobilization (the “wolf is at the door” and strategic warning of attack is clear), it becomes very difficult to identify the moment when (or if) the operational plan of attack is to be put into place.
The intelligence analyst is forced back on intuition and even more careful analysis. The search intensifies for the “diagnostic” keys – the pieces of evidence that the long announced threat to attack is about to executed. Timing is everything. On 6 June 2010, the New York Times reported that in February, Israel had briefed China on the severe economic consequences for it of an Israeli attack on Iran, could be one “diagnostic” key. The source was clearly an Israeli official, but does the timing of the leak have any significance?
The news story presented the secret and high level briefing as part of the diplomatic effort to convince China to support a new sanctions resolution in the United Nations Security Council. But the significance could lie elsewhere. The leak may have been intended to let people know that China has been briefed on the attack and to imply a degree of co-option or acquiescence. This has diplomatic potential to reinforce pressure on Iran but is more importantly another sign that the window for diplomacy is all but closed.
The escalating diplomatic pressure over more than five years has failed. The Israeli “wolf” is at Iran’s door. If attacked, what is Ayatollah Khamenei’s plan for mobilizing his divided country, a condition he admits (and is plain for all to see). In a speech of 8 June on the importance of national unity, yet another one, he warned of a rare and new sensitivity to the international situation that would affect the world for generations to come.
Then comes the news that an Iranian plan to send a humanitarian aid ship flotilla to Israel would be cancelled. The Revolutionary Guards let it be known publicly on 14 June that they would not defend the ships, in spite of a promise by Khamenei’s personal representative to the Guards on 6 June that they would. A proposed mass visit of 200 Iranian members of parliament to Gaza is reportedly reduced to just be three members.
Looking for the diagnostics on Iran’s responses to the “wolf at the door”, it is possible – one can never be certain with access to so few sources of evidence – that Iran has just blinked after years of escalating threat.
Why would Iran back down now? The threat from Israel to Iran’s leaders is personal. While Israeli bombs may not target Iran’s civilian leaders individually, an Israeli attack on the country may well unseat them in the most unceremonious way. A famous study from the Cold War by Hannes Adomeit (Soviet Risk Taking and Crisis Behaviour, 1973) noted that as Soviet leaders became more politically insecure at home, they became more conservative on the international stage in terms of risk. Does this now apply to Iran?  Is it starting to think about pulling back from the looming confrontation?

Iran is Surrounded by US Troops in 10 Countries – Defense/Middle East – Israel News – Israel National News.

Iran literally is surrounded by American troops, notes an oil market analyst, Energy and Capital editor Christian A. DeHaemer. There is no evidence of an imminent attack, but he connects a number of recent events and the presence of American soldiers to warn that oil prices might soar — with or without a pre-emptive strike aimed at stopping Iran’s nuclear power ambitions.

Iran is bordered on the east by Pakistan and Afghanistan, where U.S. troops have been waging a costly war, in terms of money and lives, against Taliban, Al-Qaeda and other terrorists.

The Persian Gulf is on Iran’s southern border, and last week’s report, confirmed by the Pentagon, that 11 warships had sailed through the Suez Canal, raised alarm bells that the U.S. is ready to fight to keep the Persian Gulf open.

Iran has threatened it could close the waterway, where 40 percent of the world’s oil flows in tankers, if the United Nations or the United States by itself carry out harsh energy sanctions against the Islamic Republic. An Israeli ship has also reportedly joined the U.S. armada.

Kuwait, which is heavily armed by the U.S. and is home to American bases, is located on the southwestern border of Iran. The country’s western neighbors are Turkey and Iraq, also home to American bases, and Turkmenistan, the Caspian Sea and Azerbaijan are the Islamic Republic’s northern neighbors.

The U.S.army last year advanced military cooperation with Turkmenistan. An independent Caspian news agency has confirmed unusually heavy activity of American troops along the border with Iran. The Iranian Revolutionary Guards’ Brigadier General Mehdi Moini said last week that his forces increased patrols, including tanks and anti-aircraft units, along the border with Azerbaijan because they noticed increased American activity. Iran charged that Israeli forces were also present, sparking a virtual war alert among the Iranian Guards.

In addition, the Times of London reported earlier this month that Saudi Arabia has agreed to open its air space for Israel Air Force jets, a claim that the Saudi monarchy denied. It similar denied Iranian news agency claims that Israeli helicopters unloaded military equipment at a northwestern Saudi Arabian air base, from where Israeli planes theoretically could reach Iran in the shorts possible time.

There has been no confirmation of Israel-Saudi cooperation from any other source, but one IDF reserve officer, who has been involved in secret military projects for private companies, told Israel National News that the it could be true if both countries found it in their common interests. Saudi Arabia does not recognize Israel and has treated the Jewish State with disdain. However, the possibility of Iran’s dominating the Arab world with nuclear power has changed all political scenarios.

Several defense websites have reported that Israel is deploying one to three German-made nuclear submarines in the Persian Gulf as a defensive measure against the possibility of a missile attacks from Lebanon and Syria, as well as Iran.

“The submarines of Flotilla 7 — Dolphin, Tekuma and Leviathan — have visited the Gulf before,” DeHaemer wrote, “but the decision has now been taken to ensure a permanent presence of at least one of the vessels.”

Amid the buzz of increased military activity around Iran looms the specter of higher oil prices, which is DeHaemer’s field of expertise. “The last oil price shock in the Middle East was in 1990 when the United States invaded Iraq for invading Kuwait. The price per barrel of oil went from $21 to $28 on August 6…to $46 by mid-October. The looming Iran War is not priced in,” he warned in his news letter.

Iran has the third-highest oil reserves in the world and is second only to Saudi Arabia in production. If any action prevents the flow of Iranian oil, the price of “black gold” would soar, he added.

Report: US warships stationed off Iranian coast | Raw Story.

As unconfirmed reports of an imminent Israeli strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities pick up steam in the Middle Eastern media, a US-based strategic intelligence company has released a chart showing US naval carriers massing near Iranian waters.

The chart, published by Stratfor and obtained by the Zero Hedge financial blog, shows that over the last few weeks a naval carrier — the USS Harry S Truman — has been positioned in the north Indian Ocean, not far from the Strait of Hormuz, which leads into the Persian Gulf. The carrier joins the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower, which was already located in the area. The chart is dated June 23, 2010.

Reports of mass movements of Israeli and US naval warships have been circulating through the media for weeks. On June 19, the Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz reported that 12 US and Israeli warships were seen moving through the Suez Canal from the Mediterranean Sea to the Red Sea.

And a report from the Associated Press published Saturday evening cited “unconfirmed” reports from Israeli and Iranian media that Saudi Arabia has allowed Israel to use its territory in preparation for an attack on Iranian nuclear facilities.

“The allegation could not be independently confirmed, and the Saudis deny cooperating with the Israeli military,” AP reported.//

An article in the Gulf Daily News, largely dismissed by Western observers, did not mention any Saudi involvement but said Israel is preparing to attack Iranian targets from the former Soviet republics of Azerbaijan and Georgia.

The claims that Israel may be preparing for an assault on Iranian nuclear facilities were strengthened this weekend by Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, who told reporters at the G8 summit in Canada that G8 leaders “believe absolutely” that Israel will “probably” strike Iran.

“Iran is not guaranteeing a peaceful production of nuclear power [so] the members of the G8 are worried and believe absolutely that Israel will probably react preemptively,” Berlusconi said, as quoted at Ha’aretz.

CIA director Leon Panetta said Sunday that Iran has enough enriched uranium to build two nuclear bombs. In an interview on ABC’s This Week, Panetta also said he believed the recent spate of international and US sanctions against Iran will not convince the country to change course on its nuclear program.

“Will it deter them from their ambitions with regards to nuclear capability? Probably not,” Panetta said.

YouTube – Admiral Mullen Visits IDF Chief of the General Staff, Lieutenant General Gabi Ashkenazi.