WarSclerotic

‘Scud reports add to tensions’.

Sharmine Narwani: The U.S. Military ‘Mainstreams’ Hezbollah and Hamas.

(If this article is at all correct it means the US policymakers are beginning to actually believe their own wishful thinking.  God help the US, Israel and the civilized world…)

Hezbollah and Hamas just went mainstream. According to Foreign Policy magazine’s Mark Perry, in a recent US military report “senior CENTCOM intelligence officers question the current U.S. policy of isolating and marginalizing the two movements” and encourage a “mix of strategies that would integrate the two organizations into their respective political mainstreams.”

The groundbreaking report is a product of CENTCOM’s “Red Team,” a group formed in 2006 to “think outside of the box and offer contrarian thinking” on critical issues for the benefit of senior military officials. The whole point of the Red Team, according to CENTCOM spokesman Major John Redfield, is that “it is meant to sharpen the reasoning and force intellectual rigor on these issues so that we can ultimately produce more informed decision making.”

The extraordinary five-page report entitled “Managing Hezbollah and Hamas” produces some critical conclusions and recommendations — Perry highlights some of these key points in his article:

– The report recognizes Hezbollah and Hamas as “pragmatic and opportunistic,” a nuanced distinction that is a world away from the current one-dimensional U.S. position that simplistically characterizes these groups as “terrorists.”

– The report recommends the integration of Hezbollah and Hamas into their national security forces and governing entities, recognizing that the existing political bodies “represent only a part of the Lebanese and Palestinian populace respectively.”

– The report downplays the view relentlessly promoted by Israel that Hezbollah is merely a proxy for Iran, instead claiming that the Lebanese resistance group’s “activities increasingly reflect the movement’s needs and aspirations in Lebanon.” Tellingly, Foreign Policy magazine also published an interview this week with Israeli Ambassador to Washington Michael Oren, in which he warns that Iran may use Hezbollah and Hamas to start a new Middle East war.

– The report draws parallels between the IRA’s gradual participation in peace talks and the possibility of taking a similar tack to integrate Hezbollah into the Lebanese Armed Forces. Citing a meeting between British Ambassador to Lebanon Frances Guy and Hezbollah in 2009, the report urges the British to pursue further talks with “vigor.”

In a twist I couldn’t possibly make up, an hour before reading Perry’s article, I was meeting with the very same Ambassador Guy, a universally-respected senior diplomat who speaks fluent Arabic and knows her terrain well. In a conversation about the peace process deadlock, I asked about her views on engaging Hamas, which is currently excluded from the talks.

Pointing to Russia’s recent statements advocating for Hamas’ inclusion in direct talks, Ambassador Guy volunteered an increasingly familiar refrain heard in Western policy circles: “You are not going to have peace without Hamas, obviously. They are going to have to be involved eventually.”

-The report, and the officials quoted by Perry, frequently question Israel’s policies and behaviors in regard to both Hezbollah and Hamas, citing the four-year siege of Gaza and 2006 attack on Lebanon as examples of failed initiatives. Perry, an experienced military analyst and author of eight books, says “the CENTCOM team directly repudiates Israel’s publicly stated view — that the two movements are incapable of change and must be confronted with force.” The report underlines this fact: “failing to recognize their separate grievances and objectives will result in continued failure in moderating their behavior.”

“Putting Hizballah, Hamas, the Muslim Brotherhood and al Qaeda in the same sentence, as if they are all the same, is just stupid,” says one of Perry’s military sources. “I don’t know any intelligence officer at CENTCOM who buys that.”

This is not a new theme. In January 2009, then-British Foreign Secretary David Miliband lashed out at the “War on Terror,” arguing that lumping these groups together was counterproductive and played “into the hands of those seeking to unify groups with little in common.”

Unknowingly prescient, Miliband follows that statement with this observation: “The ‘war on terror’ also implied that the correct response was primarily military. But as General Petraeus said to me and others in Iraq, the coalition there could not kill its way out of the problems of insurgency and civil strife.”

Irony of ironies. The US military is the architect of cutting-edge diplomatic initiatives, and the civilian-run federal government advocates the flexing of military might to address conflict.

There is no reason to suspect that General Petraeus himself does not buy into the Red Team’s conclusions on Hezbollah and Hamas. In March, the CENTCOM commander testified: “the enduring hostilities between Israel and some of its neighbors present distinct challenges to our ability to advance our interests in the AOR [Area of Responsibility of Centcom]. The conflict foments anti-American sentiment, due to a perception of U.S. favoritism for Israel,” which in turn “limits the strength and depth of U.S. partnerships” in the region.

A US military official familiar with the Red Team report strongly reconfirmed that viewpoint with me: “This issue permeates the entire Middle East. The Israel-Palestine problem is the key issue in the whole region.”

Ironically, Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories are the one area in the entire Middle East that is not under CENTCOM’s 20-nation jurisdiction. Yet this is the theater which most seems to affect their ability to perform their duties elsewhere in the region.

The official added that “labeling” Hezbollah and Hamas as terrorist groups was “pretty unhelpful” in addressing this issue and managed only to “water down the term.”

Changing the US position on Hezbollah and Hamas — resistance groups that have participated as political parties in fair elections and are favored by sizeable populations internally and throughout the Arab world — will almost certainly alter regional perceptions about the US’s willingness to engage realistically in brokering peace.

Hezbollah official Ibrahim Moussawi cautions, however, that perceptions are not enough:

People in the region are waiting for a change in action, not words, of US policymakers. Here is the Palestinian issue, here are the refugees and their right to return, here is the Jerusalem issue. They can show us some actions here first. The region wants to see tangible change and concrete actions first.

Timing and Intent

The timing of the disclosure of the Red Group report is intriguing. The U.S. Senate unanimously confirmed General Petraeus as the new commander of US and NATO forces in Afghanistan on the same day as the Foreign Policy story dropped online. His popularity and prestige are at a peak. And importantly, Petraeus demonstrated some serious invincibility in Washington when he emerged unscathed after linking Arab-Israeli peace failure to CENTCOM’s difficulties in the Iraq-Afghanistan military theater.

It is surely unlikely that this report, and the accompanying plugs by military intelligence officials, were leaked without the knowledge of some administration officials. Not this soon after the very public dismissal of Petraeus’ predecessor General Stanley McChrystal for criticizing, with his aides, senior administration officials in a Rolling Stone article.

I believe this “new” thinking on Hezbollah and Hamas has been percolating for some time within this very administration. I reference an article I wrote last November pointing to evolving views on Hezbollah within the White House and State Department. The view on Hamas has been tackled even more proactively — even before Obama became president, he was being urged to take a more pragmatic approach to the Palestinian resistance group by a broad array of former senior US officials, Republicans and Democrats alike.

Interestingly, the leak comes just days before Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — an unwavering foe of Hezbollah and Hamas — is due in Washington for talks with President Obama. Netanyahu isn’t much liked by this administration, and CENTCOM’s last leak opened up an unprecedented debate on whether Israel was a strategic liability for the United States.

Conjecture, facts, and anecdotes aside, this report is long overdue, and as one military official pointed out to me, it may have proven it’s worth already:

The timeline on the May 7 Red Team report predates the Israeli attack on the Gaza-bound Freedom Flotillas and the subsequent international scrutiny over Israel’s illegal blockade. Perry claims that the report’s authors were uneasy with “Israel’s anti-Hamas policies,” and felt that the siege on Gaza keeps “the area on the verge of a perpetual humanitarian collapse,” thereby “radicalizing more people.”

Post-flotilla, these are the same conclusions arrived at by many Western governments, whose first order of business was to diffuse tensions by pushing Israel to “ease” its siege.

The Red Team has passed an important credibility test at this first hurdle. With nothing but a failed peace process to stare at, this US administration would be wise to embrace the report’s daring recommendations and welcome Hezbollah and Hamas as full participants in any Mideast solution.

‘Big losses’ if Russia halts Iran’s S-300s – UPI.com.

Pajamas Media » Believing Israel Will Strike Iran.

When G-8 leaders sat down to weekend talks in Canada prior to G-20 meetings this week, Silvio Berlusconi wasn’t designated the official group spokesperson. But when he was quoted in the press as saying the G-8 “fully believes” Israel will attack Iran, the Italian prime minister was echoing a sentiment most leaders are publicly furrowing eyebrows over and privately anticipating expectantly.

“Iran is not guaranteeing a peaceful production of nuclear power [so] the members of the G-8 are worried and believe absolutely that Israel will probably react preemptively,” Berlusconi told reporters following talks with other Group of Eight leaders outside Toronto.

G-8 leaders met for two days of talks focused on Iranian and North Korean nuclear aims and growing concern over continued development despite renewed sanctions. Referring to a fourth round of UN sanctions handed down against Iran last week, Iranian President Ahmadinejad termed the measures a “used handkerchief” fit for the trash.

In the face of Ahmadinejad’s open defiance and alarm over continued arms development, are European and other world leaders truly concerned over a potential Israel strike that might cripple Iran’s nuclear capability?

“Iran’s nuclear weapons program is something everybody else hopes someone else will take care of,” says Mark Heller, Tel Aviv University’s principal research associate at the Institute for National Security Studies. “And it’s a tacit admission on Berlusconi’s part that they — Europe, the U.S. and all the rest – are not really designed to stop an Iranian nuclear weapons program. I’m guessing that he and maybe many others in the G-8 and elsewhere — including in the Arab world — are hoping Israel will do that.”

The sense of urgency is growing because of increasing levels of uranium enrichment Iran is achieving, bringing the rogue state closer to having a nuclear weapon.

A U.S. National Intelligence report assessed that Iran suspended weaponization in 2003 but continued with enrichment.  “They were turning enriched uranium into a nuclear weapon — essentially transforming a huge, unwieldy mass into a usable nuclear weapon,” Heller continues.  “When that report was issued, everybody else including the Europeans — who are not normally given to hysteria — made light of the assessment and said they didn’t understand the basis for it.

“It is slowly dawning that there’s no chance of getting the ‘crippling sanctions’ Hillary Clinton once called for to threaten the stronghold of power in the Iranian regime.  Conventional wisdom has become: either bomb Iran or there will be an Iranian bomb.”

So when an argument for more time to resolve the issue is put on the table, comments like Berlusconi’s indicate time is neither a luxury nor a neutral factor at this juncture.

“Attempting to put together sanctions packages prepared by Brazilians and Turkish prime ministers trying to appeal to the better sense of the Iranian regime … well let’s just say I don’t think Israel can do anything without close coordination with the U.S. and that’s the universal assumption.  And if it happens, Israel will be condemned publicly and congratulated behind closed doors,” Heller concludes.

American Foreign Policy Council Vice President Ilan Berman echoes much of Heller’s sentiment, calling a potential Israel hit on Iran a publicly divisive but strategically timely event.

“This is an interesting fork in the road with UN and U.S. sanctions.  We’re no longer speaking in the future tense about seeing if sanctions work,” Berman comments.  “The likelihood is that the economic pressure being applied is too little too late.  Ultimately, though, Israel has to make a choice of whether or not they can tolerate a nuclear Iran in the region. Israelis have been deferring a decision for a long time but it’s a decision that can no longer be kicked down the road.”

No one has a timeline for a strike, but the proverbial regional ticking bomb is clicking away. As the status quo continues, a growing number of countries — Egypt, Yemen, and Saudi Arabia among them — are building their own responses to the Iranian threat.  Allowing the situation to continue as is may create residual damage while a military attack could be the surest way of returning a power balance to neighbors, says Berman.

Berlusconi’s statement is an indication of the G-20 leadership’s understanding of just how much “Iran is out of the box,” Berman explains.  “It’s not an issue of technology or a nuclear program; it’s about what the ayatollahs are ready to do with it.”

And so in hushed tones the U.S., Europe, and sections of the Arab world support a military strike against Iran, and the perception is that Israel will be the subcontracted hit man.

The message to Israel: Don’t bore us with the details. Do what you have to do and we’ll condemn you in public and applaud you privately.

Joe Malone Position Paper on US-Israel Relations.

Like most Americans, I admire Israel and support Israel’s independence, its security, its accomplishments and its friendship with the United States. Also like most Americans, I appreciate that Israel has always sought peaceful relations with its neighbors, and that, despite unprecedented concessions to achieve peace, Israel now faces an existential threat as great as when it was invaded by six Arab armies in response to its declaration of independence in 1948. As your Congressman, I will help preserve and protect Israel’s right to defend itself and to make its own decisions about negotiating trustworthy and enforceable treaties with all of its neighbors to achieve peace, just as it did with Egypt and Jordan. I will oppose all efforts to force Israel to accept unilateral concessions to those who remain committed to Israel’s destruction.

Why I Support Israel

I support Israel because it is a democracy, believes in the rule of law administered by an independent judiciary, cherishes the education and development of its children, contributes well beyond its weight class to science, art, literature, medicine, and economic advancement, and helps other countries in need generously. Most of all, however, I support Israel because helping Israel survive and prosper is in America’s interest.

I believe that America’s security ultimately depends on the spread of democracy and the benefits to life that representative government and the rule of law bring to ordinary people in every country that is free and democratic. It is for that reason that every American government since the birth of Israel has affirmed and reaffirmed the unbreakable bond between the United States and Israel.

Israel is threatened today as it has not been since it was founded. On its borders, Hamas and Hezbollah are dedicated to Israel’s destruction. In violation of UN resolutions, Syria is arming Hezbollah with thousands of missiles, many of which are long range and threaten Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. Iran, which denies the Holocaust ever happened, and may soon possess nuclear weapons, promises to “wipe Israel off the map”. Even the Palestinian Authority, Israel’s supposed negotiating partner, which has been promised a Palestinian state on conclusion of successful peace negotiations, refuses nearly twenty years after Oslo to recognize the legitimacy of Israel as a Jewish state. Despite all this, Israel has always defended itself from its enemies and sought peaceful, bilateral relations with its neighbors, and asks only that it continue to be able to do so. For Israel to do that, it needs the United States to protect it in the UN and other international organizations hostile to Israel and it needs the same consistent material support that the United States has provided for years.

It is essential to United States interests that the world understand that the United States will not waver in protecting Israel diplomatically and in providing necessary material aid. If the support of the United States for Israel’s ability to defend itself is seen to wane, and our promise of an unbreakable bond then rings false, how can any other country have confidence in American promises of protection in adversity? Will our Arab friends continue to resist Iran, our European friends, Russia or our Asian friends, China, merely because we speak brave words to reassure them that, when they are pressured, the United States will be there for them? Acting in their own interest, I am convinced, they will make their deals with powerful neighbors. When that happens, the progress of democratic expansion will be reversed and the power and influence of authoritarian regimes will be advanced, all to the detriment of American security, human rights, religious freedom, protection of women and children and political dissent.

Furthermore, a weakened Israel will invigorate Islamic terrorists threatening the United States. Especially among Islamic terror organizations, Israel is a conveniently-located surrogate for the United States. Contrary to the catechism of Israel’s and America’s critics that American support for Israel recruits terrorists, if we stand by as Israel is damaged internationally or, worse, act to weaken Israel in a futile pursuit of an imposed peace, it will be for the terrorists like blood in the water to sharks. And then, it will be a short step to intensifying terror in the United States. The terrorists hate our shared values, freedoms and tolerance, and they believe that, if Israel’s future can be put in doubt, so can ours.

But if our support for Israel is seen as unyielding, the United States will enjoy significant benefits. The confidence of other small states in American constancy will be reinforced, and the march of democracy can continue. Moreover, the goal of peace in the Middle East will be more likely of achievement because, from a position of unchallengeable strength, Israel can afford to take risks, its adversaries will lose hope in terror and force as a remedy for their anti-Israel aspirations, and the Palestinians can turn their energies to building a democratic society based on the rule of law and the pursuit of prosperity. How rapidly these objectives will be achieved may be anyone’s guess, but to my mind, trying to advance American security in this manner beats becoming a fair-weather friend to Israel, thereby diminishing confidence around the world in our constancy and, soon enough, being left to relying ever more heavily on risking the lives of young Americans to protect the United States.

What Israel Needs Now in Congress

Israel needs our elected representatives to speak out and explain to Americans and the world the justice of Israel’s efforts to defend itself and the generosity of its outreach in the pursuit of peace. But, while continual education of the public is essential, it must be accompanied by specific legislative action that achieves identifiable objectives. In particular, Congress must reject international attempts to delegitimize Israel or its right to self-defense, demand that our government honor previous understandings between Israel and the United States, and enact crippling sanctions on Iran that cannot be lifted absent Iran’s total and verifiable termination of its nuclear weapons program.

Accordingly, there is a constant need for members of Congress to act. Had I served in Congress during the current term, for example, I would have:

– voted to fund the annual military aid appropriation to Israel;
– supported Israel’s right to defend itself against unrelenting rocket attacks on its citizens in Operation Cast Lead;
– joined in rejecting the biased and false Goldstone Report; and
– signed the recent bipartisan letter to Secretary Clinton responding to the Administration’s counterproductive public diplomacy following the Vice President’s visit to Israel.

Moreover, I can think of at least three issues that are current and will remain current for some time that will need strong and unwavering Congressional support in the next Congress and beyond.

Sanctions on Iran

It is in the American national interest that Iran not obtain nuclear weapons. I do not take comfort that containment and the threat of retaliation will restrain Iran, as, it is claimed, these policies restrained the Soviet Union. I well recall growing up under threat that MAD might not work, and history shows that, even with a basically cautious Soviet Union, we were forced to risk a hot nuclear war during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Anyone who thinks that it will be cheap or easy to defend against a nuclear Iran, even assuming its neighbors will support American defenses as vigorously as did NATO during the Cold War, needs a reality check.

Moreover, if the United States, in its own interest, does not act decisively, it is likely that Israel will. Most observers concur that Israel cannot tolerate living within missile range of a nuclear Iran that has threatened to exterminate Israel and its inhabitants. Since any attack by Israel on Iran’s nuclear weapons facilities will be blamed on the United States by Iran and its allied forces, the United States gains nothing by delay, anemic sanctions and multilateral handcuffs. To keep Israeli forces at home, it is critical that the United States give Israel confidence that we will not permit Iran to acquire nuclear weapons.

Congress is presently in the process of enacting tough, mandatory sanctions on Iran. Among other things, the legislation under consideration would force countries and companies trading with Iran, whether directly or through a shell, with choosing whether to do business with Iran or with the United States. I urge every member of Congress to vote in favor of H.R. 2194, the Comprehensive Iran Sanctions, Accountability and Divestment Act of 2009. As a member of Congress, I will work to see that the requirements of that legislation are fully and promptly implemented. Further, if additional sanctions prove to be necessary, I will support all such efforts.

Finally, as a member of Congress, I will try to improve American policy with respect to the Green Revolution in Iran. Some of the actions that Congress can take include funding worthy Green Revolution groups, strengthening our ability to beam news and information into Iran, denying Iranian governmental officials transit rights, participating in international forums that feature the plight of ordinary Iranians, publicizing the names and heroic actions of Iranian citizens resisting the Iranian government, depriving the Iranian government of access to international banking services, and other such actions. To repeat, these initiatives will seriously weaken the Iranian government, and give all governments in the area, Arab as well as Israeli, confidence to rely on the United States instead of engaging in self-help, or worse, diplomatic capitulation to Iran.

The Peace Process

Many people think that the peace process between Israel and the Arab world began with the Oslo Accords in 1993. Actually, attempts by the Jewish community in the Middle East to negotiate peace predates even the UN recognition of Israel in 1948. What is clear from the unbroken history is that the repeated and continual attempts by Israel and its predecessor Jewish community were met with total rejection until the 1978 Camp David Accords led to a peace treaty with Egypt. Since then, only Jordan has additionally recognized Israel by virtue of an agreement reached by King Hussein and Yitzhak Rabin in 1994. All other neighboring states and the Palestinian Authority refuse to recognize the legitimacy of Israel as a Jewish state and, indeed, have engaged instead in terror and the most hateful anti-Jewish propaganda imaginable.

Throughout the repeated refusals of Israel’s neighbors to recognize Israel and commit by treaty to live together in peace, Israel has continually reached out and taken risks to attain peaceful coexistence and bilateral relations with its Arab neighbors, and it has taken great risks to demonstrate its good faith. At Camp David, Israel readily surrendered the entire Sinai to Egypt. After Oslo, Israel turned administration of the West Bank over to Yasser Arafat and the PLO. More recently, Israel turned Gaza over to the Palestinians and Southern Lebanon to the Lebanese government.

Regrettably, bearing those risks has exacted a terrible price: The Second Intifada, two wars with Hezbollah, terror, suicide bombings and rockets raining down on Israeli citizens, have taken well over a thousand Israeli lives and maimed thousands more, children and adults both.

To my mind, the Israelis have more than demonstrated their willingness to negotiate a fair peace agreement with the Palestinians. It is hard for me to believe that Arafat and the Palestinian Authority rejected Israel’s offer at Camp David in 2000, a sentiment shared by President Clinton. It is even harder to understand why, instead of negotiating in good faith, the Palestinians launched the Second Intifada after rejecting that offer. The only explanation is that the Palestinian leadership still dreams of making the Israelis give up hope. Accordingly, I support the fence that the Israelis were forced to construct to protect their communities from terror attacks.

Now, the parties are supposed to be negotiating under the principles proposed by the Quartet. The United States and Israel also reached understandings with President Bush’s administration regarding conditions that should prevail pending agreements reached by the Israelis and the Palestinians of their own volition in direct negotiations under the Quartet principles. As a member of Congress, I will support negotiations based on these principles. Until the parties reach a negotiated agreement, however, I will oppose demanding new unilateral concessions from the Israelis or any kind of imposed result.

Jerusalem

Jewish families have been living in Jerusalem for hundreds of years. Except for the years between 1948 and 1967, they had lived in all sections of Jerusalem, including the eastern part of Jerusalem, which itself includes the Old City. The reason Israelis did not live in eastern Jerusalem between 1948 and 1967 is that, during the 1948 war of independence, the Jerusalem resistance could not hold out, despite the success of the Israeli forces elsewhere against the invading armies of the Arabs. Not only were the Israelis excluded from residing in eastern Jerusalem after 1948, during that period, their synagogues, cemeteries and other holy places were desecrated and their schools, hospitals and other buildings were ruined. Not just Israelis, but Jews generally were denied access to the Western Wall of the Temple Mount, which I understand is the holiest site in Jewish tradition. In contrast, since 1967, the Israelis have protected all holy sites in Jerusalem, Muslim, Christian and Jewish alike with a sensitivity that was never shown them. In fact, after the Israeli capture of all of Jerusalem in 1967, the Israelis placed the management and control of the Temple Mount in the hands of the Muslim Waqf, a futile gesture as it turned out. Instead of gratitude, as an element of a campaign to deny that the Temple and any ancient Jewish connection to Jerusalem ever existed, the Waqf has abused its authority and dug up and destroyed irreplaceable archeological artifacts of the Temple period.

In light of this history, I believe that the Israelis, and only the Israelis, should decide how Jerusalem is to be addressed by the parties during final status negotiations. That means that, pending agreement on final status, the government of Israel, including the city government of Jerusalem, should decide all ordinary affairs in Jerusalem, including land use, government services and commercial regulation.

Congress has repeatedly recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, and I intend to support continuing efforts to transfer our embassy to Jerusalem.

For more information, please visit http://www.joemalonecongress.com

Asia Times Online :: Middle East News, Iraq, Iran current affairs.

By Victor Kotsev

War drums are beating in the Middle East. In a short time, the United States has increased the number of its carrier strike groups opposite Iran to three, and reports are raining down of a tightening ring of American and Israeli concentrations all around the Islamic Republic. On the diplomatic front, the Israelis are unusually concerned about their international image (for example, making concessions in Gaza) while their top officials – including Defense Minister Ehud Barak and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu himself – are shuttling between Jerusalem and Washington.

Everybody in the region is restless. Turkey is making spectacular diplomatic pirouettes. Egypt is quietly seething, and Saudi Arabia less quietly so. Jordan’s king had ruefully predicted war if no peace was achieved by the summer [1], and summer has now come.

Syria and Lebanon are positioning themselves to weather the coming storm [2]. Yemen is in disarray. Russia, China, India, and a host of other powers are vying to make the best of the fracas. The Iranian regime itself appears to be digging in for a fight.

By most accounts, a cataclysm is approaching. The situation, according to analyst Tony Badran, is “arguably similar to the one immediately preceding the 1967 Arab-Israeli war”. Some very detailed analyses of the technical details of an Israeli strike on Iran are also available, such as David Moon’s Asia Times Online story “The anatomy of an attack on Iran” [3]. An Israeli expedition into Iran may well take this course; however, at this point it seems very likely that if a strike occurs, it will involve Israel and the US acting in tandem.

The US appears to have stepped up covert operations and preparations for action against Iran. Persistent reports reveal that American forces have been concentrating around the Persian Gulf and the Caucasus, most remarkably in Yemen and Azerbaijan, and that US and Israeli air forces have recently been practicing joint bombing drills. It may be, therefore, that the US is simply on a geostrategic collision course with Iran, and doesn’t feel confident enough that Israel will be able to do the job.

According to a Stratfor monograph from February 27 titled “The Geopolitics of Iran”, for example, the Islamic Republic cannot put up with a US presence on its borders, and has consequently tried hard to “manipulate ethnic and religious tensions in Iraq and Afghanistan to undermine the American positions there and divert American attention to defensive rather than offensive goals”. Writes Stratfor:

The greatest threat to Iran in recent centuries has been a foreign power dominating Iraq – Ottoman or British – and extending its power eastward not through main force but through subversion and political manipulation. The view of the contemporary Iranian government toward the United States is that, during the 1950s, it assumed Britain’s role of using its position in Iraq to manipulate Iranian politics and elevate the shah to power.

This in itself – not to mention the interests of other vital American allies such as Saudi Arabia and Egypt – might be reason enough for an American military intervention.

However, all this is only a part of the picture. An attack on Iran will likely spark a conflict that is brutal and intense, but relatively short-lived and militarily inconclusive. The US interest is to end up with as little spilt blood as possible. As a rule, no Middle East war in the last 60 years has lasted for much longer than a month (the shortest and most spectacular one ended in just six days), and this is no coincidence. Nobody in the region, Iran and Israel included, can sustain an all-out campaign for very long, and in fact, nobody is likely to even attempt an all-out campaign. Such an option would be too devastating given the destructiveness of modern military technology and carry too great a risk of outside intervention. Russia has also repeatedly warned that it would not tolerate a major war close to its borders.

Stratfor’s broader geostrategic prognosis also points to a deadlock of sorts:

As always, the Persians face a major power prowling at the edges of their mountains. The mountains will protect them from main force but not from the threat of destabilization. Therefore, the Persians bind their nation together through a combination of political accommodation and repression. The major power will eventually leave. Persia will remain so long as its mountains stand.

The main impact of a military campaign, therefore, would not be military. The true battle will be one of persuasion, and the target will be the Iranian people as well as the Muslim and broader international community. Luckily for the US, Israel, and their Middle Eastern allies, it appears that there is a growing international consensus against Iran, and that at the very least most states would once again refrain from too much criticism of the dominant superpower. If that happens, the Iranian regime could be quickly humiliated and weakened, its nuclear program set back by many years, and its international isolation deepened. In this case, seething internal tensions would eventually lead to regime change in the Islamic Republic.

Moreover, such a development would shake up the status quo in the Middle East, giving US President Barack Obama much needed leverage to push through an Arab-Israeli peace agreement. Having fulfilled his most important pre-election promise, in turn, would make Netanyahu more prone to compromise. Hamas would be left adrift, more or less, and initiatives like Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’ recent peace public relations campaign might be able to take hold and to galvanize some support in otherwise disillusioned Israeli and Palestinian publics. [4]

Pessimistic scenarios also exist, but apocalyptic predictions of a major war involving Syria and Lebanon are unlikely to materialize. In that respect, right-wing Israeli blog Samson Blinded makes a couple of unusually sharp observations: “[Syrian President Bashar al-]Assad remembers that the ayatollahs did not help him when the IAF [Israeli Air Force] flattened his nuclear reactor, and wouldn’t be eager to help them. He understands that launching Scuds at Israel would cost him Damascus, and perhaps something more important – his throne. As the Arab saying goes, ‘Syria is ready to fight Israel to the last Egyptian soldier’.”

Still, it is unclear weather at least some large-scale bloodletting could be avoided, and Iran would likely be hit hard. Iraq and Afghanistan, already on the verge of chaos, could be additionally destabilized, though a perceived US victory against Iran would add some credibility to the American presence. Even minor disruptions in shipping through the Strait of Hormuz could wreak havoc on world economies.

Despite these potential problems, Obama could get a chance to make something of a generally bad situation he faces in the Middle East (for an insightful analysis of the Afghanistan situation, see Obama risks all on flip of a COIN Asia Times Online, June 29, 2010.

If he succeeds in minimizing the immediate fallout from an Iran campaign and capitalizing on it to achieve even partial progress in the Israeli-Arab peace talks, the embattled US president would get some major foreign policy credit to compensate for the dark clouds looming elsewhere.

In all, it appears that some sort of a military showdown is all but unavoidable between the Americans, the Israelis, and the Iranians. The most important question, then, becomes to what extent the damage can be contained and what opportunities might arise in it.

Notes
1. Jordan’s Abdullah: Failure of peace talks could spark war Ha’aretz.
2. A Syria in minor key Now Lebanon.
3. The anatomy of an attack on Iran Asia Times Online, June 30, 2010. 4. Abbas wants negotiations with Israelis, but not with Netanyahu Ha’aretz.

Victor Kotsev is a freelance journalist and political analyst with expertise in the Middle East.

Ayatollahs left all alone – Israel Opinion, Ynetnews.

Iran shocked to see American, European chokehold on Tehran’s economy

Guy Bechor

The stunned Iran cannot believe it’s happening: The worst nightmare for the Ayatollah regime is taking shape right before its eyes, in the form of a complete chokehold on Iran’s economy within a few months. Iran’s soft underbelly is in the sights – oil and gas. The arrogant Ahmadinejad thought this day shall never come, yet the “higher power” that guides him, in his view, apparently no longer works.

The US and Europe have decided to suffocate Iran’s economy, no less. This is no longer about playing games here and there or about lukewarm sanctions against Iranian companies here and there. This time, the target is the whole Iranian economy. For Israel and most Arab states, there could be no greater success: The state behind everything that destabilized the Middle East is being threatened with collapse.

At the end of June, the US Congress and Senate approved by a large majority a law banning global companies engaged in ties with Iran’s oil and gas industry from coming into the US. This is a comprehensive and strict law that will dry up Iran as it dried up Cuba. Once the law goes into effect, anyone in the most sensitive industry for the Iranians who goes into Iran will not be allowed to go into the US. (While Iran exports oil, it must import refined oil for cars and planes, and therefore its dependence on the world is high.)

This law’s effect is already being felt, and energy giants that sell fuel for Iranian cars and planes immediately announced that they’re terminating their ties with the rogue, crumbling state. For example, the French Total immediately put an end to its Iran business.

Yet there’s more, and that’s what hurts Iran the most: The European Union has also imposed a chokehold on Iran’s economy. The decision was taken in June by all EU heads of state: As of early July, new investments by European companies and states in Iran’s energy, oil, and gas industry will be banned. This is an absolute, comprehensive, and far-reaching boycott. Technical assistance and the transfer of goods and services to Iran’s oil and gas industry will also be disallowed. Every violation of this decision will be illegal.

Arrogant Iranians infuriated

We must keep in mind that the EU is Iran’s number one economic partner. About 80% of Iran’s revenues come from oil and gas, and therefore this is its soft underbelly. And why are foreign investments critical? Because Iran’s wells are growing old, and there is a constant need to renovate them, yet there is no money for it unless it comes as a foreign investment – which is now banned. Should these renovations not take place constantly, Iran will stop pumping oil and the economy will deteriorate quickly.

The arrogant and unresponsive Iranians are now infuriated with the whole world: The US and EU (the EU will be “gravely punished,” Tehran says, calling the Germans “Israel’s slaves”), the Russians who abandoned them (according to Iran, Russia is a crumbling super-power. Everyone is crumbling, except for Tehran, of course,) and the Chinese who betrayed them. Where will they go now?

The Iranian regime is left isolated in the world, and below it is an Iranian society that wishes to end the Ayatollah dictatorship, which is merely 30-years-old.

Precisely at this time, the world must not go easy on the Iranians. The offer made to Iran on the nuclear front last year, and rejected by Tehran, should not be offered yet again. The time has come to put an end to the Persian bazaar. This pressure may topple the Ayatollah regime, as officials in Tehran know, and therefore the world should not make do with anything that is less than a complete halt of the nuclear race.

In any case, a collapsing Iranian economy means less terror in the region, less radicalism and provocation, and less aid to Hezbollah and Hamas; indeed, the Middle East’s stability will only gain from this.

The third Lebanon war – Haaretz Daily Newspaper | Israel News.

A wave of rumors has spread in Israel in recent weeks: War will break out already this summer. The rumors are exaggerated and premature.

By Ari Shavit

How will the third Lebanon war look? More or less like this: For three or four days, about 2,000 to 3,000 rockets will rain on Israel. Most will be short-range rockets that hit from Haifa northward. Some will be medium-range rockets that hit Herzliya northward. A small number will be long-range rockets that hit Tel Aviv, the center of the country and the northern Negev.

From 160 Shi’ite villages in southern Lebanon, which have turned into rocket bases, the civilian and military home fronts will be attacked as never before. The Israeli response will be resounding. The air force will even destroy Hezbollah targets next to hospitals and schools. The Israel Defense Forces will destroy Hezbollah targets, even if a ground offensive involves heavy losses. As a result of the Israeli counterattack, the rocket fire will gradually diminish. After a while it will be paralyzed. In Lebanon, thousands will be buried, including many civilians. In Israel, hundreds of soldiers, women and children will be buried. The third Lebanon war will be a far more powerful version of the Second Lebanon War, with consequences like those of the Yom Kippur War.

	IDF forces during Israel’s 2006 war with Hezbollah in Lebanon
	Photo by: IDF

A wave of rumors has spread in Israel in recent weeks: War will break out already this summer. The rumors are exaggerated and premature. As of now, the northern border is quiet. Syria and Hezbollah have been deterred. Both Syrian President Bashar Assad and Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah know what to expect if they attack, so they are not interested in an immediate flare-up. Everyone knows that the next war will be a terrible one, so nobody is eager to begin it. Nobody is risking a limited violent incident that might spark a large and unprecedented operation.

A genuine balance of terror is stabilizing the quiet, so we can keep on watching the soccer World Cup. We can continue to play paddleball on the beach. The third Lebanon war will not erupt tomorrow, but it might erupt the day after tomorrow. It will erupt the day after tomorrow.

Two scenarios are liable to ignite the war of the day after tomorrow. One is an Israeli attack on Iran. There is no question that if Israel strikes at Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Iranian president will strike at Israel with the help of his forward forces south of Lebanon’s Litani River. The second scenario is the nuclearization of Iran. Shortly after Iran acquires an unconventional capability, it will feel free to initiate an unconventional war that will make Israel bleed and weaken it. Whether Israel attacks or Iran goes nuclear, the result will be the same missile war in the north.

Next week U.S. President Barack Obama and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will meet in the White House. Obama will talk about Palestine, Netanyahu will talk about Iran. But what both leaders must talk about is the third Lebanon war – a war that is liable to break out during their terms and have their names on it. A war that Obama and Netanyahu must prevent.

To prevent the third Lebanon war, Obama must do two things: Stop pushing Israel into a corner and show regional leadership. Obama has been doing the opposite. He is handling the Iranian challenge hesitantly. He is conveying to the Middle East a lack of determination. Without meaning to, the peace president is liable to bring the next war closer.

To prevent the third Lebanon war, Netanyahu must do two things: Take Israel out of the corner and demonstrate proactive leadership. He has been doing the opposite. Just as on the eve of the Second Lebanon War the IDF’s emergency stores were empty, today the diplomatic emergency stores are empty. If Israel has to use force to defend itself, no one will understand it and stand by its side. Ironically, under a prime minister who believes in diplomatic power, Israel has achieved total isolation and a dangerous diplomatic weakness that is bringing the next war closer.

Obama and Netanyahu must wake up. The deal is a familiar one: determined American action vis-a-vis Iran in exchange for a determined Israeli initiative vis-a-vis Syria and Palestine. This deal can be closed only by these two leaders, who will look each other in the eye next Tuesday in the Oval Office. If they don’t change their ways and learn how to work with each other, Obama and Netanyahu will bear personal responsibility for the results of the third Lebanon war.

DEBKAfile, Political Analysis, Espionage, Terrorism, Security.

Obama signs first sanctions with bite

A US-Iran showdown loomed closer early Friday, July 2, when president Barack Obama signed into law a series of energy sanctions, the toughest yet, for arresting Iran’s nuclear weapons program. Iran’s defense minister Gen. Ahmad Vahidi warned that searches of its ships or planes would have “dire consequences” for world security and the Middle East in particular.

The law drafted by Congress shuts US markets to firms that provide Iran with refined petroleum products, such as gasoline and jet fuel, invest in its energy sector, or provide financing, insurance or shipping services. Non-US banks doing business with blacklisted Iranian entities, primarily Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps organizations, will be banned from US markets.
These measures complement and strengthen the new UN Security Council sanctions and European measures and will hit every Iranian. The oil-rich country Islamic Republic imports 40 percent of its refined oil needs because of its own inadequate refining capacity. Any investors in projects for developing this sector would be punishable under the new US law.
Earlier, Gen. Vahidi warned world powers against implementing certain UN sanctions: “As regards inspection of (Iranian) ships, there are one or two countries which pursue the issue and have made some comments about it and this indicates that these people don’t pay any attention to security issues in the region and the world,” said.
Tuesday, June 26, debkafile‘s military sources reported the arrival of the USS Nassau-LHA-4 at the head of a strike group of amphibian craft to the Gulf of Aden-Red Sea sector with 4,000 Marines aboard, including special units trained in operations behind enemy lines. Our sources disclosed that their presence caused Tehran to hold back the ships destined for breaking Israel’s sea blockade of the Gaza Strip for fear they would be intercepted and searched as UN sanctions permits. To read article click here.
The Speaker of the Iranian parliament (Majlis) Ali Larijani and the Revolutionary Guards commander Gen. Ali Fadavi have both threatened harsh reprisals against all vessels, including American warships and oil tankers sailing through the Persian Gulf and Straits of Hormuz, for any attempts to search ships or planes carrying cargoes to Iran.

The new US law will make shipping and insurance costs for Iran’s gasoline imports prohibitive. They are the first sanctions to bite really deep into Iran’s economy and hit the Guards’ commercial empire. Their control of refined oil imports is a major source of revenue and those profits provide funding for their operations, the foremost of which is the development and manufacture of nuclear weapons.
debkafile‘s Iranian sources have no doubt that Iran will not take the new penalties lying down and will strike back – possibly, in the first instance, by impeding Persian Gulf shipping carrying Saudi and Gulf oil out to the United States, Europe and the Far East, with immediate effect on world oil prices.
Interception of an Iranian ship suspected of carrying contraband energy products could well spin into a showdown.
President Obama indicated that this time the United States is determined to follow through on its punitive measures against Iran. As he signed the new sanctions, he said: “There should be no doubt, the US and the international community are determined to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. The new sanctions would strike at its capacity to finance its nuclear program.” He went on to say, “If Tehran persists in its course, the pressure will continue to mount and its isolation continue to deepen.”

DEBKA.

Erdogan Cranks up His anti-Israel War another Notch

Binyamin Netanyahu

Israeli policymakers still seem to live in the curious belief that relations with Turkey can still go back to the warm, comradely friendship reigning between them for decades – notwithstanding Ankara’s dispatch of a pro-Hamas flotilla to break Israel’s sea blockade on Gaza and the fallout from a deadly Israeli commando operation on May 31 to halt it.
The result is one misstep after another. Wednesday, June 30, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu let his infrastructure minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer meet Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmed Davutoglu for supposedly secret talks in Brussels to try and narrow the widening rift between Ankara and Jerusalem. The bid failed and the fallout was disastrous, threatening the stability of the government coalition when it turned out that foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman had been kept in the dark.
The illusion in Jerusalem that Israel can somehow retrieve the relationship is unaffected by Turkish Prime minister Recep Erdogan‘s relentless pursuit of hostile steps against the Jewish state at every turn.
On Monday, June 28, an unnamed Turkish diplomatic source said: “[Israeli] military planes are required to obtain over-flight permission before each flight. One military plane was denied permission immediately after the May 31 raid.”
DEBKA-Net-Weekly‘s sources in Ankara and Washington report this comment drew no Israeli rejoinder – any more than three other episodes which demonstrated how the relationship was being dug progressively deeper into the mud.
1. The most serious occurred two weeks ago, on Wednesday, June 16: The Turkish prime minister chaired a meeting of the national Defense Industry Implementation Committee – SSIK and steered it toward a decision to freeze 16 security and military agreements signed with Israel, one of which opened Turkish air space to Israeli Air Force flights. Another of the suspended agreements provided for cooperation in intelligence and counterterrorism.
The next day, June 17, debkafile reported that this decision amounted to the snapping of the active military and intelligence cooperation links binding Turkey and Israel for decades. The two governments were now ranged on opposite sides of an abyss with Ankara just a step short of declaring Israel an enemy state.
But still, Jerusalem showed no sign it was troubled.

Israeli hopes of reconciliation with Turkey prove to be a pipe dream

Indeed, the Netanyahu government decided to send back to their posts the diplomats’ families evacuated from Ankara after the Marmara incident. One Israeli official assured DEBKA-Net-Weekly that important sections of the Turkish government opposed the rupture with Israel and should be encouraged to stand up to their prime minister
2. Last week, on Wednesday, June 23, Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak confronted UN General Secretary Ban Ki-moon in New York and tried to make him understand that by pressing for an international committee of inquiry into the flotilla incident – even after Israel had established a public probe with international observers – he was encouraging anti-Israel forces to send out more such flotillas and causing Middle East tensions to shoot up needlessly.
Ban had no comment to offer on this warning.
Our sources in Ankara and New York say that the UN Secretary’s non-response took into account that if he failed to take the lead in setting up a UN probe, Turkey, Iran, Syria and other Arab nations would go over his head and put it on the agenda of UN General Assembly, where a Goldstone-type inquiry of the kind that blasted Israel after the 2009 Gaza campaign was assured of an automatic majority.
The UN Secretary was also influenced by the Obama administration’s noncommittal position on the subject.
Thursday, June 24, Barak’s failure to sway Ban was followed by a similar setback in Washington.
In his conversation with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, he drew a blank when he asked for an Obama administration commitment to oppose a second international inquiry panel and vote with Israel at the UN Assembly. After all, said Barak, the State Department had originally praised the Israeli commission as meeting the UN Security Council’s requirement for an “impartial, credible, transparent inquiry.”

Erdogan flies in the face of Obama’s wishes

Ankara took careful note of Israel’s failed diplomatic efforts and decided Turkey could safely turn the heat up on the Jewish State without risk of international criticism.
3. Sunday, June 27, a Turkish source close to Prime Minister Erdogan’s entourage at the G20 summit in Toronto leaked a report that he had now informed fellow heads of government that the Turkish-Israel friendship was dead and gone. Israel must pay the price Ankara had laid down for mending fences – an apology for the flotilla incident, compensation to the victims and an international committee of inquiry. But even then, relations would never be restored.
By escalating his quarrel with Jerusalem, the Turkish prime minister flew in the face of one of the key demands US president Barack Obama put before him at their abrasive encounter on the Toronto G20 summit sidelines on June 26 (more about which in a separate article in this issue.) Instead of giving up his campaign against the Jewish state, he has given the United States and Israel notice of his next four steps:

A final breakdown

A. To initiate a UN Assembly motion for establishing another international inquiry body to investigate the flotilla incident and fight Israel at every international forum.
Ankara has loaded the dice against Israel in advance by having the Turkish daily Zaman quote a charge by the MAZLUM-DER (The Association of Human Rights and Solidarity for Oppressed Peoples) on June 30, claiming that the nine Turks killed aboard the Mavi Marmara on May 31 where shot from helicopters.
This is a bid to disprove the Israeli case which rests on the commandos’ need to defend themselves against murderous thugs who mobbed them on the decks.
DEBKA-Net-Weekly: The MAZLUM-DER has a record of pro-extremist, anti-Israel activism.
B. To organize more flotillas to Gaza in cooperation with other Middle Eastern countries, including Iran and Lebanon.
C. To further demonstrate to the Turkish and Middle East public how far the intelligence and military ties between Ankara and Jerusalem have broken down and how close there are to being severed.
D. Israelis still operating in Turkey will be treated as enemies of Turkish national security.