WarSclerotic

Change we must believe in.

Change has come to the Middle East. Over the past several weeks, multiple press reports indicate that Turkey is collaborating militarily with Syria in a campaign against the Kurds of Syria, Iraq and Turkey.

Turkey is a member of NATO. It fields the Western world’s top weapons systems.

Syria is Iran’s junior partner. It is a state sponsor of multiple terrorist organizations and a proliferator of weapons of mass destruction.

Last September, as Turkey’s Islamist government escalated its anti-Israel rhetoric, Ankara and Damascus signed a slew of economic and diplomatic agreements. As Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu made clear at the time, Turkey was using those agreements as a way to forge close alliances not only with Syria, but with Iran.

“We may establish similar mechanisms with Iran and other mechanisms. We want our relationship with our neighbors to turn into maximum cooperation via the principle of zero problems,” Davutoglu proclaimed.

And now those agreements have reportedly paved the way to military cooperation. Syrian President Bashar Assad has visited Istanbul twice in the past month and then two weeks ago, on the Kurdish New Year, Syrian forces launched an operation against Kurdish population centers throughout the country.

On Wednesday, Al-Arabiya reported that hundreds of Kurds have been killed in recent weeks.

The Syrian government media claim that 11 Kurds have been killed.

There are conflicting reports as well about the number of Kurds who have been arrested since the onslaught began. Kurdish sources say 630 have been arrested. The Turkish media claims 400 Kurds have been arrested by Syrian security forces.

Al-Arabiya also claimed that the Syrian campaign is being supported by the Turkish military.

Turkish military advisers are reportedly using the same intelligence tool for tracking Kurds in Syria as they have used against the Kurds in Turkey and Iraq: Israeli-made Heron unmanned aerial vehicles.

Even if the Al-Arabiya report is untrue, and Turkey is not currently using Israeli-manufactured weapons in the service of Syria, the very fact that Syria has military cooperation of any kind with Turkey is dangerous for Israel. Over the past 20 years, as its alliance with Turkey expanded, Israel sold Turkey some of the most sensitive intelligence- gathering systems and other weapons platforms it has developed. With Turkey’s rapid integration into the Iranian axis, Israel must now assume that if Turkey is not currently sharing those Israeli military and intelligence technologies and tools with its enemies, Ankara is likely to share them with Israel’s enemies in the future.

OBVIOUSLY, THE least Israel could be expected to do in this situation is to cut off all military ties to Turkey. But amazingly and distressingly, Israel’s leaders seem not to have recognized this. To the contrary, Israel is scheduled to deliver four additional Heron drones to Turkey next month.

Even more discouragingly, both the statements and actions of senior officials lead to the conclusion that our leaders still embrace the delusion that all is not lost with Turkey. Speaking to the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee earlier this month, IDF Chief of General Staff Lt.- Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi told lawmakers, “What happens in Turkey is not always done with the agreement of the Turkish military. Relations with the Turkish army are important and they need to be preserved. I am personally in touch with the Turkish chief of staff.”

As Turkish columnist Abdullah Bozkurt wrote last week in Today’s Zaman, Ashkenazi’s claim that there is a distinction between Turkish government policies and Turkish military policies is “simply wishful thinking and do[es] not correspond with the hard facts on the ground.”

Bozkurt explained, “Ashkenazi may be misreading the signals based on a personal relationship he has built with outgoing Turkish military Chief of General Staff Gen. Ilker Basbug. The force commanders are much more worried about the rise in terror in the southeastern part of the country, and pretty much occupied with the legal problems confronting them after some of their officers, including high-ranking ones, were accused of illegal activities. The last thing the top brass wants is to give an impression that they are cozying up with Israelis…”

As described by Michael Rubin in the current issue of Commentary, those “legal problems” Bozkurt referred to are part of a government campaign to crush Turkey’s secular establishment.

As the constitutionally appointed guarantors of Turkey’s secular republic, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s Islamist government has targeted the military high command for destruction.

Two years ago, a state prosecutor indicted 86 senior Turkish figures including retired generals, prominent journalists, professors and other pillars of Turkey’s former secular leadership for supposedly plotting a coup against the Islamist regime.

By all accounts the 2,455-page indictment was frivolous. But its impact on Turkey’s once allpowerful military has been dramatic.

As Rubin writes, “Bashed from the religious Right and the progressive Left, the Turkish military is a shadow of its former self. The current generation of generals is out of touch with Turkish society and, perhaps, their own junior officers. Like frogs who fail to jump from a pot slowly brought to a boil, the Turkish General Staff lost its opportunity to exercise its constitutional duties.”

And yet, rather than come to terms with this situation, and work to minimize the dangers that an Iranian- and Syrian-allied Turkey poses, Israel’s government and our senior military leaders are still trying to bring the alliance with Turkey back from the dead. Last month’s disastrous “top secret” meeting between Industry, Trade and Labor Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer and Davutoglu is case in point.

Far from ameliorating the situation, these sorts of gambits only compound the damage. By denying the truth that Turkey has joined the enemy camp, Israel provides Turkey with credibility it patently does not deserve. Israel also fails to take diplomatic and other steps to minimize the threat posed by the NATO member in the Iranian axis.

OUR LEADERS’ apparent aversion to accepting that our alliance with Turkey has ended is troubling not only for what it tells us about the government’s ability to craft policies relevant to the challenges now facing us from Turkey. It bespeaks a general difficulty that plagues our top echelons in contending with harsh and unwanted change.

Take Egypt for example. Over the past week, a number of reports were published about the approaching end of the Mubarak era. The Washington Times reported that Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak is terminally ill and likely will die within the year. The Economist featured a 15- page retrospective on the Mubarak era in advance of its expected conclusion.

There are many differences between the situation in Egypt today and the situation that existed in Turkey before the Islamists took over in 2002.

For instance, unlike Turkey, Egypt has never been Israel’s strategic ally. In recent years however, Egypt’s interests have converged with Israel’s regarding the threat posed by Iran and its terror proxies Hizbullah and Hamas – the Palestinian branch of the Mubarak regime’s nemesis, the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood. These shared interests have paved the way for security cooperation between the two countries on several issues.

All of this is liable to change after Mubarak exits the stage. In all likelihood the Muslim Brotherhood will have greater influence and power than it enjoys today. And this means that a successor regime in Egypt will likely have closer ties to the Iranian axis. Despite the Sunni-Shi’ite split, joined by a common enmity toward the Mubarak regime, the Muslim Brotherhood has strengthened its ties to Iran and Hizbullah of late.

Recognizing the shifting winds, presidential hopefuls are cultivating ties with the Brotherhood.

For instance, former International Atomic Energy Agency chief and current Egyptian presidential hopeful Mohamed El-Baradei has been wooing the Brotherhood for months. And in recent weeks, they have been getting on his bandwagon. Apparently, El-Baradei’s support for Iran’s nuclear program won him credibility with the jihadist group even though he is not an Islamic fanatic.

If and when the Brotherhood gains power and influence in Egypt, it is likely that Egypt will begin sponsoring the likes of Hamas, al-Qaida and other terrorist organizations. And the more powerful the Brotherhood becomes in Egypt, the more likely it is that Egypt will abrogate its peace treaty with Israel.

It is due to that peace treaty that today Egypt fields a conventional military force armed with sophisticated US weaponry. The Egyptian military that Israel fought in four wars was armed with inferior Soviet weapons. Were Egypt to abrogate the treaty, a conventional war between Egypt and Israel would become a tangible prospect for the first time since 1973.

Despite the flood of stories indicating that the end of the Mubarak era is upon us, publicly Israel’s leaders behave as though nothing is the matter. Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s routine fawning pilgrimage to Mubarak this week seemed to demonstrate that our leaders are not thinking about the storm that is brewing just over the horizon in Cairo.

TURKEY’S TRANSFORMATION from friend to foe and the looming change in Egypt demonstrate important lessons that Israel’s leaders must take to heart. First, Israel has only a very limited capacity to influence events in neighboring countries.

What happened in Turkey has nothing to do with Israel and everything to do with the fact that Erdogan and his government are Islamist revolutionaries. So, too, the changes that Egypt will undergo after Mubarak dies will have everything to do with the pathologies of Egyptian society and politics, and nothing to do with Israel. Our leaders must recognize this and exercise humility when they assess Israel’s options for contending with our neighbors.

Developments in both Turkey and Egypt are proof that in the Middle East there is no such thing as a permanent alliance. Everything is subject to change. Turkey once looked like a stable place. Its military was constitutionally empowered – and required – to safeguard the country as a secular democracy. But seven years into the AKP revolution the army cannot even defend itself.

So, too, for nearly 30 years Mubarak has ruled Egypt with an iron fist. But as Israel saw no distinction between Mubarak and Egypt, the hostile forces he repressed multiplied under his jackboot.

Once he is gone, they will rise to the surface once more.

Moving forward, Israel must learn to hedge its bets. Just because a government embraces Israel one day does not mean that its military should be given open access to Israeli military technology the next day. So, too, just because a regime is anti-Israel one day doesn’t mean that Israel cannot develop ties with it that are based on shared interests.

Whether it is pleasant or harsh, change is a fact of our lives. The side that copes best with change will be the side that prospers from it.

Our leaders must recognize this truth and shape their policies accordingly.

Iran announces plan to build world’s first nuclear fusion reactor – Haaretz Daily Newspaper | Israel News.

Iran’s nuclear agency began studies on Saturday to build an experimental nuclear fusion reactor, something that has yet to be achieved by any nation.

Iran is not known to have carried out anything but basic fusion research, but it does have a nuclear fission program that the U.S. and its allies believe is a front to build weapons — a charge Tehran denies.

Nuclear fusion, the process powering the sun and stars, has so far only been mastered as a weapon, producing the thermonuclear explosions of hydrogen bombs. It has never been harnessed for power generation.

Vice President Ali Akbar Salehi, who also heads the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, told a conference on the new research program that his agency has set an initial budget of $8 million to conduct “serious” research in the area of nuclear fusion.

Asghar Sediqzadeh, the head of the new fusion research center said Iran will take two years to complete these studies and then another decade to design and build a reactor.

“The scientific phase of the project effectively began today. We have already hired 50 experts for this purpose,” he told state TV.

The United States, the European Union, China, India, Russia, Japan and South Korea signed an accord in 2006 to build a $12.8 billion experimental fusion reactor at Cadarache, southern France, aimed at revolutionizing global energy use for future generations.

The International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor, or ITER, members have said no single country can afford the immense investment needed to move the science forward.

Salehi, Iran’s nuclear chief, said Iran was willing to join any international grouping to offer its expertise to promote the project. However, he said Iran will go its own way should the world not welcome it.

“We are ready to enter into cooperation with any international group or country,” he told the semiofficial ISNA news agency.

Salehi said it would take 20 to 30 years before nuclear fusion energy can be commercialized but that Iran seeks to make use of all the capacity inside Iran to speed up its research.

The UN Security Council has already passed four sets of sanctions over Iran’s nuclear program on suspicions it is being used to produce weapons. Iran denies the accusations, saying its program is geared merely toward generating electricity.

	A nuclear reactor in Bushehr, Iran.
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May: Imagine if Iran becomes nuclear-armed » Ventura County Star.

It’s been said that a diplomat is a gentleman paid to go abroad and lie for his country. Sometimes, however, diplomats slip up and tell the truth.

In response to a question at the hopefully named Aspen Ideas Festival this month, Yousef al-Otaiba, ambassador from the United Arab Emirates, said bluntly: “We cannot live with a nuclear Iran.”

If sanctions fail to stop Iran’s drive for nuclear weapons, al-Otaiba added, military force will be the only option left and it should not be ruled out. “A military attack on Iran by whomever would be a disaster,” he said. “But Iran with a nuclear weapon would be a bigger disaster.”

Abd Al-Rahman Al-Rashed, the director-general of Al-Arabiya TV, followed with an article for the English language edition of Al-Sharq Al-Awsat, in which he not only agreed with the ambassador, he declared the prospect of a nuclear-armed Iran “the most dangerous threat that is facing our region in a hundred years.” He called upon readers to “imagine what Tehran will do when it has nuclear capabilities!”

Al-Rashed then did a little imagining himself: A nuclear-armed Iran, he said, would soon “dominate … and perhaps take over” the Gulf states, the small, wealthy, Arab countries so tantalizingly close to its borders.

Such an anschluss would not require tanks or troop deployments. As Ambassador al-Otaiba predicted at Aspen, the region’s leaders will “start running for cover toward Iran” once it becomes clear that Washington, having said under both the Bush and Obama administrations that it would be “unacceptable” for Iran to acquire nuclear weapons, had accepted that after all.

One can only imagine that other nations will draw the conclusion that being America’s enemy is less risky than being America’s friend. The implications for Iraq — where the U.S. has invested so much blood and treasure — are obvious.

In Pakistan, Islamists will advance, while democrats retreat. That will further complicate matters in Afghanistan where Iranian interventions — e.g. the supplying of roadside bombs to insurgents — will escalate in an effort to frustrate an already challenging American mission.

Turkey’s Islamist government already has moved closer to Iran. Syria has long been an Iranian client. Hezbollah, Iran’s terrorist proxy, will be strengthened within Lebanon, within Latin America where it has been making substantial inroads in recent years and, of course, along the border with Israel.

Hamas’ leaders have never entertained the possibility of making peace with Israel. With a nuclear Iran supporting them, they will count themselves as wise for having taken that position. By contrast, the Palestinian Authority will become weaker than ever. A Hamas takeover of the West Bank is possible to envision.

Is there a chance that Iran will give nuclear weapons to anti-American terrorists — or attack the Great Satan directly? That is hard to imagine — almost as hard as it was a few years ago to imagine that a stateless terrorist group based in rural Afghanistan would organize the hijacking of passenger jets and use them as missiles to attack Washington and New York.

Jim Woolsey, who served as CIA director under President Bill Clinton, and Rebeccah Heinrichs, an adjunct fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, recently noted: “Iranian military writings show the mullahs recognize the potential” of launching a nuclear-armed missile from a ship near one of our coasts to create an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) that would destroy “the electric grid and electrical systems across a wide swath of U.S. territory.”

The result: “unimaginable economic devastation” and tens of thousands of deaths.

At present, we are not building a missile defense system that could prevent such an attack. Nor are we hardening the grid so that it could withstand such an attack.

The U.S. Congress has passed, and President Barack Obama has signed, legislation that would impose crippling sanctions on Iran. The questions now: Will Obama seriously implement them? And will the Europeans help or hinder?

If sanctions fail, there will be no good choices — only bad choices and worse choices. To figure out which is which will require imagination — more than most Western leaders have demonstrated in recent years.

— Clifford D. May is president of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. E-mail him at cliff@defenddemocracy.org.

Ahmadinejad warns Medvedev of joining ‘US plot’ against Iran | Earth Times News.

Berlin – Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Friday warned his Russian counterpart Dmitry Medvedev of joining a “plot” by the United States against Iran, ISNA news agency reported.

“Our enemies have started a new propaganda war against Iran, which is written and directed by the US and staged by the Russian president,” Ahmadinejad said during the closing ceremony of a youth festival in Tehran.”The two nations of Iran and Russia are friends and we hope that this friendship continues but the question is why the Russian president gets involved in this American play and jeopardizes his (country’s) interests,” Ahmadinejad said.He was referring to Medvedev’s meeting with ambassadors on July 12 in Moscow during which the Russian leader said Iran was moving closer to possessing a capability that could in principle be used to build nuclear weapons.”The remarks by the Russian president in that meeting with ambassadors have no legal value,” Ahmadinejad said.Russia joined the US and its Western allies last month in imposing a fourth UN Security Council resolution and additional sanctions against Iran after the Islamic state once again defied to stop its controversial nuclear enrichment programmes.Iran had expected that as a strategic political ally and trade partner, Moscow would have vetoed the UN resolution.Ahmadinejad further said that in “the new plot,” two Middle East countries, “which are Iran’s friends,” should be militarily attacked with the help of Israel.He gave no further details but said that the aim of the plot was to weaken the will of the Iranian nation, adding that elements inside Iran were involved the plot, apparently a reference to the local opposition that accuse him of fraud in last year’s presidential election.”But all their efforts will fail as the Iranian nation will crash hundreds of such plots,” Ahmadinejad said.”The world powers think that the plot was top secret but its scenario is already in our hands and more details of this latest propaganda plot will be disclosed to the public in due time,” he added.In addition to the UN measures, the US also imposed separate sanctions against Iran and the European Union plans to hit Iran with the “toughest ever” sanctions when its foreign ministers meet in Brussels on Monday.Russia has traditionally been less alarmist about the state of Tehran’s disputed nuclear ambitions than countries such the US, Israel and Britain.Ahmadinejad made his first verbal attack against Medvedev last May, warning him not to side with the US in imposing new sanctions against Iran, which Moscow eventually did.Iran has so far tolerated Moscow’ political closeness to the Iran- policies by the US in order not to jeopardize its strategic relations with Russia.Another reason for Iran’s concessions is the joint Bushehr nuclear power plant project in southern Iran whose completion Russia delayed numerous times for various reasons.Iran believes that besides technical issues there are also political reasons behind the delays. But it had to tolerate them, mainly because it has no other potential nuclear partner.

Middle East News | Iran says scientist provided information on CIA.

Iran TV to produce movie about Amiri’s case

Iran says scientist provided information on CIA

Movie about Amiri’s case

Shahram Amiri holds his weeping son’s hand as he flashes the victory sign upon arrival in Tehran

TEHRAN (AP)

An Iranian nuclear scientist who returned home last week from the United States provided valuable information about the CIA, a semiofficial news agency reported Wednesday, adding that his spy’s tale would be made into a TV movie.

American authorities have claimed Shahram Amiri willingly defected to the U.S. but changed his mind and decided to return home without the $5 million he had been paid for what a U.S. official described as “significant” information about his country’s disputed nuclear program.

Report: Arab states would support Israeli strike on Iran.

Arab officials from the Persian Gulf region have again been making comments to international media suggesting that they would support an Israeli military strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities.

Speaking at a media panel in Aspen, Colorado earlier this month, Yousef Al Otaiba, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) ambassador to the US, explained that “a military attack on Iran by whomever would be a disaster, but Iran with a nuclear weapon would be a bigger disaster.”

Otaiba said that an Israeli attack on Iran would spark street protests by Muslims throughout the region, but that leaders like himself would be willing to deal with that in exchange for eliminating the Iranian threat.

Iran, which is Persian, has been in conflict with its Arab neighbors for over 1,000 years, and has never ceased to seek hegemony over them. Iran is also a predominantly Shiite Muslim nation, whereas most Arab states are Sunni Muslim. The conflict between the two sects is often bloody, as evidenced by regular sectarian violence in Iraq.

While few believe Iran would actually fire a nuclear warhead at a fellow Muslim state, be it Shiite or Sunni, by simply possessing such weapons, Tehran would be able to exert enormous influence over regional religious, economic and diplomatic policies.

Jeffrey Goldberg, the Middle East expert for The Atlantic Monthly who moderated the Aspen event, told Der Spiegel that what most Western leaders fail to realize is that Otaiba’s views are shared by most Arab leaders. In other words, an Israeli strike on Iran should be seen as a viable military option to the nuclear crisis, as it will not result in war between the Jewish state and its Arab neighbors.

Even in Saudi Arabia, a long-standing enemy of the “Zionist entity,” a prominent cleric told the German magazine that he and others recognize that “Israel’s agenda has its limits…it is mainly concerned with securing its national existence. But Iran’s agenda is global.”

Imagine a Nuclear Iran – Clifford D. May – National Review Online.

It’s been said that a diplomat is a gentleman paid to go abroad and lie for his country. Sometimes, however, diplomats slip up and tell the truth. In response to a question at the hopefully named Aspen Ideas Festival this month, Yousef al-Otaiba, the ambassador from the United Arab Emirates, said bluntly: “We cannot live with a nuclear Iran.”

Al-Otaiba went on to add that, if sanctions fail to stop Iran’s drive for nuclear weapons, military force will be the only option left and it should not be ruled out. “A military attack on Iran by whomever would be a disaster,” he said. “But Iran with a nuclear weapon would be a bigger disaster.”
Abd al-Rahman al-Rashed, director-general of Al-Arabiya TV, followed with an article for the English-language edition of Al-Sharq Al-Awsat, in which he not only agreed with the ambassador, he declared the prospect of a nuclear-armed Iran “the most dangerous threat that is facing our region in a hundred years.” He called upon readers to “imagine what Tehran will do when it has nuclear capabilities!”

Al-Rashed then did a little imagining himself: Iran, he said, would soon “dominate . . . and perhaps take over” the Gulf states, the small, wealthy Arab countries so tantalizingly close to its borders.

Such an anschluss would not require tanks or troop deployments. As Ambassador al-Otaiba said at Aspen, the region’s leaders will “start running for cover towards Iran” once it becomes clear that Washington, having said under both the Bush and Obama administrations that it would be “unacceptable” for Iran to acquire nuclear weapons, has accepted that after all.

One can only imagine that other nations will draw the conclusion that being America’s enemy is less risky than being America’s friend. The implications for Iraq — where the U.S. has invested so much blood and treasure — are obvious. Imagine you are an Iraqi leader. American troops have departed and the mullahs next door are stockpiling nukes and commanding death squads. What would you do?

In Pakistan, Islamists will advance, while democrats will retreat. That will further complicate matters in Afghanistan, where Iranian interventions (e.g. the supplying of roadside bombs to insurgents) will escalate in an effort to frustrate an already challenging American mission. If America does not respond, Iran wins the battle of Afghanistan. If America does respond — well, since neither the Bush nor the Obama administration responded to Iran’s interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan in the past, there is no basis to imagine a policy change once Iran’s rulers have their fingers on nuclear triggers.

Turkey’s Islamist government already has moved closer to Iran. Syria has long been an Iranian client. Hezbollah, Iran’s terrorist proxy, will be strengthened within Lebanon, within Latin America (where it has been making substantial inroads in recent years), and, of course, along the Israeli-Lebanese border.

In that regard: Four years ago this month, Hezbollah and Israel fought a 34-day war. It ended with U.N. Resolution 1701, which called for Hezbollah’s disarmament, prohibited Hezbollah from acquiring new missiles, and banned the group from operating near the Israeli border. International troops were dispatched to make sure all this happened. It didn’t. Hezbollah has not been disarmed, thousands of new missiles have been imported, and Hezbollah forces go where they like. One has to imagine this is instructive to those who lead vulnerable nations.

Leon T. Hadar: Is Obama Set on an Iran Strike?.

One of Israel’s leading political “insiders” is insisting that there has been a dramatic transformation of President Barack Obama’s strategy in the Middle East. Israel is now back “In” as the White House occupant who had called for engagement with Iran not so long ago, is now placing the threat of a nuclear Iran on the top of his diplomatic agenda at the same time that his administration is also expressing concerns over the expected leadership changes in Cairo and Riyadh.

“When Obama came into office he assessed that the United States had been weakened in the Middle East and hoped to reach an agreement on sharing influence with the regional power, Iran,” according to Aluf Benn, the respected senior diplomatic analyst for Ha’aretz, Israel’s liberal – not left-wing – daily newspaper. “So he cooled toward Israel and pulled out of the closet the well-worn club called settlements,” writes Benn. But that apparently didn’t work. “The Iranians waved off Obama’s goodwill gesture, and the Arab states ignored the Palestinian issue and made it clear that blocking Iran was more important,” explains the journalist who tends to reflect the political state of mind of Israel’s leaders.

So “instead of “beat on Israel and gain the applause of the Muslims,” the stance on Iran is toughening. Sanctions on Tehran have become tougher, and the rhetoric has become more blunt,” Benn writes in an analysis published in the aftermath of the recent meetings between Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin (“Bibi”) Netanyahu in Washington. “Israel has moved from being a burden to a welcome partner, perhaps because there is no choice in view of the expected instability in Cairo and Riyadh with the changes at the top,” he concludes.

It is quite possible that Benn may be echoing the spin promoted by Bibi and his aides which in turn, reflects the Israeli PM’s wishful thinking or for that matter, a misleading narrative which portrays what is nothing more than a Barack-Bibi political cease-fire as a major step towards the restoration of the strategic relationship between the U.S. and Israel.

Hence while Benn is suggesting that wooing pro-Israeli Democratic voters is nothing more than a political byproduct of Obama’s reassertion of his commitment to the Jewish State – “And if this belated love also helps Obama and his party in the upcoming congressional elections, the deal will be worthwhile in his view” – the cynic observer would propose that that has been the main purpose of the entire public diplomatic exercise.

And it is quite possible that the media images of the American-Israeli love fest in Washington are aimed at exerting diplomatic pressure on Iran by trying to convince the Ayatollahs in Tehran that contrary to what Obama’s conservative critics are alleging (that Obama is a wimp and an appeaser), the Democratic President is “dead serious” on Iran and unless the Iranians agree on a deal on freezing Iran’s nuclear program sooner than later, the Americans could end-up giving a “yellow light” to strike Iran’s nuclear installations.

Interestingly enough, the New York Times’s Roger Cohen who points to the language of statement issued after the recent Obama-Netanyahu meeting — “The president told the prime minister he recognizes that Israel must always have the ability to defend itself, by itself, against any threat or possible combination of threats, and that only Israel can determine its security needs” — wonders whether it seems to provide the Israelis with that kind of yellow light. “Is that plain language or a hall of mirrors?” Cohen asks.

Since I am not a members of Top Secret America and hence do not have a direct access to the secret deliberations taking place in Washington and elsewhere over the Iran policy, I find it difficult to determine whether the show-off of tough line vis-à-vis Iran that has been emanating from the White House is more than just a pseudo or media event aimed the changing the political calculations in Tehran, or whether are now at a point where diplomacy is being applied as a way of buying time as Washington mobilizes resources in preparation for an Israeli action, not unlike the make-believe diplomacy employed by President George W. Bush after the decision to do “regime change” in Baghdad had already been taken.

Or perhaps the Obama Administration is once again “muddling through” studying various options on Iran while testing the domestic and international political waters before making a final decision?

Based on my own reading between the lines of news reports and analyses and the deconstructing of the body language of American and Israeli officials, my guess- and it is good as yours! – is that a combination of anticipated changes in Israeli and American politics coupled with regional and international developments that have weakened Iran, may be creating the conditions for a decision in support for military action sometime this year. That could help answer the questions raised by Mark Lynch in foreignpolicy.com (“Why Put an Attack on Iraq Back on the Table?”) and by Bret Stephens in the Wall Street Journal (“Why Israel Hasn’t Bomb Iran Yet?”)

Lynch concludes that Obama’s diplomacy has been successful in changing the strategic balance of power in the Middle East — that had resulted from Bush’s disastrous policy — by weakening Iran and its partners, Lebanon’s Hizbollah and Hamas. “Iran today is considerably weaker than it was when he took office,” he writes, concluding that “while Iran may continue to doggedly pursue its nuclear program (as far as we know), this has not translated into steadily increasing popular appeal or regional power.” Stephens explains that one of the main reasons that the Israeli leaders have been hesitant about striking Iran is the concern over a repeat of the 1956 scenario when then US President Dwight Eisenhower blasted the attack by Israel (in collusion with Britain and France) against Egypt and forced Israel to withdraw from Sinai, the result being a diplomatic victory for then Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser.

While Lynch is basically correct about the positive effects of Obama’s diplomacy, the other part of his argument “that Iran may continue to doggedly pursue its nuclear program” suggests that the Americans have not been able to achieve their most important strategic goal here and that they may have concluded that notwithstanding all of Obama’s popularity in the Middle East, a nuclear weapons in the hands of Iran could alter and balance of power once again and turn it into a indisputable regional power. I think that Obama and his aides are calculating that the costs of “doing something” about Iran’s nuclear program would not be so high as to outweigh the costs of allowing Iran to go nuclear which could undermine whatever is left of American credibility as a global power in the Middle East.

But I also think that Obama wants to get Bibi to do something substantial — if not dramatic — on the Israel-Palestine front before a decision is made to attack Iran. In theory, the growing likelihood that the more moderate Kadima Party would join the Israeli coalition could allow Netanyahu to move in that direction and could bring about an accord between Israel and the Palestinian Authority (PA) on the West Bank in a way that responds to the concerns of Saudi Arabia and other Arab moderate states who have implied that under such conditions – progress on Israel-Palestine — they could live with a strike against Iran.

At the same time, the anticipated Republican victories in the coming midterm elections – increasing the number of pro-Israeli and anti-“Islamofascist” lawmakers — could actually help strengthen Obama’s ability of effectively manage the diplomatic and military (and economic) consequences of a strike against Iran. In a way, notwithstanding all the talk about the rise of anti-war Republicans, the “triangulation” of Obama after the November election could encourage him to take up the mantle of a War President, which based on his predecessor’s experience, could help him another term in office (even if his own party continues to lose power). In any case, as the evolution of his Afghanistan policies has demonstrated, Obama seems to lack the power and the will to resist the pressure from the War Party in Washington and has probably concluded that if you cannot beat them, joining them is the next best option.

DEBKA.

Fidel Castro

On Friday, July 16, former Cuban President Fidel Castro told a gathering of 110 Cuban ambassadors and consular representatives that, in his view, a military attack on Iran would turn into a major military face-off because “the country will strike back within seconds.”
He explained that “the US finds itself now in an unsolvable dilemma in the Middle East. It cannot get out, nor can it stay.”
A little over two weeks earlier, on June 30, Castro warned that an American or Israeli strike on Iran would trigger the outbreak of a nuclear world war, since both sides would make use of nuclear weapons.
Although most of American media dismiss Castro as an ageing (84), passé leader trying to get back into the headlines, intelligence circles have taken his comments more seriously, particularly the words “Iran will strike back within seconds.” In those circles the phrase “within seconds” was not invented by Castro but one he heard from someone he respected, else he would not have repeated it.
So who was his source? One possibility is Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, who last visited him in Havana on April 8 after a trip to Managua and a long conversation with Nicaraguan leader Daniel Ortega. Chavez had an even longer conversation of four hours with Castro, their main topic being Latin American relations with Iran.
Since then, Chavez has been in continual contact with Castro. The two speak on the phone at least once every two weeks. Phone conversations also take place, albeit less frequently, between Castro and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
Tehran eyes four tit-for-tat options
American intelligence officials believe that either Chavez or Ahmadinejad used this telling phrase when they spoke to the Cuban leader, knowing that sooner or later he would air it in one of his public appearances.
DEBKA-Net-Weekly‘s military sources note that, in relation to the present military deployment, striking back “within seconds” could come about in four ways:

1. Nuclear reprisal: Given that Iran is expected to have at least one and possibly two atomic bombs by the end of the year or early 2011, Tehran would not hesitate to use a nuclear or radioactive device if attacked.
On Monday, July 19, debkafile‘s sources cited a senior intelligence source in Washington as commenting that he would not be surprised if “one day we wake up to find that the Iranians are conducting an underground test at a nuclear installation.”
This doesn’t mean the Iranians will have bombs or nuclear warheads deliverable by aircraft or missiles,” said the intelligence source, “but it does mean that they are a lot closer to developing this option than the Americans, and also the Israelis, believe.”
He added that since the affair of double spy Shahram Amiri, who fed the CIA false information on Iran’s nuclear program, neither the US nor Israel can afford to rule out an Iranian N-test before the end of 2010 – i.e., within the next 5 months.
Preparing for “the most horrendous suicide bombing” ever
2. Payback by missile: With an array of at least 1,000 mid-range and short-range ballistic missiles on operational standby, Tehran could have these weapons homing on target in very short order.
3. Terror: Suicide bombers could be quickly loosed against American and Israeli targets in the Middle East, and also in Europe.
Worth noting in this context are the words of a man identified as “Reza Khalili,” a former member of Iran’s fearsome Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) turned CIA double-agent, when he addressed a Washington Institute for Near East Policy conference on July 9.
Those words amounted to the direst prediction heard yet about the lengths to which the Islamic Republic is prepared to go.
“This is a messianic regime,” he said. “There should be no doubt – they (the Iranians) are going to commit the most horrendous suicide bombing in human history. They will attack Israel, European capitals and the Persian Gulf region – all at the same time.”
The former Iranian revolutionary said a preemptive strike on the Islamic Republic’s regime in Tehran was mandatory – although it should not be directed against the Iranian people or the country’s infrastructure.
He was warning the US and Israel that there is no time to lose; they must not hang around and wait for the Islamic Republic to activate its waiting suicide killers.
It must be said that the prestigious Washington Institute, which maintains excellent ties with US and Israeli intelligence high-ups, would not have given “Reza Khalili” a platform had they doubted the value of his message or personal credibility.
Military option moves forward on Obama’s table
4. Iraq. Paying Washington back in Iraq for what Tehran decides is a casus belli must also be counted as a realistic option.
DEBKA-Net-Weekly‘s Washington and Baghdad sources report that the US and Iran are closer than ever to a military clash in Iraq, with pro-Tehran Shiite militias said to be preparing to strike at US forces in Iraq.
The Iranians strongly object to the Obama administration’s plan to leave a number of US troops in Iraq in the capacity of UN peacekeepers after the September 1 pull-out. They suspect that under their blue UN berets, these troops will carry out America’s policies and force the Gulf region to knuckle under to the latest UN sanctions against Iran.
Indeed, Tehran believes Obama’s commitment to withdraw 95,000 US soldiers from Iraq is a trick for retaining 24,000 combat troops on standby for a potential US strike against its nuclear facilities.
(More details about this in HOT POINTS of July 21 below.)
These various forecasts appear to be the background to the TIME Magazine’s July 15 article by its senior political reporter Joe Klein, headed “An Attack on Iran: Back on the Table.” It was the first time in five years that an American publication admitted the possibility of the US exercising its military option against Iran, confirming explicitly that it is under serious consideration by the Obama administration.
Klein wrote: “Other intelligence sources say that the US Army’s Central Command, which is in charge of organizing military operations in the Middle East, has made some real progress in planning targeted air strikes – aided, in large part, by the vastly improved human-intelligence operations in the region. ‘There really wasn’t a military option a year ago,’ an Israeli military source told me. ‘But they’ve gotten serious about the planning and the option is real now.'”
It would seem that Fidel Castro has got it right. He believes an American-Israeli clash with Iran is getting closer. And he also appears to have an inkling of how the Iranians will fight back.

DEBKA.

USS Harry S. Truman

The Islamic Republic and the United States have set the scene for a collision at sea during the two-and-a-half months remaining until the Five Big Powers and Germany join Iran at the nuclear negotiating table on Sept. 1.
Tuesday, July 20, parliament in Tehran approved tit-for-tat government action against countries which inspect Iranian ships or aircraft on the authority of UN sanctions against its nuclear program.
President Barack Obama and his advisers on Iranian affairs were counting on the new sanctions imposed by the UN, the US and the Europeans having a softening impact on Iranian defiance.
By September, they reckoned, four months of serious disruptions of their fuel supplies and marine traffic and restrictions on their external banking activities should have made Tehran more responsive to the big powers’ proposals – except that Russia, China and Turkey have thrown this calculus out by stepping in to help Iran dodge these upsets.
On July 14, Russia and Iran signed a row of energy cooperation accords promising Tehran a supply of petroleum products and petrochemicals and establishing a joint bank to fund their transactions.
Such cooperation has given Iran substantial leeway for evading US bans on refined petroleum sales, as well as a joint bank for funding for those sales and Russian firms for insuring shipments.
DEBKA-Net-Weekly‘s sources in Washington report that, should Iran survive sanctions without real discomfort, Obama will have to decide whether to step up the pressure on Tehran by fully enforcing them, a course that would for the first time pose the risk of a direct military clash.
Iran will fight back for searches at sea
This would entail a presidential order to American warships to inspect the cargoes of Iranian ships plying routes on the Red Sea, the Gulf of Aden, the Gulf of Oman, the Persian Gulf or the Arabian Sea to ascertain they are not carrying contraband freights prohibited under international sanctions.
The Iranian Majlis has anticipated this course and sent Washington a clear signal that Tehran would not take US inspections of its ships or planes lying down.
It ratified an earlier warning issued by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC)’s Navy commander, General Ali Fadavi, on June 25: “… if the United States and its allies inspect Iranian ships in international waters they will receive a response in the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz.”
Iran drilled this eventuality May 5-12 in the eight-day Velayat-89 exercise in which its entire navy, air force and special commandos were mobilized to practice seizing control of broad stretches of water in the Persian Gulf, the Arabian Sea and the northern Indian Ocean.
Rear Admiral Qasem Rostamabadi, spokesman for the Iranian exercise, said at the time: “Passing ships were successfully checked by (Iranian) destroyers, frigates, special operation teams and naval commandos in line with the goal of establishing security and peace in transit routes bound for the Hormuz Strait and the Persian Gulf.”
US military effort redeployed to focus on naval, marine strength
Preparing for a possible clash with Iran against this background before September, DEBKA-Net-Weekly‘s military sources report US forces have redeployed. The Pentagon has refocused its military effort from massive air strength to large naval and marine concentrations in the Red Sea, the Gulf of Aden, the Gulf of Oman and the Arabian Sea, foreseen as possible flashpoints.
The Marine Aircraft Carrier USS Peleliu (“The Iron Nickel”) is now cruising in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden opposite the Horn of Africa with 2,543 enlisted sailors and 2,200 US Marines aboard.
The USS Nassau LHA-4 aircraft carrier is deployed in the Gulf of Oman, off the Straits of Hormuz, carrying 2,000 US Marines.
A second aircraft carrier USS Harry S. Truman carrying 5,000 marines has been moved to the Arabian Sea off the southern coast of Iran and the northern Indian Ocean.
All three strike forces are trained in tactics for seizing Iranian ships, capturing offshore islands or striking at IRGC coastal bases, from which retaliatory attacks can be mounted against US, European and Persian Gulf Emirate shipping.
The Gulf complains, wants stronger US missile defenses
The Saudi and Gulf capitals are all agog over a possible US-Iranian clash at sea, but far from satisfied with US preparations for their defense.
This came out loud and clear from a long interview with an unnamed “American missile expert” run by Arab News, a leading Saudi website representing Prince Khaled bin Sultan, Deputy Defense Minister and son of the minister, Crown Prince Sultan, under the heading: “US Missile Defense Ill-prepared for Iran.”
This “missile expert” came away from a recent survey of the missile interception systems the US installed in the Gulf region with the impression that the Americans had not provided the Persian Gulf states with adequate defenses for Iranian missiles.
He is quoted as pointing to “the US numerical disadvantage” for handling “a thousand or so Iranian missiles that are 120 miles away,” explaining, “We (US) are lacking the numbers of the specific PAC-3 missiles; we are lacking the launchers that are needed and other systems that are needed to be deployed as quickly as possible.”
After visiting US missile installations Bahrain, “the missile expert” is said to have reported that only two US air defense battalions are currently spread across the four (Gulf) countries to protect thousands of US personnel as well as the nearby cities, military sites and civilian populations.”
He pointed out that the United States had been reportedly planning to bolster missile protection for its allies in the Gulf, including dispatching sea-based cruisers with sophisticated Aegis defense systems. Washington also reportedly said (in January 2010) it was beefing up its eight Patriot missile batteries, although there has been no evidence of this.
This article was a clear Saudi thumbs-down for Washington to complain that much more needs to be done to protect the Gulf States before the Americans and their Gulf allies are ready to take Iran on in the showdown under discussion between them.