WarSclerotic

Reuters AlertNet – Blood on the rocks by Israel-Lebanon tripwire.

<!– 03 Aug 2010 20:01:04 GMT ## for search indexer, do not remove –>

* Israel says Lebanon sniper ambushed colonel, officer * Forces only two hundred metres apart * UN presence did not deter lethal exchange of fire

By Douglas Hamilton

ISRAEL-LEBANON MILITARY ZONE, Aug 3 (Reuters) – Blood-stains mark the rocky ground by the entrance to a camouflaged army bunker where the Israeli military says one of its colonels was killed by a Lebanese army sniper team on Tuesday. “There were only two or three shots,” said an Israeli military spokeswoman. “They were standing there, where the blood is.” The battalion commander was hit in the head and a fellow officer struck in the chest and gravely wounded from a range of about 700 metres, she told Reuters at the scene of the brief battle. Israeli artillery fire, launched in retaliation at a Lebanese army post, left scorched hillsides on the Lebanese side of the steep valley that divides them.

The most serious incident since the July 2006 war between Israel and the Lebanese Shi’ite movement Hezbollah — which lasted 34 days and cost 1,200 lives on the Lebanese side and 158 Israeli dead — led to the deaths of the Israel colonel and two Lebanese soldiers, along with a journalist on the Lebanese side. The Israeli officer was in serious condition. Like the ceasefire line between the two Koreas, this tense frontier laced with electronic sensor fences and studded with minefields has left a tripwire for a potentially open-ended Middle East war. Israel says Hezbollah, allied to Iran, has at least 40,000 rockets deployed close to the front line, in range of Israeli population centres such as the city of Kryat Shmona.

The United States expressed “serious concern” over Tuesday’s battle, and the United Nations appealed for restraint on both sides. In the aftermath on Tuesday afternoon, white armoured personnel carriers of the 13,000-strong UNIFIL peacekeeping force, manned by Indonesian troops with blue UN flags, patrolled the highway that marks the demarcation “Blue Line”. Israeli troops scanned the scarred hillside through binoculars, watched by television crews on the Lebanese side two hundred metres away, and observed by what Israeli soldiers said were Hezbollah spotter teams on the road just opposite.

NOT FAR AWAY

The distance separating the two is short enough to allow a shouted conversation. “The sniper fire probably came from one of those buildings over there,” the Israeli military spokeswoman said, indicating unfinished concrete-built homes on the opposite slope. “We are sure it came from the Lebanese armed forces.” The exchange began when the Israelis moved a cherry-picker crane next to their warning fence behind the demarcation line in order to trim a tree, whose branches were tripping the fence’s electronic anti-infiltration devices. Notice of this operation was given well in advance to UNIFIL and to the Lebanese army, the Israeli military said. It was begun in broad daylight, with Israeli media filming and photographing when the shots were fired.

The sniper attack came as a complete surprise, like an ambush, Israeli military sources said. Israel Defence Forces Northern Commander General Gadi Eisenkot called it a deliberate provocation. A senior Israeli military source said he had been contacted by senior Lebanese army officers as shooting erupted, trying to tell them that firing had not been authorised. Israeli analysts speculated that a renegade army unit sympathetic to Hezbollah had launched the attack.

The Lebanese army, however, said an Israeli patrol had violated the demarcation line, even though U.N. peacekeepers in the area told it to stop. The Israeli army said the pre-advertised tree-trimming took place within 100 metres (yards) of a permanent UNIFIL post, where a yellow Hezbollah flag flutters above the trees. The Lebanese army said its forces repelled the Israelis “using rocket propelled grenades. A clash happened in which the enemy forces used machine guns and tank fire targeting army posts and civilian houses,” it said. The United States said the accounts were confusing.

The editor-in-chief of the pan-Arab newspaper Al Quds al Arabi, Abdelbari Atwan, wrote in his front-page column yesterday that the Arab region must brace for the “mother of all wars” that will change its political map.

Mr Atwan was responding to a statement on Sunday by Admiral Michael Mullin, the US chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who said the US forces have a plan for an attack on Iran.

Previous wars with the US and Israel have taught the Arabs that the decision to wage war against them usually takes months before military operations are launched. These are preceded by demonising PR campaigns. The build-up to the US invasion of Iraq in 2003 and the Israeli war on Lebanon in 2006 attest to that.

Now, there is a host of developments that may put the future of the whole region on the line. First, there is the international tribunal which is expected to accuse Hizbollah of the assassination of the former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri next month.

Second, there is the intensive (verging on bullying) US pressure on the Palestinian Authority to resume talks with the Israelis, the tradition being that the US and Israel wage wars only when the Palestinian-Israeli track is cleared. Finally, two days ago, mystery missiles hit Jordan and Israel.

Admiral Mullen was wise to say that he was “worried”.

Face to face with the Lebanese crisis figures

“Our plane landed in Beirut before that of the Custodian of the Holy Places,” wrote Tariq al Homayed, the editor-in-chief of the London-based newspaper Asharq al Awsat. “From there, we went straight to the presidential palace. We walked into the reception area, and there we came face to face with the key figures of the political crisis in Lebanon.”

Everyone was there waiting for the arrival of King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, the Syrian president Bashar Assad and their host, the Lebanese president Michel Suleiman, in a landmark tripartite summit last week.

“I wished there was a camera there to broadcast live the fringe meetings and the small talk, and how many Lebanese politicians know how to crack jokes while punching each under the belt with the utmost ease,” the editor wrote.

“For instance, you would hear a very well-known Lebanese figure say to the Iranian ambassador – and this I heard with my own ears: ‘How about that [person X]? Are you satisfied with him?’

“Then, while waiting at the reception, I told a friend: ‘Imagine if this room were to be shut off and, with all its Lebanese politicians, transported on a plane to a place very far away. What a relief it would be for Lebanon and its people?’ He retorted: ‘Others like them will come out in a month’, as he gave one of his opponents a hearty handshake and a big smile.”

Is Syria coming back to the Arab fold?

“Just as they wage their wars on our soil, they also conduct their reconciliations on it, in this tinderbox of a piece of land that duly sums up the degradation of the situation in the Arab region,” wrote Nayla al Tweini in the Beirut-based daily newspaper Annahar.

The past week teemed with official visits, meetings and calls for calm and dialogue in the Lebanese domestic scene. True, the Saudi King Abdullah’s tour in the Middle East was a goodwill gesture aimed at mending fences between the regional players, but it wouldn’t have succeeded if it weren’t for Syria’s recent “return to hide under the Arab cloak” following the Security Council’s sanctions on Iran and the possibility of an indictment by the international tribunal that might involve Syria or agencies affiliated with it.

In the last two decades, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and, more recently, Qatar have been exerting every effort to save Lebanon from various traps laid in the way of its stability. Syria, however, has always held the reins of true civil peace in the country. And if Damascus is to pass “the credibility test”, it must continue on the path of pacification and prompt its allies to opt for dialogue instead of confrontation.

Jordan will survive the petty acts of terrorism

This is not the first time Jordan is the target of “a cowardly terrorist act”, and it won’t be the last, the Jordanian newspaper Addustour stated in its editorial, following a mystery missile attack that killed one person and injured four others two days ago.

Terrorists seek to hurt the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan in view of “its tough stances, steadfast adherence to Arab nationalist tenets and determination to support the brotherly Palestinian people in their legitimate struggle for their national and historical right to establish their independent state on their own national territory, with Jerusalem as its capital.”

King Abdullah II has managed to expose the “gangs of the occupation, their expansionist goals, their disingenuous commitment to peace and their use of negotiations to enforce the status quo and ratchet up settlement building and Judaisation projects.”

The newspaper said the attack “smelled of Zionism” and will not serve any “insidious agendas”, no matter how the perpetrators try to “scramble the cards”.
The fact that Jordan has been targeted twice in the span of several months will not move the kingdom one inch away from its political commitments.

* Digest compiled by Achraf A El Bahi

Barak to Lebanon: We won’t tolerate provocations – Israel News, Ynetnews.

Israeli warning: Defense Minister Ehud Barak warned the Lebanese government Tuesday against “continuing to provoke IDF forces,” following the deadly exchanges of fire in the north.

Barak said Israel would not tolerate any attacks on soldiers or citizens “within its sovereign territory” and called on the international community to condemn the “criminal act carried out by the Lebanese army.”

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also warned Lebanon, saying that it held the Lebanese government “directly accountable for this violent provocation against Israel.”

The attack on IDF soldiers Tuesday is a “blatant violation of Security Council Resolution 1701,” he said.

Earlier, Israel filed complaint with the UN Security Council over the exchanges of fire with Lebanese forces that left Lieutenant-Colonel (res.) Dov Harari (45) dead.

Israel files UN complaint

In the complaint it lodged, Israel said Lebanese soldiers opened fire despite the fact that the IDF had informed UNIFIL forces in advance of its plan to cut down a tree along the border fence, some 80 meters south of the border.

Speaking at a press briefing earlier Tuesday, Major General Gadi Eisenkot said Israeli troops operating near the border fence encountered a “planned ambush” by Lebanese forces.

“It was a planned ambush by a sniper unit…this was a provocation by the Lebanese army,” he said. “We view this fire was a highly grave incident. Our forces responded at once, and immediately after that we resorted to artillery and gunship fire.”

NTI: Global Security Newswire – Iran Strike Could Rely on U.S. Missiles, Bombers, Analysts Say.

U.S. ‘extremely concerned’ over Israel-Lebanon border violence – Haaretz Daily Newspaper | Israel News.

Netanyahu blames Lebanon for ‘violent provocation against Israel’ after Israeli officer, 4 Lebanese killed in rare border skirmish.

The United States is “extremely concerned” about violence on the border between Israel and Lebanon, and urges both sides to exercise “maximum restraint,” State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said on Tuesday.

	Exchange of fire on the border between Israel and Lebanon – August 3, 2010
	Photo by: Yaron Kaminsky

The spokesman made his remarks hours after an Israeli officer, three Lebanese soldiers and a journalist were killed in an exchange of fire between Israeli and Lebanese soldiers at the border. Another Israeli officer was seriously hurt in the clash.

The rare cross-border skirmish represented the most serious violence along the frontier since a 2006 war. A second Israeli officer was seriously wounded, but was considered in stable condition.

Crowley said the United States was in touch with both governments. “We are trying to understand what happened … Our greatest concern is that whatever did happen not be repeated. The region has enough tension as it is. The last thing that we want to see is this incident expanding into something more significant.”

“We deeply regret the loss of life. We urge both sides to exercise maximum restraint to avoid an escalation and maintain the ceasefire that is now in place,” he added.

Earlier Tuesday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu instructed the Israel Defense Forces to firmly respond to any future Lebanese fire.

The prime minister said after the incident that “Israel views the attack on IDF soldiers with extreme severity. This is a blatant violation of United Nations Security Council resolution 1701 (which ended the 2006 war between Israel and the Lebanese militia Hezbollah in southern Lebanon). I see the Lebanese government as directly responsible for this violent provocation against Israel.”

“Israel responded, and will continue to respond in the future to any attempt to spoil the calm along the border and to harm the residents of Israel’s north and the soldiers protecting them,” Netanyahu added.

Defense Minister Ehud Barak also issued a statement, offering his condolences to the families of the Israeli casualties. Barak warned the Lebanese government to refrain from “further provocation” – referring to recent incidents in which the Lebanese army provoked Israeli forces at the border – and demanded that Lebanon launch an investigation into what he termed “a murderous act of terror.”

The defense minister called upon UN peacekeepers in the region to fulfill their duty and take resolute action to prevent similar events, and to investigate this specific event.

Barak also said that he expected the international community to condemn the incident. “The IDF will continue to protect Israel’s residents and its sovereign borders. Israel seeks peace – we proved it when we withdrew our troops in 2006 to beyond the international line. However, Israel will not tolerate any attack on its soldiers or its citizens within its sovereign territory,” he said.

DEBKAfile, Political Analysis, Espionage, Terrorism, Security.

Tags: Israel-Lebanon clash

Wounded Israeli soldier evacuated

The border tensions brewing for weeks on the Lebanese-Israel border boiled over Tuesday, Aug. 3 into a heavy exchange of cross-border fire. Lt. Col. Dov Harari, 45, from Netanya, brigade commander of the eastern Lebanese sector was killed in a surprise Lebanese cross-border attack.  He was killed by what Maj. Gen. Gady Eisencott, OC Northern Command, later called one of two, well-planned, unprovoked “sniper ambushes” set by the Lebanese army – one against a group of Israeli officers standing behind the border fence and the second an RPG attack on an Israeli tank. An Israeli major was seriously injured. Doctors are fighting for his life.
Lebanon reported three soldiers and one civilian killed in Israel’s heavy retaliation for the attack.
Israel has complained to the UN.
Maj. Gen. Eisencott described the incident, the most serious since the end of the 2006 war with Hizballah, as follows:  At around noon Tuesday, Israeli forces were cutting down small trees near Kibbutz Misgav Am on our side of the border. “Their officers were watching the work from a forward command post 200-300 meters behind the border when all of a sudden Lebanese forces suddenly started shooting without any sort of provocation.”
Israel decided on all-out retaliation because the attack was so completely unprovoked, he said, referring to the tank, artillery and helicopter fire the IDF launched against Lebanese army positions. When the Lebanese commanders asked for a ceasefire to evacuate their wounded, “We acceded to their request but then too they shelled one of our tanks. The tank gun fired on the shooters.”
debkafile reported earlier:
The incident flared when Lebanese troops ordered Israeli soldiers to stop clearing trees and installing a surveillance camera on the border fence near Kibbutz Misgav-Am opposite the Lebanese village of Adeisseh. They accused the Israeli soldiers of encroaching on Lebanese territory. When the Israelis replied they had kept to their own side of the border and refused to back down, the Lebanese started shooting, using mortars and RPGs.

The possibility that the Lebanese soldiers who opened fire were Hizballah gunmen disguised in military uniform is still under investigation.

All Lebanese units in the south went on full alert when President Michel Suleiman, at two p.m. called on the Lebanese people to be prepared to lay down their lives to defend their country and UN Security Council Resolution 1701 which terminated the 2006 war with Israel.
In Jerusalem, Prime Minister, Binyamin Netanyahu urgently consulted with security chiefs on Israel’s response to the Lebanese attack.
The Israeli complaint to the United Nations holds the Lebanese government responsible for attacking Israeli troops whose work on the Israeli side of the border was coordinated with UN peacekeepers.

According to debkafile‘s military sources, the clash was staged deliberately by the Lebanese side to divert attention from the radical change in the balance of power in Beirut as a result of President Bashar Assad’s abrupt switch of patronage from Hizballah’s Hassan Nasrallah to Prime Minister Sa’ad Hariri.
To read debkafile‘s earlier article on the events leading up to this outbreak, click here.
It coincided with a ‘major speech’ expected later Tuesday by Hassan Nasrallah, leader of the Iranian-backed Hizballah, and came a day after six missiles were fired towards the Jordanian port of Aqaba and Israeli Red Sea resort of Eilat, killing one Jordanian.

Analysis: Israel, Jordan fighting terror.

Is the Middle East on the Brink of a New Regional War? – TIME.

ENLARGE PHOTO+

A UNIFIL peacekeepe waves as a Lebanese soldier carries an RPG in front of Israeli troops patrolling the border fence in the southern border village of Adaisseh, Lebanon, Tuesday, Aug. 3, 2010. A Lebanese security official says two Lebanese soldiers have been killed in shelling following clashes with Israeli troops along the border.

Ronith Daher / AP

Tuesday’s cross-border firefight between Israeli and Lebanese government forces might simply have been a misunderstanding. And the rockets fired from Gaza and the Israeli air strikes on the besieged territory over the past week could be viewed as periodic blip in business as usual on that front. By the same token, last Friday’s unprecedented joint visit to Beirut by the leaders of Saudi Arabia and Syria could be viewed simply as a move to stop the conflict between their Lebanese proxies turning nasty. And British Prime Minister David Cameron’s pleas to Turkey to keep open its communication channels with Israel’s leaders are quotidian diplomatic common sense. Viewed in a wider context, however, each of those events could be taken as signs of why many in the Middle East believe that despite the outward calm, the region may be on the brink of another catastrophic war.

A new report based on extensive conversations with regional decisionmakers released Monday by the International Crisis Group, the respected mediation organization of former diplomats, warns of the possibility of war. “The situation in the Levant is … exceptionally quiet and uniquely dangerous, both for the same reason,” the Crisis Group warns. “The buildup in military forces and threats of an all-out war that would spare neither civilians nor civilian infrastructure, together with the worrisome prospect of its regionalization, are effectively deterring all sides.” But while Hizballah and its regional backers, Syria and Iran, believe that the buildup in the Shi’ite militia’s arsenal and capabilities is deterring Israel from launching attacks on any of them, Israel views the acquisition by Hizballah of a missile arsenal capable of raining destruction on Israeli cities as an intolerable threat. “As Hizballah’s firepower grows,” the Crisis Group notes, “so too does Israel’s desire to tackle the problem before it is too late … What is holding the current architecture in place is also what could rapidly bring it down.” (See rare pictures of Hizballah’s youth movement.)

Should a new war break out, Israel is determined to strike a more devastating blow more quickly than it did during the last conflict, in which it failed in its objective of destroying Hizballah. It has publicly warned that it would destroy Lebanese civilian infrastructure, and that Syria, as Hizballah’s armorer, would not be off-limits. But Hizballah believes its capacity to fire missiles into Tel Aviv is key to restraining Israel from returning to finish off the Shi’ite militia. And, of course, amid regional tensions over Iran’s nuclear program, members of the self-styled “axis of resistance” — Iran, Syria, Hamas and Hizballah — have deepened their alliance, raising the possibility of any one of those groups joining the fray should any of the others come under attack from Israel or the U.S. (See pictures of Israel’s 2006 invasion of Lebanon.)

Although all of the main players have good reason to avoid initiating another war right now, the Crisis Group warns that “tensions are mounting with no obvious safety valve.” At some point, Hizballah’s growing deterrent could cross Israel’s red line. And the Western diplomatic boycott of the resistance camp is cause for alarm because there are no effective channels through which the various antagonists can be made to understand how their actions could produce unintended consequences — in the tragic tradition of Middle Eastern wars that erupted in part because the adversaries failed to understand one another’s intentions. Indeed, after proclaiming his movement’s “divine victory” in standing up to Israel’s 2006 offensive, a feat that made him a hero on the streets of the Arab world, Hizballah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah did admit that had he known Israel would respond with a full-blown invasion, he would have avoided the provocation of snatching the Israeli troops that started the showdown. (See pictures of Israel’s invasion of Gaza.)

The danger posed by the lack of communication channels between the resistance camp and the Israelis explains why British Prime Minister David Cameron, a recent guest at the White House, last week went to Ankara to urge Turkey to maintain its ties with Israel and use its ties to the likes of Syria to facilitate communication that could mitigate an outbreak. Turkey has been pilloried in some quarters in the West — and certainly in Israel — for its diplomatic rapprochement with the likes of Syria, Iran and Hamas, but Cameron’s appeal was a tacit admission that the continuing Bush-era policy of refusing to engage with the region’s designated “radicals” has sharply diminished the ability of the U.S. and the European Union to influence events in the Middle East. Peace talks between Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and the Israelis are all very well, but Abbas is not at war with Israel, nor would he be even if a new round of fighting broke out in Gaza. (Comment on this story.)

Even in the besieged Palestinian territory, however, neither side is looking to restart full-blown hostilities of the type that left the territory devastated 18 months ago. The projectiles fired from the Palestinian side last week caused no casualties, and the Israeli military believes they were fired not by Hamas, but by some of the smaller rival groups that occasionally challenge the cease-fire Hamas has imposed since February 2009. Some Israeli analysts suspect that Hamas may have momentarily eased up its enforcement of the cease-fire to remind the U.S. and Israel of the perils of leaving it out of the peace process. Still, although Israel targeted Hamas commanders in weekend air strikes, Israel’s handling of Gaza has brought it increasing diplomatic isolation, which a new round of fighting would likely accelerate.

But the Hamas cease-fire that has largely held for the past 18 months is a unilateral one, with no clear channels of communication or agreed-upon rules of engagement, meaning that the danger of escalation is ever present. The same is true on the Israel-Lebanon border, where both sides have been preparing for the next war ever since the last one ended, neither desiring that option but both accepting it as inevitable. In the absence of any peace process by which Syria can recover the Golan Heights occupied by Israel since the 1967 war, Syria continues to support Hizballah as its prime form of leverage against the Jewish state. The diplomatic dynamic over the past decade has also deepened Damascus’ alliance with Tehran, which in turn makes Israel even more leery of engaging with the Syrians. And conventional wisdom has long held that should Iran’s nuclear facilities come under attack, Hizballah’s rockets would figure prominently in Tehran’s retaliation plans.

So, the potential triggers on different fronts for a new round of hostilities have multiplied, as has the danger of them going off in sequence as a result of the ties between some of the key players. And right now, the Crisis Group warns, “there is no mechanism in place to either address or ease” those mounting tensions. Absent a political process that can credibly resolve or regulate conflicts ranging from Gaza and the Golan Heights to Iran, “the world should cross its fingers that fear of a catastrophic conflict will continue to be reason enough for the parties not to provoke one.”

Japan Okays U.N. Sanctions On Iran | AHN.

Can Sanctions Bring Iran to the Table? – Council on Foreign Relations.

August 3, 2010

Iran’s President Ahmadinejad attends an official meeting in Tehran (Reuters/Raheb Homavandi)

After a ten-month delay punctuated with fresh rounds of economic noose-tightening, stalled talks over Iran’s controversial nuclear program appear to have new energy. Three days after EU ministers enacted a fresh set of restrictions (DeutscheWelle) on Iranian banking and energy sector investment, Tehran’s ruling mullahs called for new negotiations to discuss a proposed nuclear fuel swap. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said talks on the swap could resume as soon as September (PressTV). U.S. State Department spokesman Philip Crowley confirmed that a fresh sit-down is likely “in the coming weeks.”

Whether diplomacy can bear fruit is an open question: Some critics are skeptical. Michael Adler of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars writes in Politico that efforts to negotiate a way out of the Iranian nuclear impasse are beginning to make the film Groundhog Day “look like an action movie,” though even Adler acknowledges that despite Iran’s long history of persistent recalcitrance, diplomacy is not dead. CFR’s Meghan O’Sullivan, an expert on international sanctions regimes, warns that unless more forceful economic pressure is paired with diplomacy, behaviors are unlikely to change.

Others believe sanctions and Iranian overtures give hope that new talks can succeed (DemocracyArsenal). The Atlantic’s Max Fisher writes that the time might finally be ripe for diplomacy to pay dividends. As CFR’s Steven Simon and Ray Takeyh see it, while a military response to Iranian nuclear ambitions may seem appealing at times, political realities at home and abroad continue to make negotiations a far more desirable option (WashPost).

Still, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen reiterated on NBC’s Meet the Press on August 1 that military options “remain on the table” for the United States, a position U.S. and Israeli officials have repeated often.

Mullen’s warning comes amid conflicting assessments of Iran’s nuclear capabilities. CIA chief Leon Panetta says Iran has enough low-enriched uranium to produce two bombs (ABC), but that material would need to be further enriched and mounted on a missile, a process that could take at least two years. The Financial Times reported July 22 that the number of centrifuges operating at Natanz has declined in the last year, and many more sit idle. While David Albright of the Institute for Science and International Security cautions against underestimating Iran’s enrichment capabilities, speculation persists that Tehran’s nuclear program is “being undermined by sabotage, sanctions, or the incompetence of the regime’s scientists,” according to the FT.

Iran’s economy may be starting to feel the bite of the West’s sanction push. The new EU measures, and recent UN and U.S. restrictions, target Iran’s energy sector in an attempt to further cripple the Iranian economy and force Iran into negotiations. The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) estimates such efforts will reduce the country’s real GDP growth into next year, though recent jumps in oil prices could counter the fall. A government effort to impose a 70 percent annual income tax on Iran’s powerful merchant class was met with protests and shuttered shops last month–and led to an eventual backtrack (Economist) by Ahmadinejad. But as the EIU notes, the tax hike proposal signaled more than a class struggle–it also betrayed the Iranian government’s growing concern over its revenue base.

Still, sanctions alone may not be enough to force Iran’s nuclear negotiating hand, analysts contend. For one, as European firms pull out of Iran following the latest EU action, Chinese and Russian companies are looking to fill the void (InsideIran), offsetting any punitive damage. (The United States has already warned China (FT) about taking advantage of Europe’s pullout.) An international strategy of relying on Iranian public opposition to push Tehran to act may also be ill-fated. While recent public opinion polls hint at widespread dissatisfaction (IPS) with President Ahmadinejad’s government, even opposition figures have criticized international sanctions efforts as detrimental to ordinary Iranians (Telegraph). Perhaps playing to that strain of popular opinion (PDF), Ahmadinejad used a speech in Tehran on August 2 to deride the suggestion of a pending military strike. He then challenged U.S. President Barack Obama to battle of a different sort: a televised debate (Reuters).