WarSclerotic

Is it time to strike Iran? – The Times Herald Opinion: Norristown, PA and Montgomery County (timesherald.com).

By BEN BOYCHUK and JOEL MATHIS
Scripps Howard News Service

There is apparently growing momentum to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities. The September issue of The Atlantic Monthly features a cover story suggesting Israel will soon undertake a bombing run on its own — with or without the permission of the United States.

And John Bolton, America’s former ambassador to the United Nations, said this week that such an action should take place “within eight days,” before Iran fires up a reactor using Russian nuclear fuel.

Is Iran’s nuclear program so advanced that military action is now required? Would such an attack be worth the costs and consequences?

Joel Mathis and Ben Boychuk, the RedBlueAmerica columnists, debate the issue.

JOEL MATHIS:

An attack on Iran, whether by Israel or the United States, would have devastating consequences for the rest of us: Iran would almost certainly respond by unleashing its terrorist proxy groups to make war on Western targets, and it could easily make life miserable for shipping in the Straits of Hormuz — a critical passage for oil exports from the Middle East to the rest of the world. Many people would die, and a shaky world economy might be plunged into depression.

And that’s what would happen if the attack worked.

Iran learned the lessons of Israel’s attacks on nuclear facilities in Iraq and Syria during the last three decades. The country has spread out and buried its key nuclear facilities. Western intelligence probably doesn’t know where all those facilities are located. Even proponents of an attack admit that bombing Iran might not keep that country from obtaining a nuclear bomb — it just might slow the process a little bit.

Whether you believe an attack is justified, then, depends on your answer to this question: Are Iran’s leaders so crazy they would actually use a nuclear bomb once they obtained it?

Certainly, there’s little reason to love President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, or the mullahs who back him. They are Holocaust-denying totalitarian theocrats. But there’s little evidence they’re ready to commit national suicide. If Israel didn’t destroy Tehran with a retaliatory nuclear attack, the United States almost certainly would.

A nuclear-armed Iran is undesirable. It may also be inevitable. The suffering unleashed by an attack on the country, though, would be guaranteed — while the consequences of a nuclear Iran remain, at this point, hypothetical. If the debacle in Iraq has taught us anything, it is that we should wait for a true threat to reveal itself, instead of squandering blood and treasure trying to ward off a chimera.

BEN BOYCHUK:

A nuclear-armed Iran isn’t merely undesirable. It’s unacceptable. A nuclear Iran, backed by Russia (and perhaps China), would alter the balance of power in the Middle East, destabilize saner Arab countries in the region, undermine U.S. interests and pose a mortal threat to Israel — a nation Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has said would one day be “wiped off the map.”

Knowing this, the United States responds with … talk. Look at the rote denunciations of Iran from the past three presidential administrations. If you’ve read one, you’ve read them all. From Bill Clinton to George W. Bush to Barack Obama, it’s the same thing: Warnings, strongly worded communiques on State Department and U.N. letterheads and toothless sanctions, all aimed at dissuading the mullahs from treading along the nuclear path.

Well, so much for that.

The United States would do well to abandon this James Brown foreign policy of talking loud and saying (and doing) nothing. But if the United States is going to do something, it needs to really count.

Surgical strikes against nuclear facilities would be a futile gesture.

Besides, a nuclear reactor isn’t the problem. The mullahs are the problem. Let’s kill the mullahs. A nuclear reactor can be rebuilt. A decapitated theocracy in a country teeming with unrest and dissent would invite the sort of “regime change” U.S. leaders often seek, but never seem to pull off effectively.

The “green revolutionaries” who marched and bled for democracy in Tehran last year wouldn’t invite American meddling, but they might be grateful if American force broke down the remaining barriers to change.

Unfortunately, failure is an option. An inept strike against Iran would indeed invite retaliation. But remember:

The West and Iran have been at war for decades. A nuclear-armed Iran could easily turn the struggle for the worse — for Israel and for the United States. No more half-measures.

Iran Expects Attack Every Second – Pravda.Ru.

The launch of the Bushehr nuclear power plant expected, which took place on August 21, greatly increases the probability of attack on Iran. The military and political representatives of Israel have repeatedly warned that the launch of the Bushehr nuclear power plant may cause an Israeli strike.

Tel Aviv seriously believes that Iran could develop nuclear weapons based on the capacity of the facility. Israel fears an Iranian threat is not accidental. For the past five years, President of the Islamic Republic Mahmoud Ahmadinejad keeps making threats to destroy Israel.

A serious concern regarding the development of Iran’s nuclear program is expressed by the international community. In June of this year, additional sanctions were imposed on Tehran for the refusal to stop enriching uranium. However, they did not stop the implementation of the nuclear program.

Russia Today: Noise over nuclear power plant unjustified

Therefore, the risk of causing a military strike on Iran is more relevant than ever. The U.S. is trying to keep Israel from the immediate reaction to the launch of the Bushehr plant. According to The New York Times, Barack Obama administration was able to persuade Israel not to attack Iran within the next year. They said that during this time Iran will not have time to build its nuclear weapon.

However, Mossad experts believe that this Islamic state is able to acquire it before the end of this year. And that means that nobody, not even the U.S., can guarantee that its ally Israel does not start a preventive war.

What are the prospects of a possible conflict and when it might happen? Pravda. ru asked the experts Avigdor Eskin and Vladimir Khrustalyov to answer these questions.

“Strike on Iran is feasible,” believes an Israeli political analyst Avigdor Eskin. “We see that Iran continues to threaten us and move towards creation of nuclear weapons. But this attack should not be tied to a specific event, the launch of the Bushehr plant. Theoretically , this could happen any time .

As for the strike on Iran, it will have a sobering effect, like a belt on an unruly child. They still have nothing serious to oppose against us. It is one thing to destroy Israel in words, like Ahmadinejad says; another thing is to put this into practice. First, Iran is too militarily weak to reflect our impact, and secondly, the Iranian people, except for a small group of fanatics, are not ready to fight against us. The Iranians are well aware that Israel is far away and have not caused any harm to their country, and Ahmadinejad’s regime is provoking us.

From a practical point of view, everything is ready for an attack. Moreover, such countries as UAE and Saudi Arabia, fearful of Iran, are urging us to attack and if anything happens they are even willing to provide our planes with the air corridors for the passage into Iranian airspace, “concluded the expert.

Here is the opinion of Vladimir Khrustalev, an expert on nuclear technology of the Maritime State University named after Admiral Nevelskoy: “Regarding the possible strike on Iran, the Israelis are in a position to seriously suspend its nuclear program, even without U.S. assistance. Israel has everything to do it.If we talk about the timing of the attack, the decision on this can be made very quickly, for example, after receiving some additional intelligence data. Israel has not only necessary military equipment, information and personnel for planning and conducting successful raids, but also the determination of the political leadership to take such a decision, if necessary. The question is the price. And it can be rather high. Iran may have big surprises for Israel. The Iran-Iraq war in 1980s showed that the level of organization of defense planners in terms of reducing bureaucracy in this type of the armed forces is head and shoulders above Iraq. In addition, we should not forget about the asymmetrical impact. I mean not only medium range ballistic missiles such as Shehab, but also short-range missiles located in Lebanon, on the territory controlled by Hezbollah.

Another thing is that the strike is discussed in conjunction with the launch of the Bushehr plant. But the Israelis themselves understand that this object has no serious military significance. Yes, with the help of its reactors, in principle, it will be possible in future to obtain weapons-grade plutonium. But the big concern here is not the Bushehr nuclear power plant, but the heavy water reactor (purely Iranian offspring) at Arak under construction.

However, in my opinion, it is much easier to obtain materials for nuclear weapons production building on existing capacity. I mean those few thousand centrifuges launched in recent years.

And those who wish to inflict such a strike will have to take into account these circumstances. After all, Iran already has considerable reserves of low-enriched uranium, which can be enriched to weapons grade again with the help of these centrifuges.

On the other hand, there is another way to impede the implementation of Iran’s nuclear program: the attacks on scientists. And judging by the suspiciously high mortality rate among Iranian scientists, secret services of the countries hostile to Iran have already achieved some success.

There is another way. It is the destruction of objects producing components for the Iaranian nuclear industry, for example, bearing, steel and other plants. There a many such facilities in Iran and it complicates the operation. In this case, the resources allocated for the strike would have to be spread thin.

However, I will note that this is likely to lead not to the destruction of the Iranian nuclear program, but in the best case scenario to the technical pause. First, in the case of bombing, Iran would have an excuse to withdraw from the NPT. Second, it will not be possible to eliminate the scope for the production of nuclear weapons; it will only damage the industrial base for some time. Moreover, Iran is capable of moving uranium enrichment to the weapon grade to various caves, and it will not be so easy to learn about their exact location. They will be able to take intermediate stocks of raw materials to the undercover warehouse because the country is big enough.”

Sergei Balmasov
Pravda.Ru

RealClearPolitics – Spinning Obama’s “Persuasion” of Israel.

By Jed Babbin

Though US intelligence on Iran‘s nuclear weapons program is notoriously lacking, the Obama administration is working to create a media narrative that credits its intelligence expertise with deterring an Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities.

Convinced of its own power of persuasion, the administration’s new narrative credits its ability to affect Israeli policy on the basis of “new” intelligence assessments and unsupported assumptions about future intelligence gathering.

There are two substantial problems with the administration’s narrative. First is the inadequacy of current intelligence on Iran’s nuclear weapons program and the assumed reliability of future intelligence on it; second is the Obama administration’s lack of credibility with Israel.

The new narrative was launched Thursday in a New York Times leak (appearing briefly on the Drudge Report) that the Times would reveal Obama’s latest thinking about Iran the following day. The Friday New York Times report said the Obama administration has succeeded in persuading Israel to delay any attack on Iran’s nuclear weapons program for at least a year.

The report says that US officials, based on intelligence collected over the past year, believe that technological problems would prevent Iran from completing a “dash” to build a nuclear weapon for another year or more.

The Times report said, “American officials said the United States believed international inspectors would detect an Iranian move toward breakout within weeks, leaving a considerable amount of time for the United States and Israel to consider military strikes.”

Two very senior intelligence community sources have told me – consistently for more than four years — that we lack adequate sources to have any confidence in our knowledge of Iran’s progress toward nuclear arms. The only new source of intelligence revealed to the public is Shahram Amiri, an Iranian nuclear scientist who claimed to have defected to the US and then, after talking to the CIA, decided to return to Iran earlier this year. Without corroboration (which my sources imply is lacking) Amiri’s information cannot be relied upon.

How can the Obama administration flatly tell the Israelis that future intelligence would reveal a “dash” to building a nuclear weapon within weeks of its occurrence when that assertion contradicts directly what Defense Secretary Robert Gates said on “Meet the Press” on April 11. (Keep in mind that Amiri’s defection occurred months earlier and was revealed weeks before Gates spoke.)

Gates appeared on the show with Secretary of State Clinton. Clinton – asked if Iran was “nuclear capable” now, i.e. if they were capable of building a nuclear weapon – said, “…that’s an issue upon which intelligence services still differ.”

Gates stat

“Only in this respect:  how you differentiate.  How far, how far have they gone?  If they–if their policy is to go to the threshold but not assemble a nuclear weapon, how do you tell that they have not assembled?  So it becomes a serious verification question, and I, I don’t actually know how you would verify that.”

This statement by Gates and the Times report that Obama administration officials believe international inspectors would detect an Iranian dash to build a bomb “within weeks” cannot be reconciled. Given Gates’s comprehensive lack of confidence in our ability to gather the essential intelligence, it is inconceivable that the Israelis would be persuaded to bet their nation’s existence on the future performance of those same agencies.

Combined with the Gates statement, events surrounding the Times story leave its credibility in tatters. Within the past two weeks, both Russia and China have announced that they will continue to supply Iran with gasoline in massive quantities, mooting the new round of UN sanctions. According to other news reports, Iran has enacted a new law mandating the production of higher-enriched uranium and announced that it would begin building a third enrichment plant next year. Only last weekend Iran’s Bushehr nuclear power plant was being fueled and brought online by Russian technicians.

The Times’s eagerness to adopt the White House narrative begins with the lead sentence. It uses the past tense: that the Obama administration “has persuaded” Israel that the Iranian nuclear threat is at least a year in the future. No named or unnamed Israeli official is cited to support this assertion.

Israel rightly believes that Iran’s nuclear weapons program is an existential threat. Iran has, too many times, said that it would wipe Israel off the map. Nothing the Obama administration says can counteract that because President Obama’s credibility with Israel is as weak as the Times’s story.

For almost two years, President Obama has used every diplomatic tool at his disposal to strengthen US ties to the Islamic world, often at Israel’s expense. His administration’s strongest statements and actions have been against Israel on issues ranging from construction of new Israeli homes in Jerusalem to pressure to engage in direct talks with the Palestinians.

In contrast are Obama’s “open hand” policy toward Iran, his nomination of an ambassador – our first in at least five years – to Syria and his reported collaboration with Egypt on an international resolution saying the Middle East is a “nuclear free zone,” which is aimed at Israel’s nuclear weapons program.

Obama’s attitude toward Israel is reminiscent of the British and French governments’ attitudes toward Czechoslovakia in 1938 when they combined to pressure the Czechs into surrendering the Sudetenland to Germany.

The difference here is that though Chamberlain and Daladier did get the Czechs to agree to their terms, there is no reason to believe that Obama’s effort has “persuaded” Israel that Iran should be allowed another year to pursue its nuclear program undisturbed. There is every reason to believe that the Israelis will attack Iran as soon as they believe they can defend themselves adequately against the inevitable counterattack.

Regardless of the Times’s spin, Obama’s “persuasion” of Israel only increases the pressure on the Netanyahu government, and makes the attack on Iran more likely.

The Daily Maverick :: Iran inches closer to getting Armageddon powers.

Last weekend the world had a glimpse of what may be the most recent piece in this puzzle when Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad inaugurated the country’s newest weapon, the so-called “ambassador of death”, Iran’s first domestically built unmanned bomber aircraft.

Iranian state television said the drone craft can carry four cruise missiles and has a range of about 1,000km. The missiles extend its range that much further, all the way to, say, Tel Aviv or Haifa and beyond. And keeping everyone’s attention on its military capabilities, a few days earlier Iran test-fired a new liquid-fuel surface-to-surface missile, the Qiam-1, equipped with advanced guidance systems.

At the unveiling of the drone plane, Ahmadinejad said, “The jet, as well as being an ambassador of death for the enemies of humanity, has a main message of peace and friendship.” Breathe easy again. Ahmadinejad added that this drone craft will “keep the enemy paralyzed in its bases” and Iran’s military hardware development efforts will keep on going “until the enemies of humanity lose hope of ever attacking the Iranian nation”.

The origins of Iran’s self-sufficiency programme began during its 1980-88 war with Iraq. At that time, the US first imposed its arms embargo on Iran that impelled Iran to begin its own development programme, and the country now produces tanks, armoured personnel carriers, missiles and even a fighter plane.

The launch of its latest aircraft virtually coincided with the delivery of fuel rods, to Iran’s first fully fledged nuclear reactor at Bushehr, built with Russian help. This fuelling process comes while there are continuing concerns in the West about the possible military dimensions of Iran’s nuclear programme, even though Iran insists it only wants to generate electricity with the Bushehr reactor. The possibility of marrying a drone aircraft with cruise missiles and nuclear weapons clearly keeps analysts and governments awake at night.

Construction of the reactor actually dates back to 1974 when Iran was still ruled by the shah. Iran contracted Siemens to build the reactor, but the German company withdrew after Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution. The project had a further setback when Iraqi bombers damaged the partially finished reactor during the Iran-Iraq war.

Then, 15 years ago, Iran signed a contract with the Russians to complete the Bushehr plant, but the Russian construction company kept dragging its feet in finishing the job. The Russians said technical reasons caused these delays, but some analysts argue that the Russians were actually using the project to push Iran to lower its defiance of UN concerns about uranium enrichment. Uranium enrichment concentrates the radioactive uranium isotope into reactor-grade fuel and, if it is concentrated further, into weapons-grade material. And that’s the sum of all fears in the West and in other places such as Israel.

And so, just as Iran was demonstrating its brand-new new drone bomber, it also began loading its brand-spanking-new reactor with uranium fuel, allowing Iranian officials to trumpet this as a triumph over Western pressure to box in its nuclear ambitions. International Atomic Energy Agency monitors were on-hand to watch the process as the fuel rods went from storage to the reactor “pool”. They will be able to monitor the ongoing use of the fuel. This is a crucial point as spent fuel contains plutonium that can also be used to create atomic weapons. Once the 80 tons of uranium fuel have been loaded in the reactor core, the facility will be able to generate 1,000 megawatts of power for the national grid. There is a rationale for a nuclear energy regime in Iran because the country lacks the oil-refining capacity needed to meet domestic demand, and so must purchase refined fuel on international markets, even though it has some of the world’s largest petroleum reserves.

Obviously mindful of international concern about this transfer of nuclear material, the Russians have also pledged there will be international supervision of the reactor and its fuel to preclude any diversion into making nuclear weapons. And Iran’s agreement to permit this kind of monitoring represents an unusual compromise. For their part, Western nations have cautiously accepted this deal – with the provisions that Iran will keep spent nuclear fuel from being channelled to military uses – because their key objective has been to prevent Iran creating fissile materials that could be diverted into making nuclear weapons.

Photo: A general view of the Bushehr nuclear power plant, 1,200 km (746 miles) south of Tehran, August 21, 2010. Iran began fuelling its first nuclear power plant on Saturday, a potent symbol of its growing regional sway and rejection of international sanctions designed to prevent it building a nuclear bomb. REUTERS/Raheb Homavandi

One reason for Russia’s actions may actually be commercial. While this particular deal may not be profitable, many others elsewhere in the world can be. And Russia clearly has an interest in showing it will not abrogate a contract under pressure from the US.

However, this tacit agreement over the new reactor is somewhat different from previous showdowns over putative Iranian uranium enrichment and may just foreshadow proposals to ease the continuing impasse with Iran over other nuclear materials. The US had encouraged Russia to delay the reactor to add sinew to sanctions already imposed on Iran because of its refusal to cease enrichment of uranium, but the US now appears to be making the best of the resulting agreement. A state department spokesman called the oversight at Bushehr a model for further monitoring and that it had been part of a UN plan offered Iran a year ago. However, Iran rejected that plan that had called on it to halt uranium enrichment and get its supplies of reactor-ready material from abroad.

The Bushehr agreement may seem to be a positive step, but now back on the negative side, Western nations continue to say they are worried Iranian enrichment labs could be redirected to produce weapons-grade uranium. Iran earlier rang alarm bells in the West when it announced plans to build 10 new uranium enrichment sites inside protected mountain strongholds and had said construction would begin despite UN sanctions.

Ahmadinejad has insisted Iran will reject any calls for it to halt uranium enrichment, although talks about the larger questions could start in September. And foreign minister Manouchehr Mottaki added that its proposal was “to urge the full annihilation of all types of nuclear weapons, as an ultimate goal for the human society”.

And for a peaceful reactor, there are those troubling defence systems around the Bushehr reactor. Given the realities of the region, the facility is heavily guarded and they’ve already run some actual tests with Iranian drone craft to check out the site’s defences. Ahmadinejad has said that, if anyone does plan to attack the reactor, Iranian reaction would be overwhelming. As he said, “The scope of Iran’s reaction will include the entire Earth. We also tell you – the West – that all options are on the table.”

For their part, Israeli officials say they are not particularly worried about the fuel being loaded into Bushehr. However, their “problem is with the other facilities that they have, where they enrich uranium,” said Uzi Landau, Israel’s minister of national infrastructure.

At least for a while, the Obama administration appears to have persuaded Israel it would take roughly a year, and perhaps longer, for Iran to complete what one senior official called a “dash” for a nuclear weapon. That appears to have tempered the immediate prospect of Israel pre-emptively striking against Iran’s nuclear facilities within that period, something Israeli officials, in thinly veiled threats, have previously suggested might happen.

Israeli and American officials have been debating for several years whether or not Iran is on a course toward the bomb and, if it is, how long it would take to produce one. For both, the key question has been how long it would take Tehran to refine its existing stocks of low-level, enriched uranium into weapons-grade material. Israeli intelligence officials had argued that Iran could do this in months, while American intelligence agencies have come to believe the timeline is longer. For one thing, Iran would be forced to build nuclear bombs from a limited supply of nuclear material, currently enough for two weapons, analysts say. Secondly, making this effort would mean kicking out international weapons inspectors, thereby eliminating any ambiguity about Iran’s nuclear plans.

But US officials concede there are potential unknowns in their assessments. Chief among them is whether Iran has hidden another enrichment centre somewhere in the tunnels it has dug throughout the country. Uh-oh, we’re back to the negative side of that ledger again.

Last September, Iran admitted it had been building such a hidden facility buried in a mountain near the city of Qum, an admission that came just days before Western nations revealed its existence.

But even as American and Israeli officials agree that the time when Iran is likely to have a nuclear weapon is now further into the future, this does not mean that Israel has abandoned the idea of a possible military strike. This is because American officials say Israel has been particularly concerned that, over time, Iran could disperse its nuclear materials to secret locations around the country, making it less likely that an Israeli military strike would significantly cripple the programme.

Now, does that make it more or less likely somebody may decide to end the ambiguity about Iran’s nuclear development? Perhaps it depends on how much of a gambler you are. One thing does appear certain: The prospect of an all-out war with Iran is a fantasy scenario no more.

By J Brooks Spector

For more, read The Washington Post, AP,  AP, AP, Iranian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, The New York Times, The New York Times, BBC, Jerusalem Post, and US State Department, among lots of others.

Main photo: Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad delivers a speech during the unveiling ceremony of a long-range drone, the Karrar, in Tehran August 22, 2010. Iran unveiled the prototype of a long-range unmanned bomber on Sunday, the latest in a stream of announcements of new Iranian-made military hardware as tension mounts over its nuclear programme. REUTERS/Vahidreza Alaii.

Middle East Views | Iran’s Salafi Sleeper Cells.

News reports about Iranian plots to target the Arab Gulf States through local Shiite cells, which have been planted and programmed to carry out terrorist activities and create chaos, in the event of an attack on Iran, may not be far from the truth. However, it is incorrect to suggest that the Shiites alone would be Iran’s agents in a time of crisis. This belief is completely naïve, for Iran today is the largest employer of Sunni movements, specifically the Salafist groups, who are considered the most radical Sunni group, and certainly different from the Shiites. The attack which struck the Japanese oil tanker near the Straits of Hormuz a month ago was not a Shiite operation, but that of a Sunni-Salafi Saudi national based in Iran! There are hundreds more like him, of Arab nationality, hiding and being trained inside Iran. There are also hundreds of others receiving support from Iran for their activities in other areas such as Iraq, Yemen, Somalia, Lebanon, Gaza and so on.

Yet the portrayal of this political issue [employing Sunni movements] as one that contradicts with Shia doctrine, or with the Shiites as a people, is reminiscent of the ancient Iranian project, which aimed to unite Shiites worldwide. However this project only worked partially in Lebanon. Indeed, the Tehran regime’s relationship with the Shiite Arabs has been significantly marred by political problems, as is the case in Iraq today, where Iranian efforts have failed to impose influence on Shiite religious parties, to form a certain political mould. If that had succeeded, the political crisis in Baghdad would have ended with an outright majority in parliament and the formation of a government, albeit of Iran’s choosing. Yet this has not succeeded because each party has its own opinion and political agendas, which it believes in and insists upon. Also, there are Shiite Arabs in western Iran today who are treated badly and discriminated against in their own country [Iran]. Thus there is clear evidence that Iran does not see the world along the lines of a sectarian divide, but in accordance with the interests of its politically pragmatic system. This system strives to do all it can to serve the Iranian regime’s objectives and spread its influence, to Sunnis or Shiites.

The truth is that the best battalion serving Iran today is not those Shiite groups in the Arab region loyal to Iran, but Sunni extremist groups which systematically assist Iran, by prompting Shiite citizens to doubt and reject [their own regimes]. These extremist groups serve Iran by spreading fear amongst the Shiites in the Gulf, thus sending their Shiite youth into the arms of Iran.

It is expected that the Iranian authorities intend to put all their effort into securing the largest number of Iranian sympathizers of the Gulf Shiites, and use them for Iran’s purposes within their own states. Iran in its present plight believes it has the power to confront any U.S. attack, through chaos and terrorism, and it is hardly surprising that it will awaken the cells in the Gulf if such a crisis occurs. Here it would be naive to believe that the cells are only Shiite, but in reality they include Sunnis, and Arabs of different nationalities.

*Published in the London-based ASHARQ ALAWSAT on Aug. 23, 2010.

‘Israel will react to Iran accordingly’.

Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon this week told the Iranian people by radio that a regional war initiated by Teheran was a distinct possibility, adding that “Israel is committed to defending its citizens and if attacked will act accordingly.”  The comments, released by the Foreign Ministry in Hebrew on Tuesday, came during a Farsi-language broadcast on Israel Radio in which Ayalon addressed the people of Iran, taking calls and answering questions . The Farsi broadcast originally aired on Monday.

“A fear exists that Iran – as it becomes more pressured by sanctions – will goad those under its patronage in Hizbullah and Hamas to initiate military action against Israel. There’s also a possibility that Iran will make a military move against the Arab Gulf states and harm the flow of oil to the world, in which case the entire situation will degrade into widespread confrontations. Remember that the sanctions are aimed against Iran’s efforts to arm itself with nuclear weapons, and if they don’t elicit results, the United States and other nations might consider other options.”

Iranian general: Teheran should hit enemy outside ME.

U.S.: We are troubled by Iran’s nuclear intentions, not its military growth – Haaretz Daily Newspaper | Israel News.

U.S. State Department spokesman: Recent unveiling of advanced Iran weapons systems do not avert Washington’s attention from its controversial nuclear program.

The United States is concerned about Iran’s nuclear intentions, not the weapons systems it develops, a senior U.S. official said on Monday, referring to several recent unveilings by the Islamic Republic of self-made advanced military equipment.

	Mahmoud Ahmadinejad during a ceremony inaugurating the Karrar drone aircraft, August 22, 2010.
	Photo by: AP

Earlier Monday, Iranian state media reported that Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps inaugurated production lines for two high-speed vessels, the Seraj and Zolfaqar, which are to be armed with missiles and torpedoes.

The unveiling came only a day after Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad personally announced the development of the country’s first domestically made drone, the Karar, which has range of 1,000 kilometers and is armed.

Speaking on Monday to MSNBC, U.S. State Department spokesman Philip J. Crowley said that, while Iran’s developing military capabilities were of concern to the United States, its sights were set on “Iran’s intentions.”

	A soldier in Iran’s Revolutionary Guard accompanies coffin of ecently recovered bodies of fallen soldiers of the Iran-Iraq war, Tehran, May 14, 2010
	Photo by: Reuters

“I don’t think that any one weapon system is going to tip a balance one way or the other, but certainly Iran sees itself as a regional power,” Crowley said.

“And as they acquire more capability, that will be of concern to the United States and other states in the Gulf, and we will respond appropriately. But obviously, of greatest concern to us are Iran’s nuclear ambitions.”

Crowley said that Washington continually assesses “Iran’s nuclear capability,” saying the Islamic Republic was experiencing “some trouble with the technology, but this trajectory that they’re currently on is of concern to us.”

“We’ve made clear that Iran having a nuclear capability would set off an arms race within the region,” Crowley said, adding that such a turn of events would not be “helpful to us; that’s not helpful to the region.”

“We want to do everything we can to forestall that. We also think that one step to help stabilize the region is to end the conflict between the Israelis and the Palestinians. These things are connected,” the State Department spokesman said.

When asked whether or not he believed Israel would strike Iran in response to its recent weapons’ unveiling, the State Department spokesman said that “every country, including Israel, will act in its own self-interest and to defend itself.”

“We’re trying to put pressure on Iran to clarify its nuclear programs and to be a more constructive player in the region,” Crowley said, adding that the United States had attempted to ward off Iran’s military threat by working “closely with Israel and other countries in the region – build up their defensive capabilities to offset Iran’s growing influence.”

“We’re prepared to engage this regime. We hope to have conversations with Iran perhaps next month to try to clarify its nuclear ambitions,” he said, adding that dialogue with Iran would take place within the context of what we call the P5 plus 1.”

“We also want to see Iran more constructively engage the IAEA so that we understand more fully what its nuclear plans are,” Crowley said.

via DEBKAfile, Political Analysis, Espionage, Terrorism, Security.

DEBKAfile Exclusive Report August 23, 2010, 7:48 PM (GMT+02:00)

Separate scripts

debkafile‘s Washington sources reports Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu is misleading his ministers by presenting the direct talks opening with the Palestinians on Sept. 2 as a diplomatic victory. He has omitted to disclose that the Obama administration has reneged on the secret deals for paving the way to the talks it concluded with Netanyahu’s senior aides Yitzhak Molcho and Uzi Arad.

Part of the deal was for Israel to line up with the Obama administration’s non-reaction to Iran’s activation of its Russian-built nuclear reactor at Bushehr last Saturday, Aug. 21. The United States promised, for its part, to deliver the Palestinians to the negotiating table for face -to-face talks after dropping their pre-conditions (determination of the 1967 lines as the final borders of a Palestinian state and a moratorium on Jewish construction on the West Bank and Jerusalem).
But most of all, the secret deal obliged Obama to refrain from twisting Israel’s arm on behalf of the Palestinians should the dialogue founder – as it is widely expected to do.

Wit this deal in the bag, Netanyahu was able to showcase the Obama administration’s endorsement of his diplomatic strategy and is rejection of Palestinian demands.
However, the deal was shown to have sprung a leak in the formal announcements in Washington of Friday, Aug. 20, debkafile discloses.
Whereas Secretary of State Hillary Clinton kept faith with Israel and turned down a last minute White House demand to insert this phrase in her announcement: “The United States could offer bridging proposals if necessary,” into her announcement, the euphemistic phrase turned up in special presidential envoy George Mitchell’s remarks elaborating on the Clinton statement.

The US sources consulted by debkafile Monday, Aug. 23, made no bones about White House intentions. Those “bridging proposals” referred to Obama’s views on the most intractable disputes at issue between Israel and the Palestinians, i.e. final borders, Jerusalem and Israel’s security demands. They would be put forward as friendly gestures to lift the talks out of a ditch, but Israeli would be left in not doubt that it must bow to the US president’s take – or else.

In Ramallah, debkafile‘s sources report, Mahmoud Abbas, Chairman of the Palestinian Authority, was accused of failing to stand up to US pressure when he agreed to meet Netanyahu face-to-face on Sept, 2 after 20 months of ducking direct talks. Abbas assured them that the Palestinians had no cause for concern because the White House had promised him that the “bridging proposals” would be tilted in the Palestinians’ favor and Netanyahu would be hustled into backing down on every important issue.
Our sources add that Washington also reneged in the first half of its commitment to Israel too. Instead of staying mum on the Bushehr plant when it was started up on Saturday, Aug. 22, as did the Netanyahu government, the state department spokesman responded a few hours later by saying that Washington sees no “proliferation risk” from the launch of Iran’s first nuclear power plant.
This went down badly in Jerusalem as a form of US approval for the reactor, a surprising deviation from their accord and another ill omen that the Obama administration may seek to grind Israel down in the way it manages the talks with the Palestinians.
Obama is already under fire from several groups of Israel’s defenders for what is regarded as his unfair and unbalanced treatment of Israel and favoritism for the Arab and Muslim side of the Middle East rift. The drift of Jewish and pro-Israeli voters away from the Democrats ahead of November’s midterm congressional elections is reflected in more than one poll. According to the latest Pew Research Center report earlier this month, whereas in 2008 the Democrats enjoyed three times as many Jewish supporters as the Republicans. The ratio has now sunk to less than two to one.

In Israel, the US president’s ratings, exceptionally high after his election, have plunged – unaffected by the effort Obama made to give Netanyahu a warm White House welcome in July.

The Israeli prime minister may be counting on the November midterm elections to hold Obama’s hand from weighing too heavily in favor of the Palestinians – if the talks manage to stagger on that long.

DEBKAfile, Political Analysis, Espionage, Terrorism, Security.

DEBKAfile Exclusive Report August 24, 2010, 6:00 PM (GMT+02:00)

Abu Mahdi Al-Muhandis – Al Qods planner of pre-emptive against Israel

Iranian Revolutionary Guards chief Gen. Mohamed Ali Jafari, who rarely leaves his country, paid a secret visit to Damascus a few hours before Tehran launched its first nuclear reactor at Bushehr Saturday, Aug. 21. With him were top Al Qods Brigades commanders in Lebanon, Iraq and the Palestinian territories. The group stayed only long enough to confer with Syrian president Bashar Assad and his military and intelligence chiefs on three topics:

1. The roles Syria and Hizballah will play in a potential Iranian military reprisal to a possible American or Israeli strike on its nuclear sites.
2.  The probable repercussions of an Iranian decision to use Hizballah or pro-Iranian terrorists as proxies for a pre-emptive strike – or strikes – against Israel.
3.  How Syria can help discourage the Persian Gulf and Saudi Arabia from their willingness to support a US or Israel attack on Iran with bases, intelligence assets and other means.
The importance and urgency of this discussion is attested to by the IRGC’s supreme commander having made his trip outside Iran for many years.  It was one of the red lights abounding of late that instilled in Israeli defense minister Ehud Barak a sense of urgency for a strategic response to the Bushehr startup. He accordingly cut short the furious contest raging in the IDF’s General Staff over the contest for the next chief of staff by an abrupt announcement of Maj. Gen. Yoav Galant’s appointment to the post when the incumbent ends his tour of duty in February. This quelled the scandals surrounding forged documents and intrigue, but above all it sent a message to Tehran: Israel’s defensive posture and self-restraint, as practiced by Lt. Gen. Gaby Ashkenazi, was about to change. Iran may run into a different response if it makes goods on its threats of aggression and the flurry of war preparations they are orchestrating around Israel’s borders.
The incoming IDF Chief of Staff Gen. Galant, who commanded the 2009 Cast lead operation against Hamas in Gaza, subscribes to an offensive, proactive military approach in contrast to the dovish Ashkenazi. Although he formally takes the reins next February, Ashkenazi may well will step down before his term is up and make way for his hawkish successor. With Galant at his side, the defense minister has begun reshaping the General Staff to match the new approach and the requirements of the incoming C-of-S.
debkafile‘s military sources add that Israel is taking very seriously the presence in Gen. Jafari’s secret delegation to Damascus of two high-ranking IRGC Al Qods officers. They have been identified as Abu Mahdi Al-Muhandis, commander of Iran’s terrorist and spy networks in Iraq, the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, and Hassan Mahdavi, formally designated IRGC envoy to the Lebanese Hizballah, who was recently elevated to overall command of the Lebanese terrorist organization.
This promotion effectively changes the status of Hizballah, which is represented as a political force in Lebanon’s parliament and government, from Tehran’s surrogate to external arm of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps under the direct command of an al Qods officer – an ominous pointer to the goals Iran has set itself in a country bordering on northern Israel.

As for Al Muhandis, the US Treasury targeted him for personal sanctions in July 2009 as “adviser to Qasem Soleimani, the commander of Iran’s Qod’s Force, the arm of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps responsible for providing material support to Lebanon-based Hizballah, Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command” – all of them notorious terrorist groups.