WarSclerotic

Peres: Mideast peace can help U.S. battle Iran threat – Haaretz Daily Newspaper | Israel News.

Speaking in front of worldwide Jewish leaders in Jerusalem, President says U.S. should allow Arab states to choose for themselves whether or not they want to be democratic.

Israel could aid the United States in its attempts to thwart Iran’s nuclear program by pushing forward with peace talks with the Palestinian Authority, President Shimon Peres said Thursday, adding that he believed the Islamic Republic posed the greatest threat to both Israel and the United States.

	President Shimon Peres speaking during the Millennium Development Goals Summit at the UN in New York on September 20, 2010.
	Photo by: AP

Speaking at a meeting of worldwide Jewish leaders in Jerusalem, Peres said that while “Israel cannot give America what it gives us, we, in our small way, can help the U.S. by putting an end to the minor conflict with the Palestinians and allowing it to focus on the main threat – Iran.”

However, in a more critical note, Army Radio also quoted the president as expressing his disapproval of American attempts to establish democracies in Arab states such as Iraq, saying that the question was ‘where is the Muslim world heading?'”

“I appreciate [former U.S. president George] Bush’s attempt to expose them to democracy, but is that possible?,” Peres asked, adding that it was “very difficult to come to a king and tell him to go to elections.”

“It would be like inviting a turkey to a Thanksgiving feast,” the president said, adding he believed “Muslims should be able to choose their own path.”

Last month, Minister of Minority Affairs Professor Avishay Braverman said that the then relaunched peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians posed “a strategic threat to Iran.”

Speaking at the Shabbat Tarbut event in Haifa, the minister said that “the cancellation of a visit by the Iranian foreign minister to Egypt and the historical events that have occurred in Tehran since the start of peace talks are proof that progress in the talks will lead to an alliance between Israel and the moderate Arab states versus the axis of evil of Iran-Hamas-Hezbollah.”

Berlusconi ‘hopes’ Israel won’t take military action against Iran – Haaretz Daily Newspaper | Israel News.

Italian PM doubts effect of sanctions on Iran, says sanctions tended to reinforce regimes in countries such as Cuba, suggests more prudent approach would be more effective.

By The Associated Press

Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi has expressed doubts about the effectiveness of sanctions against Iran and argued that a gentle approach might be more helpful.

Iran has been hit with several rounds of international sanctions over its nuclear program, which the United States and allies believe could be used to produce nuclear weapons. Iran insists the program is meant purely for peaceful purposes.

	Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi reacts after delivering a speech at the Senate, in Rome, Sept 30, 2010
	Photo by: AP

On Friday, Berlusconi was quoted as telling Germany’s Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung daily that, “although Italy has participated in the sanctions, I fear that sanctions will not bring success.”

He said sanctions have tended to reinforce regimes in countries such as Cuba, and a gentle and circumspect approach would be more helpful, the newspaper reported.

Berlusconi identified Russia and China as countries that could pursue such an approach, and said he had asked China’s Premier Wen Jiabao to use his influence in this direction. The two permanent UN Security Council members have been more hesitant than Western nations about taking a hard line against Iran, and Russian engineers have helped Iran build a nuclear power plant.

Italy has supported UN sanctions despite its strong commercial ties with Tehran, but also has always tried to reach out to Iran by trying to get it involved in issues such as Afghanistan’s future.

Asked if Iran can be integrated in the international community, Berlusconi replied: “We must at least try that – it is the only way to get Iran out of its blind alley.”

“Regarding Israel, we can only hope that the nuclear threat is not viewed as so great that Israel takes military action against Iran,” Berlusconi was quoted as saying

DEBKA.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

Just a week ago, four radical Middle East leaders were looking forward to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadienjad‘s forthcoming visit to Lebanon on Oct. 13-14 as their ladder to the glittering pinnacle of Middle East power. To gain this boost to their personal and national prestige, they were even willing to set aside their differences for that defining moment.
Ahmadinejad himself was certain he had only to set foot on Lebanese soil for Iran’s sway over that country to be accepted unquestioningly by all its diverse political and religious groupings which would henceforth toe the Iranian line.
Syrian President Bashar Assad believed that the visit would teach the Iranian leader to appreciate his value as the key to controlling Beirut and would henceforth defer to Syria’s dominant influence and presence in the Lebanese capital.
Hizballah’s Hassan Nasrallah counted on the Iranian president to show the world that Iran was the invincible boss of Lebanon and Hizballah its trusty right hand for running the show of government, including national security and foreign affairs.
Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Recep Erdogan saw the visit as a leap toward solidifying the bloc of nations made up of Turkey, Iran, Syria, Iraq, Lebanon and the Palestinians that was destined to rule the Middle East.
He put his contest with Tehran over the top slot on hold under the axis was up and running.
None of them imagined the brutally aggressive, attention-grabbing Iranian president could fall on his face, least off on the tiny Lebanese platform. But that is exactly what happened. Bowled over, all four found their apple carts tipped over, their strategic plans thrown off course and their personal prestige dented.
Lebanese president turns down defense treaty with Iran
All of DEBKA-Net-Weekly‘s Middle East sources agree that the widely-hailed Iranian president’s visit to Lebanon missed out. They are not entirely clear why this should have happened when Iran, Hizballah and Syria put in three months of painstaking efforts to make it a smash hit.
They advance four possible causes:
1. It went wrong on the first day when Ahmadinejad failed to persuade Lebanese President Michel Suleiman and Prime Minister Sa’ad Hariri to sign a defense treaty with Tehran and apply for Iranian weapons for the Lebanese Army.
This contretemps was his first eye-opener. It meant that if Tehran wanted to gain a strong military foothold in Lebanon and the eastern Mediterranean seaboard, it was not immediately for sale. For now the Iranians would have to be content with its proxy, Hizballah.
2. He was also brought up short by the limits drawn to Iran’s ability to parlay its power and influence among Shiites into political clout in the Sunni-dominated Arab Middle East. This barrier loomed at the worst possible time for Tehran, engaged as it is in a campaign for influence in Baghdad and the last word on the Iraqi government’s makeup.
The Lebanon venture starkly exposed the hidden interplay between Iran’s machinations in Baghdad and Beirut, so compromising Iran as leading Middle East mover and shaker.
Lebanese prime minister won’t give up Hariri trial
3. Ahmadinejad was frustrated again when Lebanese Prime Minister Sa’ad Hariri flatly refused to come to terms with Hizballah and Syria on doing away with the Special UN Tribunal for Lebanon-STL to save Hizballah leaders from indictment in the 2005 Rafiq Hariri assassination.
He had been certain of succeeding after picking up hints from Washington and Paris that neither would mind if the tribunal gradually faded into self-dissolution in the interests of Lebanon’s fragile stability.
He also talked it over with Saudi King Abdullah before setting out for Beirut.
But Hariri adamantly refused to revoke the tribunal’s mandate or funding, resolved more than ever to bring his father’s assassins to justice, “whoever they may be.”
That phrase has become a ticking bomb in Beirut for Hizballah to carry out its threat of military action against the Hariri government and/or across the Israeli border to save his security and intelligence officers from standing trial before the STL.
Ahmanijad’s failure to talk Hariri and Hizballah round to an accommodation confronts Tehran with a quandary because letting Hizballah off the leash could have unpredictable and ungovernable consequences: A military challenge to the government in Beirut could quickly ignite internecine war in Lebanon and heating up the border with Israel carried the risk of a general conflagration.
On the other hand, by holding Nasrallah back, Tehran would appear to be abandoning its foremost Middle East ally to its fate.
Last minute: Hariri informed Saudi Arabia and Egypt Thursday night, DEBKA-Net-Weekly‘s sources disclose, that he would prefer to resign as prime minister rather than make the slightest concession to Hizballah with regard to the probe into his father’s murder. Saudi diplomats are engaged in frantic efforts to arrange a meeting between Hariri and the Hizballah’s leader to avert the outbreak of fighting in Lebanon.
Nasrallah publicly humiliated, Assad snubbed in Riyadh
4. On the second day of the visit, Thursday, October 14, things went from bad to worse.
The plan was for Ahmadinejad, with Nasrallah beside him, to drive in a triumphal cavalcade down the Lebanese coastal highway to the South. The Hizballah leader stage-managed the event to present himself as its co-star. Smart Hizballah units and Iranian Revolutionary Guardsmen were to accompany the cavalcade as its security escort after pushing Lebanese soldiers out of the way.
However, Lebanese President Michel Suleiman supported by Lebanese Chief of Staff Gen. Jean Qahwaj stamped hard on the plan, insisting that no force other than the Lebanese army – certainly not Hizballah – secure all parts of the Iranian president’s visit.
After arguing for four hours, Ahmadinejad bowed to his hosts’ decision (More about this incident in HOT POINTS below) and informed them he accepted the protection of the Lebanese army for the remainder of his visit.
So mortified was Nasrallah by this public humiliation, the most painful since Tehran ostracized him in July 2006 for going to war with Israel without permission, that he retired to his bunker. He tried not to hear the murmured question running through the Middle East: is this how Iran treats its staunchest allies?
The Syrian president was next to feel the backlash from the Iranian president’s Lebanon fiasco.
He arrived in Riyadh for talks with King Abdullah Sunday, Oct. 17 on working together in Lebanon and Iraq and finding a way to prevent the Hariri tribunal’s case from exploding into civil war in Lebanon.
But DEBKA-Net-Weekly‘s Persian Gulf sources disclose he was stunned by the cool reception he met with. He found Abdullah had hardened his position on all the issues on which they had planned to cooperate.
Instead of being invited to sit down for a formal dinner at the royal palace in Riyadh, Assad was fobbed off with a scratch meal at the Saudi Air Force base to which their meeting had been moved.
The Lebanese prime minister was supposed to wait in the wings until he was sent for to join the Syrian and Saudi rulers. Abdullah would have then told him how to cooperate with Assad.
But Hariri was not present at the Saudi air base and when Assad asked why he was not about Abdullah replied brusquely that he was not needed at this stage.
Assad attempts damage control
According to our sources, when the Syrian ruler tried to impress the king with the important ground covered by Ahmadinejad in Lebanon, Abdullah raised his hand impatiently and cut him short: “That was not the impression we received,” he said, “We followed the visit and were not particularly impressed.”
Assad went on to stress the significance of the Iranian president’s tour of southern Lebanon and the Israeli border, to which Abdullah remarked drily: “So what? Ahmadinejad went to the south and returned after a short time. Has anything changed?”
Assad cut the interview short and returned to Damascus empty-handed.
DEBKA-Net-Weekly‘s Beirut sources report that the Syrian president pretends to be mystified and goes about saying the Saudi king’s change of heart is incomprehensible, while scrabbling to gain some of the control and influence which has begun to seep away in the fallout from Ahmadinejad’s unfortunate trip to Lebanon.
Assad’s first move was to press Lebanese President Michel Suleiman to come over to Damascus very soon for talks, hoping he can achieve more from this encounter than the Iranian president managed in his two days in Lebanon.
As for the Turkish prime minister, he has had to swallow a major setback to the radical Middle East bloc he had set his heart on and wait for another chance to fulfill his ambitions. DEBKA-Net-Weekly‘s Middle East sources reveal that Erdogan in particular had hoped the Arab League would accept Turkey and Iran as new members despite being non-Arab in recognition of their regional power status. He had been encouraged in this expectation by Arab League Secretary Amr Moussa.
That hope, too, lost traction as a result of the Iranian president’s poor performance in Lebanon. Shortly after Saudi King Abdullah saw Assad off his premises, he notified Moussa that the two applications would be vetoed.
All this left big questions hanging over the visit, such as, what happened to make the over-assertive, fire-eating Ahmadinejad appear so hesitant and confused in Lebanon? How did he come to act in a way that fumbled Tehran’s strong image and miss striking the right note for carrying Arab and Muslim public opinion before him? Was he thrown off by current happenings in Tehran?

DEBKA.

Imam Ali Base

Iran is under enemy attack on four fronts in a war never acknowledged as such by the regime in Tehran or admitted by the aggressors.
The advantage to Iran of this shadow conflict is that it is not obliged to respond. Its leaders are therefore free to bend all their energies to propping up their Islamic Revolutionary regime. The advantage to the attackers is that they can keep on battering the Islamic Republic without risking an open clash and bring their hammers down on one front after another without warning.
In the last three months, four such offensives were launched against Iran, starting in July:
1. The cyber-attack:
The Stuxnet virus planted in Iran’s nuclear and military control networks seriously damaged those systems. This attack is still ongoing, defying all attempts to exorcise the wily worm.
(This offensive was exclusively covered from its outset by DEBKA-Net-Weekly. See Issue 463: The Stuxnet Malworm’s First Strike.)
2. Rockets destroy secret missile launchers:
On Tuesday, October 12, the day before Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad flew to Beirut, three massive explosions blasted through one of Iran’s top-secret military installations, the underground store holding Shihab-3 intermediate-range ballistic missiles which were held ready for launching against US targets in Iraq and Israel in the event of war.
An unknown number of missiles, their launchers and warheads, including some tri-conic nosecones, were destroyed at the site beneath the Iranian Revolutionary Guard’s Imam Ali Base near the city of Khorramabad, in the Lorestan province of southwestern Iran.
The base is also home to IRGC’s main missile force, the Al-Hadid Brigade, 18 of whose members were killed and 14 injured in the blast, according the official communiqué in Tehran – probably more, according to our sources.
The victims’ funerals took place Thursday, October 14 at the same time as Ahmadinejad stood at the southern Lebanese town of Bint Jbail belting out another prediction of Israel’s imminent “disappearance.”
Iran fears Israeli UAV-borne rockets blasted its Shehab-3 store
Our intelligence sources report that Iran began its inquiry into the disaster to the missile armory by looking for traces of an infiltrator who managed to penetrate one of its most closely-guarded facilities and blow up the weapons tucked away inside deep tunnels. When they found no sign of a trespasser, they turned to the theory that American or Israeli unmanned aerial vehicles had flown in from Iraq and somehow found their way past the twists and turns of the underground passages until they found their pre-programmed targets – the missiles and their launchers – and blew them up with rockets.
Iranian investigators were pointed in that direction by Syrian military intelligence which gave them data on Israeli UAV rocket practices against underground targets, including several on the buried command centers of Ahmed Jibril‘s Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) in Namma, south of Beirut.
Israeli tacticians to have found a way of using the deep shafts leading straight down from the surface openings to the command facilities below as testing-ranges for weapons designed to blow up targets sunk deep underground.
Acting on this theory, Iranian investigators began combing through the rubble at the Imam Ali base in search of fragments of the Israeli guided supersonic missile Jumper which fits the Syrian description.
DEBKA-Net-Weekly‘s military sources describe this missile as powered by a two-pulse rocket motor with low radar and acoustic signatures, GPS/INS guidance gear and four steering surfaces on the aft section.
It was basically configured for stationary targets designated by geographical coordinates. The Jumper‘s accuracy is unaffected by low visibility or weather conditions; its precision may be optimized by an optional laser-guidance unit. It is 180 cm long and 15 cm in diameter. Each launch unit weighs about 1.5 tons and can be deployed by air or land and operate in an unattended mode, without requiring the support or presence of operators, on the principle of Dial and Hit.
Sanctions begin to hit the ordinary Iranian
3. Sanctions:
The offensive by sanctions is turning out to be a lot more effective than Tehran is willing to admit.
On Tuesday, October 19, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei commented that the Iranian people had lived under sanctions since the early days of the Islamic Revolution and learned how to confront them.
He said this when he arrived at the holy Iranian city of Qom (for a visit whose purpose is disclosed in a separate item in this issue). But his words made little impression on the ordinary Iranian. After all, DEBKA-Net-Weekly‘s Iranian sources report, since early October, the Iranian currency has dropped one-fifth of its value against the basket of leading currencies, there is a rush on the banks to withdraw foreign currency, especially the US dollar, and oil exports have plunged by 13.3 percent – or more than 600,000 barrels a day. This is the steepest decline since the late 1970s and costs the government about $16 billion in net revenue loss.
Moreover, applications for new building licenses have fallen by 40 percent sending the private construction industry into a slump. Iran’s credit rating is in free fall as a result of pressure from Washington on governments, banks and businesses to refuse to extend letters of credit for financial enterprises.
Tuesday, Oct 19, Tehran confirmed that some European airports are refusing to sell its carriers fuel; its flagship carrier has stopped making unscheduled stops en route to Tehran because London refuses to extend refueling services.
All this means that the basket of penalties wielded by US Treasury Undersecretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence Stuart Levey is beginning to bite painfully all the way down to the Iranian in the street. It consists of UN sanctions, beefed up by unilateral US measures and steps taken by European governments and firms to cut off trade with the Islamic Republic.
Levey was in Ankara this week on a mission to persuade Turkish businesses and companies to join the sanctions regime against Iran. They would have to undercut their prime minister, Tayyep Recip Erdogan, who voted against sanctions, defends Iran’s nuclear program and is proud of their warm bilateral friendship. Their trade ties are expanding fast, Erdogan boasts, and will be boosted from $10 billion to $30 billion in five years.
The USS Abraham Lincoln docks at Manama

4. Military muscle:
This week the US applied more military pressure on Tehran when Sunday, Oct. 17, the USS Abraham Lincoln docked at the Fifth Fleet headquarters at Manama, Bahrain, thereby raising the number of US carriers in the Persian Gulf to two, for the first time in as many years. Until now, the Obama administration kept the number of carriers opposite Iran down to one inline with his policy of engaging Iran in diplomacy to halt its progress toward building a nuclear weapon. Adding a second carrier to the USS Harry S. Truman and its marine air force might already present raises the number of warplanes facing Iran to 120 and is therefore a game changer.
DEBKA-Net-Weekly‘s Washington sources say this move relays two administration messages to Tehran:
First: The Six Power talks due to open with Iran in early November will be backed by American military leverage. To date, Washington has not invoked the UN Security Council’s permission to search Iranian or other vessels suspected of carrying banned cargoes to the Islamic Republic. Tehran has threatened to resort to force if its vessels are intercepted for searches.
Wednesday, Oct. 20, Brig. Gen. Hussein Salami, commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards issued a warning: “The enemies of Iran should know the Islamic establishment’s red lines and not trespass them.”
Second: If diplomatic engagement fails once again, the US reserves the freedom and capability for military action against Iran’s nuclear facilities.
Last minute: Thursday night, Oct. 21, the Obama administration padded the $60 billion weapons package for Saudi Arabia submitted to congress with several additional items including 1,000 2,000-pound guided bombs, described by our military sources as the most advanced bunker busters. They add a sharp new edge to US and Saudi intentions towards Iran and its nuclear program.
Might not the four war offensives buffeting the Islamic republic which he heads have weakened Ahmadinejad and been the cause of his bumbling performance in Lebanon on Oct. 14-15? And that would be without taking into accord the discord preying on the ruling echelon?

DEBKAfile, Political Analysis, Espionage, Terrorism, Security.

DEBKAfile Exclusive Report October 22, 2010, 12:12 PM (GMT+02:00)

Egyptian tanks in joint drill with Saudis

Egyptand Saudi Arabia secretly carried out their first ever joint exercise this week with the participation of their special operations, marine, armored, missile, air and naval forces, debkafile‘s military sources reveal.  Exercise Tabuk-2 was programmed to repulse a potential Iranian attack on Saudi Arabia by taking the battle over to Islamic Republican territory. Our sources note that a new chapter was written in Middle East military history this week: The two largest Arab nations deployed their military strength in position for combating the Iranian army and its Revolutionary Guards Corps and showed they were willing to counter Iranian belligerence by invading the aggressor.
Tabuk-2, which Riyadh and Cairo took care to keep under wraps, took place from Sunday, Oct. 17 to Wednesday Oct.21 under the command of Acting Saudi Defense and Aviation Minister, Prince Khaled Bin Sultan, son of Crown Prince Sultan.

Khaled’s military record goes back to 1991 when he led the Saudi contingents taking part in the American invasion of Kuwait for ending the Iraqi takeover. In 2009, he commanded the Saudi expedition force which fought Iran-backed and funded Huthi rebels in northern Yemen.
This week’s joint exercise was conducted in Egypt’s northern desert up to its Mediterranean shoreline, an area whose terrain is similar to conditions on the Persian Gulf coast of eastern Saudi Arabia. Although Iran was not named, the two armies practiced responses to “enemy landings” in the kingdom’s eastern regions, where its oil fields, facilities and ports are situated. The script provided for Egyptian forces to be rushed to the area under attack and join up with the Saudis to throw the invaders back while at the same time a joint Saudi-Egyptian commando force standing by in the northwest would make for the western coast of Iran and launch a counter-attack on Revolutionary Guards bases.

In the weeks leading up to Tabuk-2, large-scale Saudi marine, air force, tanks and artillery forces arrived in Egypt, their first landing on Egyptian soil.
According to debkafile‘s military sources, this was the first maneuver in a series planned for the coming months in the Mediterranean, Red Sea and Persian Gulf arenas. Riyadh and Cairo are firmly resolved to have their armies at peak war readiness at all times for going into battle in any security contingency that might arise.

Egyptgave Israel advance notice of the maneuver and met with its approv

Iran shops for security networks at Gitex – Emirates24|7.

Government officials from Tehran were looking for foolproof security to counter worms such as Stuxnet

Iran was particularly concerned with the recent attack by Stuxnet worm allegedly designed to target computer network at its Bushehr nuclear plant. (AP)

Iranian government officials are at Gitex 2010 to shop for security systems to prevent the ever-growing cyber-attacks on their networks, the most recent being the highly complicated Stuxnet worm that attacked the systems installed at the Bushehr nuclear facility.

Stuxnet having affected an estimated 62,000 computers in Iran and spread havoc by penetrating Iran’s government and corporate networks, Tehran seems to be in no mood to lie low.

Iran’s Intelligence Minister Heider Moslehi had on Sunday said his country was under a well-coordinated cyber-attack unleashed by the United States and Israel.

Recent reports suggested that Sutxnet was designed to gun for the computer systems installed at Iran nuclear installations.

The virus had reportedly contaminated networks in India, Indonesia and Pakistan that run on similar software made by a European software developer.

Confirming the seriousness with which Iran is approaching the matter, Amol Sable, Senior Consultant, Secur View, a global IT Security Consultant, said: “We are getting many serious inquiries from the Iranian Ministry of Defence and other government controlled institutions for setting up a Security Operations Center (SOC) to protect the country’s sensitive IT Networks. Iranian computer networks are vulnerable to cyber-attack and Denial of Service (DoS) attacks. Many of these Iranian networks don’t have the IT security system in place. We expect many good deals from Iranian clients.” Among the company’s clients is the US Pentagon where it set up a SOC.

Other IT security experts at Gitex 2010 said Iranian clients are desperately shopping for computer network safety solutions that can ward off, and even counter, hackers who have proliferated in recent times.

A leading network security solution provider revealed to Emirates 24|7 that it is in serious discussion with the Iranian Department of Defence to study their network vulnerabilities and to provide a more secure network. There are many international companies at the Gitex offering network security solutions.

Recently the Iranian Ministry of Defence website was under attacks from politically motivated hackers, suspected to be Israelis. “Important Iranian websites are subjected to severe DoS attacks and their home pages are even defaced. Defacing is hacking into a website and changing the home page content with insulting messages and images. It is very common to see Israeli hackers attacking Palestinian websites and vice versa,” sources at Gitex said.

“Stuxnet a highly sophisticated computer worm that spread through Iran, Indonesia and India was built to destroy operations at one target: possibly Iran’s Bushehr nuclear reactor. That’s the emerging consensus of security experts who have examined the Stuxnet worm. Researchers studying the worm all agree that Stuxnet was built by a very sophisticated team of experts,” said an Iranian source quoting Government Security.org, a forum that regularly reports hacking.

Network security experts said they have seen a number of Iranian customers shopping for the latest network security solutions. “There seems to be a huge demand for network security solutions in Iran. We had customers from various Iranian government controlled entities and the Department of Defence for network security systems. They seem to be desperate because Iranian government websites and networks have been subjected to several attacks from across the border. We are negotiating with a number of Iranian customers to study their network vulnerabilities and to give them more protection. Professional hackers are targeting Iranian government websites and computer networks,” said Sable.

He said firewalls and other regular protection methods won’t work effectively if there are other vulnerabilities in the targeted network.

Recent media reports suggest that Israel is among the main suspects in the creation of the Stuxnet worm, due both to Israeli opposition to Iran’s nuclear programme, and to the complexity of the attacker, which experts say could only have been created by a team with significant funding, resources and expertise.

For almost a decade from 1999 to 2009, Iran has encountered many professional hackers. With no comprehensive internet legislation or other barriers, many groups of young hackers have been operating at will and there were several attacks on sensitive government websites belonging to the army, the prosecutor general and the space agency.

Hacker groups like the Emperor and Iran Hackers Sabotage were commissioned to hack into government databases and networks and during elections even candidates websites are defaced.

Hackers have also caused havoc with the banking transactions in Iran. Reports suggest that the Iranian government has created a new Cyber Army, claimed to be one of the world’s largest to defend the country’s network.

If a Policy Didn’t Work the First Time, Why Try It Again? » Publications » Family Security Matters.

Foreign policy and national security seem stuck on reruns.

Last weekAhmadinejad, the volatile President of Iran, endorsed new nuclear talks with West even as he declared in a speech in Lebanon that “Israel and its allies are all on their way to ‘hell.’”

U.S. State Department spokesman PJ Crowley declared, “If Iran is ready to hold talks, all they need to do is pick up the phone and set a date.”

As Heritage Foundation regional expert Jim Phillips points out, these developments are nothing we haven’t seen before: “Although the Obama Administration is ever ready to engage in more diplomacy, a resumption of the talks is unlikely to produce much in the way of concrete results.

Tehran long has been willing to talk, but has refused to make any concessions. “Tehran’s diplomatic rope-a-dope strategy always has relied heavily on coy promises of fruitful dialogue that soon decay into diplomatic globaloney,” Phillips concludes.“Tehran hopes that dilatory diplomacy may help create the illusion of progress and forestall future sanctions, buying time for advancing its uranium enrichment efforts.”

The White House strategy on Iran has been wrong from the start. They looked to sanctions as a tool for promoting talks with Tehran. That won’t work. Ahmadinejad may be evil, but he is not stupid. He will continue to toy with the West even as Iran races to build the bomb. Sanctions should be seen as a tool to help topple the regime. By using sanctions in concert with other tools the U.S. could use, America could help to bring freedom to Iran.

Talks in Afghanistan garnered a great deal of attention as well, with new details emerging about U.S. support for negotiations between Kabul and the Taliban. According to the AFP, “The commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan, US General David Petraeus, admitted Friday that western troops have facilitated the safe passage of Taliban leaders to Kabul for talks with the government.”

Talk of talks is nothing new. Whether these negotiations will lead to something remains to be seen. Negotiations that lead to demobilization and reintegration of the Taliban would be welcome. Talks that are just a pretext for a U.S. withdrawal would be a disaster. Heritage’s Senior Fellow Lisa Curtis authored a detailed study on the right way to attempt reconciliation with the Taliban. As Curtis concluded, “Premature talks with the Taliban leadership could easily backfire. Insurgents are more likely to negotiate if they fear defeat on the battlefield. The Taliban have steadily regained influence in Afghanistan over the past four years—and U.S. and NATO forces must weaken the Taliban on the battlefield before engaging in serious negotiations with the leadership.”

Missile defense was also back in the news last week with reports that NATO intends to establish a missile defense shield with U.S. support. Turkey, a member of NATO, is dithering over whether it will participate. Turkey has been seeking closer relations with Iran and distancing itself from the West.

While the news of NATO commitment to missile defense seems like progress, it is nothing new. NATO endorsed the plans under the Bush Administration for a missile defense shield in Poland and the Czech Republic. Obama, however, scrapped the plan as a prelude to negotiating a new arms control treaty with Russia. The White House, however, got a bad deal. The treaty, which is currently with the Senate for ratification, is deeply flawed.

Meanwhile, the Administration’s plans for missile defense that would protect against a long-range Iranian attack against the West are still years away. Obama’s system, in fact, is not even scheduled to be in place until after the U.S. intelligence community estimates Iran will have perfected a long-range ballistic missile.

If all this sounds like the White House is on a foreign policy treadmill, slipping further and further behind—well, that’s not far off the mark. The Administration has clearly put foreign affairs on the backburner. The President has a trip to Asia scheduled next month, but by most accounts it is mostly an opportunity to avoid addressing the mid-term elections.

After the mid-terms, the President will have to make a choice. If he stays the current course, he might not get much flack from the opposition, but he runs the risk of being taken advantage of by one of America’s adversaries. A stiff reversal, like the Iran Embassy hostage crisis that sunk Carter’s presidency would put a real crimp in the President’s reelection hopes.

On the other hand, Obama could endorse an even more “progressive” foreign policy. That tack would endear him to his base, but would also set up a number of battles with Republicans in Congress—conflicts that would likely make the President look weak on national security and lose many moderates. A third option would be to adopt a more conservative foreign policy—renewing commitments to missile defense; finishing the job in Afghanistan; pushing back on China, Russia, and Venezuela; pressing for an end to the regime in Iran; protecting rather than trading away U.S. Sovereignty; and winning the long war against transnational terror networks. That approach would find little push back from the Right and take foreign policy off the table in 2012. It would also have the virtue of keeping the nation safe and free.

Foreign policy and national security are apparently on hold in the Obama White House until after the mid-terms. As a result, the Administration’s grade for the week has to be an “I” for incomplete—a mark that might not change for the next several weeks.

FamilySecurityMatters.org Contributing Editor James Jay Carafano, Ph.D., is a leading expert in defense affairs, intelligence, military operations and strategy, and homeland security at the Heritage Foundation.

Israel Won’t Attack Iran: Israeli Cabinet Minister | The Jewish Week.

Israel will not launch an attack on Iran to prevent its development of a nuclear bomb, an Israeli minister predicted here Wednesday.

“We are not going to volunteer to solve the problem for the world and then have the world come [down] against us,” Binyamin Ben-Eliezer, Israel’s minister of Industry, Trade and Labor, told The Jewish Week. Ben-Eliezer is a former defense minister.

“No more – finished,” he added, alluding to the worldwide criticism Israel received in 1981 after Israeli bombs destroyed Iraq’s Osirak nuclear reactor.

An Israeli spokesman said later, however, that Israeli military action to prevent Iran from going nuclear “is still an option.” Israel has long maintained that it would never permit Iran to develop nuclear weapons. It has also insisted that a nuclear Iran is a world problem, not Israel’s alone.

Ben-Eliezer said the economic sanctions imposed on Iran by Western nations and the United Nations to pressure it into halting its nuclear weapons program have been ineffective because some 3,500 companies – mostly in Europe — were violating them. The only way to pressure Iran, he said, is to impose an air, land and sea economic boycott of Iran.

Otherwise, he said, “We estimate that if the world continues to let him move as he is, within two to three years time he will have the capacity to produce his first nuclear bomb,” he said, referring to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. “Although everyone says he won’t do it, I wouldn’t be surprised if [one day] we find out he did it already. …

“The issue of Iran should bother the Americans as much as it does Israel. America should understand it is their own responsibility to guarantee stability in the Middle East — not ours. We won’t do that. Seventy-two percent of the world’s oil is there. I have no doubt that if [the blockade of Iran] lasted one year,” the development of the bomb would stop.

“The situation in Iran is not good now,” Ben-Eliezer pointed out.

He said that a strict blockade of Iran “in and out” would cause the Iranian people to overthrow the Islamic regime in power.

“They are human beings and I know what is happening inside their society – they are not happy. How long can they last with a dictator who has made a joke out of [the Iranian people]?”

Ben-Eliezer’s call for a blockade of Iran echoed those made earlier this month by Israeli Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz, who said that a naval blockade of Iran should be imposed in two to six months.

“We’ll need more than talk and sanctions,” Steinitz told a meeting here of the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations. “It’s high time the West and the United States gave Iran a deadline to change its behavior. … We need a clear deadline for Iran to become open for inspection, otherwise the ramifications should be like you did with Cuba in 1962. It kept the U.S. from going to war. It’s time for clear messages and deadlines.”

A naval blockade of Iran is reportedly one course of action the U.S. has considered. It was reportedly suggested in 2008 by then-Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert during a visit to Washington. And proposed legislation that would have urged President George W. Bush to take steps to prevent Iran from importing any refined petroleum products was shelved for fear it could provoke a war.

Ben-Eliezer, who was here to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the American-Israel Free Trade Agreement, said he believes “the main problem the world is facing now is the stability of the Middle East.”

“It’s been shaking more since Ahmadinejad took over, and very soon [Iran] will be at nuclear capacity,” he said. “We would then be talking of a new world order in that part of the world. … [Iran] is now in the southern part of Iraq and will swallow Basra [a Shiite city in the south] when the U.S. leaves Iraq. All of Iraq’s oil is in the south,” which will enable Iran to exert its influence over the entire country.

Asked about declarations from Israeli leaders that Israel would never permit a nuclear Iran, Ben-Eliezer repeated: “Israel should not volunteer to solve the problems of the world. … After we solved it, the whole world would be against Israel. No more; it’s finished. I can’t foresee Israel deciding one day to do it alone. This is a world threat. [Ahmadinejad] has decided to destroy Israel and the Zionist movement and to ignore the Holocaust. … When you have a kind of a crazy man, we can’t be confident he has control of himself. God forbid what will happen.”

When asked how Israel would deal with a nuclear Iran, Ben-Eliezer replied: “Israel will overcome because there is no other place to go. Because we had no water, we had to be the best in agriculture. Because we have no oil, we had to become the best in renewables and making use of the sun. You have to be the best in order to exist.”

Regarding the failure to restart Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, Ben-Eliezer said the Obama administration is too busy with next month’s elections to deal with the issue now. But he said that after the election, he expects the issue to be back on the front burner.

“Everyone knows that a leadership decision is needed and we’re playing games talking about renewing [a settlement building] freeze. The issue is not the freeze. We had a freeze for 10 months. What will another two months accomplish? The issues are borders, Jerusalem, the refugees, the security of Israel — which is No. 1 – and an end of conflict. Once we sign an agreement on those issues, we will say take your land and build your country.”

Report: Awlaki came to Pentagon as guest after 9/11.

DEBKA.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

Just a week ago, four radical Middle East leaders were looking forward to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadienjad‘s forthcoming visit to Lebanon on Oct. 13-14 as their ladder to the glittering pinnacle of Middle East power. To gain this boost to their personal and national prestige, they were even willing to set aside their differences for that defining moment.
Ahmadinejad himself was certain he had only to set foot on Lebanese soil for Iran’s sway over that country to be accepted unquestioningly by all its diverse political and religious groupings which would henceforth toe the Iranian line.
Syrian President Bashar Assad believed that the visit would teach the Iranian leader to appreciate his value as the key to controlling Beirut and would henceforth defer to Syria’s dominant influence and presence in the Lebanese capital.
Hizballah’s Hassan Nasrallah counted on the Iranian president to show the world that Iran was the invincible boss of Lebanon and Hizballah its trusty right hand for running the show of government, including national security and foreign affairs.
Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Recep Erdogan saw the visit as a leap toward solidifying the bloc of nations made up of Turkey, Iran, Syria, Iraq, Lebanon and the Palestinians that was destined to rule the Middle East.
He put his contest with Tehran over the top slot on hold under the axis was up and running.
None of them imagined the brutally aggressive, attention-grabbing Iranian president could fall on his face, least off on the tiny Lebanese platform. But that is exactly what happened. Bowled over, all four found their apple carts tipped over, their strategic plans thrown off course and their personal prestige dented.
Lebanese president turns down defense treaty with Iran
All of DEBKA-Net-Weekly‘s Middle East sources agree that the widely-hailed Iranian president’s visit to Lebanon missed out. They are not entirely clear why this should have happened when Iran, Hizballah and Syria put in three months of painstaking efforts to make it a smash hit.
They advance four possible causes:
1. It went wrong on the first day when Ahmadinejad failed to persuade Lebanese President Michel Suleiman and Prime Minister Sa’ad Hariri to sign a defense treaty with Tehran and apply for Iranian weapons for the Lebanese Army.
This contretemps was his first eye-opener. It meant that if Tehran wanted to gain a strong military foothold in Lebanon and the eastern Mediterranean seaboard, it was not immediately for sale. For now the Iranians would have to be content with its proxy, Hizballah.
2. He was also brought up short by the limits drawn to Iran’s ability to parlay its power and influence among Shiites into political clout in the Sunni-dominated Arab Middle East. This barrier loomed at the worst possible time for Tehran, engaged as it is in a campaign for influence in Baghdad and the last word on the Iraqi government’s makeup.
The Lebanon venture starkly exposed the hidden interplay between Iran’s machinations in Baghdad and Beirut, so compromising Iran as leading Middle East mover and shaker.
Lebanese prime minister won’t give up Hariri trial
3. Ahmadinejad was frustrated again when Lebanese Prime Minister Sa’ad Hariri flatly refused to come to terms with Hizballah and Syria on doing away with the Special UN Tribunal for Lebanon-STL to save Hizballah leaders from indictment in the 2005 Rafiq Hariri assassination.
He had been certain of succeeding after picking up hints from Washington and Paris that neither would mind if the tribunal gradually faded into self-dissolution in the interests of Lebanon’s fragile stability.
He also talked it over with Saudi King Abdullah before setting out for Beirut.
But Hariri adamantly refused to revoke the tribunal’s mandate or funding, resolved more than ever to bring his father’s assassins to justice, “whoever they may be.”
That phrase has become a ticking bomb in Beirut for Hizballah to carry out its threat of military action against the Hariri government and/or across the Israeli border to save his security and intelligence officers from standing trial before the STL.
Ahmanijad’s failure to talk Hariri and Hizballah round to an accommodation confronts Tehran with a quandary because letting Hizballah off the leash could have unpredictable and ungovernable consequences: A military challenge to the government in Beirut could quickly ignite internecine war in Lebanon and heating up the border with Israel carried the risk of a general conflagration.
On the other hand, by holding Nasrallah back, Tehran would appear to be abandoning its foremost Middle East ally to its fate.
Last minute: Hariri informed Saudi Arabia and Egypt Thursday night, DEBKA-Net-Weekly‘s sources disclose, that he would prefer to resign as prime minister rather than make the slightest concession to Hizballah with regard to the probe into his father’s murder. Saudi diplomats are engaged in frantic efforts to arrange a meeting between Hariri and the Hizballah’s leader to avert the outbreak of fighting in Lebanon.
Nasrallah publicly humiliated, Assad snubbed in Riyadh
4. On the second day of the visit, Thursday, October 14, things went from bad to worse.
The plan was for Ahmadinejad, with Nasrallah beside him, to drive in a triumphal cavalcade down the Lebanese coastal highway to the South. The Hizballah leader stage-managed the event to present himself as its co-star. Smart Hizballah units and Iranian Revolutionary Guardsmen were to accompany the cavalcade as its security escort after pushing Lebanese soldiers out of the way.
However, Lebanese President Michel Suleiman supported by Lebanese Chief of Staff Gen. Jean Qahwaj stamped hard on the plan, insisting that no force other than the Lebanese army – certainly not Hizballah – secure all parts of the Iranian president’s visit.
After arguing for four hours, Ahmadinejad bowed to his hosts’ decision (More about this incident in HOT POINTS below) and informed them he accepted the protection of the Lebanese army for the remainder of his visit.
So mortified was Nasrallah by this public humiliation, the most painful since Tehran ostracized him in July 2006 for going to war with Israel without permission, that he retired to his bunker. He tried not to hear the murmured question running through the Middle East: is this how Iran treats its staunchest allies?
The Syrian president was next to feel the backlash from the Iranian president’s Lebanon fiasco.
He arrived in Riyadh for talks with King Abdullah Sunday, Oct. 17 on working together in Lebanon and Iraq and finding a way to prevent the Hariri tribunal’s case from exploding into civil war in Lebanon.
But DEBKA-Net-Weekly‘s Persian Gulf sources disclose he was stunned by the cool reception he met with. He found Abdullah had hardened his position on all the issues on which they had planned to cooperate.
Instead of being invited to sit down for a formal dinner at the royal palace in Riyadh, Assad was fobbed off with a scratch meal at the Saudi Air Force base to which their meeting had been moved.
The Lebanese prime minister was supposed to wait in the wings until he was sent for to join the Syrian and Saudi rulers. Abdullah would have then told him how to cooperate with Assad.
But Hariri was not present at the Saudi air base and when Assad asked why he was not about Abdullah replied brusquely that he was not needed at this stage.
Assad attempts damage control
According to our sources, when the Syrian ruler tried to impress the king with the important ground covered by Ahmadinejad in Lebanon, Abdullah raised his hand impatiently and cut him short: “That was not the impression we received,” he said, “We followed the visit and were not particularly impressed.”
Assad went on to stress the significance of the Iranian president’s tour of southern Lebanon and the Israeli border, to which Abdullah remarked drily: “So what? Ahmadinejad went to the south and returned after a short time. Has anything changed?”
Assad cut the interview short and returned to Damascus empty-handed.
DEBKA-Net-Weekly‘s Beirut sources report that the Syrian president pretends to be mystified and goes about saying the Saudi king’s change of heart is incomprehensible, while scrabbling to gain some of the control and influence which has begun to seep away in the fallout from Ahmadinejad’s unfortunate trip to Lebanon.
Assad’s first move was to press Lebanese President Michel Suleiman to come over to Damascus very soon for talks, hoping he can achieve more from this encounter than the Iranian president managed in his two days in Lebanon.
As for the Turkish prime minister, he has had to swallow a major setback to the radical Middle East bloc he had set his heart on and wait for another chance to fulfill his ambitions. DEBKA-Net-Weekly‘s Middle East sources reveal that Erdogan in particular had hoped the Arab League would accept Turkey and Iran as new members despite being non-Arab in recognition of their regional power status. He had been encouraged in this expectation by Arab League Secretary Amr Moussa.
That hope, too, lost traction as a result of the Iranian president’s poor performance in Lebanon. Shortly after Saudi King Abdullah saw Assad off his premises, he notified Moussa that the two applications would be vetoed.
All this left big questions hanging over the visit, such as, what happened to make the over-assertive, fire-eating Ahmadinejad appear so hesitant and confused in Lebanon? How did he come to act in a way that fumbled Tehran’s strong image and miss striking the right note for carrying Arab and Muslim public opinion before him? Was he thrown off by current happenings in Tehran?