WarSclerotic

Israel intelligence official: Hamas rockets can reach Tel Aviv – Haaretz Daily Newspaper | Israel News.

Source blames lax Egyptian enforcement on Gaza border, says Hamas ‘making big efforts to build up military capabilities’.

By The Associated Press

A senior Israeli intelligence official warned Sunday that Hamas rulers in the Gaza Strip have rockets that can travel 80 kilometers (50 miles) – a longer range than previously reported, which would put the coastal metropolis of Tel Aviv within range of its launchers.

The official blamed Egypt, saying it was not doing enough to stem smuggling through a network of tunnels along the relatively short border between its Sinai desert and the Palestinian territory. An Egyptian security official reached for comment maintained that Egypt was combating the smuggling successfully.

	A Palestinian smuggler working in a tunnel in Rafah, on the border with Egypt in April 2009.
	Photo by: AP

The Israeli intelligence official said that Hamas, which seized control of Gaza in 2007, is “making very big efforts to build up their military capabilities … building up their rocket capabilities in the Gaza Strip, and all this is happening because of one important thing: the smuggling of weapons through Egypt to the Gaza Strip.”

Egypt, along with Israel, imposed an embargo on Gaza in June 2007 after Hamas militants took control of the area, but the Israelis and United States have repeatedly urged Egypt to do more to prevent weapons smuggling into the territory.

“Most of the tunnels that are used to smuggle these rockets and explosives and other weapons are in an area of three to four kilometers, or up to 2.5 miles,” said the official, who is privy to high-level intelligence information and briefed foreign correspondents on condition that he not be identified.

“We see it in our intelligence. We have photos of this. In many places we can show photos of Egyptian soldiers located less than 20 meters (yards) from the opening of a tunnel, and the tunnel is operating under his eyes, under his control, and nobody is doing anything about it.

“Egypt can stop all this smuggling of weapons within 24 hours if they want to do it,| he said. |There are enough Egyptian troops and policemen … located on this border.

Israeli lawmaker Arieh Eldad, a member of the parliamentary Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, who has access to classified material, confirmed the official’s assessment.

“Egypt is not a country that large quantities of weapons can enter without the authorities knowing,” he told The Associated Press, charging that Egypt allows Hamas to acquire arms in exchange for the Islamic militants leaving Egypt alone.

“They could easily train police to look for the smugglers and they don’t,” Eldad said.

A senior Egyptian intelligence official said Egyptian security has been performing its duties successfully at the border with Gaza. He said they have intercepted 50 tons of explosives in the past two years and have been praised by Israeli intelligence for their work.

The Gaza-Egypt border is only about 8 miles (13 kilometers) long. Egypt beefed up its presence at the border after Israel withdrew from the Gaza Strip in September 2005 and handed it over to Palestinian control. The smugglers responded by digging longer tunnels, penetrating past the immediate border area.

“The Egyptians have found 675 tunnels since the beginning of this year,” the security official said.

The United States has helped Egypt with advanced equipment to find out the tunnels through uncovering the underground movement and several Egyptians were trained in the U.S. to use these equipment. Egypt also built a steel wall along the border to prevent smugglers from penetrating into Egypt, though some smugglers have cut through it.

Although Hamas has largely halted its rocket fire since a fierce Israeli military offensive in early 2009, the Israeli security official said the group’s aim remained to strike at Israeli cities.

“Today there are rockets which are reaching 70 and 80 kilometers (45 to 50 miles) in the Gaza Strip … so it means that we can sit here and talk and a rocket can fall on our heads within five minutes,” the official said.

That range would mean that rockets could reach Tel Aviv, Israel’s business and cultural hub. About 2 million people live in the Tel Aviv area, which was targeted by Saddam Hussein’s Iraq with Scud missiles during the 1991 Gulf War.

The assessment indicated that Hamas has improved its capabilities in recent months. Past assessments have said Hamas rocket range was closer to 60 or 70 kilometers, or roughly 40 to 45 miles.

On Sunday Channel 10 TV showed video of Israel’s Iron Dome system knocking down rockets. The system is designed to protect Israel from rocket fire from Gaza and Lebanon. However, deployment has been delayed several times and now appears at least months away.

The official charged that corruption is undermining any efforts to stop the smuggling from Egypt to Gaza. He said Egyptian officers and soldiers are being bribed to look the other way.
Eldad confirmed that.

When an arms convoy goes through Egypt, lots of people are bribed along the way, he said. It’s easy to bribe the guards and police on the border.

“On the other hand,” the official said, intelligence cooperation with Egypt was otherwise effective: “In other aspects we see Egypt, when they have concrete intelligence about terror attacks … they are reacting most of the time very fast and trying to prevent these attacks.”
The Israeli intelligence official also said that Hamas’ rival, the Palestinian Authority, was making a genuine and successful effort to maintain security and prevent attacks on Israel in the West Bank.
But he warned it was dependent on progress in the currently stalled peace talks with Israel – and on the presence in office of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Prime Minister Salam Fayyad.

The official added that Israeli intelligence believes that it remains the long-range goal of Hamas to destroy Israel and to establish an Islamic caliphate, not only in the Middle East but in Europe as well.

MESS Report-Israel News – Haaretz Israeli News source..

What benefits Israeli security more – a few more trailers on some hilltops or doubling the number of advanced fighters in its inventory?

By Amos Harel

The list of defense-related and other gifts the U.S. administration is willing to offer to Israel in exchange for three months of construction freeze in the settlements raises suspicions that someone has gone mad. An additional extension of the freeze, which he has previously rejected out of hand, may spell a political and ideological headache for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu – but the offer by U.S. President Barack Obama is very enticing. The addition of 20 F-35s to the package discussed two months ago tips the balance very clearly. From Israel’s point of view, it is an offer that cannot be refused.

	The F-35 Joint Strike Fighter
	Photo by: AP

Since Obama entered the White House two years ago, he has not given the impression – at least in terms of foreign relations – of being a particularly tough negotiator. Nonetheless, this time the administration appears to have gone overboard, even though in Washington they know full well that the freeze is a highly symbolic gesture, which the settlers have already managed to avoid in the past.

This, of course, raises suspicions that there are much broader and substantive issues at hand, and not merely a few housing units in Samaria or Gush Etzion. Not only may there be a genuine Israeli willingness to move forward in a substantive way in negotiations with the Palestinian Authority, but perhaps some sort of deal on the Iranian question is afoot. Could it be – and this is only conjecture – that Obama is trying to persuade Israel to commit to desisting from any independent action against the nuclear installations of Iran, in exchange for a substantial future reinforcement of the Israel Air Force?

The F-35 deal signed last month was controversial in both defense establishment and political circles. The debate did not stem from the quality of the stealth aircraft, but from the price tag accompanying it: Generals and minister believed that when the price per unit is more than $130 million, there are better ways to make use of the U.S. military aid package. But, according to the prime minister, the U.S. is now generously offering to double the number of aircraft without the funding for them being taken from the future military aid package.

This is an enormous gift, which nearly makes the debate on the need for the F-35 redundant. According to reports, there will also be significant benefits elsewhere in the gift list for Israel.

In spite a great deal of bad mouthing about him, the U.S. president has proven no less committed to Israel’s security than his predecessor. To date the security package has included emergency stores that are available to the Israel Defense Forces, a $205-million grant to purchase Iron Dome systems, and a significant stepping-up of joint missile defense training programs. The list of items to come, at least on paper, is impressive.

“The Americans have put forth an excellent proposal. It will be a big mistake not to take it,” a senior defense source told Haaretz last night, adding that “the prime minister has made impressive gains. If we do not implement this deal, we will suffer in terms of defense.”

Obama is essentially spotlighting a debate that has been going on since the settlements began – namely, whether they contribute to or undermine Israel’s security. The U.S. president is now asking: What benefits Israeli security more – a few more trailers on some hilltops or doubling the number of advanced fighters in its inventory

DEBKAfile, Political Analysis, Espionage, Terrorism, Security.

DEBKAfile Exclusive Analysis November 15, 2010, 2:13 PM (GMT+02:00)

Iraqi power-sharing is dead.

Iyad Allawi, whose Al Iraqiya party, won Iraq’s general election last April but last week lost the premiership to the pro-Iranian incumbent Nouri Al-Malaki, was forced to admit Friday, Nov. 12 that “the concept of power-sharing in Iraq was dead now. For Iraq” he said, “there will be tensions and violence, probably.”

That day, too, debkafile‘s sources report, Hassan Nasrallah told a closed meeting of his Lebanese Hizballah activists that what happened in Baghdad is destined for Beirut.

He was underlining the new reality in the Middle East where Iran and its allies are beating the West out in one crisis after another, forcing pro-US and pro-Saudi political forces to come to terms with antagonists sponsored by Tehran and serving its interests rather than those of Washington. No one in the region buys the proposition that the Obama administration can count as a successful feat the Baghdad power-sharing deal. It may terminate the eight-month stalemate during which Iraq had no government, but it also brought into the Al Maliki administration the anti-American radical Shiite Sadrists, whose affairs are run from a party headquarters in Iran.

The emergence of the new government in Baghdad is seen in fact as joining the list of flops scored by the Obama administration as a result of wrong tactics: By first backing Alawi, then switching to his rival Al Maliki, the US gave Tehran the edge in the contest between the two rivals and a springboard for further gains.

The second loser was Saudi Arabia, which poured more than a billion dollars in the campaign of Allawi and his Sunni following who have been beaten out by the pro-Tehran candidate.
In addition to boosting the violence plaguing Iraq – as Allawi predicted – Iran has perpetuated both the ethnic and religious divisions of the national government, parliament while also fostering the national, political, ethnic and religious conflicts diving the country outside the capital. The provides Tehran with the perfect game board for playing partisan strife to enhance its influence, a game in which the Americans failed.

The Kurdish Jalal Talabani’s return to the presidency will in no way put a stop the Kurds fighting for control of the northern city of Kirkuk and its rich oil fields, towns in central Iraq and the skies over their autonomous region with a view to establishing an independent Kurdish stronghold powerful enough to achieve its aims by force of arms.

Neither will the election of the Sunni Osama al-Nujeifi’s election as Speaker of Parliament, a post held previously by a Sunni politician too, dismantle the barriers facing Sunni politicians since the US 2003 invasion of Iraq and the fall of the Sunni Baathist regime. The Sunni tribal Awakening Councils, which helped US surge forces defeat al Qaeda in 2006 and 2007, will be further encouraged to restore their ties with Al Qaeda by the Al Malilki regime’s refusal to promote Sunnis to top positions in government, keep them on the national payroll and keep some of their leaders in detention.

It is an open secret in Iraq that Maliki himself, whom parliament Friday awarded a month to form a government, is completely under the thumb of the Sadrists and their Iranian masters and in no position to set about healing the deep dissent afflicting the Iraqi people.

The next ton of bricks about to fall on Barack Obama’s head now comes from Lebanon and the Palestinians, both of whom are falling ever deeper into Syria’s clutches. As one well-informed American put it his week: “As Iraq goes, So Goes the Middle East.”

Commander: Iran holds defense drills at nuclear plants – Israel News, Ynetnews.

‘This year, we carried out tactical drills which resembled real combat in Fordo, Tehran, Natanz, Bushehr and Isfahan,’ Ahmad Mighani says

Iran has conducted defense drills at its sensitive nuclear facilities, a senior commander told media on Sunday, adding that fresh aerial war games will be launched across the country next week.

“This year, we carried out tactical drills which resembled real combat in Fordo, Tehran, Natanz, Bushehr and Isfahan,” where the country’s nuclear plants are located, the Mehr news agency quoted Ahmad Mighani as saying.

Mighani did not specify when exactly the exercises were conducted.A top commander said on Wednesday that Iran would soon test its own version of the S-300. It was unclear whether that would be during the upcoming war games.

Iran’s arch-foes Israel and the United States have not ruled out a resort to military action to prevent it developing a nuclear weapons capability, an ambition it strongly denies.Mighani said the armed forces will stage a new five-day air defense drill from Tuesday “all over the country in order to improve defense capability,” the Fars news agency reported. Iran’s armed forces regularly conduct such exercises to show off the country’s military prowess and test-fire what they boast are home-made missiles.

Following the latest package of UN sanctions on Iran, Russia refused to deliver long sought-after S-300 ground-to-air missiles.

Iran official: Bushehr power plant to join national grid.

Photo by: Associated Press  

By JPOST.COM STAFF
11/14/2010 12:51

Atomic Energy Organization deputy head claims that Western sanctions “could never undermine country’s nuclear progress,” Fars reports.

U.S. offers Israel warplanes in return for new settlement freeze – Haaretz Daily Newspaper | Israel News.

Netanyahu presents security cabinet with Clinton’s incentive of 20 F-35 fighter planes and security guarantees in exchange for 90-day West Bank building moratorium.

By Barak Ravid and Natasha Mozgovaya

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s seven-member inner cabinet discussed Saturday an offer by the United States to reinstate a freeze on West Bank Settlement construction in return for a package of incentives.

Netanyahu presented Saturday the U.S. offer, which was discussed by Netanyahu and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Thursday, to the forum of seven.

	U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at their meeting in New York, November 11, 2010.
	Photo by: Reuters

According to the offer Israel would stop construction in the West Bank for 90 days. The freeze includes construction that began after the end of the first settlement moratorium on September 26.

The moratorium would not apply to construction in East Jerusalem. The U.S. will not ask Israel to extend the new moratorium when it expires.

In return, the U.S. government would deliver 20 F-35 fighter jets to Israel, a deal worth $3 billion. Moreover, if an Israeli-Palestinian agreement is achieved, the U.S. would sign a comprehensive security agreement with Israel. The U.S. and Israel are to discuss the nature of the new security arrangements in the next few weeks.

According to “The Cable” blog, White House Middle East adviser Dan Shapiro told a group of American Jewish leaders on Friday that U.S. was committed to fighting delegitimization of Israel, and listed recent efforts to advocate on behalf of Israel.

Such efforts included: curbing actions by the United Nations on the Goldstone Report; blocking anti-Israel UN resolutions concerning the Gaza flotilla raid; defeating international resolutions aimed at exposing Israel’s nuclear program at the International Atomic Energy Agency; and strengthening pressure on Iran and Syria in regards to their nuclear and proliferation activities.

U.S.-sponsored direct peace talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority broke down on September 26 when a 10-month Israeli freeze on settlement construction in the West Bank expired. Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has said he would not restart negotiations with Israel while settlement construction continues.

DEBKAfile, Political Analysis, Espionage, Terrorism, Security.

(While this report does not beard directly on Iran; if true and if a deal with the Palestinians is imminent it will change the whole structure of the Iran/Israel conflict. – Joseph Wouk)

DEBKAfile Exclusive Report November 14, 2010, 7:11 AM (GMT+02:00)

Binyamin Netanyahu lifts the corner of a deal

The package Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has accepted for US-sponsored talks with the Palestinians contains more substantial concessions than merely a freeze on settlement construction and goes far beyond the one-year deal put before the security cabinet Saturday night, Nov. 13, debkafile reports from Jerusalem and Washington. The deal unveiled in Jerusalem early Sunday is only stage one of a larger secret package to which only Netanyahu and his close adviser Yithzak Molho are privy – not even Defense Minister Ehud Barak or the Chief of Staff, Lt. Gen. Gaby Ashkenazi.
This package has been in secret negotiation for several weeks in the Jordanian capital Amman – and possibly European venues – between American, Israeli, Palestinian, Saudi, Jordanian and Egyptian representatives. According to US and Saudi sources, Israel has made four major concessions that will go into force if and when peace is signed with the Palestinians.
Under the deal concluded with the United States – as reported to the Security Cabinet Saturday night – Israel has accepted a second three-month moratorium on West Bank settlement construction including starts made after the expiry of the first 10-month freeze on Sept. 26. It will not apply to Jerusalem. No third moratorium will be requested.
In return, the United States agreed that in the next 12 months  –

1.  To request congressional approval for the sale of 20 F-35 stealth warplanes worth $3 billion in addition to the 20 already allocated.

2.  To follow an Israel-Palestinian peace accord, if it is concluded, by signing a mutual defense treaty with Israel, negotiations for which to begin in the coming weeks.
3.  To veto any anti-Israeli motions put forward at the UN Security Council or other international bodies on four subjects:

— Initiatives for imposing political solutions on Israel;

— Any unilateral Palestinian bid to establish an independent state;

— All acts aimed at undermining Israel’s legitimacy;

— Any attempt to use the Security Council to deny Israel’s right to self-defense.

While the prime minister presented this deal to the security cabinet ministers as a draft still under discussion, debkafile‘s sources report that it was finalized with Washington and the negotiations have raced beyond that point and gone a lot deeper into the substance of a peace accord with the Palestinians in the secret round table under the American aegis to which Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan have been co-opted.

These negotiations, still in mid-course, were first revealed by DEBKA-Net-Weekly 469 Nov. 11, together with the issues on the table:

A. The presence of foreign, namely Jordanian, troops in the Jordan Valley in a deployment that would satisfy Israel’s security requirements and provide a barrier against the smuggling of missiles, other munitions and fighters into the West Bank when it comes under independent Palestinian rule.

Since 1967, every Israeli government since the 1967 War has stipulated that any peace accord must leave this strip with Israel as its security border to the east. Netanyahu has accepted in principle that the Hashemite Kingdom, for the first time since the Jordanian Army withdrew from the West Bank 43 years ago, would regain a military presence on the both the West and East Banks of the River Jordan.

B.  The Jordanian military’s functions along the Jordan River and on West Bank soil would be governed by agreed rules of conduct. Those rules would extend to other parts of the West Bank where the deployment of foreign forces is under negotiation.

C. The Israeli settlements in the Jordan Valley would remain in place and continue to develop – on the understanding that after several decades, 30-50 years, their disposal would be renegotiated with the possible option of passing the area to the Palestinian state. This item is still open to discussion.

D.  Israeli Defense Forces positions remaining there for now would be gradually reduced in size and number.

E. The above provisions would go into effect only after an independent Palestinian state is established.

debkafile‘s Washington sources add that these secret talks have hit a sticking point: The United States and Israel propose that the final borders of a Palestinian state be based on the pre-1967 War boundaries with adjustments dictated by Israel’s security requirements and the demographic changes that have taken place in the territory since then – the main settlement blocs will be part of Israel. The Palestinians stipulate that their state precisely follow the 1967 borders without changes.

It is important to note that the widespread reports of a crisis in US-Israel relations during Netanyahu’s five-day American trip were unfounded.

 

DEBKAfile, Political Analysis, Espionage, Terrorism, Security.

DEBKAfile Exclusive Report November 13, 2010, 12:24 PM (GMT+02:00)

Hashim Safi Al-Din: New Hizballah commander of Israeli frontline

Hizballah’s Hassan Nasrallah has quietly placed Hashim Safi Al-Din, his cousin and heir apparent, in command of southern Lebanon and its border with Israel, further upgrading Iran-backed preparations for an armed clash, debkafile‘s exclusive military sources report. This week, Safi Al-din was recalled from his post in Tehran as head of Hizballah’s Liaison Office and immediately assumed the reins from Sheikh Nabil Quouk, the 2006 War commander.

Our intelligence sources say this appointment is the most ominous sign to date of the seriousness Iran and Hizballah attach to their plans for an early war with Israel. Three further developments point in this direction:

1. Tehran, Damascus and Nasrallah are tensely watching the clock ticking for the UN Special Tribunal on Lebanon – STL to deliver indictments against top Hizballah officials before the end of this year or early January. Hizballah has threatened to block their extradition by seizing Lebanon’s government and strategic centers.

This action that could quickly ignite the inflammable Lebanese-Israeli border, an interconnection Hizballah’s leader eagerly embraced in his latest speech of Thursday, Nov. 11.
Shouting at the top of his voice, Nasrallah threatened to “chop off the hand that dared to accuse or detain members of the ‘Hizballah gendarmerie.'” He went on to yell: “We await the day the indictments will be released.” And in the same breath ranted, “We are ready for any Israeli war on Lebanon and will again be victorious, Inshallah. Whoever thinks that threatening us with another Israel war will scare us is mistaken. On the contrary, whoever speaks of another war is bearing good news not threatening us.”

2.  Tehran views the newly appointed South Lebanon commander, Hashim Safi Al-Din, is its most stalwart partisan in the Lebanese Shiite Hizballah leadership since Imad Moughnieh passed away two years ago in an exploding car in Damascus. Safi Al-Din is therefore trusted most of all Hizballah’s leaders to do as he is told by Iran in a direct confrontation with Israel.
Iran did not get this sort of obedience in the 2006 War: Nasrallah went his own way regardless of strategic and military instructions from Tehran. For instance, he ordered Israeli towns and villages blasted by his rockets at the rate of 500 a day whereas Iranian experts wanted the rocket fire concentrated on the Israeli troops driving into Lebanon. To appease his Iranian sponsors, Nasrallah then appointed Mughniyeh war commander in the middle of combat.
But Tehran is taking no chances of any more insubordination from its proxy. Nasrallah will be kept in line by Iran’s obedient loyalist in the key command position in South Lebanon and Iran will stay in control of a future confrontation with Israel from the word go.

3.  At the same time, the appointment of his cousin confirms Hassan Nasrallah as the Hizballah strongman capable of bringing to fruition the ambition Tehran and Damascus cherish of establishing their man in Beirut as boss of Lebanon.

Hashim Safi Al-Din also enjoys Nasrallah trust. They also look remarkably alike. debkafile revealed in an exclusive report in 2007 that Nasrallah was using his cousin as his look-alike to throw would-be assassins off the scent. Their resemblance was close enough even to fool fellow members of Hizballah.

With Safi Al-Din’s appointment to the South Lebanese command, Tehran has deployed a troika for running the next war with Israel on its behalf: Nasrallah, his cousin and their direct controller, Iran’s own Al Qods Brigades officer Gen. Hossein Mahadavi.

The RAF compared with the Israeli Air Force | The Jewish Chronicle.

In a surprising upheaval of the global military rankings, it has emerged that Israel is set to leave Britain for dust when it comes to air power.

Cuts proposed in the Ministry of Defence’s recent Strategic Defence and Security Review could mean that in five years, the RAF will be fielding roughly half the number of fighters of the Israeli Air Force.

The major difference in air force planning between the countries is a result of change in strategic thinking.

The SDSR is based on a shift in the vision of Britain’s armed forces from fighting against well-equipped Cold War adversaries to a future in which their main role will involve peace-keeping missions and more focused campaigns. There will be less need for squadrons of expensive, fighter-bombers carrying out air and ground-attack missions.

The IAF, on the other hand, is geared to fighting a number of campaigns at the same time based on worst-case scenarios. These include long-range missions against an enemy such as Iran while taking out hundreds of missile launchers in Lebanon and simultaneously suppling air-support to IDF ground forces in Lebanon and in Gaza.

The RAF currently fields a fast-jet force of around 300 aircraft comprised of Harrier jump-jets Tornados and the new Eurofighter Typhoon.

The main implication of the SDSR for the RAF is a major cut in the number of fighters, with the force of 74 Harriers to be withdrawn in the coming year and the Tornados to be gradually withdrawn over the next five years.

The IAF currently operates around 400 fighters; various models of the American F-15 and F-16 fighters. All the fighters include multiple Israeli-designed systems and avionics tailor-made to the IAF’s specifications and the older aircraft have been continuously upgraded.

Israel is also buying the F-35 with an initial order for the first squadron of 20 signed two months ago and the expected total order to be up to 70. While the overall number of fighters may be slightly smaller a decade from now, the IAF does not currently plan to change the number of fighter aircraft significantly.

Senior IDF officers have revealed that the army now has a “target bank” with thousands of Hizbollah launch sites, command posts and weapon dumps that would be attacked in stages in a future war. Similar lists of targets exist for the Gaza Strip and Syria which may also be involved in a future Middle East war alongside Iran and Lebanon.

While there have been grumblings among the higher echelons of the Ground Command and Navy regarding the preference of the air force in spending plans at the expense of more advanced armoured vehicles for ground forces and new ships, no major changes have yet been made in the allocation of the defence budget. A senior air force general said recently: “We have more than enough work for every one of our fighters and can see no justification in cutting their numbers.”

Above the Fray: Syria’s dilemma.

Photo by: AP  

By ALON BEN-MEIR
11/12/2010 12:22

Assad is being forced to choose: Does he want his country to be an ally of Iran and Hizbullah or a leader in the Arab world?

When Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad visited southern Lebanon to great fanfare last month, he did more than irk Israel and the West, which seek to diminish Iranian influence in the Levant. The visit served to underscore the increasing polarization in the broader region, placing the divergent views of Iran and the Arab states in stark contrast, with Syria in the middle. As a result, Syria is under newfound pressure.

Can Syria afford to maneuver as an ally of Iran and its proxies and risk its central role in the Arab world? Or is it willing and/or able to change course and join the Arab world in blunting the expanding growth of Persian influence? Syria’s answers to these questions could shape the development of events in the near future, especially between Israel and Lebanon.

Prior to Ahmadinejad’s visit, numerous developments indicated that Syria was on the rise, reasserting itself as a central player in the Arab- Israeli conflict. Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri, to the surprise of many, absolved Syria from any wrongdoing in the assassination of his father, former prime minister Rafik Hariri. Syria and Saudi Arabia engaged in a rapprochement, with a highly publicized joint visit to Beirut, symbolizing a new-found partnership and tacit recognition of Syria’s renewed power in the Levant.

Meanwhile, the Obama administration has been seeking to improve US-Syria ties and to jump-start Syria-Israel peace talks. President Barack Obama nominated a US ambassador to return to Damascus earlier in the year, and numerous envoys and elected officials have traveled to Damascus for high-level talks with President Bashar Assad and his associates. Furthermore, Syria has expanded its economic ties with numerous nations, most notably France and Turkey, and has taken significant measures to liberalize its economy in an effort to invite foreign investment and prepare the economic infrastructure conducive to long-term growth.

All the while, however, it has continued to work with Iran to provide Hizbullah with logistical and political support and advanced missile systems. Hizbullah is reportedly now in possession of more than 40,000 rockets and missiles.

AFTER A year of progress, Ahmadinejad’s visit may be a game-changing chapter for Syria. It has intensified Arab-Persian and Sunni-Shi’ite tension – already high after the UN tribunal on the assassination of Rafik Hariri, which implicates Hizbullah operatives and is likely to point the finger at Damascus for plotting it – sparking fears of renewed sectarian violence. To the Arab world, already vexed that the most influential states in their region – Israel, Iran and Turkey – are non-Arab, Ahmadinejad’s trip provoked concerns that Syria’s influence in Lebanon is being surpassed by Iran and Hizbullah. That neither Syria nor Saudi Arabia could have stopped the visit signifies how powerful and decisive Hizbullah has become.

The renewed rift places Syria in a bind. As long as a pressured atmosphere remains – and the findings of the tribunal will strengthen, not dissipate this pressure – Syria will inevitably lose much of its maneuverability. It cannot continue its balancing act whereby it strengthens ties to the West and the Arab world, while simultaneously supplying Hizbullah and strengthening Iranian influence in Lebanon. Syria’s dilemma will become considerably more acute should there be a new round of violence between Israel and Hizbullah.

Warning signs suggest that it may be a matter of when, not if, a new war breaks out along the Lebanon-Israel border. In a recent farewell meeting with the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, outgoing Military Intelligence chief Amos Yadlin stated explicitly his concern that the next war could be much longer and could lead to a wider conflagration, including Syria. It is likely that in any conflict with Hizbullah, Israel would seek to do no less than to wipe out its arsenal of weapons and its infrastructure.

Facing the possibility of such a bloody conflict, Syria has to make a choice: Will it enter such a conflict to aid Hizbullah and open itself up to a direct military confrontation with Israel in which it will suffer a devastating blow? Or, will it turn its back on Hizbullah and Iran? Syria will have to choose sooner rather than later between Hizbullah and its larger interest in all of Lebanon. It could be forced to make this choice should an incident occur similar to the cross-border attack by Hizbullah that sparked the war in the summer of 2006. With Hizbullah significantly strengthened, whether Damascus could keep such an incident from occurring is doubtful.

Even more troubling is how Iran might come to the aid of its proxies, Hamas and Hizbullah, in the event of renewed violence, and how it would pressure Syria to do so as well. Meanwhile, just as Saudi Arabia was tacitly supportive of Israel’s effort to wipe out Hizbullah in the Second Lebanon War, it would likely seek to use its improved ties with Syria to press it to remain on the sidelines of a new conflict.

Moreover, Syria’s continued aid to Hizbullah could lead to an Israeli strike on Syrian targets utilized in the weapons supply line, dragging Syria into a violent conflict. Faced with such a scenario, Syria’s balancing act will no longer be possible. If it does not find a solution to this dilemma before a new round of conflict begins, Damascus’s newfound influence and ties in the region will be undermined severely.

Critics argue that Syria is not facing such a dilemma. It has and will continue to play both sides of the coin in the Arab-Persian and Sunni- Shi’ite battle for influence in the region. Some may argue that just as Syria stayed out of the Second Lebanon War, it would likely refrain from entering the conflict. But such arguments underestimate the state of the Iranian-Arab divide and Syria’s increasingly dangerous balancing act.

With Arab states eager to regain power in the region, which has been ceded to non-Arab actors, and with regimes such as Saudi Arabia and Egypt expected to undergo leadership transitions in a few years, the Arab world is especially reticent about the expansion of the Iranian proxy state in the Levant created by Hizbullah. But Syria’s continued aid to Hizbullah is enabling exactly that.

Syria can no longer sit on the fence. If Damascus does not take critical corrective measures now, it could face a precipitous fall and bring the prospects for peace and stability in the region down along with it. This is exactly what Iran would like to see happen, which by no means would serve Syria’s mid- or long-term strategic interests.