WarSclerotic

Yoram Peri: Israel as a “Mansion in the Jungle”.

This week, Israel’s Labor Party chairman Ehud Barak left the party along with four of his Knesset colleagues to form a small new party that immediately joined Prime Minister Netanyahu’s ruling coalition. This move was seen as another tactical maneuver in the Byzantine world of Israeli coalition politics.

But this is a too narrow interpretation. Barak’s step, coordinated with Prime Minister Netanyahu, was taken to dampen the possibility of conflict in the Middle East but is more likely to bring war closer.

The theory adopted by most Israeli commentators for Barak’s move is that he took this step as an act of political survival. Barak long ago lost political support from within his own party, who within three months his party would have left the coalition and voted him out as leader. Instead, just like the leader of an elite commando unit he once was, he launched a preemptive strike. This way he prevented this ouster and cemented his position as Defense Minister in the current government and the next one should Netanyahu be reelected in less than two years.

This explanation is reinforced by Barak’s character which is defined, even by his close confidants as opportunist and narcissistic. But there is another explanation. Perhaps this step is similar to what Moshe Dayan did in 1977.

Dayan was a model for Barak’s generation – he was also a Chief of Staff who went on to become Defense Minister, whose political world crashed down on him in 1973 with the Egyptian surprise attack of Yom Kippur War, in which Israel lost 2,300 dead. Dayan betrayed his party when in 1977 he served in the Begin government as Defense Minister. Begin was the great rival to the Israeli left but Dayan joined him to assist in making peace with Egypt. This, he thought, would improve his image in future history books. And he was correct.

Barak also had his political world crushed in 2000 when instead of reaching an agreement with the Palestinians the second Intifada broke out costing the lives of more than 1,000 Israelis. In the elections of 2000 he lead the Labor Party to the biggest defeat in its history and his standing has never recovered eversince. If he can bring about an agreement with the Palestinians, history will remember his contributions just as it remembers Dayan’s.

This way of thinking fits hand in glove with the Prime Minister’s image, who also failed in his first term. What kind of legacy can he leave now that the Israeli public has given him a second chance? If he could achieve peace he could be a Nobel Prize laureate.

But there is a third explanation, which seems to be the most applicable. Despite their rhetoric, neither Barak nor Netanyahu trust the Palestinian leadership and do not believe that peace can be achieved in the near future. Barak and Netanyahu are of the school of thought that Israel is a “Mansion in the Jungle” and needs to act that way. For them, peace talks are not conducted so much with the intention of bringing about peace, as they are meant to stop the campaign of delegitimization against Israel.

This attitude has hardened over the past couple months. The crisis in Lebanon, the growing military power of Hezbollah and Hamas, the Jasmine revolution in Tunisia, doubts about the stability of the government in Egypt, the ascendance of Turkey as a regional power, the weakening of pro-Western Arab regimes, and of the US itself, all point to a jungle that is becoming more dangerous. Under these circumstances giving up strategically important lands is unthinkable.

Above all stands the Iranian threat. Since taking office, Netanyahu has seen Iran as a danger to Israel’s existence. Barak disagrees with this notion, Israel’s existence, but does believe that Iran crossing the nuclear threshold will radically diminish Israel’s strategic position. Indeed, Netanyahu and Barak are at the head of the hawkish camp advocating a military strike on Iran if need be. (By the way, leading the moderate camp are two security professionals – Commander-in-Chief Gabi Ashkenazi and head of the Mossad Meir Dagan, both of whom are now being replaced. Dagan warned against a preemptive strike in his farewell speech. Ashkenazi is being forced out because Barak wanted to replace him with a more subservient and less dovish Commander-in-Chief.)

From their point of view, Netanyahu and Barak’s legacy will not be whether they solve the Palestinian problem, for that is unsolvable, but whether or not they can remove the Iranian threat – even at the cost of war. With this goal in mind having a moderate Labor Party in the government would simply be an obstacle.

So which of the two explanations is most plausible, notwithstanding Barak’s personal character? Both he and Netanyahu hinted over the past couple weeks that Israel is about to make a surprising diplomatic move. If this actually happens then we’ll know that Barak’s decision was indeed like Dayan’s. If not and it turns out that these hints are just an exercise in public diplomacy, it will suggest that “Mansion in the Jungle” thinking has won out and Netanyahu’s is preparing for war. The moment of truth is near.

Yoram Peri, a former advisor to Prime Minister Rabin, is Abraham and Jack Kay professor in Israel Studies at UMD, College Park and the author of Generals in the Cabinet Room: How the Military shapes Israeli policy.

‘UN can’t be sure as to the intention’s of Iran nuclear program’ – Haaretz Daily Newspaper | Israel News.

In recent interview, chief of UN nuclear watchdog says ambiguity persists since IAEA does not have access to all of Iran’s uranium enrichment sites.

By The Associated Press

The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency says his organization cannot be sure that Iran is not secretly working on nuclear arms, in comments reflecting disappointment with the collapse of talks between Tehran and six world powers.

	IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano in Austria, Jan. 24, 2011.
	Photo by: AP

That meeting ended Saturday with the six failing to persuade Iran to dispel fears of such covert activity by allowing increased IAEA monitoring of its nuclear programs – leaving the UN agency short of applying all inspecting instruments it says it should have a right to.

“Cooperation is not sufficient by Iran,” IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano told The Associated Press on Monday. “We cannot provide … assurance on the absence of [undeclared] nuclear activities or the exclusively peaceful nature of all the nuclear activities of Iran.”

Expectations had been low for the Istanbul meeting. So the six powers – the U.S., China, Russia, Britain, France and Germany – had avoided putting too much emphasis on their main demand: an end to uranium enrichment, as called for by the UN Security Council.

Iran’s enrichment program is of international interest because the process can create both nuclear fuel and fissile nuclear warhead material. While Iran insists it wants to enrich uranium only to run a nuclear reactor network, its nuclear secrecy, refusal to accept fuel from abroad and resistance to IAEA efforts to follow up on suspicions of covert experiments with components of a nuclear weapons program have heightened concerns.

Despite four sets of UN sanctions, Iran insists it will never give up its right to enrich uranium. Since it resumed the process four years ago, it has amassed enough low-enriched material for more than two bombs, should it choose to enrich its uranium to weapons-grade levels.

Separately, it has amassed more than 40 kilograms of higher-enriched uranium, which would take less time to turn into weapons grade material, should Iran decide to do so.

Because of Iran’s rejection of talks on enrichment, Iran’s interlocutors instead had come to the table with more modest hopes, including seeking concessions from Tehran as to what it was ready to show IAEA inspectors.

The problem is less about monitoring facilities and activities that Iran has declared to the agency and more about concerns that the Islamic Republic might be hiding other nuclear work and denying the IAEA the right to search for them.

“We maintain knowledge on Iranian enrichment activities and other nuclear activities which are declared,” Amano said. “But,” he said, “our knowledge is limited to which we have the access.”

That would include the central Natanz enrichment plant, where thousands of centrifuges churn out material that Iran says it will use as reactor fuel but which can also be reworked to make the core of nuclear warheads. Remote cameras and on site inspections are meant to make sure no material is diverted for possible weapons use, and IAEA officials say the agency is content with its overview at Natanz.

The IAEA also has sufficient access to the Bushehr reactor built with Russian help that is to go on line later this year and the Isfahan uranium conversion plant making gas feedstock that is then enriched at Natanz.

But Tehran has restricted IAEA access to its reactor site at Arak, which – once completed – will be able to produce plutonium, which can also be used to arm nuclear warheads.

And it revealed a nearly finished enrichment facility at Qom in 2009 to the IAEA just days before the U.S. and Britain went public with intelligence on its existence, feeding concern that it had planned to keep it secret and worry of other undeclared nuclear work elsewhere.

“The facility at Qom was brought to our attention at quite a late stage of construction,” said Amano. “We also hear from a high level of Iranian authorities that they have plans of constructing [other] enrichment plants, but we don’t have particular informations.”

“Such lack of transparency means that we cannot provide an assurance of the absence of undeclared activities and facilities,” said Amano.

Iran also refuses to cooperate with an IAEA probe of U.S. and other intelligence reports that it worked on nuclear weapons programs, dismissing them as falsifications and asserting that the agency is overstepping its bounds – something Amano denied.

“We have the mandate to have clarification on these issues,” Amano said, citing UN Security Council resolutions urging Iran to cooperate with the agency on clearing up the allegations.

The Chessboard Series of the Middle East – Update » Publications » Family Security Matters.

1. National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) Worldwide Incident Tracking System (WITS)
2. Global Terrorism Database, (GTD), University of Maryland
3. RAND Database of Worldwide Terrorism Incidents

• In three major public databases on terrorism, there are no confirmed and credible reports labeling the MEK as a perpetrator of any military incident after 2001.
• Because MEK members in Iraq were under U.S. military round-the-clock monitoring and protection between 2003 and 2009, the plausibility of the MEK engaging in terrorist activities, or having capacity to commit terrorism is close to zero during this period.
• In the Department of State Country Reports on Terrorism (CRT) 2007, 2008, and 2009, the 2006 accusation that the MEK has “capacity and will” to commit terrorism or terrorist activities does not reappear, suggesting there is no public basis for the Secretary to assert the MEK retains the capability and intent to engage in terrorism and terrorist activities.

DEBKAfile, Political Analysis, Espionage, Terrorism, Security.

DEBKAfile Exclusive Report January 23, 2011, 5:47 PM (GMT+02:00)

Iranian naval exercise

Less than 24 hours after the breakdown of its nuclear dialogue with the six world powers in Istanbul, Iran announced plans Sunday, Jan. 23, to senda fleet of warships, including a home-made destroyer, on operational and intelligence-gathering missions to the Red Sea and on to the Mediterranean through the Suez Canal.  debkafile‘s military sources: Parts of the fleet will in fact be deployed in the three waters around Israel’s southern and western shores.
Tehran is taking advantage of the lack of military and diplomatic momentum on the part of US and Israel for a naval thrust to expand its range of operations and encroach on their areas of control.

It is also a rapid response to the arrival of the USS Enterprise carrier with a strike group carrying 6,000 sailors and marines and 80 warplanes in the Mediterranean at the end of last week on its way to the Arabian Sea opposite Iran. British ex-Prime Minister Tony Blair’s call on the West to stop apologizing and react to Iran with force was not lost on the rulers of the Islamic Republic.

The Navy Commander, Rear Admiral Habibollah Sayyari spoke of three or four vessels including Iran’s first home-made destroyer, Jamaran, with back-up operational units standing by for urgent support missions.

His deputy, Rear-Admiral Gholam Reza Bi-Gham said the deployment would last about a year and at some future time, long-distance submarines would join the fleet.

Since Nov. 2008, the Iranian Navy has been conducting anti-piracy patrols between the Gulf of Aden Straits of Bab al-Mandeb off Yemen so some of its units are not far away.

Both admirals reported that a flotilla of Iranian naval officer cadets would soon be dispatched to the Mediterranean and Red Seas to gain experience in these new areas and gather intelligence.
Iran recently purchased three Kilo class submarines from Russia and is using them in the Persian Gulf. debkafile‘s military sources report they belong to a bygone generation of subs and lack advanced electronic systems, making it hard for them to stay deep down underwater for long periods without surfacing.

For two years, Iranian military shipyards have been building miniature submarines, war ships and fast assault craft. Most Western naval give them low ratings in performance especially in view of their outdated electronics.

debkafile‘s military sources, however, estimate that if deployed in support of the warships assigned to the Mediterranean and Red Seas, those mini-submarines and assault craft could be extremely troublesome and give plenty of headaches to American, Israel and Egyptian naval commanders.

‘US urged China to stop commodities shipments to Iran’.

Washington is trying to encourage China to make its companies aware of potential Iranian nuclear as a result of commodities the Chinese companies have provided Iranian firms involved in Teheran‘s nuclear program, according to a WikiLeaks document released last week.

The document said that the US is trying to advance a strategy to prevent shipments of commodities “of concern to Iran,” and that officials are providing information about dealings between certain Chinese and Iranian firms “in an effort to encourage China to ensure such activities are not continued and to encourage China to adopt a similar proactive strategy of working with their companies to make them aware of potential Iranian procurement in support of its nuclear program.”

In the document, a US official highlights specific commodities that he states Iran has been trying to obtain through Chinese companies, including “high-strength aluminum alloys and vacuum pumps.” These commodities, the document quotes the official as saying, are included in the “gas centrifuge procurement watch list” that was circulated to Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) and Participating Governments (PGs).

Additionally, the official writes, “we believe that Iran may need to procure large amounts of high-strength carbon fiber to support the deployment of additional IR-2 and IR-3 centrifuges. Carbon fiber is included on the NSG’s dual-use annex and gas centrifuge watch list circulated to NSG PGs.”

The official then goes on to list several Chinese companies “that are capable of producing these or other sensitive, dual-use commodities,” but the names of the companies are blacked-out in the document.

“We hope this information will assist you in your outreach to Chinese companies on your export control regulations as they apply to Iran. We would encourage you, as we have done domestically with our own firms, to ask these companies to contact appropriate authorities should they be approached by entities that may have ties to Iran.”

The official concludes by saying that it would be “beneficial” if China notifies the US, the NSG, and the IAEA if any of the Chinese firms receive requests from Iranian companies.

Ahmadinejad: Israel wants Iran nuclear issue to remain unresolved – Haaretz Daily Newspaper | Israel News.

In wake of failed P5+1 talks in Turkey, Iranian president says he hopes to resume talks with world powers concerning Iran’s nuclear program, urging mutual justice and respect.

By Reuters

Israel and other Western interests are intentionally perpetuating global controversy around Iran’s nuclear program, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Sunday, following an uneventful round of P5+1 talks in Istanbul.

Two days of talks with the United States, France, Germany, China, Russia and Britain ended without progress on Saturday with the group’s lead negotiator, Catherine Ashton, saying no further meeting had been scheduled.

	Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, November 10, 2010.
	Photo by: AP

Pointing on Sunday to the reasons he saw behind the stalemate in nuclear talks, Ahmadinejad said that “Uncultured Zionists and some people in America and Europe are hopeful the issues remain unresolved.”

The Iranian president added that Tehran hope to resume talks with world powers concerned about its nuclear program, saying that if “the other party is determined and committed to law, justice and respect, there is hope that in the next sessions good results would be achieved.”

Ahmadinejad spoke as if there were no question that the talks would resume. “In the upcoming meetings there will be good agreements made, provided the two parties remain committed to the spirit of the talks,” he said during one of his regular trips to the provinces.

The talks, held in the Turkish city of Istanbul, were meant to address Iran’s standoff with countries that fear it may be developing nuclear weapons.

Tehran says its nuclear program is peaceful and has ignored UN Security Council resolutions demanding it suspend uranium enrichment, the process which can make fuel for atomic power plants or, if done to a very high level, the fissile core of a nuclear bomb.

Ashton, the European Union’s foreign policy chief, said after the Istanbul talks: “The process can go forward if Iran chooses to respond positively … The door remains open. The choice remains in Iran’s hands.”

Iran says the other countries must respect its “nuclear rights” and that its enrichment activities are not negotiable. Ahmadinejad said Iran considers sanctions which were tightened last year illegal, and that it would not give in to “bullying”.

The prospect of an Iranian atom bomb fans fears of a broader Middle East conflict should the United States or Israel opt to attack it, a mooted last-ditch option were diplomacy to fail.

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Shalom says ‘Iranian government’ in Lebanon possible – Israel News, Ynetnews.

Vice PM says Druze leader Jumblatt’s support for Hezbollah in political crisis ‘dangerous development’

Attila Somfalvi

Druze leader Walid Jumblatt’s decision to join forces with Hezbollah against Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri increases the risk that an “Iranian government” will be established in Lebanon, Vice Prime Minister Silvan Shalom (Likud) said Saturday.

Speaking at a cultural forum in Bat Yam, Shalom said, “This is not just about a terror organization which operates with Iran’s support and inspiration any more, but rather a real sovereign government. “There is no doubt this is a dangerous development which forces us to follow (Lebanon) closely. We will be prepared for any future development,” he said. On Friday Jumblatt threw his support behind Hezbollah, a major boost to the Shiite group that brought down the country’s Western-backed government last week.He refused to say exactly how many lawmakers are with him, but his support is key for any candidate trying to form a government.

Ministers from Hezbollah and its allies walked out of the government, forcing its collapse, last week when Prime Minister Hariri refused to renounce the tribunal investigating the assassination of his father, former PM Rafik Hariri.

The tribunal prosecutor issued a draft indictment on Monday. Its contents were not revealed, but it is expected to accuse members of Hezbollah, which denies any role in the assassination and had accused the tribunal of being an “Israeli tool.”

Once one of the most ardent supporters of the tribunal, Jumblatt launched a scathing attack on the court, saying it poses a “threat to national unity and national security.”

According to reports in Lebanon, the opposition’s candidate to head the next government will likely be Omar Karami, a former PM who was accused of being “Syria’s puppet.”

Reuters, AP contributed to the report

Leaked U.S. Cable: Iran Clears Major Milestone in Quest for Nuclear Bomb – FoxNews.com.