WarSclerotic

DEBKA.

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei

Iran’s Islamic rulers have been blowing hot and cold over the Arab Revolt.
They gravitate between hope, anxiety, disappointment and fear: Hope that the unrest will nullify Western influence and pave the way for strong Islamic regimes in Arab lands; anxiety and disappointment over Sunni Islam’s rising strength and ability to curtail Shiite expansion; fear that the unrest will infect Iran’s masses – and acrobatic sophistry, most of all, for covering their inner contradictions.
Tehran welcomed the uprisings of Tunisia and Egypt and the toppling of their presidents – at first. They acclaimed the upsets as inspired by the Khomeinist revolution which created the Islamic Republic of Iran 32 years ago: Iran had finally exported its revolution to other Muslim countries and was therefore itself immune to the unrest.
But satisfaction gave way to an awkward silence when the dissent spread to its senior ally, Syria. Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei then rose the challenge: It was all part of an Israeli-Western plot to harm the Muslim world and Iran, he maintained; nothing at all to do with the Arab Revolt.
But the Iranian public was not fooled by this hypocritical pretext. The ordinary Iranian, having closely followed the progress of Middle East unrest, did not fail to notice that, notwithstanding Tehran’s blustering support for the uprisings in several Arab countries, Iran’s objectives had not been furthered by an inch.
In Bahrain, Iran backed a losing horse
In Bahrain, the Iran-backed Shiite uprising against the throne was squashed by Saudi and Gulf emirates’ military intervention. Iranian Revolutionary Guardsmen fomenting the unrest in the guise of protest activists were captured and put on trial and the Hizballah agents imported from Lebanon to engineer the riots were expelled from the island-kingdom.
The whole venture was worse then a flop; it backfired. The spiritual leader of Bahrain’si Shiites, Ayatollah Sheikh Issa Ahmad Qassem, denounced Iranian interference in the kingdom after Khamenei called on Bahraini dissidents not to give up until the throne was overturned.
Iran’s bitterness over the debacle was exacerbated by the sight of the Sunni King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa sitting firmly on the throne and restoring order in the kingdom.
An Iranian effort to round up thousands of Iranian “volunteers” for a protest flotilla to Bahrain also fell flat. Several members of the Majlis want “Iran’s foreign policy failures” to be investigated in reference to Bahrain. Although the issue appears frequently on parliament’s agenda, no debate has ever taken place.
This may be because the two leading factions of the regime are at odds on how Tehran should handle the Arab uprisings: Followers of the Spiritual Leader believe Iran can still hope for pickings and save Assad from the fury of his people, whereas President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad‘s circle believes the Arab Revolt is a lost cause for Tehran with nothing to offer but trouble.
Egypt withdraws from its brief flirtation with Iran
The latter view gained support from the cold shoulder Egypt’s post-Mubarak rulers have shown Tehran in response to feelers for putting relations on a new, amicable footing. Those feelers have drawn no positive feedback from Cairo. After meeting Iranian foreign minister Ali Akbar Salehi in Bali, Indonesia on May 26, his Egyptian opposite number Nabil al-Arabi spoke of opening a new page in relations.
But nothing came of it.
More recently, 45 Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood and other opposition activists visited Tehran at Iran’s invitation. The entire gallery of Iranian leaders, including the president, turned out to greet them. But instead of providing a platform for strengthening ties, the visit was mired in a fierce argument between certain guests and hosts over the right path to the future.
Iranian leaders even tried material lures – to no avail. Although it imports wheat for its own use, Iran offered Egypt a huge quantity at 10 percent below the world price. Also promised were 400,000 Iranian tourist visits to help stimulate the flagging Egyptian economy. Every Iranian would spend $5,000, so netting $2 billion in revenue for the Egyptian treasury.
This of course was an empty promise because it is more than the average Iranian wage.
In any case, Cairo is still not inclined to play the friendship game with Tehran.
Turkey makes hay from Iran’s unpopularity in Syria
The unrest in Syria is a double blow to the Iranian leadership.
Not only is their most valuable ally and main arms supply route to Hizballah in Lebanon in peril, but Turkey is using Syria to bolster its regional stature by attacking Bashar Assad and so buying his people’s sympathy. Alongside the popularity afforded Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan, the disaffected Syrian masses are burning Iranian and Hizballah flags.
It has not been lost on the Iranian public that the military planes which carry security personnel, ammunition and crowd dispersal gear from Tehran to Damascus at least twice a day, to keep Assad’s crackdown afloat, return home with the coffins of Iranians slain in stormy Syrian demonstrations.
The bazaar rumor mills naturally inflate the figures of Iranian dead in Syria. But whatever the numbers, they contribute to the heavy sense of national defeat prevailing in Iran – a mood that tends to undermine support for the Iranian regime.

DEBKA.

Barack Obama and Tayyip Erdogan

Dissatisfied with the Arab Revolts’ regime change score of two to four at the first half-year mark, US President Barack Obama is grimly determined to beat the rulers of Libya and Syria and send them packing – however long it takes. To overcome the formidable obstacles that keep on cropping up in the path of his plans to rearrange the Middle East, he has recruited Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan as his partner in pursuance of what the US president considers not just a policy but the fulfillment of his Middle East mission and vision.
Although on the face of it, he is treading in the footsteps of his predecessor, George W. Bush, who fought for regime change in Baghdad and Kabul, Obama’s partnership with Erdogan represents an epic departure from US Middle East policy-making of the past 60 years: For the first time since the 1950s, Washington has eschewed the superpower prerogative of independent decision-making and roped in a regional collaborator for a joint effort.
(See DEBKA-Net-Weekly 490 of April 29 – A US-Turkey Axis Overrides the Arab Revolt – Obama Builds Strategic Understandings with Erdogan).
Erdogan’s election victory this month lent the partnership gravitas although his parliamentary support declined.
The division of labor between Washington and Ankara, as confirmed in a phone conversation between Obama and Erdogan Tuesday, June 21 is summed up by DEBKA-Net-Weekly‘s sources in Washington and Ankara as follows:
Give diplomacy a chance first
The diplomatic option: The US and Turkish leaders agreed the deadly spiral in Syria and Libya could not be allowed to go on and both Bashar Assad and Muammar Qaddafi must go.
Diplomacy would first be given a real chance to negotiate terms for them to quit voluntarily. In search of accommodations acceptable to all sides, Washington would take on the Libyan ruler in Tripoli and the rebels in Benghazi – assisted by Germany, which opposed the NATO operation against Qaddafi, and Ankara would engage Assad in Damascus and the protest leaders in Syrian cities.
Turkey would also pitch in as broker in the Libyan conflict, calling in Persian Gulf emirates for help if necessary.
Only if diplomatic engagement failed over a reasonable period of time would Washington and Ankara turn to the military option.
The military option – Libya: Washington would then step in to bring the Libyan war to a quick end – and not only to save Europe and NATO from the ignominy of a lingering standoff against Qaddafi. Obama believes that the Libyan ruler’s success combined with an impasse in President Assad’s fight against dissent would stop the entire Arab Revolt project in its tracks and possibly kill it for good.
To keep the military option afloat, Obama this week ordered the buildup of US naval, air and marine forces in the central Mediterranean to continue. The American fleet, led by the USS George H. W. Bush aircraft carrier, was joined by two Marine strike units on the decks of the USS Bataan and USS Whidbey Island.
The US will handle Qaddafi’s exit, leave Assad to Turkey
But then, Wednesday, June 22, just twenty four hours after Obama and Erdogan ended their phone conversation, their plan of action was thrown off-track by Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi‘s shock demand to halt hostilities in Libya immediately to allow humanitarian aid to reach civilians in Misratah and Tripoli.
Since Italy provides the bases as well as the command and logistical centers for most of NATO’s air operations in Libya, its withdrawal is a major setback for the entire Libyan campaign. Its future role in US-Turkish planning therefore remains to be reformulated.
The Military Option – Syria: Part two of the US-Turkish strategy provides for both to resort to military action to oust the Libyan and Syrian leaders if they refuse to quit – with one big difference: US intervention would dispose of Qaddafi briskly, while Bashar Assad would be eased out when the time was right by means of a Turkish military incursion backed by US naval and air support and NATO ground forces based in Izmir.
In the intervening months, the two leaders agreed to ratchet up diplomatic pressure on the Assad regime and impose more sanctions.
Obama and Erdogan may have to retool some of these decisions and timetables in the light of the spanner Berlusconi has thrown into their plans.
Israel-Palestinian talks carried over to second Obama term
Israel-Palestinian talks postponed: The third decision the US president and Turkish prime minister reached earlier this week, DEBKA-Net-Weekly‘s sources in Washington reveal, was to carry this peace process over to Obama’s second term. In other words, he is taking a long break from this intractable dispute until November 2012 at earliest, by which time he will know whether he has been reelected or not.
This decision was surprising. It was taken after US Special Envoy for Middle East Peace David Hale and Special Assistant to the President Dennis Ross returned from Jerusalem, Ramallah and Amman with the glad tidings that Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas were now amenable to restarting the stalled negotiations.
Obama congratulated the two envoys and instructed them to go ahead with preparing a three-way summit for the ceremonial launch of talks – which would then be held in abeyance. The Turkish prime minister would then take over.
This decision was the upshot of two further agreements reached between President Obama and Prime Minister Erdogan:
1. Washington would leave Erdogan a clear field to try his hand as middleman between Prime Minister Netanyahu and Palestinian leader Abbas. He would also explore the ground for bringing the two leaders together with Hamas’s political secretary Khaled Meshaal.
It was no accident that Abbas and Meshaal both arrived in Ankara on the same day, Wednesday, June 22 – although Abbas flatly denied he knew about the Hamas leader’s arrival in Turkey or had any plans to meet him Their rendezvous in Cairo a day earlier was cancelled.
Erdogan’s jobs: to mend fences with Israel, co-opt Saudis to his mission
2. The Turkish prime minister undertook to patch up his quarrel with Israel. Relations broke down in May 2010 after Israeli commandos raided a Turkish vessel leading a flotilla aiming to bust Israel’s blockade of Gaza and killed nine Turkish citizens. Now, Erdogan has promised to try and restore the strong military, strategic and intelligence bonds which bound Turkey and Israel for decades prior to the flotilla crisis.
Seen from the White House, this dramatic breakthrough to reconstituting the old alliance – if it can be achieved – would give America the vehicle for recovering positions of influence in the Middle East knocked over by the Arab Revolt. A US-Turkish-Israel bloc would also be a powerful lever for reviving the Israeli-Palestinian peace track under the US aegis after Obama’s return to the White House for a second term. Thursday, June 23, Erdogan received a personal envoy from Netanyahu, Strategic Affairs Minister Moshe Yaalon, in Ankara.
Another important item of business was the decision for the Turkish prime minister to turn to Saudi Arabia and the GCC oil emirates for maximum cooperation in his diplomatic missions in the Middle East.
It is hoped in the White House that Erdogan will be able to soften some of the hard edges of Saudi-US relations and at the end of the road, by assuming his favorite position as mediator, act as bridge between the important Saudi-led Sunni Arab alliance and Washington.
DEBKA-Net-Weekly‘s sources refer to the transformation of Ankara’s role before and after the Arab Revolt –from aspiring US corridor to Tehran to mediator between Washington and the Arab rulers of the oil-rich Persian Gulf.
Erdogan may find his work cut out to achieve this last mission. Neither he nor the US president can be sure that Saudi King Abdullah and his fellow Gulf rulers will play along.

DEBKA.

The uprisings sweeping the Arab countries have set up a wave of uncertainty in such globally sensitive areas as the nuclear arms race and the oil industries. The volatility is rippling into unforeseen corners. The diplomats, the generals and the intelligence agencies are all constantly kept guessing about where the havoc will erupt next.
Here are three examples:
Is oil again behind the secret US and Italian talks with Qaddafi?
The Obama administration has not only embarked on secret talks with the Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan, as Afghan President Hamid Karzai revealed on Saturday, June 18 and US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates confirmed the next day. Washington is also secretly engaged with representatives of Muammar Qaddafi.
Hence the bolt from the blue shot from Rome Wednesday June 22 when Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi had his foreign minister, Franco Frattini, suddenly demand a halt to NATO’s war actions in Libya for humanitarian aid to reach distressed Libyans, especially in the Misrata and Tripoli areas.
Realizing the US-Qaddafi talks had reached an advanced stage Prime Minister Berlusconi decided not to be left behind. Therefore, he resolved One – to get Italy out of the Libyan war, and Two – to give NATO fair notice to get used to operating without Italian air bases in its air campaign against Qaddafi.
If they don’t get the message, Rome will give the allies a deadline for the use of its bases and, implicitly, for ending the Libyan war.
By easing out of the conflict, Italy is helping along its own peace track with the Libyan ruler, opened as soon as Italian intelligence dropped the penny in Rome that the US and the Libyan ruler were talking.
Berlusconi is counting on his personal friendship with Qaddafi which goes back to 1998. Then he stood out as the only Western leader willing to apologize for a colonial regime and the misery it caused – in this case Italy’s occupation of Libya. Qaddafi still respects the Italian prime minister for that.
Berlusconi is determined not to let the Americans beat him to a deal with Qaddafi and leave Italy stumbling in the sands of Libya with Britain and France. He also hopes to beat American oil companies and win contracts for Italian oil and gas firms to rebuild Libyan oil fields.
The Italian prime minister is meanwhile not burning any bridges: If his talks with Muammar Qaddafi run aground, he will forget his threat to block Italian bases to NATO. If they go well, the coalition will have to find alternative bases for the British and French warplanes bombing Libya – not a simple matter. But Berlusconi hasn’t forgotten that when they went to war in Libya three months ago, Britain and France’s main objective was to gain control of Libyan oil.
Saudi Arabia is perfectly willing to cripple Iran’s oil-based economy
On Wednesday, June 8, Prince Turki al-Faisal, who recently took over from his ailing brother, Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal, as Saudi royal spokesman, told a private gathering of American and British servicemen at the RAF’s Molesworth airbase outside London that since the US and Western Europe were not prepared to enforce an oil embargo “with teeth” against Iran, Saudi Arabia would do so.
This, he said, would cripple Iran because half of its revenues derive from oil exports.
But the oil markets would not suffer; Saudi Arabia could easily make up any Iranian export shortfalls caused by sanctions or other measures for stopping its momentum for a nuclear bomb.
To put this in perspective, Saudi Arabia is known to have so much spare production capacity—nearly 4 million barrels per day—that it could replace all of Iran’s oil output on the instant.
The Saudi prince also left his audience in no doubt that if Iran acquires a nuclear weapon, so will Saudi Arabia. The Riyadh government, he said, is also prepared to apply military muscle to blocking the further expansion of Iranian influence in the Middle East or Muslim world.
Prince Turki’s listeners believed him when he assured them that in pursuit of those goals, Saudi Arabia would not think twice about attacking Iranian targets in the Persian Gulf and inside the country.
Note: DEBKA-Net-Weekly has reported on these Saudi policies at length since March. (See issues 488, 489 and 495).
The main burden of his remarks was that Saudi rulers are no longer standing about waiting for the United States or West Europe to end its involvement in support of the Arab Revolt and turn to Iran.
DEBKA-Net-Weekly‘s sources add that Turki was also concerned to dispel the impression disseminated by the Obama administration that its involvement in the Arab unrest is somehow coordinated with Riyadh.
This is far from the case.
Our Washington sources report that the Obama administration took notice of Turki’s comments and is preparing measures for making up for any Iranian shortfalls and so pre-empt Saudi Arabia.
The Saudis may also strike Syria’s oil resources
Western intelligence agencies have been busily engaged since Monday, June 20, picking apart the 7,365 words Syrian President Bashar Assad poured out in his address to the Syrian nation from the University of Damascus.
They counted the number of times he said “conspiracy” or “conspirators”, “terrorists,” “fundamentalist extremists,” and “smuggled weapons.” After comparing the text with his last two speeches in the three months of unrest against his regime, they came to the conclusion that the Syrian ruler knows he is in deep trouble and is worried.
President Barack Obama‘s special assistant Dennis Ross told an audience of Israeli and Jewish (mostly American) leaders in Jerusalem this week that the Obama administration is planning to impose very tough sanctions on Syria – some even harsher than those targeting Iran.
DEBKA-Net-Weekly‘s sources in Washington report the administration has concluded that Assad still has enough money to keep his military and security crackdown on protest running for another three months, i.e., up until the end of September.
At this point there is no sign that the Obama administration intends to clamp down an embargo on Syrian oil exports, which accounts for only a tiny percentage of the world oil market. By selling just 150,000 barrels a day, Damascus nets $7 million a day in revenue.
Although the numbers are quite small, Assad still desperately needs this income to keep his regime alive.
The Saudis tried to persuade the Americans that it was a simple matter for them to block Syrian oil exports and so exert real pressure on the Assad regime and curtail his brutal crackdown on dissent.
But they soon despaired of the Obama administration’s policy of restraint on Syria, just as they have given up on American sanctions on Iran.
But that may not be the end of the story: The Syrian oil fields are situated in the eastern Dir al-Azur region whose population is predominantly Shamar tribesmen who wander between Iraq, Syria and Jordan.
Some knowledgeable Middle East intelligence circles say it is only a question of time before the Syrian oil fields and installations are sabotaged by armed groups funded and equipped by Saudi intelligence.

Hamas, Fatah blame each other for failed P… JPost – Middle East.

  Hamas on Thursday accused Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas of backtracking on the Egyptian-sponsored reconciliation agreement between the two sides.

The PA, in response, said that Iran, which supports Hamas financially, has instructed the movement to pull out of the agreement with Fatah.

“Hamas is nothing but a tool in the hands of Iran,” a PA official said. “There can be no agreement with a movement that serves the agenda of a regime like Iran, which is a threat to Arab national security.”

Hamas leaders and representatives claimed that Abbas has succumbed to US, EU and Israeli pressure to abandon the reconciliation accord, which was announced in Cairo on May 4, following threats to suspend financial aid to the Palestinians if the agreement is implemented.

“The honeymoon between Fatah and Hamas seems to have ended very quickly,” remarked a Fatah official in Ramallah. “The gap between the two parties remains very wide on most issues.”

The Fatah official claimed that Abbas has decided to postpone the implementation of the agreement with Hamas until after September, when the PA plans to ask the United Nations to recognize a Palestinian state along the pre-1967 lines.

Earlier this week, Abbas called off a planned meeting with Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal in Cairo this week, where the two men were supposed to announce the establishment of a unity government dominated by independent technocrats.

Abbas justified his decision by saying that he had made earlier plans to visit Turkey and did not have time to go to Cairo to see Mashaal.

Fatah and Hamas officials said the summit had been postponed indefinitely because the two sides could not agree on who would head the unity government. Abbas insists that current Prime Minister Salam Fayyad head the government, while Hamas has been demanding that the premier should come from the Gaza Strip.

Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh criticized Abbas for insisting on the nomination of Fayyad. He said that the PA’s security crackdown on Hamas supporters in the West Bank was also hindering the implementation of the reconciliation pact.

Hanieyh confirmed that Hamas’s preferred candidate for the prime minister post was Jamal al-Khudari, a prominent businessman from the Gaza Strip.

Hamas’s Lebanon-based “foreign minister,” Osama Hamdan, said that he was convinced that Abbas has not been able to resist American and Israeli pressure to dump the agreement with Hamas.

Hamdan pointed out that Hamas was not alone in rejecting Fayyad as head of the proposed unity government. “More than half of the members of the Fatah Central Committee are also opposed to Fayyad,” he said. “It’s a disaster that there isn’t any Palestinian who could replace Fayyad.”

Hamas legislator Salah Bardaweel claimed that by insisting on Fayyad’s candidacy, Abbas “even embarrassed many in Fatah, who don’t share his position.”

Bardaweel, who participated in the negotiations with Fatah ahead of the reconciliation agreement, said that Fatah representatives did not raise Fayyad’s name until they received instructions from Abbas to do so.

Hamdan also attacked Abbas for his remarks in an interview with a Lebanese TV station about the arrest of Hamas supporters in the West Bank. In the interview, Abbas said that Hamas men were being arrested not because of their political affiliation, but for committing criminal offenses such as smuggling weapons and money laundering.

“It seems that the man [Abbas] has no struggling background and had never resisted the occupation in his life,” the Hamas official said. “He has fallen in love with the enemy during his efforts to make peace. Abbas’s statements raise questions about his qualification to lead the Palestinians.

Hamas is also angry with Abbas because he does not want to present the new unity government to the Palestinian Legislative Council for a vote of confidence.

“Hamas remains committed to the PA’s Basic Law, which requires the government to receive the backing of a majority in parliament,” said Hamas spokesman Ismail Radwan.

The Hamas-dominated parliament has ceased to function since 2007, when Hamas took full control over the Gaza Strip and kicked the PA out.

Ahmadinejad insists Iran not see… JPost – Iranian Threat – News.

  Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Thursday claimed that Tehran does not seek nuclear weapons and that the Islamic Republic’s foes use the country’s nuclear program as an excuse to curtail the nation’s progress.

“The reason behind the enemy opposition to Iran’s development is to curb the country’s influence in the world. The nuclear issue is a pretext because they are afraid of the Iranian nation’s consciousness,” Iranian semi-official news agency Fars quoted Ahmadinejad as saying at the launch of a wastewater treatment plant in Tehran.

The Iranian president maintained that the Islamic Republic had been fully cooperative with the International Atomic Energy Agency, which he said was controlled by the “heads of the hegemonic system.”

Ahmadinejad stressed the importance of Iran being self sufficient, saying “If our country does not get developed, other countries will make decisions for us and this is far from Iran’s dignity and stature.”

The Iranian president’s contention that his country’s nuclear program was not military and that the Islamic Republic had fully cooperated with IAEA inspectors was in stark contrast to statements made by the head of the UN atomic watchdog earlier this month.

IAEA chief Yukia Amano said that the organization had received further information regarding activities that “seem to point to the existence” of possible military dimensions to Iran’s nuclear program.

“There are indications that certain of these activities may have continued until recently,” Amano said in a speech to the agency’s 35-nation governing board.

For several years, the IAEA has been investigating Western intelligence reports indicating Iran had coordinated efforts to process uranium, test explosives at high altitude and revamp a ballistic missile cone so it can take a nuclear warhead.

Amano said he had written last month to the head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization, Fereydoun Abbasi-Davani, “reiterating the agency’s concerns about the existence of possible military dimensions.”

He had also asked for Iran to “provide prompt access” to locations, equipment, documentation and officials to help clarify the agency’s queries.

Amano made clear that Iran’s response had not been satisfactory, saying he had sent a new letter to Abbasi-Davani on June 3 “in which I reiterated the agency’s requests to Iran.”

Syrians flee as troops mass on Turkish border – Middle East – Al Jazeera English.

Hundreds of Syrian refugees reportedly crossing the border as troops and tanks approach their makeshift camps.

Last Modified: 23 Jun 2011 09:15

Thousands of refugees had crossed over into Turkey, while thousands more camped out just inside Syria [Reuters]

Hundreds of displaced Syrians have fled into Turkey after Syrian troops, backed by tanks, approached their makeshift camps along the border.

Witnesses said on Thursday that Syrian troops had massed on the Turkish border overnight, escalating tensions with Ankara as President Bashar al-Assad uses increasing military force to try to crush a popular revolt.

Refugees from the northwestern province of Idlib said armoured vehicles and troops were now as close as 500 metres from the border in the Khirbat al-Joz area.

Al Jazeera’s Anita McNaught, reporting from the Turkish border village of Guvecci, said that she could see Syrian soldiers from where she was.

A Reuters photographer in Guvecci also reported seeing three soldiers with a machine-gun positioned on the roof of a house on top of a hill.

Syrian armoured personnel carriers were visible on a road running along the top of the hill, and machine-gun fire was heard although it was not clear who the troops were firing at.

‘Hezbollah preparing for war against Israel to protect Syria’s Assad’ – Haaretz Daily Newspaper | Israel News.

Sources close to the Shiite group say it is committed to deflect what it sees as a foreign campaign against Damascus.

By Reuters

Lebanon’s Hezbollah militant group is preparing for a possible war with Israel to relieve perceived Western pressure to topple Syrian President Bashar Assad, its guardian ally, sources close to the movement say.

The radical Shi’ite group, which has a powerful militia armed by Damascus and Iran, is watching the unrest in neighboring Syria with alarm and is determined to prevent the West from exploiting popular protests to bring down Assad.

	Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah addressing supporters on a giant screen during a rally near Beirut on August 3, 2010
	Photo by: Reuters

Hezbollah supported pro-democracy movements that toppled Western-backed leaders in Tunisia and Egypt, but officials say it will not stand idly by as international pressure mounts on Assad to yield to protesters.

It is committed to do whatever it takes politically to help deflect what it sees as a foreign campaign against Damascus, but it is also readying for a possible war with Israel if Assad is weakened.

“Hezbollah will never intervene in Syria. This is an internal issue for President Bashar to tackle. But when it sees the West gearing up to bring him down, it will not just watch,” a Lebanese official close to the group’s thinking told Reuters.

“This is a battle for existence for the group and it is time to return the favor (of Syria’s support). It will do that by fending off some of the international pressure,” he added.

The militant group, established nearly 30 years ago to confront Israel’s occupation of south Lebanon, fought an inconclusive 34-day war with Israel in 2006.

Hezbollah and Syria have both denied that the group has sent fighters to support a military crackdown on the wave of protests against Assad’s rule.

Hezbollah believes the West is working to reshape the Middle East by replacing Assad with a ruler friendly to Israel and hostile to itself.
“The region now is at war, a war between what is good and what is backed by Washington… Syria is the good,” said a Lebanon-based Arab official close to Syria.

He said the United States, which lost an ally when Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak was overthrown in February, “wants to shift the crisis” by supporting protests against its adversary.

“For us this will be confronted in the best possible way,” he said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Analysts rule out the possibility of a full-scale regional war involving Syria, Iran and Lebanon on one side against Israel backed by the U.S. A war pitting Hezbollah against Israel was more likely, they said.

“There might be limited wars here or there but nobody has the interest (in a regional war),” said Lebanese analyst Oussama Safa. “The region is of course heading towards radical change… How it will be arranged and where it will lead is not clear.”

Hezbollah inflicted serious damage and casualties by firing missiles deep into Israel during the 2006 conflict, and was able to sustain weeks of rocket attacks despite a major Israeli military incursion into Lebanon.

Western intelligence sources say the movement’s arsenal has been more than replenished since the fighting ended, with European-led UN peacekeepers in southern Lebanon powerless to prevent supplies entering mostly from Syria.

Syria, which borders Israel, Lebanon, Iraq, Turkey and Jordan, has regional influence because of its alliance with Iran and its continued role in Lebanon, despite ending a 29-year military presence there in 2005. It also has an influence in Iraq.

“If the situation in Syria collapses it will have repercussions that will go beyond Syria,” the Arab official said. “None of Syria’s allies would accept the fall of Syria even if it led to turning the table upside down — war (with Israel) could be one of the options.”

The Lebanese official said: “All options are open including opening the fronts in Golan (Heights) and in south Lebanon.”

Palestinian protests last month on the Lebanese and Syrian frontlines with Israel were “a message that Syria will not be left alone facing an Israeli-American campaign,” he said.

Israel and Syria are technically at war, but their frontier had been calm since the war in 1973, when Israel repelled a Syrian assault to recapture the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.

For Syria’s allies in Lebanon, the first step to support Damascus has already been taken. After months of delay, Prime Minister Najib Mikati formed a new Lebanese government last week dominated by pro-Syrian parties, including Hezbollah.

That followed five months of political vacuum after Hezbollah and its allies toppled Western-backed Saad Hariri’s coalition in a dispute over a UN-backed tribunal investigating the killing in 2005 of statesman Rafik Hariri, Saad’s father.

The tribunal is expected to accuse members of the Shi’ite group in the killing, and some Lebanese had believed that the delay in forming a government was deliberate, to avoid the crisis a new government might face when indictments are issued.

“Our people thought at first the vacuum would be in our interest but after the events in Syria we have noticed that the vacuum is harmful,” said the Lebanese official.

The still confidential indictment was amended last month after the prosecutor said “new evidence emerged” but Syria and its allies suspect it will now target Syrian officials. Both Syria and Hezbollah deny any role in killing Hariri.

The official said the new government might halt the state’s cooperation with and contribution to funding the court, as well as withdrawing Lebanese judges from the tribunal.

“The government in its new form will not allow Lebanon to be used against Syria, or those who are promoting the American agenda on the expense of Syria,” he said.

Tension in Lebanon increased in the first weeks of the uprising against Assad when Syria accused Hariri supporters of funding and arming protesters, a charge they denied.

“As Syria stood by Lebanon’s side during the July war in 2006 (between Hezbollah and Israel), Lebanon will be on its side to face this war that is no less dangerous,” the official said.

So far, Syria’s allies believe that Assad has things under control and that the unrest, in which rights groups say 1,300 people have been killed, has not posed a threat on his rule.

While Hezbollah’s fate is not linked exclusively to Assad’s future, his departure would make life more difficult for the group, which depends on Syria’s borders for arms supply.

“Syria is like the lung for Hezbollah…it is its backup front where it gets its weapon and other stuff,” said another Lebanese official who declined to be named.

Formed under the guidance of Iran’s religious establishment, Hezbollah had a thorny start with late President Hafez Assad, but later emerged as a powerful Syrian ally. Relations improved further after Bashar succeeded his father in 2000.

“Hezbollah is extremely tense and they are concerned about the developments in Syria,” said Hilal Khashan, a political analyst at the American University in Beirut.

“The storm is building up now and after it everything will change…In all cases, no matter what happens in Syria, developments there will not be in favor for Hezbollah.”

While he dismissed the possibility of a regional war, Augustus Richard Norton, author of a book on Hezbollah, said an Israeli Lebanese war may be possible, adding he believed Israel was likely to strike first.

“It is not too challenging to imagine a scenario for a war between Israel and Lebanon to erupt, especially given the Obama administration’s diffident and permissive approach to Israel.

“It is far more likely that Israel will pursue a war with the goal of crippling Hezbollah and punishing Lebanon than that a war will be intentionally provoked by Hezbollah,” he said.

In the meantime Hezbollah, which has praised other Arab uprisings and enjoys strong support among ordinary Arabs over its confrontations with Israel, has seen its image tarnished because of its support for Assad.

“The events in Syria have not impacted Hezbollah in a significant strategic sense, but have certainly put the party in an uncomfortable position,” said Elias Muhanna, a Middle East scholar at Harvard.

“The fact that (Hezbollah leader Hassan) Nasrallah has supported the regime’s war against the opposition in Syria while attacking similar regime actions in Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Bahrain, and Yemen has been pointed out by many as a blatant double standard.”

Hezbollah argues there is no contradiction in its position, saying Assad has popular support and is committed to reform.

“When the regime is against Israel and is committed to reforms then Hezbollah decision is to be by the side of the people and the leadership through urging them for dialogue and partnership,” the Lebanese official said.

“That is why the group is in harmony with itself when it comes to Syria. It has its standards clear,” he added.

“For the resistance and Iran, the partnership with Syria is a principal and crucial issue, there is no compromise. Each time Syria is targeted there will be a response.”

All signs say Iran is racing toward a nuclear bomb – Haaretz Daily Newspaper | Israel News.

Iran’s leadership is undaunted by the sanctions imposed on the country, or by the damage the Stuxnet computer worm caused to the program that operates the centrifuges at the uranium enrichment facility in Natanz.

By Yossi Melman

VIENNA – The procession of cars carrying Fereidoun Abbasi Davani sped down Vienna’s Wagramer Strasse this Monday and into the underground car park of the International Atomic Energy Agency. Outside the building, on the bank of the Danube River, some 30 protesters from the Stop the Bomb movement demonstrated, waving signs denouncing the Iranian nuclear scientist. But Iranian security officers seemed more concerned about the prospect of someone trying to exploit Abbasi Davani’s controversial visit to finish the job.

On November 29, 2010, anonymous assailants tried to assassinate Abbasi Davani as he emerged from his home in Tehran. He and his wife, seated next to him in the car, were hit by gunfire, but survived the assassination attempt. Iran blamed the Mossad for the failed operation.

	Technicians measuring parts of Iran’s Bushehr nuclear power plant in this undated photo.
	Photo by: AP

The assassins were more successful in a different attack launched that same day, which killed another nuclear scientist – Majid Shahriari.

The Iranians claimed that Abbasi Davani was nothing but an innocent physics professor. Intelligence sources countered that his university position was just a cover for his secret activity as one of the leading experts in Iran’s weaponization, which is working on the final and decisive stage of developing a nuclear weapon under the auspices of the Revolutionary Guards. His name appears on the UN Security Council’s blacklist, compiled after the council voted in March 2007 to impose sanctions on companies, organizations and individuals involved in Iran’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs. It also appears on similar lists compiled by the United States and the European Union, which ordered that his assets be frozen.

About two months after Abbasi Davani was shot, in January 2011, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad appointed him as his vice president and as head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization, a defiant move that seemed to say Iran would continue its nuclear program and no one could stop it.

Some two weeks prior to his arrival in Vienna to take part in the IAEA’s Ministerial Conference on Nuclear Safety, Abbasi Davani announced that by the end of the year, Iran would triple the amount of uranium it has enriched to a level of 20 percent. Though uranium enriched to this level is intended mostly to fuel Tehran’s small nuclear research reactor, which produces medical isotopes, it also bolsters the knowledge of Iranian nuclear experts and their ability to control all stages of enrichment – including to a level of 93%, which enables the production of fissile material used in making a nuclear weapon.

This announcement by the head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization was very disturbing to Israel, the United States and other Western countries. It indicates that Iran is determined to continue its nuclear program at full speed and is even accelerating the pace. It means Iran’s leadership is undaunted by the sanctions imposed on the country, or by the damage the Stuxnet computer worm caused to the program that operates the centrifuges at the uranium enrichment facility in Natanz. The Stuxnet worm has been ascribed to a sabotage operation undertaken by the Mossad and the CIA. According to foreign sources, it is one of the major achievements of former Mossad head Meir Dagan.

In the same announcement, Abbasi Davani said Iran has developed an advanced centrifuge model whose rotors spin at greater speed, thus enabling the enrichment of a larger amount of uranium in a shorter time. Such centrifuges, he said, will be constructed at the second uranium enrichment site that Iran built secretly near the Revolutionary Guards base just outside of Qom.

According to the reports of IAEA inspectors who visited it, the site, built deep inside a mountain, looks like a fortified facility made to withstand aerial bombardments. Its existence was revealed in September 2009 thanks to information obtained by the intelligence agencies of Israel, the U.S. and Britain. According to both diplomatic sources in Vienna and intelligence experts, the site at Qom, which contains only 3,000 centrifuges, can only have one goal – enriching uranium for the production of a nuclear weapon.

Worrying new questions

Two crucial new questions are now worrying all those who follow Iran’s nuclear program. One is whether Qom was chosen as a site for uranium enrichment due only to its strategic location, or if any meaning should be attached to the fact that Shi’ites consider it a holy city, the place of residence of Ayatollah Khomeini, founder of the Islamic Republic.

Ahmadinejad and several of his ministers, as well as senior commanders in the Revolutionary Guards, belong to a small but influential group in the Iranian government that adheres to a mystical belief in the coming of the Mahdi – the Twelfth, or hidden, Imam – who is considered the Shi’ite messiah. One of the conditions for the Mahdi’s coming is that a huge proportion of the world’s population be annihilated in a great war.

This radical Shi’ite doctrine has parallels in the idea of the War of Gog and Magog in Christian eschatology, which is prophesied to take place in the Jezreel Valley not far from Tel Megiddo (Armageddon in the Greek translation ). Is the site at Qom Ahmadinejad’s Armageddon, where a weapon will be developed that will annihilate the unbelievers and hasten the coming of the Messiah?

Another cause for concern is an article published about two months ago on a Revolutionary Guards website. In it, for the first time, the author talked about “the day after” Iran carries out a successful nuclear test that would transform it into a nuclear power. Previously, Iranian government officials had always maintained strict silence on this subject. Was the article a fluke, the result of negligence by inattentive censors, or was it written to prepare public opinion, both at home and abroad?

It is difficult for a Western rationalist to accept the possibility, even if its likelihood is negligible, that Iran is motivated by religious belief in its determination to obtain a nuclear weapon, and might even use such a weapon for religious reasons. After all, aside from Ahmadinejad’s domestic troubles, including calls in parliament for his ouster, the one who decides on sensitive strategic issues like the nuclear one in Iran is not the president, but supreme leader Ali Khamenei, who is not known to have any messianic leanings.

But the sum total of all these developments – the appointment of Abbasi Davani, his announcements about the acceleration of enrichment and its transfer to Qom, the unusual article – all these, especially in light of the Arab revolutions that have diverted the world’s attention from Tehran, may indicate that Iran is closer to reaching a decision than experts had previously thought. This may also be the background for the outspoken warnings by Dagan, who fears a hasty, reckless decision by the prime and defense ministers to order the Israel Air Force to attack Iran.