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US Warns Jordan’s king: Arab Revolt is on your doorstep

July 24, 2011

DEBKAfile, Political Analysis, Espionage, Terrorism, Security.

DEBKAfile Exclusive Report July 23, 2011, 10:47 PM (GMT+02:00)

Jordan’s King Abdullah

Jordan’s King Abdullah II was warned in Washington this week that he had better start introducing political reforms without delay because a revolt against his throne was knocking at his door from neighboring Syria, debkafile‘s Washington sources report.

The king was handed intelligence updates at the State Department, Pentagon and National Security Council, informing him that the threat to destabilize the kingdom did not emanate from a deliberate plot by the Assad regime or the Syrian opposition. It came from the potential spillover of the tumult rocking Syria and two sources in particular:.

One: Many Syrian opposition factions had tribal and familial connections in Jordan from which they have been drawing much of their funding and arms. The Jordanian branches of these tribes are asking themselves if an uprising can be organized against Bashar Assad in Syria, why not against the Jordanian king?

US officials warned Abdullah that the Jordanian groups helping their brethren rise up in Syria are getting organized for armed revolt against him too and have begun collecting arms and explosives.

Two:  The Muslim Brotherhood is on the ascendant in the Arab world after partially hijacking the revolts in Syria and Egypt. The Brotherhood has worldwide Islamic religious and political pretensions. The Syrian chapter senses it is on the brink of success, thanks partly to assistance from the Jordanian branch. So, they say, why not help our Jordanian brothers just as they helped us?

The US scenario for Jordan if it plays out would affect Israeli security in vital areas: The Netanyahu government would have to decide whether to step in to save the Hashemite throne and if so, whether to conduct its intervention overtly or covertly. Israel must get down to preparations for the seepage of a potential uprising in Jordan across the border to the Palestinians on the West Bank and Israeli Arab communities.

For weeks, the IDF and Israel’s security services have been drilling scenarios for mass disorders to erupt in September when the Palestinians plan to seek UN recognition of their statehood. Have they taken into account that the disorders could flare up on both sides of the border?

In Washington, Abdullah was advised to move fast with the following steps to pre-empt the flare-up of rebellion in his kingdom:
1. He must not wait for the demonstrations and bloody riots to erupt and force him to disperse them with live bullets, but introduce a series of political reforms before the clamor rises from the street.
2.  He must lead the kingdom’s transition to a democratically elected multi-party system of government – not the façade which exists today, but a government appointed by parliament instead of the monarch. This would require Abdullah to cede many of his prerogatives.
3.  Voting constituencies would have to be redrawn. At present, they are designed geographically to keep down the numbers of Muslim Brotherhood members and Palestinians gaining seats in parliament. The constituency plan proposed by Washington would give the Palestinians more representation in the legislature and other Jordanian political institutions.
4. Obama administration officials advised the king to lose no time in accepting the Gulf Cooperation Council-GCC’s invitation to join the organization.
Although Jordan has accepted the offer in principle, membership has been delayed by dickering over conditions. Our military sources say that while the GCC states seek greater Jordanian military participation in securing their borders and internal security, King Abdullah is holding out for guarantees of a GCC military umbrella for the royal family should his throne come under domestic threat.
He wants the same assurances as those which led to military intervention by Saudi Arabia and the emirates on March 14 to save the Bahraini throne.

debkafile‘s sources report that King Abdullah replied to the advice he received in Washington with two comments:

Political reform would have to be implemented slowly and with the utmost caution else the royal family would lose its authority to the opposition.
Secondly, if the Obama administration wants more Palestinian representation in elected Jordanian institutions, it must, at least for appearances’ sake, push forward negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians. The king said it was unacceptable for the Hashemite royal family to make concessions to the Palestinians in Jordan without Israel also making concessions to the Palestinians in the West Bank.

debkafile‘s sources say that Washington officials who spoke with King Abdullah were worried by the slowness of his responses and actions: One senior American official remarked: “By the time King Abdullah moves, the Arab Revolt will be upon him in the cities, and it will be too late to institute political reforms.”

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Iranian nuclear scientist killed in Tehran

July 23, 2011

Iranian nuclear scientist killed in Tehran: Report | World | News | Toronto Sun.

REUTERS

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Iranian nuke scientist shot to death

July 23, 2011

Iranian nuke scientist shot to death – Israel News, Ynetnews.

Another assassination in Tehran: nuclear scientist shot to death by motorcyclist near his home in capital, Iranian media say; man’s wife apparently wounded in attack; victim identified as physics professor

News agencies

An Iranian nuclear scientist was killed in the Iranian capital Tehran on Saturday, Iran’s student news agency ISNA reported without giving his name.

“An Iranian nuclear scientist was assassinated in front of his house today … and his wife was also wounded,” it said. ISNA identified the victim as Darioush Rezaei, a 35-year-old physics professor involved in Iran’s nuclear program

Another Iranian website, Java Online, said the scientist was shot to death by a motorcyclist.

The semi-official Mehr news agency also identified the victim as a professor of physics and said he was assassinated in front of his house in Bani Hashem street in Tehran. The scientist reportedly worked in the Iranian atomic energy agency and lectured at a local university.

The wife of the scientist was wounded in the attack and rushed to hospital for treatment, Mehr reported, quoting a police official.

In January 2010, a nuclear scientist that may have taken part in the Ayatollah regime’s nuclear program was assassinated near his home. Professor Masoud Ali-Mohammadi was a lecturer in Tehran University and was killed in an explosion while going into his car in northern Tehran. An explosive device apparently planted in a nearby motorcycle is believed to have been activated by remote control.

Several Iranian nuclear scientists have been murdered in recent years in attacks that Iran has blamed on the US and Israel.

Reuters, AP and Dudi Cohen contributed to the story

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Survivor of Attack Leads Iran’s Nuclear Acceleration – NYTimes.com

July 23, 2011

Survivor of Attack Leads Iran’s Nuclear Acceleration – NYTimes.com.

 

By and

WASHINGTON — Eight months after he narrowly survived an assassination attempt on the streets of Tehran, Fereydoon Abbasi, the nuclear physicist whom Iran’s mullahs have put in charge of the country’s Atomic Energy Organization, is presiding over what intelligence officials in several countries describe as an unexpected quickening of Iran’s production of nuclear material.

The selection of Dr. Abbasi earlier this year was itself a clear message to the West. As a university scientist, he was barred from traveling outside Iran by the United Nations Security Council because of evidence that his main focus was on how to build nuclear weapons, rather than power plants. But in recent weeks he has publicly declared that his country is preparing to triple its production of a type of nuclear fuel that moves it far closer to the ability to produce bomb-grade material in a hurry.

Filtering out the hyperbole surrounding recent proclamations about Iran’s tangible progress is always difficult, especially at a time when the country is determined to show that neither the Stuxnet computer worm, which crippled part of its nuclear infrastructure last year, nor Western sanctions have proved to be more than modest setbacks. Dr. Abbasi himself is rarely seen or heard outside of Iran.

But international nuclear inspectors and American officials say that all the evidence points to the imminent installation of centrifuges at an underground nuclear plant on a military base near the city of Qum. Iran revealed the existence of the plant in 2009, after learning that the United States and European powers were about to announce that they had discovered the complex, deep inside the Iranian base.

What concerns inspectors and European and American officials is Iran’s announced effort to increase production of uranium enriched to nearly 20 percent purity. Iran insists that it needs that fuel for a medical research reactor. But last week William Hague, the British foreign minister, dismissed that assertion as a cover story.

“When enough 20 percent enriched uranium is accumulated at the underground facility at Qum,” Mr. Hague said in the British newspaper The Guardian, “it would take only two or three months of additional work to convert this into weapons-grade material.”

Outside analysts note that during Dr. Abbasi’s brief tenure in his new job, Iran’s top leaders have focused on showing that they have overcome multiple setbacks, inflicted by what they suspect to have been covert actions by the United States and Israel, and broad economic sanctions.

“The evidence is there that they are accelerating,” said Mark Fitzpatrick, an Iran expert and the director of the nonproliferation and disarmament program at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London. “They have increased the production of uranium, they have increased the number of centrifuges they have spinning, they are putting in a larger number of second-generation centrifuges.”

Senior Obama administration officials with access to the intelligence say they concur with that assessment, but they do not sound alarmed. They argue that Iran’s continued reliance on an older, unreliable centrifuge model shows that it is having trouble making the leap to more sophisticated and efficient models. “They’ve talked about moving up the line for years, before Abbasi got the job,” said one senior official.

The White House’s silence is notable because President Obama built much of his Middle East policy, before the recent Arab uprisings, on organizing other countries in the region to halt Iran’s nuclear progress. The administration commented on the most recent Iranian announcements only when asked.

“Iran is prohibited from installing or operating any centrifuges as a result of the U.N. sanctions that have been imposed upon it,” Tommy Vietor, the spokesman for the National Security Council, said when asked about Mr. Abbasi’s recent announcements. “Provocative behavior of this sort reinforces the need for countries to implement fully their international sanctions obligations with respect to Iran.”

Diplomats say that Dr. Abbasi’s approach to nuclear diplomacy is a stark contrast with that of his predecessor at the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, Ali Akbar Salehi. Mr. Salehi, a graduate of M.I.T. with a degree in nuclear engineering, is a polished diplomat who speaks fluent English and handles the news media with ease.

Dr. Abbasi is “not as skillful — or as comfortable,” said a diplomat in Vienna who recently saw him in action when he visited Austria for a nuclear safety conference. “He’s very stiff with the press.” Since Dr. Abbasi has become one of the country’s top government officials, he has received periodic exemptions from the United Nations travel ban.

According to Mashreghnews, an Iranian news Web site, Dr. Abbasi holds a doctorate in nuclear physics and has been a member of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps since Iran was founded in 1979. The Revolutionary Guards run the country’s nuclear weapons research effort and for years has deflected demands from inspectors for details about what are suspected of being experiments that would suggest work on a weapon.

In March 2007, the Security Council put Dr. Abbasi on its sanctions list because of allegations that he had ties to the Iranian nuclear effort, which poses a diplomatic problem: the man insisting that Iran’s effort is entirely peaceful is suspected of working on elements of weapons experimentation.

The United Nations described Dr. Abbasi as a senior scientist in the Ministry of Defense who was “working closely” with Mohsen Fakhrizadeh — an officer in the Revolutionary Guards considered by Western intelligence to be a leader in Tehran’s effort to acquire nuclear arms.

Mr. Fakhrizadeh has not been seen in public in years. Dr. Abbasi’s experience may explain why: driving to work on Nov. 29, 2010, Dr. Abbasi saw a motorcyclist plant a bomb on the door of his car. He escaped, pulling his wife with him, seconds before it detonated. A separate attack that day killed one of his colleagues. Iran variously blamed the Mossad and the United States.

As the leader of Iran’s effort to enrich uranium, Dr. Abbasi has overseen the stabilization of the plant at Natanz, in the desert. And, at a hollowed-out mountain near Qum, he is spearheading the expansion of Iran’s enrichment program into underground halls.

Diplomats said the mountain site, known as Fordow, was about to receive its first centrifuges — machines that spin fast to purify uranium. In June, Dr. Abbasi announced that Iran would triple production of its most concentrated form of uranium and shift some production to Fordow from Natanz.

“It’s a real policy escalation to triple the production,” the Viennese diplomat noted. “It’s provocative.”

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‘Ahmadinejad wants to go public with Iran nuclear program’

July 22, 2011

‘Ahmadinejad wants to go public with Iran nuclear program’ – Haaretz Daily Newspaper | Israel News.

Intelligence assessment says Iran’s president is in favor of shedding secrecy, but clerical leadership – fearing international reaction – opposes such a move.

By The Associated Press

Iran’s president wants to shed the nation’s secrecy and forge ahead openly with developing nuclear weapons but is opposed by the clerical leadership, which is worried about international reaction to such a move, says an intelligence assessment shared with The Associated Press.

That view, from a nation with traditionally reliable intelligence from the region, cannot be confirmed and contrasts with assessments by other countries that view Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as relatively moderate on the nuclear issue compared to the country’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Ahmadinejad, Iran - AP - 20.7.11 Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on July 20, 2011.
Photo by: AP

Attempts to interpret Iran’s goals are important because as it expands uranium enrichment, it is moving closer to being able to make a nuclear weapon by the day, even as it asserts that it is not interested in such arms and its programs are geared only to making reactor fuel.

A U.S. official cited one assessment he has seen suggesting Ahmadinejad may be more “moderate” — more open to talks with the international community on resolving nuclear concerns than Khamenei. He asked for anonymity because his information was privileged.

But a blunt comment by Ahmadinejad last month raises questions. While repeating that Iran does not want nuclear arms, he openly reinforced its ability to make them, telling Iranian state TV that “if we want to make a bomb, we are not afraid of anybody.”

That defiant statement fits the scenario laid down by the intelligence assessment shared with the AP, depicting Ahmadinejad as wanting to move publicly to develop a nuclear program.

Ahmadinejad is pushing “to shake free of the restraints Iran has imposed upon itself, and openly push forward to create a nuclear bomb,” says the assessment shared with the AP. But Khamenei, whose word is final on nuclear and other issues, “wants to progress using secret channels, due to concern about a severe response from the West,” says the report.

The varying views reflect the difficulties that intelligence agencies face when probing a secretive nation that plays its cards close to its chest. Lines of division are murky. Alliances shift and positions change, leaving governments and private analysts frustrated as they try to nail down Tehran’s nuclear end game.

They converge, however in noting that recent political divisions between Ahmadinejad and Khamenei have spilled over to encompass Iran’s nuclear activities to a greater degree than before.

While much about Iran’s nuclear program is opaque, the growing capacity — if not the intention — to make weapons is on the record, captured in International Atomic Energy Agency reports documenting the expansion of Iran’s enrichment program from its clandestine beginnings more than a decade ago to one that has produced enough material for more than two nuclear bombs.

More recently Iran has begun enriching to higher levels that would lessen the time needed to make weapons-grade material. And its stonewalling of an IAEA probe based on U.S. and other intelligence of secret work on components of a nuclear weapons program is adding to concerns raised by Tehran’s refusal to freeze enrichment despite U.N. sanctions.

Intelligence reports of tensions between Ahmadinejad and the ruling clerics are in line with other signs showing Ahmadinejad at odds with Khamenei with less than two-years to go into his presidency.

In recent months, Ahmadinejad apparently fired — and was forced by Khamenei to reinstate — his interior minister in what some analysts see as a rebuffed attempt by the president to eliminate rivals to candidates he would like to see in positions of power, once his second and last term ends in 2013. That prompted an outburst of public criticism and led rivals in parliament to start proceedings that could in the most extreme case lead to impeachment.

Reports of disagreement on nuclear issues predate that dispute, but some officials from member nations of the Vienna-based IAEA see tensions over the future of the nuclear program sharpening.

Proliferation expert David Albright of the Institute for Science and International Security says his briefings from European government officials who have seen the latest U.S. intelligence assessment on the Islamic Republic seem to support the assessment shared with the AP that Khamenei is worried about how the world would react to a nuclear-armed Iran.

“There is a lot of caution in the regime about the implication of building nuclear weapons,” says Albright. Asked whether Ahmadinejad or Khamenei have been the most circumspect, he says “the implication is that it was the Supreme Leader.”

The leadership is “worried about starting a nuclear weapons race and worried about the international impact,” said Albright, naming reactions from regional powers Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Turkey as that of greatest concern to Tehran. Both Egypt and the Saudis have indicated that they would contemplate acquiring nuclear weapons if Iran had them.

One theory voiced by government officials and private analysts is that Iran might be looking to reach the level just short of making nuclear weapons — but able to do so quickly if it feels threatened. That would fit in with Khamenei’s reported cautious stance.

In any case, Ahmadinejad seems to be further weakened by the dispute. That leaves the Revolutionary Guard — the military-industrial powerhouse that is increasingly asserting itself in most aspects of Iran’s society — as a beneficiary says the intelligence assessment.

“Khamenei has decided to transfer engagement with the most sensitive parts of the nuclear program, including activity that can be used for nuclear weapons, from … the group of scientists at the Defense Ministry, who are identified with Ahmadinejad, to a special body in the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corp.,” it says. “This, due to the increasing lack of trust the Leader has in people in sensitive positions, who are identified with the President.”

The summary interprets the apparent decision to give the guard greater say over nuclear issues as a boost to its quest “to establish its status as a leading power force in the regime.”

 

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Syrian army deploys 1,500 tanks around protest cities, storms Homs

July 22, 2011

DEBKAfile, Political Analysis, Espionage, Terrorism, Security.

DEBKAfile Exclusive Report July 22, 2011, 11:33 AM (GMT+02:00)

Syrian tanks in Homs

Since Thursday, July 21, Syria’s entire operational fleet of 1,500 tanks has been deployed to surround the country’s most active anti-Assad protest cities such as Homs, Hama, Deir al-Zour, Abu Kamal and the big Damascus suburb of Harasta. That evening, the tanks roared into the town of Homs, shelling densely populated districts at random, causing many casualties and burning buildings.

Five months into the uprising, the army no longer dares enter flashpoint cities except in large contingents backed by heavy armor and live fire.

debkafile‘s military sources report that Syrian army bases have been emptied of all servicable tanks in support of another desperate attempt by Syrian President Bashar Assad to crush the long uprising against his rule. This makes him the first Middle East leader ever to hurl an entire tank force against a rebellious population.

Left in the hangars are about 2,000 iron vehicles in poor condition.

According to our military sources, Assad resorted to this extreme measure because the big cities are out of control. Army commanders know that even a tank force entering a town will run the gauntlet of live fire and roadblocks which force the soldiers to fight their way through.
In the western town of Homs, Syria’s third largest city and its biggest industrial center, with a population of 1.7 million, four Sunni neighborhoods have set up armed militias ready to shoot to keep the army out. As Sunnis, they are not just fighting the Assad regime but also his Alawite Shabiba militia.

The uprising is therefore beginning to assume features of a sectarian conflict. Sunni soldiers are deserting in increasing numbers, especially those who hail from the most embattled cities.
Other Homs neighborhoods struck a deal with the army:  Volunteers would be posted to keep the streets quiet if the army promised to stay out.

But late Thursday, July 21 Assad and his commanders changed the rules. The demonstrative shutdown of city shops was the signal for tens of tanks to roll into Homs, shelling the streets and buildings at random. Many people were killed and injured and whole blocks set on fire.
Hama struck a similar deal with the army. There, the rebels have seized control of the entire city, barricaded sections against tanks and set up local governing committees. Monday, July 18, Bashar Assad was compelled to appoint a new governor, a resident of the city with no military background.

The new governor, Ahmed Khaled Abdul-Aziz, is the general secretary of the ruling Ba’ath Party’s Hama branch. By profession, he is an internist who specializes in sleep disorders. His first act as governor, according to our sources, was to establish contact with the imam of Hama’s central mosque and recruit him for de-escalating the clashes between rebels and army.
Terms were agreed Wednesday night, July 20: The Syrian army pledged not to enter Hama while the imam promised that there would be no more attacks on administrative institutions.

Assad went along with the deal, showing for the first time signs of fatigue and a willingness to cede control of territory held by the rebels.
In the Euphrates Valley of eastern Syria, the Syrian army has lost control of an entire region.

The two main towns of Deir al-Zour and Abu Kamal have driven Assad’s troops and agents out, fortified themselves against invasion and set up local popular committees to rule them.
Army forces who tried to enter these towns this week were repulsed with live fire. They were in such a hurry to pull back that they left their heavy weapons, tanks and armored personnel carriers behind.

Early Thursday, the popular committees agreed to hand the hardware back to the army against a guarantee that the military would henceforth refrain from setting foot in the two towns.

More trouble awaits the Syrian government when the American and French ambassadors in Damascus, Robert Ford and Eric Chevallier try to reach Deir al-Zour and Abu Kamal to meet protest leaders – possibly in a day or two.
To prevent this, Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem warned the diplomats they are prohibited from leaving the capital without permission. The US State Department responded sharply, saying that this was not the act of a government which has nothing to hide.

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America Too Weak To Stop Us!

July 22, 2011

Iran &45; America Too Weak To Stop Us!-by PipeLineNews.org.

By Reza Kahlili

July 21, 2011 – San Francisco, CA – PipeLineNews.org – The Obama administration has criticized the Iranian regime and its policies while the United States and other countries have put tough sanctions on Iran. The question remains, however, how the Iranian rulers perceive the situation. In their speeches and writings, they argue that America is weak and crumbling. This is, in part, propaganda, but to a considerable degree it is also clear that they believe this to be true. An example of this is an article that has just appeared on Gerdab, a website run by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, which concludes that America is so tired from being involved in so many wars that even if Iran makes an atomic bomb it will not attack Iran, nor will it allow Israel to take such action.

The Guards in their analysis quote British Middle East analyst Patrick Seale, who in recent comments pointed to the depletion of American stamina. Seale maintained that the U.S. has begun a quiet and deliberate withdrawal from the Middle East and that it is incapable of confronting Iran even if it is verified that the Iranians are on the verge of developing nuclear weapons.

The article states that it is a rare instance where Arab leaders, activists, intellectuals, and allies simultaneously face the same challenge they are all dealing with this summer. All equations inside and outside the Arab world are shifting.

According to the article quoting Seale, there are two main issues whose resolution will have major influence on the future of the Arab world. The first is clearer and that is regarding the revolutionary wave radiating throughout the region:

The main question therefore is, how can it be assured that the big burst of energy that produced the populistic force can have a positive effect; meaning that can this power that the Arab Spring created remain just, stable, and burgeoning, while making sure that it does not turn violent and chaotic?

The article continues that without a doubt the United States and its Western allies “will slowly but surely extricate their forces from the Middle East and Central Asia. Also, the security umbrella is from yesteryears (prior to the Second World War), which is conventional to the region, and will be effectively eliminated as well. This process has already begun in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan and though there are the exceptional American bases in the Persian Gulf, they will not last very long either.”

The analysis weighs in on the financial trouble in America: “It appears that subsequent to several wars, the United States finds itself depleted and desperate. Their total debt exceeds $14.5 trillion which is equal to America’s GDP. Seemingly this year’s $900 billion will not stretch to cover the defense and military budget of the years to come. The United States will retreat from the world of Islam and the Arab world so that it can refocus its energy on China, which, in the American view, is its global rival.”

Recently, Iranian officials have increased their call for the U.S. forces to leave the region. This is while they continue to help Shiite militias in Iraq and Taliban fighters and al-Qaeda elements in Afghanistan to attack our forces.

The Iranians are also exerting pressure on the U.S. and its allies in the region by helping to incite unrest in Yemen, Bahrain, and elsewhere while calling for the unification of Muslims against Israel and America.

The strategy of the radicals ruling Iran is to keep the U.S. fixed in these theaters knowing full well the cost of the wars. They know that in order to achieve their goal of seeing the demise of America, they need to create circumstances where the U.S. can no longer afford the financial burden of protecting its interests in the region and therefore will be forced to withdraw its forces, allowing Iran to expand and exert power.

To that effect, the Iranian officials have boasted that this is the century of the Islamic awakening and that Islamic nations will soon be able to control the world’s economy through the control of oil and the world’s strategic passages.

The Iranian leaders also believe that as long as the U.S. is financially weak, as long as oil prices remain high, and as long as it is involved on too many fronts it will not dare confront Iran. That is why they have made a decision to continue on with their nuclear program in spite of four sets of UN sanctions. They’ve even gone so far as to mock the U.S. for the ineffectiveness of those sanctions.

One thing is for sure: the jihadists in Tehran feel invincible because, despite the continuous killing of our soldiers in both Iraq and Afghanistan and despite their pursuit of the nuclear bomb, America and the West have shown little stomach for confronting the Islamic regime in Iran.

Weakness is being observed. The belief in Islam is for one to deceive the enemy until they are strong enough to take them out. Radicals ruling Iran think that is only a matter of time!

Note: The author is a former member of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard. He now resides in the United States and writes under the pseudonym, Reza Kahlili. For further background regarding Mr. Kahlili see our in-depth interview here Iranian Defector Reza Kahlili – Iran Runs “Large Network” Through U.S. Mosques And Islamic Organizations

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Despite Iranian support, Assad’s regime challenged

July 22, 2011

Despite Iranian support, Assad’s regime challenged | Sun Journal.

By Austin Bay
Jul 22, 2011 12:00 am

Two of the oldest tricks in the Middle Eastern dictator’s grab-bag of deceit and thuggery have failed Syria’s Bashar al-Assad.

In early June, Assad’s regime played the Israel card. Assad’s gangsters connived to attack Israel, using a crowd of Palestinian activists instead of a tank army. An unarmed human wave of Arab protestors approached the border wire. Israeli border troops drove them off. It was a made-for-television piece of propaganda intended to inflame nationalist and sectarian passions. The Assad gang then spewed the usual anti-Israeli bile.

When Middle Eastern dictators confront domestic problems, as Assad’s regime certainly does, blaming Israel is a classic diversionary gimmick. Alas, Syria’s internal dissidents, Assad’s real worry, remained defiant.

Last week, Assad’s gang launched mob attacks on the American and French embassies in Damascus. Attacking American embassies is another classic diversionary technique. Blaring denunciations of U.S. imperialism, cowboy militarism and other recycled Nazi World War II and communist Cold War propaganda accusations always accompany these embassy assaults. The goal is to incite nationalist hatred for a foreign devil — an “us against them” ploy. These manufactured passions are supposed to suck the inflammatory oxygen from the legitimate anti-regime grievances stirred by domestic dissidents.

The old diversions aren’t working, however — not in 2011.

That they have failed is indicative of the broad depth of Syria’s slow-motion revolt.

Syria’s Arab Spring turbulence is following a very different route from that of Tunisia and Egypt. The Syrian security forces, their officer corps stacked with Alawites (Assad’s religious group), are tightly controlled by the regime. The Tunisian and Egyptian militaries have broader nationalist origins.

If propaganda diversions and secret police subversion don’t undermine a revolt, clubs, rifles and tanks can suppress it. Though bloodletting in the streets doesn’t play too well on international television, at the moment Assad is more concerned with his neck than his image.

Since March, Syrian security forces have slain some 1,500 dissidents. The regime kills in drips and drabs, dozens not thousands at a time. This calculated pace is reminiscent of the creeping war of ethnic cleansing waged by Slobodan Milosevic’s Serbian outlaws in Bosnia in 1991. Milosevic would attack, then stop, and feign negotiation.

Assad is attempting to play Milosevic’s game and avoid international intervention. Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi’s harsh and theatrical threats of revenge against Libyan rebels produced international outrage, which played a major role in solidifying the NATO-led coalition now waging war against Gadhafi’s regime.

Unlike Gadhafi, Assad can rely on the support of an aggressive regional power able to supply arms and repressive expertise: Iran. Syria is Iran’s most important ally. Syria provides a supply base for Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza. In return, Iran provides Syria with financial support.

Since the Syrian rebellion began, Iran has supplied the Assad regime with political and material aid. Several media sources assert that Iranian special forces advisers and intelligence agents have deployed to Syria to reinforce Assad’s security forces.

Iran’s dictators understand that their own people are watching events in Syria, or if not watching getting real-time updates via Twitter and the Internet. The ayatollahs know if their Syrian ally falls, internal opposition to their own heinous regime will increase. Many demands voiced by Syrian dissidents echo those of Iran’s Green Movement opposition — the Green Movement demands jobs, the end of corruption and cronyism, and free speech. Iran’s tyrants prefer to suppress these demands in Damascus, rather than battle them in Tehran.

Despite Iranian support, in spite of calculated repression, the anti-Assad regime demonstrations continue and domestic resistance is spreading. The rebels won’t quit. Massive repression would likely ignite a civil war. Democratic reforms would end the regime and land the Assad clan in jail or in exile.

What is U.S. policy? Excellent question. American political and moral support for Syrian dissidents has been underwhelming, and material support nonexistent. So far, the toughest signal the U.S. has sent to the Assad regime was Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s post-embassy attack declaration that Bashar al-Assad was “not indispensable.”

The Syrian people, however, have already told us that.

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Iran cautiously welcomes Russian proposal for brining Tehran back to nuclear talks

July 21, 2011

Iran cautiously welcomes Russian proposal for brining Tehran back to nuclear talks – The Washington Post.

TEHRAN, Iran — Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has cautiously welcomed a Russian proposal for bringing Iran back to talks over its nuclear program, the official news agency reported Thursday.

The proposal calls for the international community to make limited concessions to Iran for each step it takes in meeting demands to clarify the nature of its nuclear program.

The West suspects Iran is pursuing a nuclear weapons capability under the cover of a civilian nuclear energy program. Iran denies the accusation and says its work is only for peaceful purposes like electricity generation.

“They have proposed step-by-step cooperation with Iran in the nuclear field,” the IRNA news agency quoted Ahmadinejad as saying. “All right, we have taken our step and cooperated with the U.N. nuclear watchdog. Now, you take your step and come to prepare a plan together. And you take one step; we take a step, too.”

Ahmadinejad repeated Iran’s assertion that it is not after nuclear weapons, and that its missile program is not a threat to Europe.

Earlier this month, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said the Obama administration would study the Russian idea and would send a team of experts to consult with the Russians about their plan.

The last round of talks on the issue were held in January but made no progress. Besides Russia and the U.S., the other nations taking part in the talks with Iran are Britain, France, China and Germany.

The U.N. Security Council has imposed four sets of sanctions over Tehran’s refusal to halt uranium enrichment, a key element of its disputed nuclear activity. That process is of concern because it can be used both to produce fuel for power plants and material for nuclear weapons.

Iran’s foreign minister said last week his country was ready to cooperate more closely with the International Atomic Energy Agency but only if it cancels its investigation into allegations that Tehran has secretly worked on a nuclear weapons program — a condition rejected by the head of the U.N. nuclear watchdog.

The agency has accused Iran of stalling the investigation for years.

Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi said after meeting the IAEA chief in Vienna on July 12 that Iran was ready to work “closer than ever before” with U.N. nuclear agency, if it first ends the investigation.

Iran argues it has cooperated and answered all questions mandated by the plan governing the probe.

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Stuxnet returns to bedevil Iran’s nuclear systems

July 21, 2011

DEBKAfile, Political Analysis, Espionage, Terrorism, Security.

DEBKAfile Exclusive Report July 20, 2011, 4:35 PM (GMT+02:00)

The Stuxnet malworm – at it again

debkafile‘s intelligence sources report that the Stuxnet malworm which played havoc with Iran’s nuclear program for eleven months was not purged after all. Tehran never did overcome the disruptions caused by Stuxnet or restore its centrifuges to smooth and normal operation as was claimed. Indeed, Iran finally resorted to the only sure-fire cure, scrapping all the tainted machines and replacing them with new ones.
Iran provided confirmation of this Tuesday, July 19 in an announcement that improved and faster centrifuge models were being installed.
Iran would clearly not have undertaken the major and costly project of replacing all its 5,000-6,000 centrifuges with new ones if they were indeed functioning smoothly. The announcement was made by the Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman at a press briefing although no one present had raised the nuclear issue. He said: “The installation of new centrifuges with better quality and speed is ongoing… this is another confirmation of the Islamic republic’s successful strides in its nuclear activities.”

Britain and France immediately condemned the announcement. It proved, official spokesmen commented, that Iran plans to triple the amount of uranium it enriches in contravention of six UN Security Council Resolutions and defiance of ten International Atomic Energy Agency decisions in Vienna. The announcement also “confirmed suspicions that the Iranian nuclear program had no credible civilian application.”

In recent months, Iran has taken advantage of the West’s preoccupation with the Arab revolt to quietly forge ahead unnoticed with its weapons program. So if everything was moving smoothly forward why did Tehran suddenly decide to raise the touchy subject again?
Indeed, by doing so, the official spokesman placed in doubt the three major strides Iran was generally presumed to have made while the West was otherwise engaged:

1.  The dramatic speeding-up of uranium enrichment and expansion of the quantities produced.
The West has no credible information, whether from intelligence, research, or nuclear watchdog inspections, as to how much enriched uranium Iran has produced and how much it has in stock.
As debkafile reported previously, for the past six months, Iran managed to keep the full scope of its enrichment activities hidden from IAEA inspections. Although inspectors were allowed to visit Iran’s acknowledged enrichment facility at Natanz, they were unable to gauge how many active centrifuges were present and how many removed to unknown site or sites. The sophisticated cameras supposed to monitor the Natanz facility were unable to record all of Iran’s enrichment activities because key production sites were moved out of range.

2.  The glitches bedeviling their centrifuge machines were overcome and all 5,000 were spinning away without interruption.  After expunging the Stuxnet virus which first struck in June 2010, all their nuclear program’s control systems and installations, including Natanz and the Russian-built Bushehr reactor, were functioning perfectly. It took Iranian and Russian computer and cyber-terrorism experts a year to cleanse the system. This gave security agencies their first indicator of the time it takes to overcome a large-scale, sophisticated cyber attack.
On July 5, Lt. Gen. Aviv Kochavi, head of Israeli military intelligence, said that Iran is currently running 5,000 active centrifuges and aiming for 8,000. He made no reference to their replacement with newer and faster machines – which the Iranian spokesman disclosed suddenly last Tuesday.
3. The Iranians are engaged in the relocation of the centrifuges spinning 20-percent grade enriched uranium to a new underground facility at Fordo, 100 kilometers away near Qom. Tehran has rejected every European and IAEA demand to install monitoring and inspection equipment at the new facility which is therefore functioning without international oversight.
Those presumptions are now largely suspect.

Western intelligence sources tell debkafile that until recently, the Iranians believed they had a clear road for enriching large quantities of high-grade uranium after solving technical obstructions and beating back the cyber attack. But then, they were stunned to discover that the Stuxnet virus, far from being eradicated, was back with a vengeance and on the offensive against their centrifuges. Iran was forced to adopt a course it had avoided last year, namely to destroy the entire plant of approximately 5,000 working centrifuges and replace them all with new machines.
This decision led to the foreign ministry spokesman’s one-sentence announcement. He delivered it to pre-empt Iran’s enemies from picking up on the installation of the new centrifuges and making it public with the real reason for dumping the “smoothly” operating ones.

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