WarSclerotic

Security and Defense: Sitting bac… JPost – Opinion – Columnists.

    Until the Islamic Revolution of 1979, Israel had only one embassy in the Arab-dominated Middle East: the embassy in Teheran, which was evacuated after the toppling of the Shah and Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini’s return from exile. On Wednesday, Israel appeared to have lost its third embassy in the Middle East in the past two weeks with the Foreign Ministry decision to evacuate the mission in Amman due to concerns over massive protests planned there over the weekend. The closure of the embassy came on the heels of the emergency evacuation last week of the embassy in Cairo and the expulsion of Israeli diplomats from the embassy in Ankara the week before.

The long-term effects of these closures, evacuations and expulsions are still unclear and while Israel is partially responsible for the situation that led up to all three, it can hardly be blamed for the radicalization that is sweeping across the Arab and Muslim world.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s decision, for example, to slam and threaten Israel on a daily basis is part of a calculated move on his part to boost his own standing in the region on Israel’s back. An Israeli apology for the Mavi Marmara incident would not be able to change that.

But in the short term, the more immediate effect is that when the Palestinians go to the United Nations next week to make their unilateral declaration of statehood, opposite them will be an Israel that is facing growing international isolation.

The one country that stands to gain from all of this attention on Israel, its neighbors and the Palestinians is Iran, which embarked this week on a media campaign ahead of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s arrival in New York where he will attend the United Nations General Assembly.

In an NBC report that aired on The Today Show this week, which was portrayed as one of the first-ever behind-the-scenes looks into Ahmadinejad’s life as president of the Islamic Republic of Iran, viewers watched Ahmadinejad wake up at 5 a.m. for what is described as a “Rocky-style” workout. They then got to see the president travel to one of the poorer regions in Iran, where he met with a father who lost two sons in the Iran-Iraq War and visited government-subsidized housing, before returning to his office for meetings lasting as late as 2 a.m.

Lacking tough questions about human rights violations and the alleged torture of protesters, the NBC report came under fire from Iranian bloggers. On Radio Free Europe, Iranian journalist Golnaz Esfandiari called the report “flattering” and a “great piece of propaganda” which was strikingly similar to official press reports put out by the president’s own office.

Israeli officials who watched the video were not surprised. One government official explained that with the Palestinians’ bid for statehood set to take center stage at the UN, the Iranians, after years of being the focus of attention, have an opportunity to sit back and enjoy the show.

“The world is busy with other troubles such the Palestinians, Libya, Afghanistan and Iraq,” the official said. “Iran has major domestic troubles both politically and economically, but for the most part it is gaining from the shift in the world’s focus.”

Earlier this week, for example, Iran officially inaugurated the Bushehr nuclear power plant in the southwest of the country.

At the ceremony announcing the commencement of operations was Dr. Fereydoun Abbasi, head of the Iranian Atomic Energy Organization (IAEO), who told the crowd that Bushehr would initially operate at about 40 percent capacity and was expected to reach full capacity by the end of the year.

“The launch of Iran’s first nuclear plant is a demonstration of self-belief and perseverance to defend sovereignty,” Abbasi said.

He knows a thing or two about perseverance.

In November, Abbasi survived an alleged Mossad assassination attempt when he jumped out of his car seconds before a magnetic bomb attached to the side of it exploded. In another bombing that same morning, Majid Shahriari, another scientist with the IAEO, was killed.

In another move that Israel believes is aimed at toying with the West, Iran revealed that it had sent a letter to the European Union stating that it is prepared to restart P5+1 negotiations over its nuclear program.

This comes ahead of a meeting next week at the International Atomic Energy Agency headquarters in Vienna where again two anti-Israel resolutions are expected to lead the agenda – one by Egypt, calling for increased IAEA inspections throughout the Middle East, and one by a number of Arab states calling on Israel to join a global anti-nuclear weapons treaty.

Iran is understood to believe that with the US focused on Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya and with Israel facing growing diplomatic isolation, the chance for a military strike against its nuclear facilities is currently at an unprecedented low. For that reason, the Iranians feel that they can move forward, advance their nuclear program and continue to enrich uranium at multiple facilities.

Israel’s assessment of Iran’s nuclear program has not changed very much despite the clear escalation in activity.

Iran is continuing to stockpile enriched uranium and to master its technology to the point that when it decides to make the bomb it will take a very short time – likely anywhere from six months to a year – to complete.

Diplomatic maelstrom – Haaretz Daily Newspaper | Israel News.

Israel is facing its most complex strategic challenges in decades. The return of Israeli envoys from the region’s three most important countries is only the beginning.

By Avi Issacharoff and Amos Harel

The cabinet ministers’ diagnosis last week that Israel is facing its most complex strategic situation in decades is turning out to be correct. Even before the focus shifts to the Palestinian arena, with the bid by the Palestinian Authority to have the United Nations recognize it as a state, Israel has had to deal with the return home of senior envoys from three of the region’s most important countries. So far this month, Ankara expelled Israel’s ambassador to Turkey, Israel’s ambassador to Egypt was forced to flee Cairo in the middle of the night amid a mob attack, and yesterday all Israeli diplomats were evacuated from Amman due to warnings that Jordanians intended to copy the Egyptian demonstrations. In all three cases, it seems very unlikely that the ambassadors will return in the near future.

The claim by Benjamin Netanyahu’s political rivals that this is all the prime minister’s fault is baseless. And yet, Netanyahu should have considered compromising with Turkey over an apology for killing its citizens on the Mavi Marmara. The U.S. administration’s proposal was reasonable and did not undermine Israel’s dignity. More important, apparently, is Netanyahu’s behavior toward U.S. President Barack Obama. The White House has not yet forgotten the lesson in history that Netanyahu gave Obama in front of the cameras during his last visit in May.

	Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan in Egypt this week. No strategic anti-Israel alliance was formed between Ankara and Cairo.
	Photo by: AP

Israel’s dependence on the United States, in spite of the latter’s regional weakness, is evident daily, whether in the form of America’s huge defense assistance or the president’s intervention during the incident in Cairo last week, which was the only thing that kept the embassy security guards from being massacred. As far as the Palestinian problem is concerned, it’s true that it was Obama who drove Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to proceed with the superfluous UN declaration. But Netanyahu’s firm refusal to provide some diplomatic hope that would create a path out of the mess contributed to the crisis.

This past Tuesday, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan came to Cairo to speak to the Egyptian people directly, sidelining temporary ruler Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi. As opposed to what the Israeli press reported, no new strategic anti-Israel alliance was formed. The political situation in Egypt is too fluid: The parliamentary elections are supposed to take place two months from now, but they are likely to be postponed. The Egyptian economy is facing growing problems and the immediate interest of the supreme military council would seem to be to calm things down on the Israeli front. None of this prevented Erdogan from delivering a harsh anti-Israeli speech, borne on waves of affection from the Egyptian public.

In the background, the Turkish press continued to publish the government’s threats against Israel: Turkish combat planes will now identify Israeli planes as enemy planes, Turkish warships will escort flotillas to Gaza, and more. Of all the possible threats, the one that particularly disturbs the General Staff is a provocation by a Turkish ship against Israeli vessels, which could end in a violent confrontation.

The report by daily Yedioth Ahronoth that Foreign Minister Avidgor Lieberman recommends fostering closer ties with the Kurdish underground, the PKK, as retaliation for Erdogan’s incitement, was not favorably received in Turkey. Yet the fact that the international community is completely ignoring Turkey’s crimes against the Kurds is also worrisome.

In April, in a step described as historic, Turkey allowed independent Kurds to run in the parliamentary elections. But less than two years ago the pro-Kurdish party in the parliament was declared illegal. At the same time, the Turkish army, under Erdogan’s close supervision, is carrying out a campaign to kill Kurds outside Turkey. Last month the Turkish army killed about 160 Kurdish rebels in northern Iraq. In May 2010, the army killed 150 rebels in the same region, and three months later the weekly German magazine Der Spiegel reported that chemical weapons were used against the Kurds in September 2009. Middle East expert Dr. Ely Karmon said this week that emphasizing the accusations against Israel was intended to distract attention from the Turkish repression of the Kurds, among other things.

Palestinian tent protests?

The West Bank’s economy expanded by 8 percent in the first half of 2010, but only 4 percent in the first half of this year, according to the World Bank report published this week. The report was published ahead of the Palestinian Donors’ Conference, which will take place on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York. While this growth rate is still far higher than in many other countries, it is significantly less than what the Palestinians have become accustomed to. In addition, the growth has barely managed to bring the West Bank back to its pre-intifada state.

The 2011 Palestinian budget was drafted based on a forecast of $967 million in donations. Yet by the end of June, only $293 million had been received. The construction sector is clearly slowing, while Palestinian exports to Israel did not increase at all compared to 2010.

Most experts and commentators have been assuming that the potential economic price would deter the Palestinian public from launching a new intifada, but it seems like the economic situation is less positive than they had thought. This is especially relevant for the average Palestinian, who did not benefit much even during the relatively good years; the fruits were concentrated among businessmen and well-connected PA employees. That is a problem for the PA, too, which is not certain it will be able to channel public fury exclusively at Israel without taking some of the heat itself.

On the Israeli side, Deputy Chief of Staff Maj. Gen. Yair Naveh finished reviewing various Israel Defense Forces units this week, and declared that the army is ready for possible mass unrest in the West Bank. Hundreds of millions of shekels have been invested in preparing for such action, code-named Operation Summer Seeds. This includes arms acquisitions, training and infrastructure work.

Last month the Central Command held a comprehensive exercise examining potential scenarios. In recent weeks most of the command’s regular units have been concentrated on the West Bank. Some are still in training, as part of the preparation for September. Today additional units will enter the West Bank, boosting the forces maintaining day-to-day security by about 20 percent. This is still an initial, limited stage of activity. If violent incidents break out, the IDF is prepared to double the number of soldiers deployed in the West Bank, which will require calling up reserves – at first only isolated brigades prepared for the task.

The Central Command has already listed problematic friction points, starting with the Qalandiyah checkpoint at the northern entrance to Jerusalem, the city of Hebron, the settlements around Nablus and areas where settlements are very near Palestinian cities. In addition, several regional defense groups, staffed by reservists who live in the settlements, will be recruited in areas considered problematic, such as the settlement of Psagot, which is adjacent to El Bireh and Ramallah.

This is where the second intifada began, exactly 11 years ago. This time, unlike in September 2000, the commanders are teaching the soldiers that even when blocking a mass march on a checkpoint, they need to minimize Palestinian casualties.

Security coordination with the PA has thus far been going smoothly, and the reconciliation between Fatah and Hamas in May has had no negative repercussions for Israel. The IDF preparations are focused on the West Bank. In the south, the command is still busy preventing attacks from Sinai. Currently it has no reliable information stating that Hamas intends to lead parallel demonstrations on the Gaza border. Although Israel did not handle well the attacks on the borders with Lebanon and Syria on Nakba Day in May and Naksa day in June – the large number of dead among the demonstrators seems to have dampened the organizers’ desire for a repeat performance for now.

Anti-Iran messianics

Mass behavior is almost impossible to forecast. And under such sensitive circumstances, even a move or a mistake by a single person – a checkpoint commander who opens fire under pressure, an attack by a Hamas member, an extremist settler who tries to torch a mosque – could fuel the conflagration. That is the main reason why no one is willing to risk predicting what will happen in the coming weeks.

Netanyahu mentioned the Iranian threat again this week, in an address in honor of the 10th anniversary of September 11, while Dick Cheney, George W. Bush’s vice president during that critical period, said he believed Israel would act alone against Iran’s nuclear facilities.

Enrichment activity at the facility built deep inside the mountain near Qom has intensified in recent weeks, and the centrifugal quality has been upgraded, according to International Atomic Energy Agency reports and official Iranian declarations. A senior Israeli official told an American Jewish delegation that conducting all their enrichment procedures in Qom will give the Iranians almost total immunity from an aerial attack.

Anyone who has spoken with Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak in small forums in recent months was astonished to hear a firm, determined, almost messianic tone regarding the nuclear threat and how it should be handled. An Israeli attack against Iran, despite the Obama administration’s opposition, is liable to prove foolish. Not only is it not certain that it will postpone Iran’s nuclear program, but such an attack will almost certainly lead to a regional war that will cause serious damage to the Israeli home front.

DEBKA.

Bashar Assad

The wholesale slaughter of civilians has become a commonplace for the Syrian protesters who nonetheless refuse to give up after seven months of carnage.
One day, 32 anti-regime demonstrators are drily reported killed; 25, the next – as the killing, abuse and torture go on with only the feeblest protests from the West.
There are three more troubling aspects of Bashar Assad‘s barbaric crackdown on dissidents:
1. On September 8, he gathered all the military strength at his disposal for a final operation to crush the protest movement. DEBKA-Net-Weekly’s military and intelligence sources report this is not one of the local massacres that are routine in one city after another, but an all-out effort to systematically cleanse Syria of every opposition element. Assad has mobilized his entire 300,000-strong army plus 75,000 reservists for this awesomely shocking operation dubbed “Biraq Assad” – Assad’s Flag. Its purpose: to return the Assad flag to every city, town and village.
Ordered to focus on army deserters, our sources report that Syrian forces have begun going house to house holding lists. Instead of making arrests, they burst into homes and rake all their occupants with automatic fire – men, women, children and elderly alike.
Since this new tactic was introduced, the size of anti-Assad demonstrations has declined by about two-thirds.
Russians, Chinese and Iran bolster Assad
2. In the month since US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called on world countries to boycott Syrian oil and gas and halt weapons supplies to Syria, Russia, China and Iran have stepped up their arms consignments to the regime in Damascus. Moscow has also set up a military-diplomatic headquarters at the Russian embassy headed by President Dmitry Medvedev’s personal envoy, Mikhail Margelov.
The Russian experts are advising Assad on the weapons most effective for suppressing the revolt against him and how to dodge Western and NATO sanctions.
The Chinese have sent a special delegation to Damascus which coordinates its steps with the Russians.
Moscow has a big bone to pick with the West, DEBKA-Net-Weekly‘s Russian sources report. Its offer to mediate solutions for the crises in Libya and Damascus did not entail overthrowing Muammar Qaddafi. The Russians claim that NATO’s capture of Tripoli and its handover to the Libyan rebels were not part of the deal, especially when the city was placed under the command of a former Al Qaeda operative.
Syria under the Assad dynasty is the second biggest market for Russian arms after Libya. After losing Qaddafi, Moscow is making sure Assad does not go the same way.
Major setback for US-Turkish goal to put moderate Muslims in power
3. The voices of Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan and his foreign minister Ahmet Davutoglu, not too long ago the most strident in threatening military action to cut Assad down, have fallen abruptly silent.
DEBKA-Net-Weekly’s sources confirm that President Barack Obama and Erdogan, who coordinated their Syrian policy until recently, never said Assad must go. They hoped to see him stay in office while pursuing political reforms for bringing the Muslim Brotherhood into government – in line with the Obama administration’s overall aspiration for the Arab revolts, including the uprisings in Egypt and Libya, to end with moderate Muslims in power.
This objective fits the Turkish prime minister’s agenda – as he formulated it for the benefit of Egyptian leaders in Cairo this week: Secular states governed by moderate Muslim rulers modern enough to cooperate with the West.
The Obama-Erdogan blueprint for the post-revolt Arab world has run into three major obstacles:
– Bashar Assad and the family around him resolved to follow in the footsteps of his father President Hafez Assad who in 1982 bombed the Muslim Brotherhood revolt in Hama into extinction. On no account are they willing to share power with their deadliest enemy.
Washington’s plans are confounded by Russia, China and Iran
– Shiite Iran is putting all its military and economic might at Assad’s disposal intent on frustrating the US-Turkish steps (in which Saudi Arabia is also involved) for opening government up to the Sunni Muslim Brotherhood in Damascus – any more than it wants to see them in control of the levers of government anywhere in the region, whether in Tripoli, Cairo or Ankara.
– For Moscow, fundamentalist Muslim power is traditionally anathema – an invitation to Russia’s own Muslim minority to get big ideas. Beijing is equally loath to see Muslim power reigning in the Middle East under US influence.
The power struggle in Syria has therefore morphed into a contest over the future of Muslim government in the new Middle East regimes. If the military rulers of Cairo see Assad defeating the Muslim Brotherhood in Syria, they may be encouraged to crack down on the Egyptian Brothers too – to the dismay of the Obama administration.
Washington is now challenged by outside forces which outweigh the Obama administration at this moment of decline in the US president’s political standing and Europe’s life-and-death struggle to save the European Union and the euro.

DEBKA.

The first 10 months of the Arab Revolt have produced the overthrow of just two rulers, Zin Ben-Ali in Tunisia and Hosni Mubarak in Egypt; two with one foot out, Muammar Qaddafi in Libya and Ali Abdullah Saleh in Yemen; and two still at the helm, King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa in Bahrain and Bashar Assad in Syria. The focus has shifted from anti-regime protest to civil war and cross-border conflicts amid a busy game of musical chairs.
Some intelligence analysts, especially in the United States, foresee the wheel of revolt turning back to its starting-point this year – or some time in 2012 and slamming into the royal houses of Jordan and Saudi Arabia. Some assessments go so far as to include the Turkish and Iranian regimes in the next cycle. Instability on the Palestinian scene is a given.
For now, the Middle East is beset with three wars – the six-month old armed resistance to the Assad regime and the two actively simmering conflicts waged against Israel by Turkey and Egypt.
Violent war rhetoric hit the airwaves from Cairo Tuesday, Sept. 13 when visiting Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan delivered a diatribe entirely devoted to defaming Israel to the Arab League foreign ministers in session there.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu remarked with misplaced faith that “common sense and cool reasoning would eventually prevail in Ankara.” Erdogan, for his part, shouted: “States (meaning Israel), just like individuals, have to pay the price for murders, for acts of terrorism they committed so that we can live in a more just world.” He warned Israel that its government was “endangering its existence.”
Washington and Moscow pull in opposite directions
These remarks amplified the accusation of casus belli which Turkish Prime Minister Thursday, Sept. 8 hurled at Israel’s naval interception last year of a Turkish vessel bound for the blockaded Gaza Strip. In Cairo, he called Israeli “a terrorist state” deserving of military punishment by the international community exactly the same way as NATO dealt with the Libyan ruler.
On Sunday, Sept. 11, just one day after an Egyptian mob burst into the Israeli embassy in Cairo, wrecked its interior and forced the ambassador and embassy staff to fly home, Israel transferred its elite Golani Brigade, to southern Israel for deployment along the 260-kilometer long Egyptian border
This action was in tune with Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz‘s comment Aug. 24 that the Israeli Defense Forces no longer perceived the Egyptian border as a frontier of peace.
Additional DEBKA-Net-Weekly analyses and reports in this issue will demonstrate how Washington and Moscow are now puling in opposite directions in the Middle East: The US is laboring to damp down the Turkey-Israel, Egypt-Israel fires before they blow up – at best into limited military confrontations – for the first time in the 10-month Arab upheaval, whereas Russia has stepped in to rescue Syria’s Assad and bolster his regime.
In other words, while the Obama administration is striving the contain the initial fallout from the Arab Revolt and save Israel from being dragged into a regional conflict, Moscow has put up a big Stop sign in Damascus against US and NATO intervention.
Russia helps Iran help Assad
Russia has therefore walked away from its earlier bid to mediate an amicable settlement of the Libyan crisis and Assad’s removal in harmony with Washington (See DEBKA-Net-Weekly 500 of July 15: A new Troika: Obama, Medvedev and Merkel Set out to Cut Short Libyan War, Remove Assad), claiming it was deceived. The Russians accuse America of using Moscow’s approach to Qaddafi to cover up its plot for his overthrow.
Three months on, they are resolved to prevent this fate overtaking the Syrian ruler.
Our Moscow sources report that Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin assigned their top diplomatic troubleshooter, presidential personal envoy Mikhail Margelov, who is also chairman of the Russian upper house’s foreign affairs committee, with going to Damascus and advising Assad on ways and means of subduing the revolt against his rule without incurring the backlash of US and European diplomatic and economic sanctions.
(See a separate item on Syria’s decisive military operation for crushing the revolt)
On Saturday, September 10, Margelov declared his government would do everything in its power to save Syria from following the Libya scenario.
Ankara shifts military threats from Syria to Israel
Now for the first time in the ten months of the Arab Revolt, two non-Arab countries are keeping the Syria ruler on his feet against an uprising. In recent days, his Iranian advisers on tactics were seen putting their heads together with the Russian envoy and his staff. And while there is no solid intelligence that Russia and Iran are coordinating their aid shipments to Assad, it may be presumed that the holds of the Russian military planes unloading at Damascus military airport ammunition, night vision equipment and replacement parts for the Syrian tanks crushing the protesters do not carry the same cargoes as the Iranian planes bringing in mostly riot dispersal equipment.
Turkey too has shifted ground on Syria. Gone are the threats of imminent military intervention against Assad’s brutal crackdown on dissent; its Prime Minister is no longer aligned with President Barack Obama on Syria.
Indeed the last time Erdogan and Obama discussed their partnership on Syria was more than a month ago on Aug. 11 after Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu called on Assad in Damascus. They decided then to raise the military heat on Syria incrementally, while supplying the protesters with logistics, money, intelligence and arms.
That decision has been overtaken by events.
In the light of Russian moves in Damascus – which DEBKA-Net-Weekly’s military and intelligence sources report are closely tracked by the Turkish National Intelligence Organization-MIT – Ankara is turning its ire on Israel.
Turkey changes partners
As for Syria, on September 6, 2011, Lt. Col. Husain Harmoush, spokesman and de facto leader of the Syrian Free Officers Movement (FOM), was interviewed by a Turkish Official at one of the camps accommodating Syrian refugees from Assad’s violence.
Shortly thereafter, he vanished. His whereabouts are still unknown.
FOM was established by defectors from Syria’s armed forces who refused to fire live ammunition at civilian demonstrators. Some are known to have gone to ground at Jabal al-Zawya, an inaccessible, rugged region of northeastern Syria not far from the Turkish border. They have been carrying out hit-and-run raids against the Assad regime’s Shabbiha thugs.
According to various Middle Eastern sources, Ankara handed Hamoush over to the Syrian authorities for the price of seven wanted Kurdish dissidents. Western and Arab intelligence sources confirmed that Turkish authorities held Hamoush in custody for a few days before surrendering him to Syria for almost certain torture and death.
Ibrahim Harmoush, the brother of the missing colonel said he would never have fallen into Syrian hands unless he was betrayed by Turkey.
That is not the only sign of Erdogan’s double game on Syria against both the US and the Saudis, who are supplying Assad’s antagonists with weapons via Jordan and Iraq.
On the one hand, he poses as the leader of the Western and Muslim effort to overthrow Assad. On the other, he is playing ball with the Syrian ruler and apparently delivering wanted protest activists into his hands.
Obama hedges his support for Ankara
DEBKA-Net-Weekly’s military experts say that Ankara sees the logic of its dive into the murky swamp of intrigue and counter-intrigue surrounding Bashar Assad. Before embarking on even a limited military clash with Israel, Erdogan feels he must turn his back on cooperating with the US and NATO – even though Turkey is a member – and switch to cultivating the antagonists of US Middle East policy like Russia, Iran and Egypt.
Sensing this change of spots, US officials in Washington reacted cagily Tuesday, September 13, to a Turkish request for a fleet of US Predator drones to be deployed on its soil to support operations against the Kurdish rebel PKK hideouts in northern Iraq. The US government was said to have reached no decision yet on the request.
Only a week ago, the US was aiding the Turkish operation against the rebels (as reported in our last issue No. 508, of Sept. 9: First US-Turkish-Iranian-Iraqi KRG Armed Alliance: Their Joint Offensive against Kurdish Rebels).
Today, the Obama administration thinks twice about its support – and not just because of spiraling Turkish military preparations for confronting Israel, but in view of the threatening Turkish fleet movements in the Mediterranean, which are taking place without reference to the US or NATO.

DEBKA.

Barbarossa Hayreddin Pasha

Unannounced and unobtrusively, Turkey has embarked on the biggest naval “exercise” it has ever staged in the Mediterranean Sea, although its codename Operation Barbarossa speaks louder than words,
The US Sixth Fleet and European NATO members’ navies won’t have missed the new arrivals in the waters they regularly cruise and Turkish historians will have picked up the connotation of its codename:
Barbarossa Hayreddin Pasha (1478 –1546) was an Ottoman admiral who dominated the Mediterranean for decades. He was born on the island of Lesbos/ Mytilini and died in Constantinople (Istanbul), the Ottoman capital. Hayreddin which literally means Goodness or best of the Religion of Islam was an honorary name given him by Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent. The name Barbarossa (Redbeard in Italian) he inherited from his elder brother “Baba Oruç” who died in battle with the Spanish in Algeria.
The operation’s label therefore trumpets Turkey’s ambition to hark back to the days when the Ottoman Empire ruled the waves of the Middle East and beyond.
DEBKA-Net-Weekly‘s military experts evaluate the new naval balance:
The Turkish Navy has 19 frigates, 14 submarines, 7 corvettes, 75 navy aircraft and 108 fast attack craft, manned by a total of 48,600 personnel.
Based at its Southern Sea Area Command headquartered in Izmir are a naval infantry brigade and an amphibious group operating out of Foca and a naval infantry battalion in Izmir.
At the Aksaz Naval Base Command near Marmaris, Turkey maintains special units for underwater defense and attacks, as well as six naval helicopters.
Also in the south, Turkey has its largest naval training center at Iskenderun.
The Turkish Air Force has more than 250 F-16 and F-4E Phantom fighter aircraft. Over 50 of the latter were modernized by Israel in the 1990s and 2000s. Turkey is also purchasing some 100 next-generation F-35 Joint Strike Fighter Lightning II fighter jets.
Turkey outmatched both quantitatively and qualitatively
It is obvious to any naval warfare expert that this fleet is not up to challenging the US and European forces on duty in the Mediterranean.
It would even be outmatched by Israel’s much smaller navy, which numbers only three corvettes, 10 missile boats, three submarines and 42 patrol boats and is manned by some 19,500 personnel. This is because Israel enjoys air superiority in the eastern Mediterranean thanks to a flock of missile-armed drones operating from bases close to its Mediterranean coast and its novel electronic systems, which are capable of jamming the command, control, weapons systems and communications networks carried aboard Turkish warships.
In May 2010, Israel chose not to impose an electronic blackout on the Turkish-led flotilla which aimed to break Israel’s blockade on the Gaza Strip so as not to expose its electronic secrets to Turkey whose Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan was already showing marked hostility to the Jewish state. Instead, Israeli commandos boarded the Turkish Mavis Marmara to face armed activists in a clash which left nine dead.
Undeterred by the superior naval strength facing him, Erdogan let it be known the day before his “historic visit” to Cairo on Sept. 12, that the Turkish Navy is to dispatch three frigates to the eastern Mediterranean “to ensure the freedom of navigation” and to confront Israeli warships if necessary..
Turkish naval sources added that the frigates dispatched by the Southern Sea Area Command will protect civilian ships carrying humanitarian aid to Gaza. If they encounter an Israeli military ship outside Israel’s 12-mile territorial waters, they are instructed to advance to within 100 meters and disable its weapon.
The same sources likened a potential confrontation of this nature to “Turkish dogfights in the Aegean Sea with Greek jet fighters.”
Ankara scraps with Nicosia over gas and oil exploration
DEBKA-Net-Weekly’s military and intelligence sources read into the reference to dogfights with Greece Ankara’s awareness of the military ties taking solid form between Greece, Turkey’s traditional archenemy, and Israel since Ankara turned its back on Jerusalem. Under a mutual defense pact they signed secretly on Sept 4, the Israeli Air Force has permission to use Greek air bases.
The mention of Greece is a veiled Turkish threat to hold in its sights the Greek base from which Israeli combat planes and helicopters may take off. Also targeted are the Greek air and naval umbrella over Cyprus and the oil and gas wells Nicosia is about to drill in the eastern Mediterranean. Ankara suspects that the Israeli-Greek defense accords provide Greek Cyprus with an Israel air and naval shield. It is therefore packaging Israel, Greece and Greek Cyprus together as its prey.
Tuesday, Sept. 13, Cyprus and Turkey exchanged heated words over Nicosia’s plans to start deep sea drilling for oil and gas next month. This further raised tempers at the peace talks taking place on the fate of the divided island at the same time as Ankara feuds with Israel.
Cypriot President Demetris Christofias denounced Turkish “threats.” He asserted that Cyprus as a member of the European Union would expect the international community to come to its aid. Greece and Israel are already involved.
The Turkish foreign ministry spokesman hit back by slamming the Greek Cypriot government’s plan to start exploiting oil and gas reserves before reaching a peace accord with the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus –TRNC, which only Turkey recognizes.
Oil needed to promote neo-Ottomanism
Erdogan believes his maneuvers for stirring up a quarrel between Israel and Cyprus will result in pushing both out of the offshore oil and gas fields they are developing. The way will then be clear for a Turkish grab which is almost certain to be backed by Syria, Hizballah, Lebanon, the Palestinian Authority and Hamas.
Therefore, behind the Turkish leader’s bitter taunts against Israel (“States like individuals have to pay the price for murders, for acts of terrorism they committed so that we can live in a more just world”), lurks a crude ulterior objective – namely, to snatch the oil and gas away from the Jews and Christians and transfer them into Muslim hands.
In a word, Erdogan needs control of energy resources to promote his neo-Ottoman ambitions and exercise his superiority in the oil-rich Middle East.
The Turks maintain that their new naval strategy is designed to ensure the security of navigation in the Eastern Mediterranean with the help of Turkish frigates, fast patrol boats, submarines, helicopters, maritime patrol aircraft and coast guard boats – and expand their destinations.
Our military and intelligence sources affirm that Operation Barbarossa is not confined to the Mediterranean. It aims to bring the Turkish navy to the Aegean Sea, the Black Sea, the Adriatic Sea, the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean, maintaining these naval assets in a state of constant navigation in the sense of the Turkish phrase süyrüsefer.
Ruling the waves of six seas
The Erdogan regime thus seeks to establish a permanent fleet presence on the six seas of the Middle East, the Persian Gulf and southern Europe, having taken a leaf out of the Iranian book as articulated by Iranian Navy commander Rear Admiral Habibollah Sayyari on Aug. 21:
“Presence on the high seas needs a strategic naval force and any country able to maintain its long-term presence on the high seas enjoys a strategic advantage.”
The Iranian general had his eye on the Atlantic Ocean.