WarSclerotic

.:Middle East Online::Will Israel Bomb Iran?:..

In recent weeks, intense discussions have taken place in Israeli military and intelligence circles about whether or not to launch a military strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities, says Patrick Seale.

In recent weeks, intense discussions have taken place in Israeli military and intelligence circles about whether or not to launch a military strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities. Apparently, the key question in the debate was how to ensure that the United States took part in the attack or, at the very least, intervened on Israel’s side if the initial strike triggered a wider war.

Reports of these discussions have caused considerable alarm in Washington and in a number of European capitals. Some Western military experts have been quoted as saying that the window of opportunity for an Israeli air attack on Iran will close within two months, since the onset of winter would make such an assault more difficult.

Concern that Israel may decide to attack without giving the United States prior warning is thought to be the main reason for the visit to Tel Aviv on 3 October of the U.S. Defence Secretary Leon Panetta. His aim seems to have been to rein in the Israeli hawks.

Amos Harel of the Israeli daily Haaretz summed up Panetta’s message as follows: America is standing by Israel, but an uncoordinated Israeli strike on Iran could spark a regional war. The United States will work to defend Israel, but Israel must behave responsibly.

At his joint press conference with Israel’s Defence Minister Ehud Barak, Panetta said: The United States is “very concerned, and we will work together to do whatever is necessary” to keep Iran from posing “a threat to the region.” But doing so “depends on the countries working together.” He repeated the word “together” several times. In other words, Israel should not act without an American green light.

In recent years, Israel has often threatened to attack Iran. Why has the subject been revived this time? Is Israel worried that Iran is close to acquiring the capability to manufacture a nuclear bomb? Most intelligence experts agree that Iran has not yet made a decision to build nuclear weapons. A more likely Israeli motive is its concern that the five permanent members of the Security Council plus Germany — the so-called P5+1 — may accept an Iranian offer of renewed talks.

Israel’s greatest fear is that the P5+1 will reach a compromise with Iran which would allow it to continue enriching uranium for civilian purposes. This might then lead in due course to the world agreeing to co-exist with a nuclear Iran. If that were to happen, Israel’s monopoly of nuclear weapons — a key asset in maintaining its regional military supremacy – would be lost.

Iran has, in fact, made several recent overtures to the United States and its allies. When he was in New York last month to attend the annual meeting of the UN General Assembly, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad told the Washington Post that Iran would stop producing uranium enriched to 20 percent if foreign countries would provide the fuel needed for the Tehran Research Reactor, which makes medical isotopes. Some 850,000 Iranians are said to depend on such isotopes for cancer treatment.

Late last month, Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator, Saeed Jalili, sent a letter to Catherine Ashton, the EU’s foreign affairs chief, requesting fresh talks with the P5+1 to try to resolve the longstanding dispute. Yet another overture was made by Iran’s Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi when, in an interview with Asia Times on 29 September, he said that Iran was “prepared to undertake the necessary efforts to restore mutual confidence, and if there is a specific concern, it should be addressed in talks… We must look for innovative proposals.”

Fereydoun Abbasi, head of Iran’s Atomic Organisation, has invited Yukiya Amano, Secretary-General of the International Atomic Energy Agence (IAEA), to visit Iran and inspect its nuclear facilities. “Our recommendation is that Mr Amano accept this invitation… Today, the situation is that we are again read to consider the fuel swap,” he said. (This was the proposed swap of a large quantity of low-enriched uranium for a small quantity of 20 percent enriched uranium for medical purposes.) Mr Amano’s IAEA board is due to meet in Vienna on November 17-18, a meeting that is keenly awaited.

Several influential voices have been urging the United States to respond positively to Iran’s overtures. “Why not test Iran’s seriousness?” asked Reza Marashi in an article in theHuffington Post on 30 September. Marashi is a former Iran desk officer at the U.S. State Department and is now Director of Research at the National Iranian American Council,

In an article in the International Herald Tribune on 29 September, Charles Ferguson, president of the Federation of American Scientists, and Ali Vaez, director of the Federation’s Iran Project, urged the United States and its allies to take Ahmadinejad at his word. They even suggested that the Western powers should provide Iran with 50 kilograms of fuel for the Tehran Research Reactor as a humanitarian gesture that would buy Washington goodwill with the Iranian people, while curtailing Iran’s enrichment activities.

None of these appeals is likely to be heard. President Barack Obama has collapsed in the face of pressure from powerful pro-Israeli lobbies and a fervently pro-Israeli U.S. Congress. As he is seeking re-election next year, we will hear nothing more of the call he made during his 2008 campaign for the need for diplomacy with Iran.

The danger is that Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu may now seek to break out of Israel’s current political isolation by mounting a spectacular attack on Iran. Having lost Turkey and Egypt, and facing a revolt by the international community against his “Greater Israel” ambitions, he may think that the time is ripe to seize the initiative. His calculation may be that a lethal blow against Iran would weaken an already deeply troubled Syria and leave Hizbullah orphaned. Israel would have killed three birds with one stone.

Will Israel seek an American green light if it decides to attack Iran or might Netanyahu believe that Obama, enslaved to Israeli interests, would have no choice but to follow suit?

According to the 6 October edition of TTU, a French intelligence bulletin, the United States and Israel are planning an unprecedented joint land forces exercise next May with the goal of establishing a common “intervention force” ready for action in the event of a major regional war. Admiral James Stavridis, head of Eurocom — America’s European command — paid a recent unpublicised visit to Israel for talks with General Benny Gantz, Israel’s chief of staff. According to TTU, the plan is to set up American command posts in Israel and Israeli command posts in Eurocom. Cooperation between the two powers has rarely been closer.

These are dangerous times in the Middle East.

Patrick Seale is a leading British writer on the Middle East. His latest book is The Struggle for Arab Independence: Riad el-Solh and the Makers of the Modern Middle East (Cambridge University Press).

Amb. Marc Ginsberg: Tehran’s Tango: Iran’s Terror Beachhead South of the Border.

When Attorney General Holder announced today that federal authorities had thwarted a “made for Hollywood” murder-for-hire plot by alleged Iranian-linked operatives tied to Mexico drug cartels to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to the U.S, it came as no surprise to counter-terrorism experts familiar with Iran’s terrorist activities in Latin America. Iran’s terror plotting south of the border has been a well-known fact — orchestrated by the Al Quds paramilitary wing of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) — a terrorist organization very well versed in the the art of the tango and tortillas for some time.

For over two decades, Al Quds operatives and their proxies from terrorist organizations throughout the Middle East have been deployed throughout Iran’s embassies in Latin America — most recently in Venezuela and Mexico.

Starting in the late 1980s and early 1990s, using Hezbollah as initial cover, Al Quds masterminds began populating the “failed state” region in Latin American known as the Tri-Border Area (TBA) of Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay as a base from which to train Islamic extremists. The 1992 and 1994 attacks against Jewish and Israeli interests in Buenos Aires originated in the TBA. A veritable Star Wars bar scene of terrorists have reportedly been trained by Al Quds in the TBA and have taken shelter at one time or another there, including Iran proxy terrorists belonging to Hezbollah, Hamas, and al-Gama al Islamiya — all under the watchful patronage of Iran’s Al Quds operatives.

The TBA is ideal for laundering terrorist identities because once an operative enters Paraguay he/she can just drive into Brazil and return without the need for showing a passport. This has not gone unnoticed, of course, by CIA and Israeli Mossad agents, who have been engaged in a secret war in the TBA for some time to neutralize the growing nexus between Iran, Hezbollah and Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez.

In 2007, a joint investigation by investigative journalists from Telemundo and NBC News uncovered details of an extensive Latin smuggling network run by Hezbollah for the Al Quds force. Until it was blown apart by joint U.S. & Latin counter-terrorism forces, the smuggling network was laundering large sums of Latin money (estimated between $300 million and $500 million annually) to terrorism organizations in the Middle East, and finance training camps, propaganda operations and Hezbollah-run attacks on Jewish interests in South America.

Credible warnings by U.S. military officials increased in recent years. Navy Admiral James Stavridis, then head of U.S. Southern Command, told the Senate Armed Services Committee that Hezbollah was also taking root in Colombia.

Just last year, in April, 2010, the Pentagon provided Congress a report on the current and future military strategy of Iran, outlining Al Quds’ and Hezbollah’s penetration of Venezuela courtesy of Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez. In the wake of the indictments announced by the Department of Justice, additional information regarding Al Qud’s clandestine funding source operations in Caracas are surely going to emerge, including the creation of an Al Quds owned Banco Internacional de Desarrollo (BID) — which is a wholly owned subsidiary of Iran’s national bank. BID is likely engaging in money laundering on behalf of the Al Quds force and Hezbollah.

To what extent Al Quds operatives are using Venezuela as a base of operations is not publicly disclosed. But intel from the region indicates that Al Quds terrorists and their Hezbollah proxies have largely vacated the TBA and set up shop on Venezuela’s Margarita Island and have been using the island as a staging area to increase their operations in Mexico and Bolivia.

The Pentagon report details that Al Quds force agents are burrowed into Iran embassies in Latin America, charities, religious and cultural organizations which are Shiite-friendly, and that Al Quds operatives are recruiting Venezuelan youths of Arab origin to serve as agents in Latin America (Muslims account for less than .4 percent of Venezuela’s population; of which Shiites are less than 1 percent). Radical Hezbollah websites operating in Spanish from Venezuela are calling for “holy war” against U.S., Israeli and Saudi targets.

Just a year before, Secretary Gates accused Iran in 2009 of engaging in “subversive activity” in Latin America, without further elaboration. But piecing together reports from Latin sources, it is evident that there are two intertwined terror rings operating under Al Quds force direction encompassing over 80 operatives in 12 Latin countries, mostly in Brazil, Venezuela, Argentina and Chile. Safe-haven hospitality on Margarita Island for Al Quds and Hezbollah are accorded by a Venezuelan of Lebanese descent and former member of the Venezuelan legislature tied to Chavez.

As early as 2004, a CIA report singled out the Mexican border with the U.S. as an especially easy target for Hezbollah/Iran operatives since they carry Latin passports, speak Spanish and look like ordinary Hispanic tourists crossing into the U.S.

Testimony before the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Homeland Security on July 7, 2011 details the growing threat to the U.S.-Mexican border region by Al Quds and its proxy Hezbollah from Latin America, indicating a growing link with Mexican drug cartels. The most unnerving is a leaked report from the Tucson, Arizona police alluding to possible transfers of bomb-making technology and expertise from Hezbollah, as well as the type of narco-tunnel construction techniques used by Hezbollah in Lebanon.

In 2010, Mexico foiled a plot by Hezbollah to establish a new network throughout Latin America, according to Kuwaiti newspaper Al-Seyassah. Mexican police mounted a surveillance operation against the alleged leader living in Tijuana, Mexico (just south of San Diego) — one Jameel Nasr, who was shuttling frequently between Mexico City and Beirut. Mexican police also told the newspaper that Nasr had also spent two months in Venezuela. Although there was no overt link disclosed, the timing of Mexico’s move against the Nasir Hezbollah ring and the indictment in Miami of three men charged with financing Hezbollah out of Miami does not appear to be coincidental.

Whether today’s salacious indictment leads to Iranian officials and Hezbollah as the federal indictment alleges remains to be seen. But given Iran’s Al Quds force’s well-known and well-feared record of penetration in Latin America, and credible reports of linkages by Al Quds and Hezbollah to Venezuela, Mexico and Mexican drug cartels, there is plenty of smoke for a fire to be.

Iranians charged in U.S. over assassination plot | Reuters.

(Reuters) – The United States accused Iran on Tuesday of backing a plot to kill the Saudi ambassador to Washington, escalating tensions with Tehran and stirring up a hornet’s nest in the Gulf, where Saudi Arabia and Iran have long jostled for power.

U.S. authorities said they had broken up a plot by two men linked to Iran’s security agencies to assassinate Saudi Ambassador Adel al-Jubeir. One was arrested last month while the other was believed to be in Iran.

Iran denied the charges. But President Barack Obama called the plot a “flagrant violation of U.S. and international law” and Saudi Arabia said it was “despicable.”

Revelation of the alleged plot, and the apparent direct ties to the Tehran government, had the potential to further inflame tensions in the Middle East, and the United States said Tehran must be held top account.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, in a Reuters interview, expressed hope that countries that have hesitated to enforce existing sanctions on Iran would now “go the extra mile.”

At a news conference, FBI Director Robert Mueller said the convoluted plot, involving monitored international calls, Mexican drug money and an attempt to blow up the ambassador in a Washington restaurant, could have been straight from a Hollywood movie.

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder alleged that the plot was the work of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, which is the guardian of Iran’s 32-year-old revolution, and the Quds force, its covert, operational arm.

“High-up officials in those (Iranian) agencies, which is an integral part of the Iranian government, were responsible for this plot,” Holder told the news conference.

“I think one has to be concerned about the chilling nature of what the Iranian government attempted to do here,” he said.

QUDS FORCE CONNECTION

The primary evidence linking the Iranian government to the planned attempt on al-Jubeir’s life are the words of one of the alleged plotters, who told U.S. law enforcement agents after his arrest that he had been recruited and directed by men he understood were senior Quds Force officials.

The Quds Force has not previously been known to focus on targets in the United States.

Senate Intelligence Committee Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein, was said she was briefed on intelligence about the plot, said “it looks like it’s the Quds Force, the IRGC.”

“We do not know that it went up above the IRGC” to higher levels of the Iranian government, Feinstein told reporters. “I just don’t see how this could be done any other way, that even the Quds force would go out and do something on their own to assassinate somebody who represented a country, not even in that country but in a third country.

There are no formal diplomatic ties between the Islamic republic and Washington, which accuses Tehran of backing terrorism and pursuing nuclear arms, a charge Iran has denied.

Iran already faces a raft of tough economic and political sanctions and Washington slapped further economic sanctions on five Iranians including four senior members of Quds.

Iran and Saudi Arabia have likewise long been at odds. The Saudis, who see themselves as the center of the Sunni sect of Islam, have been alarmed by what they see as expansionist tendencies by majority Shi’ite Iran, whose people are primarily Persian rather than Arab.

U.S. officials said there had also been initial discussions about other alleged plots, including attacking the Saudi and Israeli embassies in Washington, however no charges for that were revealed on Tuesday.

Rejection the allegations, Iran’s state English language Press TV said: “The Islamic Republic of Iran has rejected U.S. accusations of the country plotting to assassinate the Saudi envoy to Washington as a prefabricated scenario.”

Last month hopes were raised of improved ties when Iran released two U.S. hikers accused of spying when they were arrested on the Iran-Iraq border in 2009. Holder said there was no link between the hikers’s case and the alleged plot.

U.S. SAYS AMBASSADOR NEVER IN DANGER

U.S. officials identified the two alleged plotters as Gholam Shakuri, who is a member of the Quds force, and Manssor Arbabsiar, who was arrested on September 29 when he arrived at John F. Kennedy International Airport from Mexico.

Arbabsiar, 56, who is a naturalized U.S. citizen and holds an Iranian passport, initially cooperated with authorities after being arrested at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York on September 29.

He made calls to Shakuri after being arrested and acted as if the plot was still a go, court documents said.

Arbabsiar made a brief appearance in a Manhattan courtroom on Tuesday where he was ordered detained and assigned a public defender. He appeared in blue jeans and a dress shirt, thinning gray hair and a scar on the left side of his face.

Officials said that the Saudi ambassador, Al-Jubeir, who is close to King Abdullah bin Abdul-Aziz and has been in his post since 2007, was never in danger. President Barack Obama was briefed in June about the alleged plot and through a spokesman expressed gratitude for it being disrupted.

The assassination plot began to unfold in May 2011 when Arbabsiar approached an individual in Mexico to help, but that individual turned out to be an informant for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration.

The confidential source, who was a paid informant but not identified, immediately tipped law enforcement agents, according to the criminal complaint. Arbabsiar paid $100,000 to the informant in July and August for the plot, a down payment on the $1.5 million requested.

LIKE A “HOLLYWOOD MOVIE”

Shakuri approved the plan to kill the ambassador during telephone conversations with Arbabsiar, the complaint said.

As part of the plot, the informant talked to Arbabsiar about trying to kill the ambassador at a Washington, D.C. restaurant he frequented, but warned him that could lead to dozens of others being killed, including U.S. lawmakers.

The criminal complaint said that Arbabsiar responded “no problem” and “no big deal“.

After Arbabsiar was arrested in New York, he allegedly confessed and provided U.S. authorities with more details about the Iranian government’s alleged involvement, Holder said.

Court papers say in a monitored phone call Shakuri allegedly confirmed to Arbabsiar the plot should move forward as quickly as possible, stating “just do it quickly, it’s late.”

Mueller said in this case “individuals from one country sought to conspire with a drug trafficking cartel in another country to assassinate a foreign official on United States soil.”

He added: “Though it reads like the pages of a Hollywood script, the impact would have been very real and many lives would have been lost,” he said.

The men are charged with one count of conspiracy to murder a foreign official, two counts of foreign travel and use of interstate and foreign commerce facilities in the commission of murder for hire and one count each of conspiracy to use a weapon of mass destruction and conspiracy to commit an act of terrorism.

Authorities said no explosives were acquired for the plot and the weapon of mass destruction charge can range from a simple improvised device to a more significant weapon. They face up to life in prison if convicted.

U.S. issues terror warning after alleged Iran plot; Texas town shocked at neighbor’s ID.

Wednesday, 12 October 2011