WarSclerotic

US Military Drill in Israel and Saudi Arabia – Middle East – News – Israel National News.

C-5 transport plane

Israel news photo: Willard E. Grande II Wikimedia Commons

The United States is conducting a week-long large-scale aerial exercise in Israel and Saudi Arabia as a navy fleet sails to the Mediterranean in preparation for any surprise flare-ups in the Middle East as Israel and frees 1,027 terrorists and security prisoners in exchange for kidnapped soldier Gilad Shalit.

Intelligence officials have said that terrorist groups, particularly Hizbullah and those based in Gaza, will try to stage attacks on American and Israel targets in the Middle East while the exchange takes place.

“The U.S. Transportation Command and its Air Forces Transportation will be testing its ability to provide a rapid strategic airlift response to major crises and contingencies,” according to DebkaReport.

The American, Saudi and Israel armies are on high alert following last week’s American accusations that Iran plotted to assassinate the Saudi ambassador in Washington.

The United States also reportedly is sending the USS John C. Stennis aircraft carrier from the Persian Gulf to the Mediterranean. It provides combat support for ground troops and can plant mines on coasts of Middle East countries.

‘Syria: Anti-Assad protesters use Israeli-… JPost – Middle East.

    Syria on Sunday claimed that anti-government protesters in Syria have been using weapons that were manufactured in Israel, Israel Radio reported.

The Syrian delegation to the Arab League said during a meeting in Cairo that Syrian TV will show images of Israeli-made grenades and machine guns that were taken from dissidents calling for Syrian President Bashar Assad to step down.

RELATED:
Assad forms committee to change Syria’s constitution

Arab foreign ministers held an urgent meeting on Sunday to discuss whether to suspend Syria from their regional organization over Assad’s military crackdown on protests against his rule.

According to Israel Radio, Syria was the only country present not to send its foreign minister, but rather a lower-level official.

In the end, the regional body did not decide to suspend Syria. Instead, the Arab League made plans to bring together Syria’s government and opposition groups to seek ways to end the violence in the country, Qatar’s Prime Minister Hamad bin Jassim al-Thani said following the meeting. According to the plan, a committee will be formed to forge a dialogue between the opposition and the government.

“We will call all of the parties of the opposition and government to hold a dialogue within 15 days,” the League’s Secretary General Nabil Elaraby said after an emergency meeting of Arab foreign ministers in Cairo.

Arab governments were silent for months while Assad’s troops tried to put down the uprising with tanks and machine guns. But the country is now in danger of descending into a civil war that could destabilize its neighbors.

According to the Dubai-based Al Arabiya, the resolution that would have suspended Syria from the Arab League revealed a split in the Arab League.

Chief among the opposing nations were Yemen, Algeria, and Lebanon, an Al Arabiya correspondent said. Yemen has been seeing a similar kind of anti-government protests as in Syria, with protesters there calling for Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh to step down.

Assad has intensified a military crackdown to crush protests demanding his resignation. The United Nations says the crackdown has killed 3,000 people.

Feinstein: U.S. and Iran on ‘collision course’ – POLITICO Live – POLITICO.com.

The chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee says the thwarted Iranian plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to the United States shows the “collision course” that awaits unless Iran changes directions.

“To cross to the other side of the world and try and attack in this country is an escalation,” Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) said on “Fox News Sunday.” “And that’s what concerns us.”

U.S. officials revealed last week that two men have been charged in New York federal court with conspiring to kill the Saudi diplomat, Adel Al-Jubeir. Sunni Saudi Arabia and Shiite are Islamic rivals in the Middle East.

Feinstein emphasized that the U.S. should be on alert for other attacks by Iran’s elite Quds Force, a special unit of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard with the mission of exporting its Islamic revolution to other nations.

“I don’t think this is just an isolated thing that suddenly came up,” she said. “They have done these kinds of things before” in Argentina and Iraq. “This is certainly a continuum, but an extension.”

Over more than 30 years, the U.S. government has issued 19 executive orders and  passed seven laws sanctioning Iran, but it has continued to pursue a nuclear program and sponsor terrorism in Lebanon and elsewhere, noted Fox host Chris Wallace.

Feinstein said the sanctions have not been as complete as they should be, saying that Iran’s central bank should also be sanctioned because it would effect oil and “make a big difference.”

“Iran is increasingly hostile,” she said. “My hope is that there can be some kind of discussion that can be convincing for the Iranians to change course. Absent that, at one time or another, if you project out a number of years, we’re on a collision course.”

Military Force an Option Against Iran, Rogers Says – Businessweek.

October 16, 2011, 1:56 PM EDT

By Alan Bjerga and Susan Decker

(Adds Feinstein beginning in sixth paragraph.)

Oct. 16 (Bloomberg) — Military force shouldn’t be ruled out as a response to an Iranian assassination plot on U.S. soil, the top House Republican on intelligence issues said.

“I don’t think you should take it off the table,” said Representative Mike Rogers, the chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, said on ABC’s “This Week.” Rogers said other options would include rallying the international community against Iran or taking action against Iranian operatives in Iraq.

U.S. officials are considering what action to take following the Justice Department’s Oct. 11 accusation that Iran sponsored a plot to assassinate Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to the U.S. The conspiracy involved a secret Iranian military unit and a citizen of the Islamic Republic with a U.S. passport.

President Barack Obama said this week that there were “direct links” to Iran’s government, which has rejected the allegation.

Two men were charged with conspiracy to use C-4 plastic explosives to murder Ambassador Adel Al-Jubeir and attack Saudi installations in the U.S. Targets included “foreign government facilities associated with Saudi Arabia and with another country,” the U.S. said in a complaint filed in federal court in Manhattan.

Increased Economic Sanctions

Senator Dianne Feinstein, the California Democrat who heads the Senate Intelligence Committee, said she supports increased economic sanctions, especially against Iran’s Central Bank, with black lists of any foreign country or company that does business with the Central Bank.

Without some discussions to force Iran to change its policies, “we are on a collision course,” Feinstein said on “Fox News Sunday” program. “If we want to avoid it, we have to take action to avoid it.”

She rejected a call from retired U.S. General Jack Keane, an architect of the troop surge in Iraq, for the U.S. to engage in covert operations to kill members of Iran’s Quds Force. Feinstein said that, while Quds leaders were aware of the plot, there’s no evidence that the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who is the highest ranking religious and political authority in the country, knew of it.

“It probably would escalate into a war, and the question is: Do we want to go to war with Iran at this time?” Feinstein said. “My judgment is no. We have our hands full with Iraq, with Afghanistan, with the deteriorating relationship with Pakistan.”

Ahmadinejad Rejection

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad rejected the U.S. allegations in a Tehran meeting today. “Each day they try to campaign against Iran,” Ahmadinejad said, according to the official Islamic Republic News Agency.

Khamenei warned the U.S. that any action taken will be met with a “resolute” response, according to the Associated Press.

“If U.S. officials have some delusions, (they must) know that any unsuitable act, whether political or security, will meet a resolute response from the Iranian nation,” the AP said, citing a report on Iran’s state television.

Iran has claimed that the Obama administration made up the allegations to divert attention from unemployment, the Occupy Wall Street movement and other economic problems in the U.S.

Feinstein said she had initial doubts before learning some of the details learned by investigators.

“There should be no doubt, and the evidence is very strong,” she said. “The FBI believes that the case is both strong and good and will result in a conviction.”

Rogue Nation

Senator John McCain, the Arizona Republican who lost the 2008 presidential election to Democrat Obama, criticized the administration’s handling of Iran, which McCain called “a rogue nation.”

The administration’s “engagement with Iran has clearly been a failure,” McCain said on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

McCain said Obama should have done more when students protested on the streets of Tehran in 2009. McCain called for “severe sanctions” and said the U.S. should engage in “covert activity” to undermine the current Iranian government.

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, a Republican presidential candidate, said Obama is “absolutely clueless” in his dealings with the Iranian government.

“Our goal should be the replacement of the Iranian dictatorship,” Gingrich, from Georgia, said on the CNN program. “We have done nothing of consequence to systematically undermine the regime.”

Troops to Africa

Gingrich also criticized the president’s plan to send 100 troops to central Africa to help fight against Uganda’s renegade Lord’s Resistance Army. The troops are to “provide assistance to regional forces” and are not to directly engage with the forces unless necessary for self-defense.

Gingrich called the strategy “nonsensical” and said the administration needs “a grand strategy and a set of priorities.”

“If you can’t control the American border, why do you disperse our troops?” Gingrich said.

The White House was responding to 2010 legislation pushed by a group of lawmakers and human rights organizations that supported a comprehensive U.S. effort short of active military involvement to mitigate or eliminate the Lord’s Resistance Army threat.

The Lord’s Resistance Army is “one of the most horrible groups to inhabit the earth,” McCain said. Still, he said, “we’ve got to be very careful in how we engage.”

He also said Obama should have done more to notify Congress of his intentions.

–With assistance from Phil Mattingly and Kate Anderson Brower in Washington and Ladane Nasseri in Dubai. Editors: Ann Hughey, Christian Thompson.

Take The Botched Iranian Assassination Attempt Seriously – Global – The Atlantic Wire.

Getty Images

Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein and Republican Rep. Mike Rogers, the chairs of their respective chambers’ intelligence committees, have clearly heard the snickers about the alleged Iranian plot to have a Mexican drug gang assassinate the Saudi Arabian ambassador to the United States in Washington. Feinstein and Rogers’ message to TV audiences on Sunday was clear: take it seriously.

“It’s very real,” Feinstein said of the plot, which Iran has vigorously denied since the Justice Department indicted two Iranian suspects last week. And while Feinstein was deliberate in saying that the U.S. should not default to military action in its response to Iran, journalists and other politicians clearly see the possibility of war on the table.

Rogers, for his part, explicitly refused to say that attacking Iran should not be a considered option.

The alleged plot would only be the latest gambit in what appears to be an existing “soft war,” The New York Times reports. Iran believes Israel responsible for the assassinations of scientists working on its nuclear program. (One of those assassinations came just before Iranian officials are accused of ordering the assassination plot against the Saudi ambassador in motion.) Observers now readily attribute the Stuxnet computer worm that damaged Iran’s nuclear centrifuge program to some combination of Israeli or American subterfuge.

Iranian media is slamming the indictment of Mansour Arbabsiar in the assassination plot as propaganda.

From the Tehran Times:

In reference to the allegation that Iran had hatched a plot to assassinate the Saudi Arabian ambassador to the United States, the Leader said, “They tried to find a pretext to mount a propaganda campaign to present the Islamic Republic of Iran as the supporter of terrorism through leveling a nonsensical and meaningless accusation against several Iranians.”

“But their plot fell flat and like their other actions will be futile and ineffective, and contrary to their expectations will lead to their further isolation,” the Leader of the Islamic Revolution stated.

So far, American officials have talked tough without making any direct military threats. But the pressure may soon build for a strike. “The government of America shouldn’t rush to conclusions. The environment is becoming very politicized, like the lead-up to the Iraq War, and there is a lot of pressure for a quick decision,” says Hossein Mousavian, a former lead Iranian nuclear negotiator. “But a military attack on Iran will drag the Middle East down in flames.” Perhaps that’s exactly what the plotters were hoping for.

US Military Drill in Israel and Saudi Arabia – Middle East – News – Israel National News.

(A “Navy fleet” to combat terrorism?  Right… – JW)

(A “navy fleet” to combat terrorism?  Right….)

C-5 transport plane

Israel news photo: Willard E. Grande II Wikimedia Commons

The United States is conducting a week-long large-scale aerial exercise in Israel and Saudi Arabia as a navy fleet sails to the Mediterranean in preparation for any surprise flare-ups in the Middle East as Israel and frees 1,027 terrorists and security prisoners in exchange for kidnapped soldier Gilad Shalit.

Intelligence officials have said that terrorist groups, particularly Hizbullah and those based in Gaza, will try to stage attacks on American and Israel targets in the Middle East while the exchange takes place.

“The U.S. Transportation Command and its Air Forces Transportation will be testing its ability to provide a rapid strategic airlift response to major crises and contingencies,” according to DebkaReport.

The American, Saudi and Israel armies are on high alert following last week’s American accusations that Iran plotted to assassinate the Saudi ambassador in Washington.

The United States also reportedly is sending the USS John C. Stennis aircraft carrier from the Persian Gulf to the Mediterranean. It provides combat support for ground troops and can plant mines on coasts of Middle East countries.

US paratroops stage massive jump | Associated Press.

173rd Airborne Brigade jump in training operation

Updated: Wednesday, 05 Oct 2011, 12:35 PM EDT
Published : Wednesday, 05 Oct 2011, 12:33 PM EDT

HOHENFELS, Germany (AP) – More than 1,000 U.S. paratroops have jumped out over the Hohenfels training area in Germany in a massive airborne training operation.

The exercise Wednesday pitted soldiers from the Vicenza, Italy-based 173rd Airborne Brigade in a mock-battle scenario with a battalion of Slovakian soldiers and other American troops.

The Army says not only are its soldiers now training with former Eastern bloc enemies now in NATO, but the operation also represents a change from exercises designed to prepare for operations in Afghanistan and Iraq.

As the operations in those countries draw down, the military says it’s starting again to focus some training on fighting conventional enemy forces instead of counterinsurgency operations.

It’s the 173rd’s first brigade-sized operation since they parachuted into Iraq in 2003.

Waters roil in Eastern Mediterranean – JPost – Middle East.

    Turkey has a corvette, frigate and helicopters escorting its exploration vessel, the Piri Reis, as it explores for gas and oil. The US has quietly dispatched an aircraft and Russian naval vessels have been seen patrolling. News reports say US reconnaissance planes have circled the vessel on at least two occasions and on another occasion low-flying Israeli warplanes and helicopters “harassed” a Turkish ship.

Once the preserve of fishing boats and yachts, in the space of just a few weeks the serene waters of the Eastern Mediterranean have become a field of contention. As Greek Cyprus begins exploiting its potentially vast gas and oil reserves, Turkey has asserted its growing role as a regional power, and a worried Israel is pushing back.

The actions have been matched by tough talk too. “Turkey persists in acting
illegally,” Cyprus government spokesman Stefanos Stefanou said. “The Greek Cypriot administration and Israel are engaging in oil exploration madness in the Mediterranean,” Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan declared. Asked if a military option is still on table, he replied, “Not at the moment.”

Analysts agreed that neither Turkey nor the other parties to the dispute want to see the saber-rattling turn into a real fight, but warned that with the waters around Cyprus increasingly crowded with warships and air-crafts, the risk it could happen is very real.

“I don’t think at this stage Turkey is looking for a problem,” James Ker-Lindsay, senior research fellow at the London School of Economics’ European Institute, told The Media Line. “The problem is when you have posturing and it’s being done with warships and fighter aircrafts there is always the risk it can spin out of control.”

The proximate cause of the tensions is the decision by the Republic of Cyprus to move ahead last month with exploration of its coastal waters for energy reserves. The Republic of Cyprus is the island’s official government but since Turkey ‘s invasion in 1974 it controls only two thirds of the island.

The US Geological Survey last year estimated a mean of 1.7 billion barrels of
recoverable oil and 122 trillion cubic feet of recoverable gas in the Levant Basin Province. Israel has already uncovered huge reserves in waters under its control and Credit Suisse says Cyprus would generate $5 billion in revenues from its reserves, equal to one-quarter its gross domestic product.

Tensions over Cypriot energy have been simmering for years as Greek Cyprus took another step in its energy-development plans and Turkey responded with warnings and the dispatching of a naval vessel or two. But for Ankara the Greek Cypriot government crossed a red line last month when it authorized the US firm Noble to begin exploratory drilling last month. Turkey responded by sending its own exploration ship, with naval escort, to Cypriot waters.

“Turkey is using a bit of sledgehammer to crack a nut on this one, but this is necessary follow on from previous years whenever this comes up,” David Lea, senior analyst Europe at Control Risks, a London-based risk consultancy, told The Media Line. “It’s saber-rattling. Turkey feels it has to display force.”

Ankara has no direct interest in or rights to Cypriot’s energy assets, but it has positioned itself as the defender of the breakaway republic of Turkish Northern Cyprus and as a guarantor of the once-unified island’s constitution. Ankara charges the Greek Cypriots of trying to keep the island’s hydrocarbon wealth for itself, even as on-and-off unity talks continue.

The energy potential is cause enough for conflict, but Cyprus’ decision to move ahead last month comes amid a confluence of political upheavals.

Erdogan has been seeking to leverage Turkey‘s booming economy and new self- confidence to position itself as a regional power, forming a network of trade and diplomatic ties with Middle East neighbors like Syria, Iraq and Egypt and winning favor in the street by verbally attacking Israel.

Those ambitions have become undone by the Arab Spring, which has ousted some of Erdogan’s friends and disrupted trade and investment. But analysts said it has also opened up new opportunities, such as improved ties with Egypt. Even though it has signaled its concerns with a small military presence in the area, the US is preoccupied with domestic issues and discouraged by a lengthy war in Afghanistan.

Analysts said that as a result, Washington has been less aggressive in asserting its own interests in the region, leaving a power vacuum even though it would very much like to see Turkey and Israel patch up their differences and for Turkey to more closely adhere to Western policies.

Ankara’s stepped-up presence in the Eastern Mediterranean is in line with its aspirations to regional power, but Robert O’Daly, senior analyst at the Economist Intelligence Unit in London, said that Erdogan may be overstretching Turkey’s abilities to manage the situation.

“This goes down extremely well with the voters in Turkey and it matches the aspirations for regional leadership,” O’Daly told The Media Line. “But some of the more aggressive moves by Erdogan may be overreaching themselves. There may be risks in taking a more aggressive stance. It could damage relations with the US and the EU.”

O’Daly said, however, Turkish foreign policy is ultimately ruled by practical concerns. “By moving more ships around the Mediterranean, they could spark of something unexpected, but I do think the Turkish government is very pragmatic,” he said.

Indeed some analysts contend that Turkey has sought to escalate the Cyprus dispute in a bid to gain the attention of the EU. Ankara’s bid for membership in the bloc is all but dead, but Erdogan’s government may be trying to raise the stakes in Cyprus to get Brussels’ attention to help shepherd a comprehensive solution to the Cyprus problem.

The broad outline of such a solution would entail an agreement on Cypriot unity, which has been a major stumbling block for Turkey on the way to EU accession and would solve the issue of divvying up its energy revenues. Unity would then pave the way for Turkey’s admission to the EU as well as foster construction of a pipeline through Turkey to deliver Cypriot gas to Europe.

But Lea of Control Risks said he doubts such a strategy would work. “I’m skeptical that the EU will let Turkey in under any circumstances at any point even though Europe needs the gas and Turkey would quite like the transit fees,” he said.

Meantime, Turkey’s hardball policy threatens to make things worse. Cyprus is slated to take the rotating EU presidency in the latter part of 2012. If that happens – and under EU rotating presidency, there is nothing to stop it – Turkey will freeze relations with the EU, Deputy Prime Minister Besir Atalay threatened last month.

  Download JPost’s iPhone application

Iran warns West of ‘strong confrontation’ to any ‘inappropriate measures’ – Haaretz Daily Newspaper | Israel News.

Iran responds to allegations of involvement in an alleged plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to Washington; Ahmadinejad: U.S., not Iran, are terrorists.

By Reuters

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei warned on Sunday that Tehran would respond robustly to any “inappropriate measure” by Western powers linked to an
alleged Iranian plot to kill the Saudi ambassador to Washington, state television reported.

“Any inappropriate measure against Iran, whether political or security-related, will be strongly confronted by the Iranian nation,” Khamenei said, in a clear reference to U.S. allegations that two men with links to Iran’s security forces had planned to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to the United States.

Iran says the allegation is without foundation and has been cynically engineered to further isolate Tehran — whose disputed nuclear programme has triggered several rounds of international sanctions against it.

In his first reaction to U.S. charges that Iran was involved in the assassination plot, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Sunday that not Iran but the United States were terrorists.

“The Iranian nation has civilization and culture and does not need to have recourse to terrorism,” Ahmadinejad said in a speech to students in Tehran.

“The culture of terrorism belongs to you,” the president said in remarks directed at Washington, the official IRNA news agency reported.

Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia has taken a first step to have Iran reported to the United Nations Security Council, a move that could lead to new sanctions, Saudi-owned newspapers reported on Sunday.

“Saudi Arabia’s permanent mission to the United Nations… formally requested the United Nations Secretary General notify the Security Council of the heinous conspiracy,” the Asharq al-Awsat newspaper reported, citing a statement from the kingdom’s UN mission.

Ahmadinejad said that all the US accusations against Iran were solely futile attempts to deprive Iran of progress and development.

Last week, The United States claimed Iranian agents planned to engage a Mexican drug cartel to assassinate the Saudi Arabian ambassador to the US, Adel A Al-Jubeir, possibly through a bombing at al-Jubeir’s favorite Washington restaurant.

U.S .President Barack Obama said there was “no dispute” that Iran was involved. “We would not be bringing forward a case unless we knew exactly how to support all the all facts contained in the indictment,” Obama said.

	Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, right, and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad sitting under a portrait of the late revolutionary founder Ayatollah Khomeini, Iran, July 20, 2009.
	Photo by: AP

Iran took chance in changing tide | The Australian.

WHEN US Attorney-General Eric Holder announced during a press conference last week that the FBI and Drug Enforcement Agency had thwarted a plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to the US (via a bomb in a Washington DC restaurant), he blamed “factions in the Iran government” for authorising the attacks.

Since then, a strange but entirely predictable ballet has begun among pundits. Nobody is willing to point the finger of blame at Iran’s top dog, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.

A Newsday editorial on Thursday, for example, noted that: “President Barack Obama must determine whether the conspiracy’s leaders are top Iranian officials, religious leaders or a rogue faction within the Qods Force, a shadowy arm of the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard.”

This is not a lonely view. Julian Borger, a seasoned observer of Iran affairs writing with The Guardian, opined that: “It appears very unlikely that Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, would approve such a brazen plot with such unpredictable consequences, in effect going to war with Iran’s three greatest enemies – Saudi Arabia, the US and Israel at the same time.”

One explanation, for Borger, is that “this is a rogue operation, perhaps organised by a faction inside the QF, without the Supreme Leader’s blessing. There is an argument it suited the purposes of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who recently lost a bloodless power struggle with Khamenei.”

But Tabassum Zakaria and Mark Hosenball at Reuters quoted government sources, indicating it was not clear how high it went, and suggesting Ahmadinejad was the one left in the dark.

All this misses the point. Iran is not Afghanistan before 2001, with warlords and anarchy reigning over its territory. And it is not a country where secret services can launch an operation of such magnitude and potential fallout without approval from above.

The Qods Forces are a branch of the Islamic Revolution’s Praetorian Guard and are bound to the Supreme Leader by an oath of loyalty. They respond to the leader’s orders, and do not take such daring initiatives to undermine him.

So why did Iran choose to escalate its decades-long confrontation with the US in such a way? And why, as Borger says, should Iran risk starting a war against Israel and Saudi Arabia too?

There are good reasons why decision-makers in Tehran may have chosen to take such a risk. In their view – one also voiced by Iranian politicians, clerics and military commanders – US influence in the region is waning.

Iran has weathered the domestic storm of the Green Movement – and the US failed to come to the rescue of the beleaguered opposition. As the Arab Spring swept away Egypt’s and Tunisia’s rulers, the US unceremoniously threw its decades-old allies under the bus.

Then, when popular revolt challenged Damascus – a proxy of Iran – it became clear to Iran’s leaders that the US had only the strength to offer rhetorical succour to Syria’s rebels.

In Libya, the US put steel and treasure to topple a tyrant who may now be supplanted by Islamic forces. The tides are changing in the Middle East, and Iran sees change as playing in its favour.

From Tehran, the US looks weak, its influence declining and its resolve lacking to put up a fight.

What of Israel and Saudi Arabia? Israel is a country the ayatollahs both fear and loathe. They loathe it for religious and ideological reasons; and they fear it because they know that Israel, unlike the US under the present circumstances, would use force to defend its own vital interests.

But they have reasons to believe that Israel has been straightjacketed by the Arab Spring – Israel’s deterrence was weakened and the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt may herald a new era, where Israel is no longer safe on any of its borders.

Iran may be wrong, but it looks to the Levant and sees the rope tightening against Israel’s neck. Besides, it owes Israel a revenge for the assassination of one of its favoured sons – Hezbollah’s terrorist mastermind Imad Moughniye. Blowing up an Israeli embassy is one way of doing it.

With the Saudis, there is a long story of animosity, exacerbated by recent Saudi intervention in Bahrain. To kill a prominent Saudi in the heart of Washington serves two purposes – to harm Saudi Arabia and test the US commitment to Saudi Arabia.

In short, this is a risky business, but a calculated one. The plot’s perpetrators may be rogue, but that is only because Iran is a rogue regime, not because this was an act of entrepreneurship by a loose cannonball inside the system.

And the fact that right now in Washington, both pundits and government officials seem bent on finding ways to exculpate Iran’s top leadership by suggesting the rogue theory of responsibility, indicates Iran’s reading of America’s weakness may be spot on.

Emanuele Ottolenghi is a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defence of Democracies and the author of The Pasdaran: Inside Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps