WarSclerotic

Meeting the Iranian Threat.

As the United States withdraws its combat forces from Iraq and begins a similar drawdown in Afghanistan, Iran is rapidly broadening its reach and presence in and beyond the region — and its technological prowess in weaponry — to undergird a strategy of global proportions, to threaten Americans at home and abroad as well as our overseas friends and allies. As the United States draws down its presence in the region, Iran is moving to fill the resulting power vacuum. U.S. missile-defense plans and programs need to adapt to the likely consequences, including an increasing threat to the U.S. homeland and broadening Iranian influence in the Middle East.

In his July 2011 quarterly report to Congress, Stuart W. Bowen Jr., U.S. special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction, concluded that “Iraq remains an extraordinarily dangerous place to work. . . . It is less safe, in my judgment, than 12 months ago.” This is in no small part due to Iran’s growing involvement in the Iraqi conflict — which is likely to grow further as U.S. troops are withdrawn.

Last summer, Adm. Mike Mullen, then chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, observed that “Iran is very directly supporting extremist Shiite groups which are killing our troops” in Iraq. (The Taliban, meanwhile, has used rockets obtained from Iran to target NATO and U.S. forces in Afghanistan.) And in his final statements as secretary of defense, Robert Gates noted that about 40 percent of American servicemen killed since the end of U.S. combat operations last fall were killed in attacks by Shi’ite militias armed, trained, and funded by Iran.

In his confirmation hearing, Gen. Martin Dempsey, the current chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, noted that recent activities “are intended to produce some kind of Beirut-like moment . . . and then in so doing to send a message that they have expelled us from Iraq.” Thus is the stage being set for Iran to dominate the future development of Iraq.

Iran has also supported uprisings where they weaken U.S. influence and opposed them where, as in Syria, they diminish Iran’s own position. But if uprisings of the latter sort gain the upper hand, Iran is quick to moderate its opposition and seek accommodation. While troublesome, these tactical moves are just part of a larger and more threatening Iranian strategy that is rapidly becoming clearer — one that includes a central role for nuclear weapons.

The head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization, Fereidoon Abbasi, has reported that by the end of this year, Iran will triple the amount of uranium it has enriched to a level of 20 percent. Although uranium enriched to this level may fuel Tehran’s small nuclear-research reactor, which produces medical isotopes, it also bolsters the knowledge of Iranian nuclear experts and their ability to master all stages of enrichment, including to the higher levels needed to produce a nuclear weapon. Thus, as an International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) report issued in June indicates, Iran is accelerating the pace of its nuclear-weapons program.

This has implications for Iran’s geostrategic aspirations in the Middle East and far beyond. For example, recent Turkish hostility to Israel is, in the opinion of many, all about Turkey’s relationship with Iran. Turkey is now developing and exploiting its Iranian connections while seeking to balance these with the interests of its NATO partners — e.g., Ankara has agreed to base a radar in Turkey, to help defend NATO territory against Iranian ballistic missiles, while sometimes opposing the tracking of missiles from Iran.

The July 29 mass resignation of high-ranking Turkish military officers (including the four most senior ones) signaled a significant shift from Turkey’s secular government toward one likely to be less friendly to Western democracies and more friendly to Islamist states such as Iran. This trend bodes ill for Turkey’s willingness to defend NATO territory from Iranian missiles.

This trend dovetails with Turkish prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s May 2010 agreement to a swap with Iran of low- for high-enriched uranium in order to avoid further sanctions on Iran. Notably, Erdogan has posed an ominous question for the international community: “In fact, there is no nuclear weapon in Iran now, but Israel, which is also located in our region, possesses nuclear arms. Turkey is the same distance from both of them. What has the international community said against Israel so far? Is this the superiority of law or the law of superiors?”

So it is appropriate to ask: Whither goeth our erstwhile missile-defense partner in defending NATO territory, including the United States?

Meanwhile, Iran has been collaborating with North Korea on nuclear weapons and ballistic-missile technology and is sharing ballistic-missile technology with Venezuela. If these missiles are armed with nuclear warheads, Venezuela may threaten the United States in a 21st-century version of the 1962 Cuban missile crisis.

Indeed, nuclear-armed ballistic missiles apparently play a key role in Iran’s emerging strategy. On June 29, British foreign secretary William Hague stated that Iran had “been carrying out covert ballistic missile tests and rocket launches, including testing missiles capable of delivering a nuclear payload.” This statement complemented an IAEA report issued in June that said Iran was close to producing a nuclear warhead that could be carried by its intermediate-range ballistic weapons, and that the Shehab-3 nose cone has been redesigned to carry a nuclear warhead.

Iranian leaders have openly bragged about their progress, which they claim is independent of external help. Their claims, punctuated by a variety of recent events, indicate an aggressive, unmistakably deliberate Iranian strategy of threatening the United States and our overseas troops, friends, and allies. These events include the launching of Iranian-built submarines, tests of domestically built air-defense missiles and radar-evading missiles to threaten naval targets in international waters, and, most notably, a ten-day maneuver exercise last summer that involved the launching of some 14 ballistic missiles of various ranges, after which Iran’s defense minister, Gen. Ahmad Vahidi, boasted: “The war games . . . show Iran’s great capability in designing, producing and using various kinds of missiles based on domestic knowledge. This showed that the sanctions imposed had no effect on Iran’s missile program.”

These developments significantly escalate the threat to Israel — often called the “Little Satan” by Iranian authorities — and to our European allies. And Iran’s successful launch in June of a satellite, Rasad — which means “observation” in Farsi — illustrates its progress toward the multi-stage long-range-missile capability needed to threaten directly the United States, or, as they call us, the “Great Satan.”

Relying on U.N. sanctions to deal with this escalating threat would be a triumph of hope over experience. As General Vahidi boasted, sanctions have been ineffective. In any case, hope is not a strategy; effective defensive capabilities are needed to counter Tehran’s aggressive programs, including nuclear-armed-missile threats to Israel and our other allies in the Middle East and Europe and a nuclear-armed-ICBM threat to the United States by as early as 2015, according to official U.S. estimates.

But shorter-range nuclear-armed ballistic missiles could pose a threat to the United States even sooner — and recent declarations by Iranian officials make clear they are at least aware of this possibility. For example, the head of Iran’s navy, Rear Adm. Habibollah Sayyari, made the startling assertion in September that the Iranian navy could operate near U.S. “maritime borders.” According to the Iranian press, “top Iranian officials” later clarified this claim to include specifically ships that may go as far as the Gulf of Mexico.

White House and Pentagon spokesmen have been skeptical of these Iranian claims, but they should not be summarily dismissed. After all, the 1998 Rumsfeld Commission Report on the ballistic-missile threat to the United States pointed out that ships off our coasts could launch ballistic missiles toward our coastal cities. More ominously, the authors of the 2004 Commission on the Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) report to Congress testified that Iran had launched a ballistic missile from a vessel in the Caspian Sea to high altitude, and that other tests implied an interest in “triggering” warheads at an altitude that could create an EMP. That could have devastating, long-lasting effects over a very large part of the United States, if not the entire country, depending on the size and point of detonation of an EMP device.

Indeed, Dr. William R. Graham, a science adviser to President Reagan and chairman of the congressionally mandated EMP Commission, has stated that an EMP attack could disable telecommunications and transportation systems, the electric-power grid, and other critical infrastructure. With an indefinite severing of current “just-in-time” supply chains of food, drugs, and other critical items, two-thirds of the U.S. population might not survive. Such an attack might be mounted with a single nuclear warhead launched by terrorists (whether agents of al-Qaeda or Iran) on a SCUD-type short-range missile from a vessel off the U.S. coast.

What is most notable about the recent Iranian statements about deploying their ships to the U.S. coasts is the focus on the Gulf of Mexico. The U.S. Navy’s ballistic-missile-defense Aegis ships can shoot down such missiles if they are cruising near the launching ship. Today we have Aegis ships operating off our west and east coasts. However, they do not normally operate in the Gulf of Mexico. Thus, this area is vulnerable to the threat of missile attack.

Happily, there is an affordable near-term response to this EMP threat from the south. We can cure our current vulnerability by deploying the Navy’s Standard Missile 3 (SM-3) interceptor and an associated radar and command-and-control system at several military bases around the Gulf of Mexico. This would in fact be a homeland-defense version of the Aegis Ashore component of the U.S. program for building comparable capabilities in Central Europe. (Aegis Ashore is essentially a land-based version of the ballistic-missile-defense system currently based on Aegis ships.)

As part of its funded program, the Pentagon’s Missile Defense Agency is developing a prototype of the needed Aegis Ashore infrastructure — and, once developed, the capability probably can be deployed more quickly at Gulf of Mexico coastal sites than it can in Central Europe. The anticipated cost of each of the sites is about $350 million — and given the defense footprint of the current SM-3 interceptor, only three or four sites would be needed. A planned and funded improvement of the SM-3 will double the defensive footprint, so that as few as two sites may be sufficient to provide the same defensive coverage.

While planning for the deployment of several Aegis Ashore sites, Congress should make sure right now that enough SM-3 interceptors will be produced to be ready for deployment as soon as the first of these sites can become operational. Congress should keep production lines for the currently deployed interceptors open and running, while developing follow-on interceptors. This is a small price to pay for the increased level of security that would result.

A quick fix to our current vulnerability to a near-term threat is necessary but not sufficient. Also needed is a comprehensive, increasingly robust missile-defense system to defend all Americans and our overseas troops, friends, and allies from likely greater numbers of more capable future ballistic missiles.

By Henry F. Cooper and Robert L. Pfaltzgraff
National Review Online

Henry F. Cooper was chief U.S. negotiator at the Geneva Defense and Space Talks with the Soviet Union (1985–89) and director of the Stra­tegic Defense Initiative (1990–93). Robert L. Pfaltzgraff, Jr. is president of the Institute for Foreign Policy Analysis, Shelby Cullom Davis Professor of International Security Studies at the Fletcher School, Tufts University, and co-chairman of the Independent Working Group

Iranian politician says his country can ‘easily occupy’ Saudi Arabia.

Al Arabiya

Monday, 17 October 2011

Mohammad Karim Abedi, member of the Iranian parliament, says that his country could occupy Saudi Arabia if it wanted to. (File photo)

inShare3

In the first threat of its kind, a member of the National Security and Foreign Policy Committee in the Iranian parliament, Mohammad Karim Abedi, stated that Iran was capable of occupying Saudi Arabia if it chooses to do so.

“Iran’s military forces have the ability to strip Saudi Arabia of its security whenever it wants and Saudi Arabia will not be capable of responding,” he said.

Abedi’s statements were in response to Saudi Arabia’s accusation that Iran was behind the plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to the U.S., Adel al-Jubeir.

“Saudi has to face the consequences of the accusations it leveled against Iran,” Abedi said.

Abedi also said that Iranian intelligence agencies were able to infiltrate Israel through spies it recruited there and from whom it obtained critical information that can be used in case the two countries engage in military conflict.

This statement came in response to reports that Israel has plans to launch satellites to spy on Iran.

Abedi stressed that his country is capable of destroying those satellites or obstructing their transmission, and added that the Iranian navy has managed to send an unmanned aircraft to an American target in the Arabian Gulf and through it managed to obtain military information.

Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, warned the United States of taking any political or security measures against Iran.

“American officials need to know that Iran is powerful and unified and that it will face any conspiracy and will never be blackmailed,” he said, addressing a crowd of university students in the western province of Kermanshah.

“Throughout its 32 years, the Islamic republic has never given in to pressure and threats.”

Khamenei added that the world is going through an “awakening” as people demonstrate against capitalism.

“Almost 80 countries across the world support the ‘Occupy Wall Street’ movement and if more countries realize that Zionism is the cause of their plight, those movements are bound to multiply.”

Iran’s president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, said that the assassination charges directed against his country by the United States and Saudi Arabia – which he stressed were groundless – are another example of the American conspiracy against Iran.

“Iran, with its ancient culture, is not in need of assassinations. Assassinations are the specialty of those who have no culture,” he said in a speech at the inauguration of the fifth session of the Students’ Council in Tehran.

Another unprecedented threat came from Ayatollah Abbas al-Kaabi, a member of the Council of Leadership Experts, who vowed that the pilgrimage season this year will witness massive demonstrations against the “enemies of God,” which usually refers to the U.S. and Israel, and in support of the recent revolutions in the Arab world, according to a report by Fars News Agency.

Kaabi’s threat were in response to statements made by Prince Turki al-Faisal in which he vowed that Saudi Arabiawill take firm measures in order to prevent any riots by pilgrims, in a clear reference to Iranians.

He reiterated earlier statements by Second Deputy Prime Minister and Interior Minister Prince Nayef bin Abdul Aziz to the effect that Saudi’s top priority is the safety and comfort of pilgrims and that it would never allow any subversive actions that might disrupt that.

DEBKAfile, Political Analysis, Espionage, Terrorism, Security.

DEBKAfile Exclusive Report October 17, 2011, 5:42 PM (GMT+02:00)

Three currencies used by Lebanese arms smuggler at Syrian border

Three generals, members of the Syrian General Command, disappeared in Damascus this week, one a senior intelligence officer, debkafile‘s military and intelligence sources report. The Assad regime has drawn a heavy curtain of secrecy over the affair. However, our sources learn that the body of one of the generals turned up riddled with bullets at the military hospital in Damascus.
Our sources explain the disappearances either by the high officers’ defection in disgust at President Bashar Assad’s savage methods for crushing revolt. This would signal the break-up of the high army command; or a purge of his high command by Assad who, certain of victory, is getting rid of generals of doubtful loyalty; or thirdly, one of them at least was killed by rebels. Since early September, the opposition has re-focused their campaign of liquidations against top regime figures from the northern Homs area to the capital.

The Syrian conflict is now dominated by four features:

1.  The dwindling of the mass demonstrations plaguing the Assad regime for seven months since March 15 in the face of the army’s ruthless onslaught by tanks and guns. This does not mean that the contest is over or that the Syrian ruler has come out of it with the upper hand.

2. Anti-Assad forces are instead marshalling in the northwestern triangle between Hama, Homs and Idlib in bands of well-armed guerilla fighters, often led by defecting soldiers or officers, for attacking individual army officers and small units.
3.  Two of Syria’s most important minorities, the Alawites and the Druzes, fear that this form of warfare will lead inexorably to widespread civil war. They are preparing themselves for the worst by barricading their villages and towns against interlopers and organizing armed militias to keep them out.
debkafile‘s intelligence sources report that although the ruling Assad political and military elite are drawn from the Alawite sect, its 3. 5 million members are ready for trouble and guarding their Al-Alawiyeen Mountains domain which runs 32 kilometers down the northwestern shore up to and including the port town of Latakia.
The Alawites are not getting their arms from their coreligionists in government. Each individual chooses and pays for weapons from the contraband smuggled into Syria from Lebanon and Jordan. They are rigorously keeping trespassers out of their mountain region and Latakia, which they consider their capital. In this town of 850,000 dwellers, the Sunni districts are separated by roadblocks, barricades and gun emplacements.

The 2.1 million Druzes have divided Djebel Druze in southern Syria into sectors. Militiamen stands guard at their barricaded entry-points to keep strangers out.
4.  The Assad regime is going broke, ruined by the seven-month uprising. It can barely find the money to buy food and other essential commodities for keeping the economy and the military going or even pay salaries to government personnel.

According to a recent report, the economic damage suffered by six “Arab spring” nations totals $56 billion. Syria is described as incurring the worst losses of them all to its GDP and public finances, totaling $27.3 billion.

Our Iranian sources disclose that since Syrian banks were frozen out of European banks by European Union sanctions, the Assad regime has been forced to start borrowing from Iranian banks. But it is hard to tell for how long the banks in Tehran will be willing to risk extending credit to bail out Bashar Assad.

Senior Likud MK: Key Government Goal, Elimination Of Iranian Nuclear Threat – OpEd.

Written by: Richard Silverstein

October 16, 2011

Thanks to an Israeli source pointing me to this provocative Facebook posting by senior Likud MK Carmel Shama HaCohen:

At the beginning of the current government’s term three chief objectives were set: ending the economic crisis, returning Gilad Shalit, and eliminating the Iranian nuclear [program].  We’ve exited the economic crisis for some time, Shalit comes home Tuesday alive and well…

Two outa three ain’t bad.  But this MK is telling his Facebook audience that Bibi’s goin’ for the Trifecta.  The ellipsis after the word “well” says it all.  And in case you have any doubt about the meaning of the word used in Hebrew (chisul) which I’ve translated as “eliminate,” it can also mean “liquidate” or “assassinate.”  You get the idea.

A legitimate question to ask is whether in an Israeli context MK Shama-HaCohen is Michele Bachmann or Chuck Schumer. A trusted Israeli source tells me he’s the real deal who knows whereof he speaks.  He comes out of a high-level intelligence background and chairs the Knesset’s economy committee .  So imagine Chuck Schumer tells you, after Tom Friedman and Chris Mathhews have weighed in in the affirmative, that we’re about to attack Iran. Do you believe him?

Prof. Muhammad Sahimi, an Iranian-American expert on Iran’s nuclear program, has published a telling comment here about the prospect for war. I’ve known him and worked closely with him for two years and never known for him to call himself an “Iranian nationalist.” What is important about this is that a man of peace and science is telling you that when his country is threatened, no matter how much he hates the current ruling clique, he will rally round. In precisely the same way that almost any Jew, even those harshly critical of the Israeli government, would likely rally round if it faced an existential threat (a real one as opposed to Bibi’s imagined ones).

Prof. Sahimi predicts a protracted ten-year war in the event of an Israeli attack with the likelihood of little or no quarter given or offered by either side. Sahimi also warns that such a war will freeze the reform movement and whatever gains it might have made, while it will unify every Iranian (except the MEK) around the hated mullah regime. I can’t think of a worse outcome.

Let’s not forget the impact on Israel. The nascent social justice movement–dead. The left, anti-war, and human rights community, as small as they are–in the deep freeze. The Likud and hard settler-led right–dominating Israeli politics for the next decade at least. Israel will become a nation on permanent war footing. This would be the destruction of my dream for a truly democratic Israel. That couldn’t happen for a generation, unless Israel were defeated and the international community intervened to restore equilibrium and imposed a truly democratic system, and comprehensive peace deal on Israel.

What about the impact on the U.S.? We would become, as the Nixon presidency did during the 1973 War, Israel’s military guarantor. We would be responsible for arming Israel when the tap ran dry. The cluster bombs, bunker busters, F-16s–all from our stockpile. All the bodies stacked up on massive symbolic funeral pyres, would become a reflection on us, on our nation. We would become the enabler of regional war.  Obama magnificent Cairo speech and grand plans for Middle East peace?  Dead as a doornail.  His entire presidency?  Not much more sentient.  Not an enviable position.

The only thing that is eating at me a bit is the question: if you were Bibi or Barak would you telegraph your intentions as they seem to have done? Past Israeli leaders surely wouldn’t have done so. Two answers: either it’s a grudge match and the hatred is so deep that Bibi can’t help gabbing about it to Israeli journos; or the current government with its unwieldy eight member senior ministerial decision-making body, is destined to leak like a sieve.

At any rate, I now believe that war is more likely than not. And the anti-war left must prepare as if war is coming. We should anticipate and begin our organizing for it now.  If/when it comes, we’ll be ready or more ready than were we to be taken by surprise.

http://www.militaryaerospace.com/index/display/avi-wire-news-display/1520998163.html

October 14, 2011

Robins Air Force Base issued the following news release:

An historic “surge” of the nation’s largest military airlifters will more than double their normal day-to-day workload, exercising the ability of United States Transportation Command and its air component, Air Forces Transportation, to rapidly provide strategic airlift in response to large-scale crises and contingencies, according to officials here.

The surge, slated to take place between Oct. 17 and 21, will bring together 18 active duty and 23 Air National Guard and Air Force Reserve Command crews and 41 total force C-5 Galaxy aircraft to fly cargo in support of combatant commanders across the globe, according to Maj. Sandy Thompson, AFTRANS’ lead planner. The missions will be in accordance with priorities set by the Joint Chiefs of Staff and are expected to have no impact on the operations of civilian contract carriers.

“The 41 daily missions will more than double the 18 we normally execute on a typical day,” Thompson said. “To put in a historical context, the best C-5 daily achievement since 2007 was 33 C-5s flown.”

The Warner Robins Air Logistics Center’s C-5 program office is the Air Force focal point for managing and sustaining the Air Force C-5 fleet. It is undetermined how the surge might impact Robins Air Force Base and the Center.

With its ability to carry more than any other U.S. military aircraft and to fly 6,000 miles without refueling, the C-5 has been a “workhorse” for the Air Force since the 1970s, according to the Air Force fact sheet. In addition, the C-5 can transport fully equipped combat units rapidly anywhere in the world and then provide the support needed to sustain them. While all four models of the C-5 fleet will be involved in the surge, the newest model, the C-5M Super Galaxy, will play a particularly important role.

First flown in late 2002, the Super Galaxy is a product of both an Avionics Modernization Program, or AMP, and a Reliability Enhancement and Re-engining program, or RERP.

The AMP and RERP upgrades, which AMC officials plan to extend to more than 50 aircraft by the end of 2016, provide upgraded avionics, communications and navigation equipment as well as new engines, pylons, auxiliary power units and upgrades to the aircraft skin, frame, landing gear, cockpit, and pressurization system.

In total, six total force units will provide aircraft and crews for the surge, illustrating what officials here describe as a “seamless integration of active duty and reserve component forces”.

“This surge is possible because we have a joint forces team that works every day to ensure rapid global mobility for America,” said TRANSCOM’s Marine Corps Maj. Sidney Welch, leader of the joint planning team for the surge. “We have total force crews, planners of all services at TRANSCOM and AFTRANS, and experts providing command and control through the 618th Air Operations Center (Tanker Airlift Control Center) here. Their collective efforts help us identify the requirements for surging our air mobility forces to support the strategic maneuver capability our nation needs.”

According to planners, an operational assessment team will evaluate the results of the surge and develop a set of “lessons learned” to help determine ways to more effectively and efficiently support rapid global mobility in response to crisis and contingency situations. They add that regardless of the results, the surge will provide a valuable opportunity to exercise and evaluate the global mobility enterprise.

“We have a responsibility to ensure the readiness of our mobility forces are able to respond rapidly across the world,” said Lt. Gen. Mark Ramsay, commander of the 18th Air Force, responsible for directing AFTRANS’ day-to-day operations. “This surge not only exercises that responsibility, but demonstrates our readiness even in times of intense demand on our capacity.”

Gen. Ray Johns, commander of Air Mobility Command and AFTRANS, echoed those sentiments, adding, “Whether supporting contingency or humanitarian missions, mobility forces stand ready to answer the call. This surge is about continuing to enhance our readiness and strategic agility to better support our national policy.”

by Maj. Michael Meridith

18th Air Force Public Affairs

‘All options open on Iranian plot’ – Arab News.

Why don’t they believe the assassination story?.

Al Arabiya

By Abdul Rahman al-Rashed

Monday, 17 October 2011

It is hard to convince some people with events that never occurred, as to say for example that Iran planned to kill the Saudi ambassador in Washington. The ambassador was never attacked and hasn’t been killed yet. The accusation requires complete trust in the U.S. political and security accounts, and this is difficult to obtain.

If late Rafiq al-Hariri was not killed in the explosion in Beirut that day in 2005, many people wouldn’t have believed there was a plot to assassinate him. Even if perpetrators had confessed, some people would’ve said the confessions were part of a ploy to jolt Hariri and isolate Iran and Lebanon.

Such skeptical people need to see blood in order to believe it. They need to see the Saudi ambassador getting killed and the assassination recorded by a mobile phone. Even in this case, some might still have doubts unless Iran claims responsibility. And I am not sure even confession is good enough. In Pakistan, some people still don’t believe that Osama bin Laden has actually been killed, although the Americans have claimed responsibility and the Pakistanis have confirmed the news in addition to al-Qaeda that mourned him.

The Sept. 11 attacks were among the most doubted events worldwide, although the whole world watched the collapse of the two World Trade towers live on TV. Investigators at the time provided huge amounts of information and photos of the planes and the hijackers, however, doubtful people insisted that it was a fabricated story. Although al-Qaeda has proudly claimed responsibility for the attacks and released a long video of admission by attackers; some people still have doubts.

The battle of public opinion is very important to fight radicalism. The issue is so simple, since it’s 1979 Revolution, Iran has been following an aggressive policy against its enemies. Iran places Saudi Arabia and the United States on top of the list of its enemies. If we are convinced with these two facts; namely Iran’s violence and its animosity to Saudi Arabia and the United States, then the rest will just be mere details; in other words, targeting a president or an ambassador, a building or a plane, is not the issue.

Revolutionary Iran had only one moderate leader; namely that of Mohammed Khatami, who adopted a moderate policy based on openness to the world. He was welcomed everywhere but his country. Khatami himself was criticized, along with his political party, and was chased by the regime radicals. His newspapers were confiscated and he was insulted by the state’s mass media.

Accordingly, this is the reality of the Iranian regime, whether the regime tried to assassinate the Saudi ambassador, conspired to murder Hariri, funded military operations for the Huthis south of Saudi Arabia, or hosted Seif al-Adl and his partners who join hands in carrying out terrorist operations in Riyadh in the past; those were just activities that only reflected the continuing animosity.

No one here in the Gulf wants a battle with Iran. I believe that today most of the Iranians do not want to get involved in any military adventures with any Arab or foreign country. People are tired of 30 years of cold and hot wars with Iran and others. People’s minds that are fed up of disputes have nothing to do with what is going on in the mind of the Iranian regime, which is dominated by exporting the revolution. The Iranian regime wants to change the world surrounding it: it wants to liberate Bahrain, to burn Israel, to topple the Saudi regime, to help Hezbollah to rule Lebanon, to keep Assad’s regime, to challenge the west and develop its nuclear weapon.

Through such aggressive concept, there will be neither peace nor stability. It is not strange that Iran decides to assassinate the ambassador of its rivals, the Saudis, in Washington, especially that it has recently declared its intention to send its warships very far to the Gulf of Mexico.

(The writer is the General Manager of Al Arabiya. This article was first published in the London-based Asharq al-Awsat on oct.16, 2011 and translated from Arabic by Abeer Tayel.)

As U.S. Troops Prepare to Exit Iraq, Fears of Proxy War Grow – WSJ.com.

By MARGARET COKER And FARNAZ FASSIHI

Rising tensions between Saudi Arabia and Iran are raising concerns that a renewed proxy war between the two powers could break out in Iraq, where the expected withdrawal of at least some U.S. military troops at the end of the year is expected to leave a new vacuum of power.

One of the side effects of the Arab Spring uprisings has been an upending of the regional equilibrium between Saudi-backed and Iranian-backed governments and political actors. Riyadh blames Tehran for much of the political instability on its borders in Bahrain and Yemen, while Iranian officials have watched its popular support in the region falter amid support for Syria’s crackdown on anti-regime protesters there.

Iraq, a border state for both Saudi Arabia and Iran, is a likely new location for such a confrontation given the two powers’ recent history in supporting sectarian warfare in that country and their current drive to shore up their political and military might at a time when each feel vulnerable, say Iranian and Arab analysts.

The Obama administration has expressed its concerns about Iran’s attempts in recent months to expand its influence in Iraq and the broader Middle East.

“Iran is looking for an opportunity to use the cards it has lined up in the region—the Revolutionary Guards refer to it as their ‘grand bargaining strategy,'” said Mohsen Sazegara, a founder of the Revolutionary Guards who is now a vocal opponent of Iran’s regime.

Last week’s announcement that Iranian figures were accused of hiring a Mexican hitman to kill the Saudi ambassador to Washington sent shock waves across the Arab world, where Sunni Arabs are already weary of Shiites Iran’s influence in places like Iraq, Lebanon and Syria.

In Washington on Sunday, Dianne Feinstein (D., Calif.), the Senate Intelligence Committee chairman, said the Obama administration should put sanctions on Iran’s central bank in response to the alleged plot.

Iran has denied the U.S.’s charges, saying they are aimed at creating tension between Iran and Saudi Arabia. But Saudi officials have used the accusation to bolster their contention that Iran has for years been trying to encircle the Sunni kingdom with unfriendly—and non-Sunni—governments.

In recent years, Saudi Arabia has tried—and failed—to stanch Iran’s influence in Syria and Lebanon. Still, Riyadh felt that the large U.S. military presence in Iraq was enough of a bulwark to contain Tehran there, amid the rise of a Shiite-dominated government in Baghdad.

The alleged terror plot comes at a bad time for Iran’s diplomacy. As it tries to improve relations with Arab countries, it has suffered a series of setbacks from the Middle East to Africa and now the West.

The ongoing uprising in Syria has presented a particularly tough challenge for Iran’s foreign policy because if Iran supports the Syrian opposition it risks losing a key ally in the Middle East but its support for President Bashar Assad is costing Iran public opinion on the Arab street.

Arab youth activists, the backbone of the pro-democracy uprisings, have accused the Quds Force—the most elite and secretive branch of the Revolutionary Guards—of aiding Mr. Assad in its crackdowns against dissent. They say the force has offered tactical training and internet monitoring capabilities to Syria.

Iran’s unpredictable diplomacy—from allegations of domestic terror plots to its meddling in Iraq—stems from its shadow system of governance, where the foreign ministry’s strategies can be undermined and overridden by the Quds Force and where diplomatic contacts are kept secret. This complicates negotiation attempts by the West and Arab world.

The Quds Force, for example, have complete control over Iran’s policy and operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to Iranian diplomats. “The footsteps of the Quds Forces can be traced any where in the world where Iran has a presence and this creates a real dichotomy in Iran’s foreign policy because often even the foreign minister is kept in the dark,” said Mohamad Reza Heydari, a defected Iranian diplomat in Norway

A report by the Associated Press on Saturday that the U.S. could drop its plan to keep thousands of troops in Iraq under a new security deal with the Iraqi government has raised fresh alarms in Saudi Arabia about Iraq become a pawn in Iran’s battle for influence in the region.

Iran “is a direct and imminent threat not only to the [Saudi] kingdom, but to Sunnis across the region,” said a Saudi official familiar with regional policy-making. “They have shown this time and time again, in Iraq, Syria, Bahrain and Yemen. If Washington can’t protect our interests in the region, we’ll have to do it ourselves.”

Washington has been trying for months to broker a new military arrangement in Iraq amid fears that Iran-backed militias in the country will fill the security vacuum and threaten the nation’s sizable Sunni and Kurdish minorities. Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, who governs over a coalition of Iranian-backed Shiite parties, apparently can’t convince hard-line Shiites to accept an extension of U.S. military presence.

At the height of Iraq’s sectarian civil war in 2006 and 2007, Saudi Arabia viewed the country as one of Iran’s most daring attempts to gain influence in what has historically been Saudi Arabia’s diplomatic backyard. To counter it, Riyadh was actively funding Sunni Iraqi fighters, while Saudi citizens traveled to Iraq in large numbers to fight against Iranian-backed Shiite militias.

Those clashes died down, amid the U.S. security surge and an agreement by the Shiite-led government in Baghdad to give Sunnis more spots in the new national security apparatus and political landscape.

Arab officials believe that the pipeline of funds and aid from Iran to Iraqi Shiites is even stronger than five years ago, and the network of support to Iraqi Sunnis from Saudi Arabia is easy to restore, especially if U.S. troop presence diminishes, as Riyadh has been wary of being blamed for supporting militants who cause American military casualties.

“Take [U.S. troops] out of the equation and you’re looking at a possible new field of play,” says one Arab diplomat.

—Corey Boles contributed to this article.

Iran’s gang couldn’t shoot straight – BostonHerald.com.

Arab League gives Syria 15-day ultimatum to enact cease-fire – Israel News, Ynetnews.

Gulf countries seeking to suspend Syria’s Arab League membership fail to gain enough support to push measure through, reflecting deep divisions among the body’s 22 nations

Associated Press

Gulf countries seeking to suspend Syria‘s membership to the Arab League over its bloody crackdown on protesters failed to gain enough support to push the measure through, reflecting deep divisions among the body’s 22 nations.

Arab foreign ministers met Sunday at the group’s Cairo headquarters behind closed doors for an initial 3-hour session without Syria’s representative, then took a break and reconvened for talks with Syrian diplomats that lasted late into the night.

Just after the meeting with Syrian diplomats, Qatar Foreign Minister Hamad bin Jassim made no mention of a possible suspension and instead gave Syria a 15-day deadline to enact a cease-fire.

The Arab League also agreed to create a committee led by Qatar to oversee the situation in Syria and said a national dialogue between Syrian officials and the opposition would take place at the League’s headquarters in Cairo.

Supportes of Bashar Assad at Damascus square on Friday (Photo: Reuters)

“A national dialogue in 15 days is one of the most important decisions of the day,” bin Jassim said.

The national dialogue is to include members of the opposition from outside Syria as well as inside. If the meeting and a cease-fire do not take place within the allotted time frame, the Arab League will meet again in an emergency session, participants said.

Syrian state TV reported that Damascus was not eager to hold the dialogue in Cairo, suggesting it should be held in Syria instead.

The newly formed Syrian National Council, a broad based opposition umbrella group, was also seen unlikely to accept the call for dialogue, though some factions within the fragmented opposition who might be willing to hold talks.

Some activists rejected the idea of talks with Bashar Assad‘s regime.

“We said it from the day the first martyr fell: No dialogue with the killers. The killers will be put on trial by the free Syrian people,” wrote prominent Syrian opposition figure Suhair Atassi on her Twitter feed. She is in hiding.

To suspend Syria’s membership, at least two-thirds of the members would have had to support the measure. A bloc of six Gulf nations, including Saudi Arabia, was leading the push for the measure along with recognition of the opposition leadership, the Syrian National Council, said an Arab diplomat who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to brief the media.

Many Gulf states, including Saudi Arabia, already have withdrawn their ambassadors from Syria to protest the regime’s bloody response to the protests.

However, the diplomat said a significant bloc of countries was opposed, including Sudan, Algeria, Lebanon and Yemen, whose leader is also facing a serious uprising. According to Arab League diplomats, Mideast heavyweight Egypt did not indicate yet which side it is on.

Suspension of an Arab League member is rare. Although the move would not likely have a direct, tangible impact on Syria, it would constitute a major blow to President Bashar Assad’s embattled regime by stripping Damascus of its Arab support and further deepening its isolation.

The group suspended Libya’s membership earlier this year after Moammar Gadhafi’s violent crackdown on protesters there, but has since reinstated Libya under the country’s new leadership.

Syria’s ambassador to the Arab League, Youssef Ahmad, held up a document he said was shared with the Arab foreign ministers. In it, he alleged, was proof that weapons from Israel had been found in Syria among the protesters.

“The Syrian opposition is also getting logistical support from Arab countries,” he said in his public remarks to the body. The Syrian regime frequently claims outside forces are fomenting the violence. The opposition denies that, opposing foreign intervention.

The UN says more than 3,000 people have been killed since the uprising began in mid-March.

“Unfortunately the situation remains dangerous,” Arab League Secretary-General Nabil Elaraby said.

During the meetings, about 2,000 anti-Assad protesters rallied outside the Arab League building on the edge of Cairo’s Tahrir Square, the center of Egypt’s uprising.

Despite the growing chorus for an end to the crisis, Assad has shown no sign of easing his campaign to crush the 7-month-old uprising. On Sunday, security forces opened fire on a funeral for a slain activist in the east.

Forces elsewhere arrested at least 44 people in the capital’s suburbs in house-to-house raids and activists said more than 900 people in the central city of Homs had been detained over the past week.