WarSclerotic

The Yeshiva World Op-Ed: Are You Prepared For War With Iran? They Won’t Be The Only Ones Surprised By An IAF Strike « » Frum Jewish News.

Whether you support a military strike on Iran or are against it, or you simply don’t care much about it, you better be prepared for it.

Over the past few weeks there has been much speculation and debate regarding Iran and it’s quest for a nuclear bomb. It originated in Israel with front page articles in the major newspapers and spread world wide when the IAEA, the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency,  released an intelligence report that Iran’s nuclear aspirations go far beyond civilian purposes.

If Israel does indeed attack Iran’s nuclear facilities, Iran and it’s proxies would be expected to retaliate. That means in a worst case scenario, Hamas in the south could launch hundreds of rockets and Hezbollah could terrorize the north with it’s deadly arsenal of missiles, and that’s before we even mention Iran!

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The Iranians have the means to make the scud missile attack by Iraq look like child’s play,  chas visholom. It has been reported, that Iran has a vast arsenal of weapons, including weapons of mass destruction, that are within striking distance to every city in Israel. That means that even if you live in Tel Aviv or Jerusalem, cities that have been relatively safe from the rocket attacks, you will now find yourself on the front lines of a dangerous war.

Now, if you were expecting one of the cars with speakers to roll down your block announcing the military strike will start at 9pm tonight, you’re in for a surprise. It’s not going to happen! You will be just as surprised as the Iranians will be.

And that means that the time to prepare for such an attack, is now. Does you’re family know where the closest bomb shelter is? Do you have an emergency supply of food and water saved up? Do you have a radio to stay updated and informed inside the bomb shelter?

Of course we all hope and daven that the above scenario won’t happen, but a little preparation now could have an enormous effect later if it does, so what’s the excuse not to be prepared?

Yechezkel Gordon lives in Jerusalem, Israel and is an independent political analyst and columnist. He can be contacted at yechezkelgordoncolumnist@yahoo.com

Sharper Talk, if Not Action, on Iran – NYTimes.com.

By JOHN VINOCUR

PARIS — If the Obama administration wants to lead from behind in imposing sanctions to halt Iran’s nuclear weapon drive, it shouldn’t look for France to play the convenient associate.

That’s not the way the French would describe their role in the world. Rather, the fact is that France, in many respects, led the United States into battle in Libya and provided much of the willpower leading to a victory over the Qaddafi regime that is shared by the Americans, British and others.

Now, the International Atomic Energy Agency has published a remarkable report detailing credible evidence of Iran’s attempt to a produce a nuclear warhead to be carried by a ballistic missile.

Coming after four sets of U.N. Security Council sanctions against the mullahs since 2006, the report suggests a lengthening sweep of fairly futile countermeasures — ones that have a kind of multilateral kinship with Europe’s inability to deal head-on with its potential financial implosion.

The New York Times, in a report from Washington last week, described the White House’s reaction to the implications of the report (the I.A.E.A. calculates the Iranians now have enough fuel on hand to produce four nuclear weapons) as “strikingly muted” — or what President Barack Obama’s critics might call leading from behind at its faintest.

By contrast, the French foreign minister, Alain Juppé, spoke in Paris of the necessity of responding with “sanctions on an unprecedented scale.” Their purpose, he said flatly, was “making Iran bend.”

Is that a very cautious division of labor among allies, although not a fully articulated one?

Most certainly, it is a reaffirmation of President Nicolas Sarkozy’s conviction that an Iranian nuclear capability or bomb is the single greatest threat to the world’s security.

This involves France’s consistent toughness on the issue. For example, it chided Mr. Obama’s “outstretched” hand to Iran as hopeless in view of what Mr. Sarkozy now calls its “obsessional desire” for nukes. And the French jog or goad the administration when its resolve to put an end to the mullahs’ atomic fixation seems to flag.

The jogging is not without nuance. For instance: While the U.S. secretary of defense, Leon Panetta, talked (very reasonably) last week about the dangerous ramifications of an attack on Iran’s nuclear installations, his French counterpart, Defense Minister Gérard Longuet, was placing emphasis on the “catastrophe” for humanity represented by Iran’s “continuing on the path” to a nuclear weapon. According to Mr. Longuet, Israel, in the context of a discussion of a preventive strike, was “within its role to pull an alarm signal.”

The Sarkozy government, in my read, obviously does not have the pretension to make U.S. policy or to somehow assume Western leadership on Iran. But neither does it have a domestic political imperative — French Socialists would find little yield in calling the president a wimp (or a war-monger) on Iran — in claiming the sanctions to date have been a marked success.

Mr. Obama, in his own defense, spoke over the weekend of “the enormous bite” of measures now targeting Tehran.

If that’s the case in relation to specific U.S. sanctions on foreign companies that sell refined fuel to Iran, then how puzzling that Iran’s gasoline imports, which provide about 40 percent of its automotive fuel, rose more than 21 percent in October, according to a Reuters report.

The French are particularly interesting at this juncture because there are people here focused on Iran who see an opportunity for putting conclusive brakes on its rush toward a bomb.

Jean-Jacques Guillet, a Gaullist and rapporteur for a newly published study on Iran by the French National Assembly, is one of them.

In a conversation, Mr. Guillet described the U.S. administration as very hesitant on new energy sanctions. He spoke instead of an Iranian “regime without a compass,” and what he called “a delicate situation” in the country.

“If we press the regime strongly,” he said, “there could be an implosion. The real objective these days should be the regime’s implosion, not more talk.”

Mr. Guillet pointed in this context to possible sanctions involving Eutelsat, a French-owned communications satellite used by Iran for its internal audio-visual networks. He said there were judicial means, involving human rights issues, for joint European action to close down Iran’s access to the satellite, blocking its internal transmissions.

Precedents for such a step exist in action taken regarding satellites used by Serbia during its conflict with NATO, and Hezbollah, which is categorized by the European Union as a terrorist organization.

“Can the United States and France function as ‘accomplices for good’ on Iran?” Mr. Guillet asked. His answer: “It would be a great advantage.”

He didn’t suggest it, but if the United States pressed the issue, Europe could substantially reduce Iran’s revenue from petroleum sales.

According to Mark Dubowitz, executive director of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies in Washington, which tracks sanctions against Iran, Europe accounts for 20 to 25 percent of Iran’s daily energy-export income. That share, he says, represents only five percent of Europe’s daily overall usage — an amount easy for the Europeans to replace, but not Iran.

Mr. Dubowitz complains that the “administration’s successes with sanctions come in slow motion. It’s in a sanctions sleepwalk, prioritizing process over short-term results. It’s as if it has gone into containment mode.”

With the I.A.E.A.’s report offering a new bulwark against Iran’s denial of its nuclear aims, France may see its role as an advocate of urgency.

It cannot credibly be the military actor of last resort that the United States would constitute. But the French can press the sanctions process outside the Security Council (China and Russia are unlikely to cooperate) in a way that serves as encouragement, if not cover, for Mr. Obama choosing much sharper persuasion.

That persuasion could bring to bear the extent of the United States’ strength, short of war, to make Iran bend, as Mr. Juppé puts it.

For the American president, these circumstances contain a choice: leading with more force, or rolling the dice on a 2012 election campaign against a rival insisting that the incumbent doesn’t have the will — or the world’s trust — to push the mullahs back from their “obsessional desire.”

Rory Fitzgerald: Euro Collapse Plus Iran Strike Equals Armageddon.

It’s starting to look like all those crazy 2012 prophecies might not be so wide of the mark after all. Even as the world is transfixed by the slow-motion implosion of the eurozone, reports are emerging that Israel might strike Iran’s nuclear facilities early in the New Year. The unpredictable interaction two such epochal events could cause a global catastrophe like something out of a bad science fiction novel.

Nowadays, it seems that almost every day the unthinkable not only becomes thinkable, but it actually happens. So it goes with the eurozone: The bloc seemed like a rock of stability until a couple of years ago, now it seems to have entered an irreversible tailspin. Economist Nouriel Roubini has recently joined many others in warning that “Italy may, like other periphery countries, need to exit the euro and go back to a national currency, thus triggering an effective break-up of the eurozone.” Such an event could cause unprecedented economic devastation in Europe and around the world.

The only long-term solution to the euro crisis is total fiscal integration. Yet this is completely unacceptable to almost every eurozone polity. The necessary treaty changes would require referenda in at least four nations. These referendums would not pass. Nor would such measures be passed by many EU parliaments, especially as eurosceptic parties are rising rapidly across the continent. Solving the eurozone crisis by way of federalist integration is politically impossible. Therefore, eventual collapse or a worsening of the crisis is almost inevitable. The only real question is how bad it will get, and optimists are hard to find.

The most recent data shows that the eurozone, and much of the world, may be slipping rapidly into recession. Property and commodity bubbles are bursting even in China. Not only that, but there is no more fiscal stimulus to be had. The global economy’s life raft is gone.

The combination of the onset of a second global Great Depression, a devastating banking crisis in Europe, fragmentation of the eurozone and rolling sovereign debt crises across the US and Europe is bad enough. This scenario is, in itself, a total catastrophe. Yet some serious economists say such outcomes are very possible within the next 12 months. However, few have thrown into the mix the ramifications of an Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities — also likely within the next 12 months.

The eurozone crisis and Iran’s nuclear weapons program are widely seen as discrete and unrelated events. However, they could interact in potentially horrific ways. Jeffery Goldberg of The Atlantic magazine says there is a “better than 50 percent chance that Israel will launch a strike by next July.” Israel simply cannot tolerate a nuclear armed Iran. Sanctions have failed miserably and the recent International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) report suggests that Iran could begin building a nuclear weapon within months.

The Daily Mail has recently cited UK Foreign Office sources as saying that the British government expects Israel to attack Iran “sooner rather than later … We’re expecting something as early as Christmas, or very early in the New Year.” Israeli President Shimon Peres has said: “The possibility of a military attack against Iran is now closer to being applied than the application of a diplomatic option.”

Tehran has threatened to respond with “an iron fist,” and has warned about “aggressors and invaders being smashed from within.” A massive onslaught on Israel could be expected via Syria and Hamas. Simultaneously, terrorist attacks could happen in cities across the Western world. The political consequences of an attack across the Muslim world are incalculable, but one immediate effect of an Israeli attack would be on oil supply.

The first thing Iran will do if attacked is blockade the critical oil-shipping lanes through the Strait of Hormuz. This would instantly send the price of oil skyrocketing to between $175 and $500 a barrel, depending on whose estimates you believe. America’s National Defense magazine says that “Under a worst-case scenario 30 day closure of the Strait of Hormuz … the U.S. would lose nearly $75 billion in GDP.” The effects on Europe would be similarly disastrous. Iran’s Navy is no match for the US Fifth fleet, but all Iran need do is slip a few mines into the water and the straits could be closed for months. Additionally, Iran might attack Saudi Arabia’s oil facilities in Dhahran, and the price of oil would instantly reach the stratosphere. Even in a best-case scenario, more stringent sanctions against Iran are now almost inevitable and these will seriously exacerbate the turmoil in financial markets, already reeling from the euro crisis.

In our interconnected world, events in Brussels and Tehran can interact like never before. US Defense Secretary Panetta has warned of the “unintended consequences” of an attack on Iran. Yet, it is impossible to imagine Israel meekly allowing Iran develop the bomb. It is also impossible to imagine Iran voluntarily giving up its nuclear program. Like an eventual euro breakup, many believe that a strike on Iran is not a matter of if, but when. If these two events happened simultaneously, or nearly so, the consequences would be utterly incalculable.

Israel is planning for the inevitable – Right Turn – The Washington Post.

Israel’s giant UAV becomes operational – Israel News, Ynetnews.

Dubbed ‘world’s most advanced UAV’ and weighing five tons, Eitan unmanned aerial vehicle to begin operations in several months

Yoav Zitun

The Air Force’s largest unmanned aircraft is scheduled to begin operations within several months after eight years in development, Ynet learned. In the past it was reported that the Eitan UAV was developed to reach Iran and Sudan.

Several Eitan UAVs are scheduled to begin operations in the various combat sectors including Gaza and Lebanon.

Eitan is 14 meters long and has 26 meter-long wings. It is able to fly for 20 hours straight at a maximum speed of 143 Knots and reach a maximum altitude of 41,000 feet. It weighs five tons and can carry up to one ton.

Eitan can fly up to 20 hours straight (Photo: Reuters)

Eitan is meant to be utilized in complex intelligence gathering missions. It has already been dubbed “the most advanced UAV in the world.”

The “heavy UAV,” as it has been called, will also attempt to distinguish between terrorists and civilians in sensitive combat regions. “For the first time in military history we have a combatant who takes part in intercepting military targets with no direct threat to his life,” Lieutenant-Colonel Ido Frumer said.

“This requires a very solid ideal system and that is why we have arranged for an ethics workshop during the training course.”

Lieutenant Dudi, an IAF instructor added that “UAV operators are able to make life and death decisons away from the battlefield and we have taught them how to make the right decisions under pressure. On the one hand they will stick to IDF values which emphasize persistence and on the other we have stressed the importance of morality.”

Jerusalem Issue Briefs-Iran Signals Its Readiness for a Final Confrontation.

Lt.-Col. (ret.) Michael Segall

• Since the publication of the November 2011 IAEA report, which explicitly spotlights Iran’s plans to build nuclear weapons, senior figures of the Iranian regime and the state-run media have begun to use threatening, defiant, and sometimes contemptuous language toward Israel and the United States.

• From Iran’s standpoint, an ongoing, head-on confrontation with the U.S. and Israel would serve its purposes in the region and build its image as a key actor that stands firm against the West and provides an alternative agenda to reshape the Middle East. Hence, compromise has almost ceased to be an option for Iran.

• The current round of the conflict between Iran and the United States and Israel over Iran’s (military) nuclear program should be seen in a much wider context, one that centers on shaping a new landscape in the Middle East. Iran views itself as “the next big thing” in the region and behaves accordingly-at the moment with no significant challenge or response from the United States and the West.

• If in the past Iran held clandestine contacts with Islamic movements, mainly from North African Arab states, on Sudanese soil (such as Ennadha, which has now won the Tunisian elections), it can now openly boost its influence in countries where the “U.S.-supported dictators” have fallen.

• Iran no longer fears openly acknowledging that it has built capabilities for reacting to an attack-including the Palestinian organizations in Gaza and Hizbullah in Lebanon-and depicts them as part of its defensive strategy and response in case of a confrontation with Israel and the United States.

• At home, the growing strength of the Revolutionary Guards enables them to increasingly influence foreign policy and mainly to export the revolution in ways not seen in the past. The top commanders of its elite Quds Force are emerging from the shadows and will have a key role in the future struggle against the U.S. and its remaining allies in the region, particularly Israel. Iran, as its president said, is preparing for the “final confrontation.”

The animated talk in Israel and the West about a possible attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities is naturally arousing great interest in Iran. Initially, the Iranian leadership chose not to react and made only minor statements about this discourse. But since the publication of the November 2011 report of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA),1 which spotlights the military dimension of Iran’s nuclear program and its plans to build nuclear weapons, senior figures of the regime and the state-run media have begun to use threatening, defiant, and sometimes contemptuous language toward Israel, the United States, and IAEA Chairman Yukiya Amano, who was described by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as “America’s lackey” and as having “no authority of his own.”2 Iran’s ambassador to the IAEA Ali Asghar Soltanieh declared: “This report is unbalanced, unprofessional, and prepared with political motivation and under political pressure mostly by the United States…this is in fact a prime historical mistake.”3 Concurrently, Iranian spokesmen and commentators emphasize Iran’s power, its capability to react “decisively” (including along Israel’s borders), and its ability to withstand both sanctions and a military offensive.

“The Final Confrontation”

Of all the Iranian statements, one made by Ahmadinejad stands out. During a meeting with supporters, he said, “the West is mobilizing all its forces to finish the job because it is clear as day that NATO is yearning to act against Iran.” He added in an apocalyptic-messianic spirit that the conditions taking shape in the region are not normal (a hint at the Imam Mahdi),4 and that “we are nearing the point of final confrontation.” Such a confrontation, he explained, will not necessarily be military and could take a political or other form. Ahmadinejad stressed that Iran is now almost at the apex of its power, but could, if it does not demonstrate resolve, absorb a blow from which it will not recover for at least five hundred years. He also warned that an attack on Syria by NATO would cause a regional explosion.5

Iran is not only observing the crisis brought on by the IAEA report but also the changing Middle East and its own role in it. On November 4, Iran honored the anniversary of the 1979 takeover of the U.S. embassy in Tehran (right in the midst of the debate on the possibility of a Western attack). Indeed, Iran views the upheaval in the Middle East and the growing Islamic trends (with Tunisia as an example) as further proof of the (divine) justice of its path. These are added to a series of “glorious” achievements, as Iran sees it, over the course of more than a decade-the Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon, the Second Intifada, the wars in Afghanistan (the harsh blow to the Taliban) and Iraq (the fall of Saddam), the Second Lebanon War, and Israel’s 2009 Gaza operation.

Hubris?

From Iran’s standpoint, a head-on confrontation with the United States and Israel would serve its purposes in the region and build its image as an actor that stands firm against the Western powers and does not submit to pressure. If there still was any chance of Tehran agreeing to concessions in its sporadic talks with the West about its nuclear program, the Middle Eastern turmoil has now made a compromise all but impossible. Indeed, given the harsh IAEA report, more critical than in the past and providing more detail on the military aspects of the nuclear program, compromise has almost ceased to be an option for Iran, which is deliberately ramping up its defiance in light of Middle Eastern and world developments.

Tehran is also encouraged by the positions of Russia and China, which are granting it (along with its client Syria) immunity against any stringent Security Council sanctions. Specifically, Iran is encouraged about its ability to withstand sanctions by Russia’s statements since the IAEA report’s publication6 (which have made much mention of Iran’s reaction to the report). So Iran has been exuding confidence-sometimes verging on hubris-and is prepared to take risks, even to the point of trying to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to the United States and thereby moving the Middle Eastern playing field to Washington itself.

An interview that Ahmadinejad gave in early November to the Egyptian paper Al-Akhbar accurately reflects Iran’s interpretation of recent Middle Eastern developments and the threats it faces. The United States, Ahmadinejad asserts, is indeed looking to attack Iran, as was President Bush, but what a huge difference there is between Bush’s fate and the status Iran enjoys today…. Iran is becoming a more and more advanced country and therefore can counterbalance and contend with the global powers….The Zionist entity and the West, and especially the United States, fear Iran’s power and (growing) role and so are trying to enlist the world for a battle to contain and reduce its power and role….They must know that Iran will not allow such a development.

The Iranian president claims further that the United States aims to safeguard the “Zionist entity,” but will fail in that endeavor because this entity has no place in the Middle East and is destined for extinction. If, Ahmadinejad suggests, the peoples of the region were to hold a referendum on the Zionist entity’s existence among them, it is clear what the results would be. “This entity can be compared to a kidney transplanted into a body that has rejected it…it has no place in the region and the countries will soon get rid of it and expel it from the region…it will collapse and its end will be near.”7

Iran continues to project military, political, and economic power in the region, and sees the Israeli and American focus on possibly attacking it as aimed at undermining its rising status in the changing Middle East-and also as manifesting the West’s loss of its traditional mainstays of power in the region. Iranian propaganda claims that the talk about attacking it is not serious “because no such option really exists,” and that the real aim of such talk is only to encourage tougher sanctions-with poor chances of success given Russia and China’s position.

Political and Military Bluff

In an editorial that analyzes the discourse surrounding an attack on Iran (quoting Ha’aretz, The Guardian, and President Shimon Peres), Iran’s conservative Mehr news agency assessed that “the Israelis are trying to set the stage for the imposition of stricter sanctions on Iran.” Mehr observed: “Over the past few days, Western media outlets have created brouhaha about the possibility that the Zionist regime may make a unilateral military strike against Iran.” The article noted, “Israel recently test-fired a ballistic missile, purportedly capable of reaching Iran,” and that “the Israeli military, which is usually secretive about its activities, allowed media people to report on the event.”

The editorial concludes by saying, “it is clear that a military attack on Iran cannot be a viable option for Israel” and offers several reasons for this:

(1) They know that a strike could not stop Iran’s nuclear program.

(2) Even Israeli and U.S. strategists, who believe that the strike could delay Iran’s nuclear program, say that the strike would only set back Iran’s program for two years, and thus it would not be worth the trouble to start a war with Iran.

(3) Any attack against Iran would strengthen Iran’s national cohesion.

(4) Iran has shown that it is totally prepared to counter any military threat and is capable of involving regional and extra-regional countries in any possible war.

(5) U.S. and Israeli intelligence and military officials do not believe that Iran’s nuclear program is their number one threat. They know that the Arab Spring is a much greater threat to their interests.

So, what is the reason behind the new political game directed at Iran?

It seems that the Israelis are trying to set the stage for the imposition of stricter sanctions on Iran, but the biggest obstacle is the fact that Russia, China, and some members of the European Union are strongly opposed to new sanctions.

All this rhetoric about war is being used to compel these countries to stop opposing the moves to impose new United Nations Security Council sanctions on Iran, which they prefer to the outbreak of a dangerous war, which could have serious repercussions for the world.8

In a similar spirit, Esmaeil Kowsari, deputy chairman of the National Security and Foreign Policy Committee of the Majlis, asserts that

recent threats made by officials of the U.S. and the Zionist regime are a political and military bluff. The Zionist regime and the U.S. are in no position to attack Iran….The U.S. and the Zionist regime are gripped by an intense fear and great concern in dealing with developments in the region and the world. And after losing their strongholds and illegitimate interests in regional countries, they are trying to extricate themselves from this situation.9

Active Diplomacy

Amid the Israeli media campaign about a possible attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities, commentators in Iran’s leading conservative outlets have called on the country’s leaders to adopt an active diplomacy to counter it. Behind this “murky” campaign, they claim, stands Israel’s fear that Middle Eastern developments have removed the nuclear issue from the Western agenda and that the tide is not in Israel’s favor. Thus, these commentators contend, Israel is using a tactic of trying to scare the world and draw attention to the nuclear issue, hoping thereby to increase the pressure on Russia and China to support further Security Council sanctions. This, in these pundits’ view, is primarily psychological warfare by Israel and the West and does not stem from a real intention to attack Iran.

They argue, then, that Iran needs to take two clear stances toward the world. First, it should emphasize that no military attack on its nuclear facilities will benefit the attackers because these sites are dispersed and underground. Second, it should declare that if there is an attack, even if it fails to damage these facilities, it will be considered an act of aggression and a violation of international conventions, and therefore Iran will quit the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and no longer be obligated to the IAEA or allow the presence of nuclear inspectors. According to the commentators, such a threat would have a great impact. And to further neutralize the psychological warfare, Iran should espouse an active diplomacy and convey its positions to the other states such as Russia and China.10 Other commentators have suggested putting the Russian step-by-step initiative on the agenda.11

A Crushing Response

Senior Iranian military officials, clerics, and commentators have adopted threatening language, warning that Iran will react with great severity to any attack on it.

• Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei: IRGC and Basij (volunteer) forces will respond to any aggression with a strong slap and an iron fist that “the enemies, the U.S., its allies, and the Zionist regime, in particular, should take into consideration, that the Iranian nation is not to attack any country or nation but rather is to strongly react to any aggression or threat so that the aggressors and attackers would collapse from inside….The Iranian nation will not remain only an observer of the threats of the absurd materialistic powers….Only a nation with a stable power of self-defense can survive in a world where, unfortunately, relations between nations and countries are based on the power of weapons.”12

• Defense Minister Ahmad Vahidi said any sort of hostile act against Iran’s territorial integrity would be met by a rapid, firm, and crushing response by its armed forces.13

• Yadallah Javani, politburo chief of the IRGC (Revolutionary Guards), said that “if the Zionist regime commits such a mistake [as attacking Iran], it would mean that it has entered the final days of its existence since the Islamic Republic of Iran is a powerful and strong country which can defend its territorial integrity and interests across the globe, especially in the Middle-East…. The Islamic Republic of Iran has some means and possibilities in areas very close to the Zionist regime and can easily give a response to Israel to make its leaders repent their action” (emphasis added).

• Javani also pointed to the Israeli military’s successive failures and defeats in the thirty-three-day war in Lebanon in summer 2006 and the twenty-two-day offensive in Gaza in winter 2008-2009, and underlined that Israel is not strong enough to threaten Iran.14

• Deputy Chief of Staff for Cultural Affairs and Defense Publicity Brig.-Gen. Massoud Jazayeri said that Iran will not be handcuffed if comes under enemy aggression. Israel’s Dimona nuclear plant and all other parts of Israel are within the reach of Iranian missiles. “The easiest target for Iranian military capabilities is the (Dimona nuclear) reactor….Our capabilities and our defensive tactics will definitely make the enemies, including the U.S. and the Zionists, repent….Tel Aviv knows well that any small step against Iran will be linked with the existence of this fake entity…such a military step from the Zionist entity against Iran will lead to the total disappearance of this entity from existence…if smoke columns rise from our nuclear facilities, then this smoke could rise from other installations and places….Our military information on our enemies is good and sufficient.”15

• Ayatollah Seyed Ahmad Khatami, a member of the Experts Assembly, said, “Today Iran is mighty, strong and powerful and will retaliate against any plot so powerfully that it would become a lesson for others.”16 Another member of the same assembly, Hossein Ebrahimi, warned that “before [being able to take] any action against Iran, the Israelis will feel our wrath in Tel Aviv.” Ebrahimi “assessed Israel’s military capabilities during the Second Lebanon War, ‘and found it weak.'” He stated: “The Israelis entered the war with the capabilities they had but earned nothing but humiliation….I do not think that Israelis along with the Americans and Britons will commit such a folly….If the threat is carried out, they will see the political might of the (Islamic) establishment, the solidarity of the Iranian nation, and the strength of the country.”17 Still another Experts Assembly member, Mahmud Alavi, said, “Washington and Tel Aviv are aware of the fact that putting their anti-Iran threats into practice would cost them dearly, and thus they would not become involved in such folly.” He added “that the United States and Israel know that such empty threats cannot intimidate Iran and also know that they would receive a crushing response if they ever attacked the Islamic Republic.”18

Particularly notable are the tough statements of Sadollah Zarei of Kayhan newspaper, which reflects the outlook of the leader of Iran. Zarei claims it is very unlikely that Israel has any plan to attack Iran or even to take part in a larger attack; the regional conditions and Israel’s capabilities do not allow it. “Iran is too great for the Zionist regime to threaten it.” Four regular Iranian missiles, Zarei asserts, will cause a million Zionists to become refugees, while even if Israel fires a hundred missiles at Iran not even a few houses will be demolished. He stresses that Iran’s power and ballistic-missile capability can cause a total Israeli defeat and adds: “Iranian missile fire on Israel will not involve any expenditures from the national budget, because Iran sells missiles in thirty-five countries of the world and builds its operational missiles from the profits of these sales. Hence, with very little money it will be possible to destroy Tel Aviv and the occupied lands.” 19

“The Next Big Thing”

To sum up, the current round of the conflict between Iran and the United States and Israel over Iran’s nuclear program should be seen as another battle in a much wider campaign, one that centers on shaping a new landscape in a Middle East that is still in upheaval. Iran views itself as “the next big thing” in the region and behaves accordingly-at the moment with no significant response from the United States and the West. The November 2011 IAEA report will probably temporarily increase the pressure on Tehran and lead to limited measures against it. It appears that ultimately, however, the unhurried approach of the international system, though it certainly wants to leverage the IAEA report for “crippling” sanctions (mainly on Iran’s banking and energy sectors) and for another round of talks with Iran (the Russian proposal?), will again be stymied by Russia and China, which will act to soften any measures.

Given its assessment of the international and regional balance of power, Iran’s audacity is growing even in areas distant from the Middle East (as revealed in its recruitment of a Mexican drug cartel for the assassination plot against the Saudi ambassador). In the Middle East itself, Iran’s perception is that the dams have burst. If in the past it held clandestine contacts with Islamic movements on Sudanese soil (such as Ennadha, which has now won the Tunisian elections), it can now openly boost its influence in countries where the “U.S.-supported dictators” have fallen. Iran no longer fears openly acknowledging that it has built capabilities for reacting to an attack-including the Palestinian organizations in Gaza and Hizbullah in Lebanon-and depicts them as part of its defensive strategy and response in case of a confrontation with Israel and the United States.

Standing up to the United States and Israel on the nuclear issue well serves Iranian interests in the Arab street, which was and remains hostile toward those two countries. As Islam regains its hold over the Middle East, after years in which it was repressed by the Arab regimes, Iran’s confidence grows that it can determine the new power equations in the region and drive the United States out of it-as well as Israel.

At home, the growing strength of the Revolutionary Guards-who play a central role with respect to both domestic politics and the Iranian nuclear program, its protection, survivability, and the missiles that are eventually supposed to carry nuclear warheads-enables them to increasingly influence foreign policy and to export the revolution more boldly and in ways not seen in the past. Indeed, recently Kayhan made an extraordinary admission that testifies to Iran’s self-confidence perhaps more than anything else. It stated that the Quds Force of the Revolutionary Guards has already been clashing for some time with U.S. forces in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere:

The Quds Force is more than an active operational force; it is an ideology that does not recognize borders, a worldview whose tenets and beliefs directly conflict with Western culture….Since conquering Iraq and Afghanistan and entering the region, the United States has experienced more than ever the taste of conflict with the Quds Force as profoundly and tangibly as possible. America’s appreciation of Iran’s regional power is based mainly, and perhaps exclusively, on the experience of clashing with the Quds Force (emphasis added).20

Asr-e Iran also writes openly about the Quds Force’s active presence in Iraq, and its contribution to bolstering Iran’s status, to the detriment of Saudi Arabia.21

In light of the Quds Force’s involvement in planning the putative hit on the Saudi ambassador in Washington, there have been American suggestions to assassinate senior Quds Force figures including its commander, Kassem Suleimani. This has sparked a wave of adulation for the force and its leaders in the Iranian media; they are seen as playing, and as destined to play, a key role in the struggle against the United States and Israel. Suleimani‘s name was also recently mentioned as a candidate for the next president of Iran (in 2013). The previous commander of the Quds Force, Ahmad Vahidi, is now defense minister. Iran indeed views itself as prepared for a final confrontation.

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Notes

1.  http://isis-online.org/uploads/isis-reports/documents/IAEA_Iran_8Nov2011.pdf.

2. http://tehrantimes.com/index.php/politics/4346-iran-will-make-us-regret-its-opposition-ahmadinejad-.

3. http://www.presstv.ir/detail/209099.html.

4. Part of the revolutionary leadership believes that the imminent return of the Twelfth Iman-as the Mahdi-can and should be accelerated by triggering global chaos. See Dore Gold, “The Diplomatic Implications of the Growing Iranian Threat,” in Iran’s Race for Regional Supremacy: Strategic Implications for the Middle East (Jerusalem: Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, 2008), p. 20.

5.  http://www.fararu.com/vdceex8o.jh8eni9bbj.html.

6.  http://www.mid.ru/brp_4.nsf/0/3AF704AC3E4F5D8544257942005DD9C9.

7. http://www.akhbarelyom.org.eg/issuse/detailze.asp?mag=&field=news&id=54866&forday=%3Cfont%20color=navy%3E%3Cb%3E%C7%E1%DA%CF%CF%20:%2018584%20-%20%C8%CA%C7%D1%ED%CE%20:%20%C7%E1%C5%CB%E4%ED%E4%207%20%E4%E6%DD%E3%C8%D1%202011%3C/font%3E%3C/b%3E.

8. http://www.mehrnews.com/en/NewsDetail.aspx?NewsID=1454640.

9.  http://tehrantimes.com/index.php/politics/4288-mp-dismisses-israel-threats-as-political-bluff.

10. http://www.irdiplomacy.ir/fa/news/58/bodyView/17696/%D8%AF%DB%8C%D9%BE%D9%84%D9%85%D8%A7%D8%B3%DB%8C.%D9%85%D8%A7.%D8%A8%D8%A7 %DB%8C%D8%AF.%D9%81%D8%B9%D8%A7%D9%84.%D8%B4%D9%88%D8%AF.html.

11. http://www.khabaronline.ir/print/182230/%D8%A7%DB%8C%D8%B1%D8%A7%D9%86-%D9%88-%D8%A7%D9%85%D8%B1%DB%8C%DA%A9%D8%A7-%D8%AA%D8 %AD%D8%B1%DB%8C%D9%85-%D8%A7%D9%82%D8%AA%D8%B5%D8%A7%D8%AF%DB%8C-%D8%A2%DA%98%D8%A7%D9%86%D8%B3-%D8%A8%DB%8C%D9 %86-%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%258.

12. http://www.irna.ir/ENNewsShow.aspx?NID=30656629&SRCH=1

13. http://www.javanonline.ir/vdcdks0ozyt0kn6.2a2y.html.

14. http://www.farsnews.com/newstext.php?nn=13900817000865.

15. http://www.abna.ir/data.asp?lang=3&id=277456

16. http://english.farsnews.com/newstext.php?nn=9007272486.

17. http://english.farsnews.com/newstext.php?nn=9007272258.

18. http://www.presstv.ir/detail/208798.html.

19. http://www.farsnews.com/newstext.php?nn=13900814001095.

20. http://www.kayhannews.ir/900814/2.htm.

21. http://www.asriran.com/fa/news/188180/%D8%AD%D9%85%D8%A7%DB%8C%D8%AA-%D8%A7%D8%B2-%D8%B3%D9%BE%D8%A7%D9%87-%D8%AF%D8%B1-%D8%A8%D8%B1%D8%A7%D8%A8%D8%B1-%D9%87%D8%AC%D9%85%D9%87-%D9%87%D8%A7%DB%8C-%D8%AE%D8%A7%D8%B1%D8%AC%DB%8C%D8%A8%D8%B1%D8%A7%D8%A8%D8%B1-%D9%87%D8%AC%D9%85%D9%87-%D9%87%D8%A7%DB%8C-%D8%AE%D8%A7%D8%B1%D8%AC%DB%8C.

*     *     *

IDF Lt.-Col. (ret.) Michael (Mickey) Segall, an expert on strategic issues with a focus on Iran, terrorism, and the Middle East, is a senior analyst at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs.

Jordan’s King Abdullah calls on Syrian President Assad to step down.

Al Arabiya

Monday, 14 November 2011

Jordan’s King Abdullah became the first Arab leader to openly ask Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to step down. (Reuters)

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DEBKAfile, Political Analysis, Espionage, Terrorism, Security.

DEBKAfile Exclusive Report November 14, 2011, 3:13 PM (GMT+02:00)

Iran’s late missile chief Brig. Hassan Moghadam

According to the briefing given to a closed meeting of Jewish leaders in New York Sunday, Nov. 13, the window of opportunity for stopping Iran attaining a nuclear weapon is closing fast, debkafile‘s sources report. It will shut down altogether after late March 2012. The intelligence reaching US President Barak Obama is that by April, Iran will already have five nuclear bombs or warheads and military action then would generate a dangerous level of radioactive contamination across the Gulf region, the main source of the world’s energy.

Sunday, too, President Barack Obama said the sanctions against Iran had taken an “enormous bite” out of its economy. He also said that the “US is united with Russian and Chinese leaders in ensuring Iran does not develop an atomic weapon and unleash an arms race across the Middle East.”
He spoke after talking to Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and Chinese President Hu Jintao at the Asian Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Hawaii about the new evidence submitted by the International Atomic Energy Agency that Iran was engaged in clandestine efforts to build a bomb.

He said both shared the goal of keeping a bomb out of Iran’s hands.
As to sanctions, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told a news conference that sanctions against Iran had been exhausted and “now the problem should be solved though diplomatic channels.”
debkafile‘s analysts note that tough sanctions are pretty much off the table now. In any case, it is obvious that they failed to slow down Iran’s work on a bomb as confirmed by the latest IAEA report.

The road of diplomacy, favored by Moscow, has proved worse than ineffectual. Its only result was to buy time for Tehran to carry on with its military atomic project free of international pressure.

Obama went on to say Sunday that, while his strong preference was to resolve the Iran issue diplomatically, “We are not taking any options off the table. Iran with nuclear weapons would pose a threat not only to the region but also to the United States.”

This was the first time the US president had called a nuclear-armed Iran a threat to the United States. Until now, official statements limited the threat to “America’s regional interests and influence.”

The Jewish leaders meeting Sunday were informed that the Obama administration had intelligence data that the US and Israel have no more than a couple of months left for striking down Iran’s military weapons development by force. This will not longer be viable after Iran is armed with five nuclear bombs or warheads.
debkafile‘s military and intelligence sources refute the wild rumors alleging that the American CIA or Israeli Mossad was responsible for the massive explosion Saturday at a Revolutionary Guards base west of Tehran in which Iran’s missile chief Brig. Hassan Moghadam was killed.
While both organizations have formidable capabilities which Iran has experienced in the past, there is no way –  even with a UAV – they could have hit a single missile warhead in the middle of a Guards base at the very moment that IRGC chiefs were gathered around considering how best to improve its precision.

All the evidence garnered in the two days since the attack indicates that a single warhead blew up by accident while it was being handled,  rather than by sabotage.

Is Israel Behind Iran’s Deadly Blast at Its Military Base? — Printout — TIME.

Israeli newspapers on Sunday were thick with innuendo, the front pages of the three largest dailies dominated by variations on the headline “Mysterious Explosion in Iranian Missile Base.” Turn the page, and the mystery is answered with a wink. “Who Is Responsible for Attacks on the Iranian Army?” asks Maariv, and the paper lists without further comment a half-dozen other violent setbacks to Iran’s nuclear and military nexus. For Israeli readers, the coy implication is that their own government was behind Saturday’s massive blast just outside Tehran. It is an assumption a Western intelligence source insists is correct: the Mossad — the Israeli agency charged with covert operations — did it. “Don’t believe the Iranians that it was an accident,” the official tells TIME, adding that other sabotage is being planned to impede the Iranian ability to develop and deliver a nuclear weapon. “There are more bullets in the magazine,” the official says.

The powerful blast or series of blasts — reports described an initial explosion followed by a much larger one — devastated a missile base in the gritty urban sprawl to the west of the Iranian capital. The base housed Shahab missiles, which, at their longest range, can reach Israel. Last week’s report from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said Iran had experimented with removing the conventional warhead on the Shahab-3 and replacing it with one that would hold a nuclear device. Iran says the explosion was an accident that came while troops were transferring ammunition out of the depot “toward the appropriate site.” (See why ties between the U.S. and Iran are under threat.)

The explosion killed at least 17 people, including Major General Hassan Moqqadam, described by Iranian state media as a pioneer in Iranian missile development and the Revolutionary Guard commander in charge of “ensuring self-sufficiency” in armaments, a challenging task in light of international sanctions.

Coming the weekend after the release of the unusually critical IAEA report, which laid out page upon page of evidence that Iran is moving toward a nuclear weapon, the blast naturally sharpened concern over Israel’s threat to launch airstrikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities. Half the stories on the Tehran Times website on Sunday referenced the possibility of a military strike, most warning of dire repercussions.

But the incident also argued, maybe even augured, against an outright strike. If Israel — perhaps in concert with Washington and other allies — can continue to inflict damage to the Iranian nuclear effort through covert actions, the need diminishes for overt, incendiary moves like air strikes. The Stuxnet computer worm bollixed Iran’s centrifuges for months, wreaking havoc on the crucial process of uranium enrichment.

And in Sunday’s editions, the Hebrew press coyly listed what Yedioth Ahronoth called “Iran’s Mysterious Mishaps.” The tallies ran from the November 2007 explosion at a missile base south of Tehran to the October 2010 blast at a Shahab facility in southwestern Iran, to the assassinations of three Iranian scientists working in the nuclear program — two last year and one in July. (See photos of the semiofficial view of Iran.)

At the very least, the list burnishes the mystique of the Mossad, Israel’s overseas spy agency. Whatever the case-by-case reality, the popular notion that, through the Mossad, Israel knows everything and can reach anywhere is one of the most valuable assets available to a state whose entire doctrine of defense can be summed up in the word deterrence. But it doesn’t mean Israel is the only country with a foreign intelligence operation inside Iran. The most recent IAEA report included intelligence from 10 governments on details of the Iranian nuclear effort. And in previous interviews, Western security sources have indicated that U.S. and other Western intelligence agencies have partnered with Israel on covert operations inside Iran. Sometimes the partner brings specific expertise or access. In other cases, Iranian agents on the ground who might harbor misgivings about Israel are allowed to believe they are working only with another government altogether.

Saturday’s blast was so powerful it was felt 25 miles away in Tehran, and so loud that one nearby resident with combat experience thought he had just heard the detonation of an aerial bomb. “Frankly it did not sound like an arms depot from where I was because when one of those goes off, it is multiple explosions over minutes, even hours depending on the size of the facility,” the resident says. “All I heard was one big boom. I was sure from the quality of the noise that anyone in its immediate vicinity was dead. Something definitely happened, but I would not trust the [Revolutionary] Guards to be absolutely forthcoming as to what it was.”
— With reporting by Aaron J. Klein / Tel Aviv

Bahrain: Alleged terror cell had high Iran links – Yahoo! News.