WarSclerotic

Lebanon: Hezbollah Digs In :: Hudson New York.

Hezbollah is the Shiite outpost of Iran on the Mediterranean, largely supplied through Syria, Iran’s ally, while training and on-the-ground-assistance is supplied by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps [IRGC]. While parts of Lebanon –- a “semi-sovereign” country — are occupied by Palestinian refugee camps that are “no go zones” for the government, the south is occupied by Hezbollah, as is the Lebanese government since Hezbollah shot its way into the Cabinet after the last election.

Even as the Obama administration has been acknowledging the steady growth of Hezbollah’s arsenal in both size and sophistication, it has been aiding in the growth and sophistication of the Lebanese Armed Forces [LAF], the Army of the (now Hezbollah-dominated) Beirut government, which is supplied in no small measure by the United States and France. The administration has provided the LAF equipment – including night vision equipment and mini-UAVs – previously reserved for NATO countries and close allies. This gives Hezbollah at least partial control of two armies – one above ground, one largely under.

In May 2010, The United States Central Command (CENTCOM) announced the delivery of an arms shipment to the LAF that included, “1,000 M16A4 rifles, 10 missile launchers, 1,583 grenade launchers, and 538 sets of day/night binoculars and night-vision devices. This equipment will be supported with training provided by the United States government. The United States is committed to providing assistance to the LAF to help them increase their capacity.” Defense Industry Daily reported shortly thereafter that the US had supplied mini-Unmanned Arial Vehicles, helicopters and surplus M-60A3 main battle tanks.[1]

Three months later, LAF soldiers fired across the border into Israel, killing one IDF officer and wounding another. Congress temporarily withheld support from the LAF.

With insurrection in Syria potentially severing the supply line from Iran, it is worth considering how Hezbollah may use assets from each military service to survive. And, given Iran’s enormous investment in Hezbollah, it is more worth considering whether Hezbollah would try to raise its profile in Lebanon – or complete its takeover – to ensure that Iran’s investment is not wasted. The next Hezbollah war may not be against Israel.

Hezbollah’s specialty is “digging in.” In late June 2006, a group of American military professionals stood on the Israel/Lebanon border looking north. Their IDF escort – and owner of a B&B in the Upper Galilee – said things had not been so peaceful in the North since Israel’s withdrawal from Lebanon in 2000. Tourism was up, he said, Hezbollah was quiet and life was good. A retired US Special Forces general was skeptical. “Too quiet,” he said. “That is when you worry.” [2]

Two weeks later, Hezbollah launched a 34-day war that rained missiles on Israel from beginning to end. Rockets filled with ball bearings to increase their lethality landed on Haifa neighborhoods. The Israeli Foreign Ministry reported 44 Israeli civilians and 119 IDF soldiers killed in the war.[3] Although Israel inflicted devastating losses on Hezbollah’s fighters[4] the result was understood as a loss for Israel and IDF prestige.[5]

Hezbollah has been largely quiet since then, but quiet is no longer mistaken for peaceful.

The IDF revamped its doctrine and engaged in new training designed to deal with the small rocket problem.[6] Israel has been using drones to monitor the situation as Hezbollah built arms depots within southern Lebanese villages in violation of UN Resolution 1701 that ended the 2006 war. The multinational UNIFIL force is charged with ensuring that no arms other than those of the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) are maintained south of the Litani River. However, as UNIFIL representatives watched the Israeli drone footage during meetings with American security groups in 2010 and 2011, they took the position a) that it was not happening and b) if it was, Hezbollah was planning for the defense of the villages against Israeli incursion.[7]

Periodic explosions in southern Lebanon are attributed by Israel to “work accidents” in the depots; attributed by the Lebanese government to Israel; and by UNIFIL and Hezbollah to, well, to nothing actually. Following three such explosions in 2010,[8] UNIFIL and the LAF were denied entrance to the affected villages by Hezbollah and, according to the Israeli Foreign Ministry, neither UNIFIL nor the LAF inspected Hezbollah trucks leaving the area after the explosion.[9]

In March 2011, with Hezbollah still firmly in the government drivers’ seat in Beirut, Secretary of State Clinton told Senate Foreign Relations Committee that the US should continue to fund the LAF because the army, “cooperates with the United Nations mission in the south, to try to keep the peace there… We worry that if the United States does not continue supporting the Lebanese armed forces, its capabilities will rapidly deteriorate, security in the south and along the border with Israel will be at risk.”[10]

Three weeks later, the IDF took the unusual step of releasing a map showing what it said were nearly 1,000 arms and ammunition caches south of the Litani, many inside the Lebanese villages loyal to Hezbollah.[11] Israel warned the Lebanese – and the United States – that it would consider Beirut complicit in any new attacks by Hezbollah on Israel.

That brings the story almost up to date as conditions in Syria continue to deteriorate and Hezbollah compensates.

In June of this year, Haaretz reported that, according to Le Figaro, Hezbollah was transporting missiles, including “Iranian-produced Zilzal, Fajr-3 and Fajr-4 missiles,” from Syria into Lebanon for fear that the Assad regime would fall.[12]

Even as Assad remains in power, Syrian army units loyal to the government have been laying mines along the Lebanon-Syria border to keep deserting Syrian soldiers from taking refuge in Lebanon and possibly launching attacks from there.[13] If they finish the job, Hezbollah will be cut off from its Iranian-filled depots. Hezbollah is in a race to collect what it can and move it across the border before the Syrians seal the whole length – whether Assad survives or not.[14]

Haste, of course, makes accidents.

Last week the Lebanese newspaper The Daily Star reported a “huge blast” in the south. Lebanese military sources said it was probably a leftover land mine or cluster bomb from the 2006 war but acknowledged that the LAF – touted by Mrs. Clinton as an asset for the UN and protection for Israel – was again kept from the site by Hezbollah security. UNIFIL representatives said they only heard about it on the news.[15]

Almost simultaneously, Hezbollah reported decimating a CIA spy ring in Lebanon and capturing assets.[16] The coup was apparently the result of slow and steady counterintelligence work – following suspects, tracking cell phone usage and drop sites – much the same way Hezbollah claimed to have broken up an Israeli spy ring in 2009. Hezbollah then said the spies for Israel worked largely in Lebanon’s telecommunications industry, raising the question, “Who supplied the tracking system to Hezbollah?” Siemens, the German telecommunications giant, had supplied cell phone tracking capabilities to the Iranian government that enabled it to monitor the Iranian opposition.[17] Is Iran helping Hezbollah by supporting Lebanon’s telecommunications capabilities in an effort to spy on the people?

Associated Press likened the Hezbollah raids to Iranian behavior after the disappearance of an IRGC general in 2007. “The Iranian government began a painstaking review of foreign travel by its citizens, particularly to places like Turkey where Iranians don’t need a visa and could meet with foreign intelligence services. It didn’t take long, a Western intelligence official told the AP, before the U.S., Britain and Israel began losing contact with some of their Iranian spies.”[18] Or perhaps is it like the patient “unshredding” of American documents by Iranian carpet weavers after the Iranian takeover of the US Embassy in 1979.

While the demise of the Assad regime in Syria would be a setback for the Islamic Republic – and is therefore much to be desired – nothing in Tehran’s history indicates that it will allow its enormous investment in Hezbollah to dissipate at the same time. Underground, under cover, quiet and lethal, Hezbollah and its patron Iran are preparing for the next round – whether against Israel or against Lebanon.

Or both.

Shoshana Bryen has more than 30 years’ experience as a defense policy analyst and has been taking American military officers and defense professionals to Israel since 1982. She was previously senior director for security policy at JINSA

[1] UAVs would enable the LAF to see inside Israel. Helicopters on the Israel/Lebanon border would require Israel to scramble to ensure that a flight was not part of a terrorist attack.
[2] JINSA Flag & General Officers Trip Report 2006, Shoshana Bryen.
[3] http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/Terrorism-+Obstacle+to+Peace/Terrorism+from+Lebanon-+Hizbullah/Israel-Hizbullah+conflict-+Victims+of+rocket+attacks+and+IDF+casualties+July-Aug+2006.htm
[4] Prompting Hezbollah’s leader Hassan Nasrallah to say that had he known the destruction Israel would cause, he wouldn’t have started the war.
[5] It was understood that the IDF has to “win” wars; Hezbollah needed only “not to lose” to the vaunted IDF. The same was true in Operation Cast Lead against Hamas in Gaza.
[6] JINSA Flag & General Officers Trip Report 2010 and 2011, Shoshana Bryen.
[7] Ibid 2011
[8] In the villages of Khirbit Salim, Tayr Falsay and Shehadiye
[9] http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/Terrorism-+Obstacle+to+Peace/Terrorism+from+Lebanon-+Hizbullah/Explosion_Hizbullah_weapons_storage_facility_southern_Lebanon_3-Sep-2010
[10] http://matzav.com/clinton-us-should-fund-lebanon-army-to-protect-israel
[11]http://www.theisraelproject.org/site/apps/nlnet/content2.aspx?c=hsJPK0PIJpH&b=689705&ct=9312067
[12] Report: Hezbollah moving arms from Syria to Lebanon, fearing Assad’s fall,” Haaretz News Service, June 26, 2011.
[13] http://www.foxnews.com/world/2011/11/01/syria-mining-lebanon-border
[14] The irony is that in all the years Syria occupied large swaths of Lebanon, it denied that there should even be a border – as Lebanon was actually only the western province of Greater Syria. For decades there was no Syrian Embassy in Beirut and no Lebanese Embassy in Damascus – because Syria did not recognize Lebanese sovereignty.
[15] http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Politics/2011/Nov-23/154877-huge-blast-rocks-hezbollah-stronghold-in-south-lebanon.ashx#axzz1eVh6HJnK
[16] http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/hezbollah-damages-cia-spy-network-in-lebanon/2011/11/21/gIQA5uCEjN_story.html
[17] http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124562668777335653.html#mod
[18] http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/45383207/ns/world_news-mideast_n_africa/

DEBKAfile, Political Analysis, Espionage, Terrorism, Security.

Top US soldier Gen. Martin Dempsey

Major US-Israel differences surfaced suddenly Thursday, Dec. 1, over the timing and circumstances of an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities, when Gen. Martin Dempsey, Chairman of the Joint US Chiefs of Staff, said: “I don’t know whether Israel would alert the United States ahead of time if it decided to take military action against Iran.” Three hours later, Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak maintained US policy would enable Iran to obtain a nuclear weapon without the possibility of attacking it.

In an interview, General Dempsey went on to admit a range of differences between the US and Israel on two key issues: The first related to their expectations from the sanctions and the diplomatic moves being taken by the Obama administration, “with the stated intent not to take any options off the table” – language that leaves open the possibility of future military action.

“I am not sure that the Israelis share our outlook” on this matter, said the American general.

The second issue on which the Americans and Israelis are divided is their perspective on the future course of events relating to the Iranian nuclear program and the Middle East:  “And … because to them this (a nuclear-armed Iran) is an existential threat I think probably that it’s fair to say that our expectations are different right now,” said Gen. Dempsey.

In an early morning radio interview, Ehud Barak laid Israel’s cards on the table with unusual frankness: He said he would be happy if diplomatic moves and sanctions were to stop Iran’s nuclear program and make it possible to give up the military option, but he does not believe that is the case.

“They (the Americans) tell us – What’s the hurry with an attack on Iran? Wait until (Ayatollah) Khamenei announces that Iran is abandoning the NPT (nuclear non-proliferation treaty). The Iranians will break the locks (IAEA inspection seals at Iranian uranium enrichment plants) and then it will be clear to all that they have a nuclear weapon.”

Barak added: “The difference between us and the Americans is this: We say that because the Iranians are busy moving their nuclear program to underground facilities, they can announce this (that they have a nuclear weapon) after it is no longer possible to attack it.” He went on to warn that If Israel is pushed into a corner, “it will have to act.”

In other words, Israel is not willing to wait, as the Obama administration proposes, until diplomatic moves and sanctions against Iran have achieved their aim, mostly because Israel is not ready to let Iran complete the transfer of its nuclear facilities to underground facilities and so make them safe from attack.

According to debkafile’s military and intelligence sources, Israel gives Iran no more than six to eight months to complete this transfer, i.e., by June to August, 2012.

Another point made by the Israeli defense minister was that some of Iran’s nuclear facilities have already been hidden underground and are therefore impossible to monitor, even by military satellites. He was referring especially, our sources say, to the Fordo bunker site near Qom where, according to intelligence data, Iran is about to start enriching 20-percent grade uranium to 60 percent. This would bring the program to a few weeks away from weapons grade uranium for a bomb or a warhead.

On Tuesday, Nov. 29, former IDF military intelligence chief Maj. Gen. (res.) Amos Yadlin estimated that Iran had already accumulated sufficient enriched uranium to build 4 to 5 nuclear bombs.

In his interview Thursday, Defense Minister Barak also answered former Mossad chief Meir Dagan’s persistent arguments against an Israeli military strike against Iran on the grounds that it would immediately trigger a regional war:  Syria, Hizballah, Hamas and Islamic Jihad would launch attacks on Israel, seriously battering the country and inflicting heavy casualties, in Dagan’s view.

Israel, Barak replied, is nowhere near being paralyzed by messages of doom. The degree of damage and number of civilian casualties would not, in his view, be alarmingly high. He repeated his estimate of early November that the casualty figure from a combined Arab missile assault resulting from an attack on Iran would be  “a lot less than 500” – especially if people took cover.
The defense minister concluded this comment by saying:  I have no idea what may happen tomorrow morning in Syria, or in Egypt.” debkafile’s military sources interpret this as meaning that the danger of a new Middle East regional war is already present  – unrelated to a possible Israeli attack on Iran, but rather as a result of the volatility set up by the uprising in Syria and the predicted rise to power in Egypt of the Muslim Brotherhood and Salafi Islamists.

Patrick Cockburn: They act tough in Tehran because they don’t think the US or Israel will attack them – Commentators – Opinion – The Independent.

via EDITORIAL: The shadow war against Iran – Washington Times.

Key assets in Islamic Republic’s nuclear program conveniently explode

Force is being used to attempt to halt Iran’s nuclear weapons program. On Monday, an explosion rocked the city of Isfahan in western Iran, site of a conversion facility that prepares uranium for enrichment at other sites. Conflicting reports attributed the explosion to either an accident at a gas station or a military training incident, or they denied it even happened.

The blast came two weeks after Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) Gen. Hasan Tehrani Moghaddam and 20 other IRGC members were killed in a massive explosion at a base near the village of Bidganeh, southwest of Tehran. The base was a test site for Iran’s ballistic missile program. Official sources said the blast was the result of an accident while munitions were being moved, but the general’s brother, Mohammad Tehrani Moghaddam, said it happened during a missile test. “It was related to an intercontinental ballistic missile,” he was quoted in the Iranian official press, “It was a completely high-tech, confidential process.” These comments were later scrubbed from the website where they first appeared.

The two explosions join a growing list of unusual and deadly events related to Iran’s secret weapons programs. In late June 2011, five Russian nuclear scientists who had been assisting Iran’s nuclear program died in a plane crash outside the northern Russian city of Petrozavodsk. In November 2010, Iranian nuclear scientist Majid Shahriari was killed in Tehran when a motorcyclist placed a bomb on the window of his car and sped away before it detonated. Another scientist, Fereydoun Abbasi, was wounded in an identical attack the same day. In August 2010, Reza Baruni, the mastermind of Iran’s top-secret military drone project, was killed when three explosions destroyed his house. The official version blamed a gas leak. The same day that Baruni died, three unmanned aerial vehicles launched from an unknown location smashed into the dome of Iran’s Bushehr nuclear reactor, killing five. Tehran later claimed this incident was part of a readiness test.

Not all the attacks have been kinetic. The Stuxnet computer virus wreaked havoc on Iranian uranium enrichment facilities, and a new “supervirus” called Duqu has spread throughout Iran’s military computer network.

No country has claimed responsibility for the attacks, though most credit (or blame) Israel. After the blast at Bidganeh, Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak said, “I don’t know the extent of the explosion, but it would be desirable if they multiplied.” Potential U.S. involvement is unclear, but President George W. Bush reportedly signed a presidential finding authorizing CIA paramilitary actions inside Iran against the IRGC. This authorization could still be in force. Last week, Tehran claimed to have uncovered a dozen CIA operatives working in Iran after a similar takedown of agency assets in Lebanon.

Some analysts have speculated that the attacks are not meant to halt Iranian weapons development but to goad Tehran into taking overt military action that could then be countered legitimately with force. If so, Iran has not taken the bait. With the international community torn between pursuing sanctions that won’t work and overt military action that could foment a large-scale crisis, the shadow war against Iran is likely to continue

Storming of British Embassy in Iran: This rabid rogue state could tip the world into a new dark age | Mail Online.

As Britain orders the closure of Iran’s embassy in London and expels its diplomats after frenzied mobs attack the UK’s diplomatic compounds in Tehran, MICHAEL BURLEIGH sees in Iran a desperate regime that is lashing out – and dangerous.

That rampaging mob of ‘students’ storming the British Embassy in Tehran on Tuesday, lobbing petrol bombs, ransacking the building, burning the Union Jack and threatening to hold hostage terrified members of staff inside the compound, was a deeply worrying spectacle for those of us who have studied the Iranian regime over the years.

The mayhem followed a vote in Iran’s parliament to downgrade diplomatic relations with Britain – a response to the tough new financial sanctions imposed by London last week over Iran’s nuclear programme, after the International Atomic Energy Authority warned that Iran is getting ever closer to building a bomb.

Worrying: The pictures of Iranian students storming the British embassy in Tehran are disconcerting

These protesters were clearly orchestrated by the Iranian regime, for the mayhem could never have taken place without sanction in a country where secret police stalk the streets, torture is endemic, criminals are executed in public and foreign embassies are closely guarded and monitored.

Far from being students, many of the thugs involved were elite members of Iran’s paramilitary Basiji brigades, a hard-core volunteer outfit under the control of the country’s Revolutionary Guards, who answer to the country’s top cleric, the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

It was his parliamentary claque that had just voted through the anti-British measures.

Under the universally respected 1961 Vienna Conventions, all embassies are inviolable and must be treated as their respective nations’ sovereign territory. But Iran has no time for such niceties – the country’s brutal and erratic rulers rarely observe the rules of civilised conduct.

Yes, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s Foreign Ministry described the assault on the British Embassy compound as ‘unacceptable’.

And yes, the Interior Ministry was at pains to report that several demonstrators had been arrested and were being held around Tehran.

But far more significant than these phoney protestations of innocence is the fact that the police did not trouble the rioters for at least an hour, and allowed them to enter the embassy compound, while state TV filmed them wrecking the buildings as if such activities were an every day event. 

Standing to one side: Police allowed rioters to enter the embassy compound

The fact is that Iran is furious about Chancellor George Osborne’s order for all British credit and financial institutions to cease trading with Iranian banks, including the nation’s Central Bank.

Although sanctions against Iran have been criticised as an ineffective means of stopping the regime’s quest for a nuclear weapon, even Iran’s leaders acknowledge that they are hurting.

As President Ahmadinejad said recently: ‘All our banking operations, all our trade, all our purchases and sales, all our agreements are being monitored and blocked’.

The truth is that the country’s nuclear ambitions are under siege as never before.

Israel’s intelligence agents are ruthlessly assassinating Iran’s top nuclear scientists one by one, while sabotaging the country’s nuclear processing plants using cyber-warfare and explosives placed by double agents – only this week there was a huge unexplained explosion at a nuclear facility in the city of Isfahan.

On top of this, the fervent support the regime’s Islamic leaders may have inspired when they deposed the loathed Shah of Iran in 1979 and came to power has evaporated. All the ‘revolutionary’ crowds one sees today are filled with government stooges.

What we are witnessing is a desperate and sclerotic regime which feels increasingly cornered and is lashing out – not that Iran is any the less dangerous for that.

Under siege: Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad inspecting the Natanz nuclear plant in central Iran

The kind of behaviour we are witnessing in the attack on the British Embassy is all too frighteningly reminiscent of the day in November 1979 that so-called students burst into the U.S. Embassy, demanding that America surrender the exiled Shah, who was being treated in the U.S. for cancer.

The Supreme Leader of the day, Ayatollah Khomeni, endorsed the ‘students’, who settled down to a government-licensed siege, with U.S. diplomats held hostage in harrowing conditions for 444 days.

The young Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, now president, was one of the hostage-takers.

After failing to negotiate an end to the siege, U.S. President Jimmy Carter’s administration broke off diplomatic relations with Iran and tried to rescue them in a disastrous special services mission in which eight U.S. soldiers were killed, and not one hostage was rescued. 

The hostages were eventually freed in January 1981, on the day Ronald Reagan was sworn in as President. But U.S. relations with Iran remain broken 30 years on.

Only two months ago, for example, the Iranians were caught out in a plot to kill the Saudi ambassador to Washington – an act U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton denounced as a dangerous escalation in Iran’s sponsorship of terrorism.

Iran’s decision to turn on the British Embassy brought an unequivocal response from Foreign Secretary William Hague yesterday.

He withdrew all diplomatic staff from the embassy, and ordered Iran to remove its diplomats from the UK. Relations between the UK Government and the Iranians have not been this strained for decades.

Indeed, many believe that Iran’s behaviour is so outrageous, and its nuclear capability now so dangerous, that a military strike is the only option left to the international community to bring the renegade nation into line.

Israel is already considering such action against Iran’s three main nuclear facilities, which are hundreds of miles apart: a Russian-built-and-staffed light water facility at Bushehr; a major underground uranium plant at Natanz; and two water facilities at Arak to convert uranium dioxide into weapons-grade plutonium.

Because these facilities are located in reinforced underground bunkers, it is highly likely that Israel would use special bunker-busting bombs to drill holes through the concrete, before dropping tactical ‘mini-nukes’ into them.

Response: Foreign Secretary William Hague ordered Iran to remove diplomats from the country’s UK embassy (pictured)

Since these secondary explosions would happen underground, Israeli experts claim there is no danger of radioactive fallout. The political fall-out, however, would be terrifying.

The Iranians have threatened dire consequences if such an attack took place, including firing long-range ballistic missiles, thought to be more accurate than the Scud missiles Saddam Hussein launched against Israel during the first Gulf War.

They are also likely to retaliate against any neighbouring state that allows Israel to fly through their airspace towards Iran, including Turkey and Iraq.

They may risk attacking U.S. forces stationed in Iraq or the nearby Gulf states, sucking the U.S. directly into the conflict. Significantly, only the U.S. military has the necessary firepower to deal with Iran’s formidable military machine.

If the U.S. was dragged in, Iran would not only engineer conflagration in the Middle East.

It has also threatened to cut off oil supplies from the region by unleashing Chinese Silkworm missiles or suicide-bomber boats against tankers in the Straits of Hormuz, the world’s vital oil lifeline.

Industry experts calculate this would instantly send the price of oil soaring three times its present price to $300 or more a barrel – which would be even more catastrophic for our ailing economies than the unresolved eurozone crisis.

Pressure: Foreign Secretary William Hague should urge his European partners to follow suit in condemning Iran

That is why, for the present, sanctions are the only option – and as the attack on the British Embassy shows, they are hurting Iran.

At the moment, Britain is alone in implementing such draconian measures. William Hague should exert more pressure by urging his European colleagues to follow suit – Germany, in particular, has huge business interests in Iran, while French petroleum giant Total still supplies it with much-needed fuel.

Despite producing large amounts of crude oil, Iran has no worthwhile refining capacity, so the country has to import 40 per cent of its petrol, the price of which is heavily state-subsidised.

Pressure could be exerted on the oil giants not to sell to Iran, which would have a devastating effect on its economy.

Then, as in all truly global crises today, one has to consider the influence of China. The Chinese – whose foreign policy is driven not by scruple but by ruthless self-interest – have excellent relations with both Iran and its mortal enemy Saudi Arabia, importing vast and increasing quantities of oil from both.

It is possible pressure can be brought to bear on the Chinese to persuade the Iranians they do not need the bomb – after all, the last thing China needs is a huge increase in oil prices.

The worrying truth is that, today, Iran is a rabid rogue state.

Unless the international community acts in concert to neutralise this danger, there will sooner or later be an Israeli strike to frustrate Tehran’s nuclear ambitions.

If that happened, the world really would be in a new dark age. 

Michael Burleigh is author of Blood And Rage, A Cultural History Of Terrorism

U.S. military chief: Unclear if Israel would alert U.S. ahead of attack on Iran – Haaretz Daily Newspaper | Israel News.

(To me this story smells like pure unadulterated disinfo. – JW)

General Martin Dempsey says he acknowledges differences in perspective between the United States and Israel over the best way to handle Iran and its nuclear program.

By Reuters Tags: Iran nuclear

The top U.S. military officer told Reuters on Wednesday he did not know whether Israel would alert the United States ahead of time if it decided to take military action against Iran.

General Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, also acknowledged differences in perspective between the United States and Israel over the best way to handle Iran and its nuclear program.

He said the United States was convinced that sanctions and diplomatic pressure was the right path to take on Iran, along with “the stated intent not to take any options off the table” – language that leaves open the possibility of future military action.

“I’m not sure the Israelis share our assessment of that.

And because they don’t and because to them this is an existential threat, I think probably that it’s fair to say that our expectations are different right now,” Dempsey said in an interview as he flew to Washington from London.

Asked whether he was talking about the differences between Israeli and U.S. expectations over sanctions, or differences in perspective about the future course of events, Dempsey said:

“All of the above.” He did not elaborate.

He also did not disclose whether he believed Israel was prepared to strike Iran.

Iran is facing new sanctions after the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) reported earlier in November that Tehran appeared to have worked on designing a bomb and may still be conducting secret research to that end. Iran says its nuclear program is peaceful.

The sanctions push got added momentum on Wednesday as diplomatic sources said Britain would support an embargo on Iranian oil imports. But Iran sees its nuclear program as a source of power and prestige and it is unclear whether sanctions will alter its cost-benefit analysis.

There has been concern that if world powers cannot nudge Iran into serious nuclear negotiations, then Israel, which feels threatened by Iranian nuclear aspirations, will attack.
Asked directly whether Israel would alert the United States ahead of time if it chose to go forward with military action, Dempsey replied flatly: “I don’t know.”

No New Arguments

Last week, U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta raised American concerns about the unintended consequences of any military action against Iran during talks with his Israeli counterpart, Ehud Barak, at a security forum in Canada.

Those included U.S. fears about fallout on the world economy and that a strike would only delay – not derail – Iran’s nuclear program.

Iran has warned that it will respond to any attacks by hitting Israeli and U.S. interests in the Gulf. Analysts say Tehran could retaliate by closing the Strait of Hormuz, the waterway where about 40 percent of all traded oil passes.

Dempsey, who took over the Pentagon’s top uniformed position in September, said there were no new arguments the United States was about to pose to Israel on the matter.

Instead, he cited U.S. and Israeli efforts to “consistently try to update each other on the existing arguments.”