WarSclerotic

Barak: No ‘Sabotage War’ Against Iran – Defense/Security – News – Israel National News.

(I’d say the war is well out of the “shadows” at this point.  But hey, keep on denying it as long as dopey MSMs will drink from the disinfo trough…. JW)

Ehud Barak

Flash 90

The recent explosions in Iran – possibly affecting that country’s nuclear facilities, according to some reports – were not part of a “shadow war” against Iran’s nuclear program, Defense Minister Ehud Barak said Saturday night. In an interview on Channel Two Saturday night, Barak said that “Iran’s nuclear program must be fought with all means possible, but the recent explosions are not the beginning of an attack. All sorts of things have been happening there for years. But it would be better not to speak about these things on television.”

Barak was responding in part to comments made Friday night by U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, who urged Israel not to act along against Iran. Any such actions against Iran needed to be decided upon by the U.S. and Israel together.

Barak said that the battle against Iran was playing out in the realm of diplomacy and economic sanctions. When asked by an interviewer if that battle had been expanded to sabotage, and if the recent mysterious explosions in Iran were due to that sabotage, Barak said that he did not believe so. “Iran is closer to a nuclear bomb. The sanctions must be quicker, tougher, and more decisive. The Iranians are working to ensure that their nuclear program is protected from interference. We cannot wait to see if they are successful in developing a weapon and then act. What if we will be unable to act at that time?” he asked.

Barak added that Israel and the U.S. were fully coordinated on their actions regarding Iran. “We are in constant talks with the Americans,” he said. “I met Panetta a dozen times in the past two to three years. We have had very frank direct talks. Right now there is no disagreement on the need for sanctions. But we cannot take any options off the table,” Barak said, adding that regardless, “Israel is responsible for its own security, future and survival, and we cannot give up our need to make decisions as a sovereign nation.”

The Associated Press: Egypt Brotherhood says won’t impose Islamic values.

(Of course.  Islamic law is famous for protecting personal freedoms.  That’s why the Quds commander described Egypt as the “new Iran.” – JW)

CAIRO (AP) — Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood, emerging as the biggest winner in the first round of parliamentary elections, sought Saturday to reassure Egyptians that it would not sacrifice personal freedoms in promoting Islamic law.

The deputy head of the Brotherhood’s new political party, Essam el-Erian, told The Associated Press in a telephone interview that the group is not interested in imposing Islamic values on Egypt, home to a sizable Christian minority and others who object to being subject to strict Islamic codes.

“We represent a moderate and fair party,” el-Erian said of his Freedom and Justice Party. “We want to apply the basics of Shariah law in a fair way that respects human rights and personal rights,” he said, referring to Islamic law.

The comments were the clearest indication that the Brotherhood was distancing itself from the ultraconservative Islamist Nour Party, which appears to have won the second-largest share of votes in the election’s first phase.

The Nour Party espouses a strict interpretation of Islam similar to that of Saudi Arabia, where the sexes are segregated and women must be veiled and are barred from driving.

Egypt’s election commission has released few official results from the voting on Monday and Tuesday. But preliminary counts have been leaked by judges and individual political groups showing both parties could together control a majority of seats in the lower house of parliament if they did form an alliance.

The Brotherhood recently denied in a statement that it seeks to form an alliance with the Nour Party in parliament, calling it “premature and mere media speculation.”

On Saturday, el-Erian made it clear that the Brotherhood does not share Nour’s more hard-line aspirations to strictly enforce Islamic codes in Egyptians’ daily lives.

“We respect all people in their choice of religion and life,” he said.

Another major check on such an agenda is the council of generals who have run the country since President Hosni Mubarak’s ouster in February. The military council, accused by Egypt’s protest movement of stalling a transition to civilian and democratic rule, is seeking to limit the powers of the next parliament and maintain close oversight over the drafting of a new constitution.

Egypt already uses Shariah law as the basis for legislation, however Egyptian laws remain largely secular as Shariah does not cover all aspects of modern life.

On its English-language Twitter account, the Brotherhood said that its priorities were to fix Egypt’s economy and improve the lives of ordinary Egyptians, “not to change (the) face of Egypt into (an) Islamic state.”

El-Erian urged the Brotherhood’s political rivals to accept the election results.

“We all believe that our success as Egyptians toward democracy is a real success and we want everyone to accept this democratic system. This is the guarantee for stability,” he said.

For decades, Mubarak’s regime suppressed the Brotherhood, which was politically banned but managed to establish a vast network of activists and charities offering free food and medical services throughout the country’s impoverished neighborhoods and villages.

It is the best organized of Egypt’s post-Mubarak political forces.

The vote for parliament’s lower house is taking place over three stages, with 18 provinces in Egypt yet to vote.

Meanwhile, the swearing-in of a new temporary Cabinet was delayed on Saturday due to disagreements over key posts, including over who will lead the ministry in charge of internal security.

An official in the Interior Ministry said several high-ranking security officials have been named as possible replacements but that some have turned down the offer.

Protesters have also strongly objected to the nominations put forward by newly appointed Prime Minister Kamal el-Ganzouri, who served in the same position under ousted President Hosni Mubarak from 1996 to 1999.

The country’s ruling military general, Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi, appointed el-Ganzouri as a new interim prime minister last month after the previous premier’s government resigned in the wake of a police crackdown on protesters that killed over 40 people.

The interim Cabinet will serve until after the parliamentary elections finish in March. A new government is to be formed after the legislature is seated.

Activist Hussein Hammouda, a retired police brigadier, is among those opposed to the names being considered for the Interior Minister post and says someone from outside the police force should be chosen instead.

Protesters in Tahrir Square, the epicenter of Egypt’s protests, released a statement saying they would continue their sit-in while allowing traffic to resume normally in the area.

There were tens of thousands of protesters in the square in the days leading up to the elections, but numbers have dwindled to several hundred since then. Protesters demanding el-Ganzouri be replaced as prime minister said they will keep up another sit-in outside the Cabinet headquarters.

The Associated Press: Analysis: Army defectors complicate Syria uprising.

By ELIZABETH A. KENNEDY, Associated Press – 44 minutes ago

BEIRUT (AP) — Nearly nine months into the Syrian uprising, many protesters are pinning their hopes on an increasingly bold group of army defectors to give their revolution a fighting chance against President Bashar Assad’s fiercely loyal forces.

But as the Free Syrian Army gains power, the defectors could make it harder for the West to give strong diplomatic support to a movement that so far has been largely peaceful. The FSA also could give the regime an excuse to crack down even more strongly, adding to the body count in a country where more than 4,000 people already have been killed since March.

U.S. officials say the Free Syrian Army — thus far — has not essentially changed the dynamic in Syria or how the U.S. assesses the situation: that the Syrian regime is the cause of the unrest, and Assad must go. American officials have not condoned the violence from the FSA, but they have described it as an understandable reaction to months of oppression.

Still, the U.S. and others are urging the protesters to remain peaceful because they fear that violence plays into the hands of the regime, and because they believe the FSA isn’t strong enough to pose a serious threat to the Syrian government’s military dominance.

An Obama administration official said the situation might change, however, should the FSA transform itself into a national rebel movement similar to the National Transitional Council in Libya. He asked to remain anonymous because he was not authorized to speak publicly about the issue.

But the likelihood of such an evolution is unclear.

For now, the Free Syrian Army holds no territory, appears largely disorganized and is up against a loyal and cohesive military that will stop at nothing to protect the regime.

The FSA’s leader, breakaway air force Col. Riad al-Asaad, is based in exile in Turkey, making communication with defectors on the ground one of the biggest challenges to the group’s growth. But FSA attacks have grown more sophisticated in recent weeks, prompting worldwide alarm that the situation in Syria is spiraling toward civil war.

On Saturday, more than two dozen people were killed in hot spots around the nation, most of them in a battle between troops and the growing force of defectors, activists said.

The sectarian divide in Syria, where members of Assad’s minority Alawite sect rule over a Sunni Muslim majority and others, means an insurgency could escalate quickly.

The FSA’s leader acknowledges nearly all the defectors under his command — he estimates there are some 15,000, although the figure could be lower — are low-level Sunni conscripts. The men are armed with rocket-propelled grenades, rifles and guns they took with them when they deserted, as well as light weapons they acquired on the black market.

The group has claimed responsibility for brazen attacks on air force intelligence headquarters and other military installations, adding to the bloodshed carried out by the regime.

November was the deadliest month of the uprising, with at least 950 people killed nationwide, activists say.

As the death toll mounts, attacks by the FSA could stoke the fears of those Syrians who have yet to choose a side in the conflict. Many Syrians have stayed on the sidelines, fearing that the alternative to Assad would be chaos.

The regime has added fuel to those fears, blaming the bloodshed on armed gangs and extremists acting out a foreign agenda to destabilize the regime.

Assad has played on some of the country’s worst fears to rally support behind him, painting himself as the lone force who can ward off the kind of radicalism and sectarianism that have bedeviled neighbors in Iraq and Lebanon.

Unlike the armies of Tunisia and Egypt, Syria’s military has stood fiercely by the country’s leader as Assad faces down an extraordinary protest movement.

Assad, and his father before him, stacked key military posts with members of their minority Alawite sect over the past 40 years, ensuring the loyalty of the armed forces by melding the fate of the army and the regime.

A recent U.N. report estimated that Alawites make up the majority of the key positions in the country’s security apparatus, including the officer corps of the armed forces, the Republican Guard and the feared 4th Division.

The top U.S. diplomat for the Middle East, Jeffrey Feltman, said in recent congressional testimony that the regime was “executing a deliberate and bloody strategy of channeling peaceful protest into armed insurrection.”

Assad’s strategy, he argued, was to stoke fears among Syrian minorities with “blatant propaganda” about foreign conspiracies and terrorism, while claiming the regime is their only protection from sectarian violence.

“Make no mistake: the regime is driving the cycle of violence and sectarianism,” Feltman said. “The Syrian people are resisting it, but the regime is working diligently to fulfill its own prophecy of inter-communal violence.”

Barak: We can’t wait until Iran has nuclear bomb – Haaretz Daily Newspaper | Israel News.

Defense Ministers says in a television interview that no option should be taken off the table, yet said he does not think a clandestine war has already begun.

By Haaretz

Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak said on Saturday that Iran is getting closer to developing a nuclear bomb, and that new and more crippling sanctions should be imposed on the Islamic Republic.

Speaking on “Meet the Press,” a Channel 2 program, Barak denied however that the latest blasts that occurred in Iran mark the beginning of a military campaign. Barak said actions against Iran are being carried out in the diplomatic sphere, through sanctions and through the activities of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). When asked if a clandestine war against Iran has already begun, he replied: “I think the answer to that is no.”

	Defense Minister Ehud Barak and Chief of Staff Benny Gantz at the site of Thursday’s attacks, August 18, 2011.
	Photo by: Ariel Harmoni, Defense Ministry

“Iran is getting close to the bomb, and the sanctions should be quick, focused and stronger,” Barak said. “We can’t wait and say – we’ll see if they have a bomb, and then we’ll act. What if by then we will not be able to act?”

In response to U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta’ speech yesterday, in which he urged Israel not to act alone against Iran, Barak said Panetta’s full message is more complex than that. “We are in constant dialogue with the Americans,” he said, “I’ve met Panetta about a dozen times over the last two or three years. In four eyes we hold more intensive talks.”

Barak said the entire international community agrees that the diplomatic course and the use of sanctions must be exhausted, yet added that “no option should be taken off the table. Israel is responsible for its security, its future and its existence.”

He also responded to recent statements by senior Israeli officials, who warned against a military strike on Iran and criticized Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s conduct. “The prime minister and I don’t make decisions alone,” he said. “Every decision is made after hearing (the opinions) of all bodies, professionals and (after reviewing) recommendations.” Barak said there is room for public debate about the Iranian nuclear program, but the way in which the discourse is taking place is harmful.

Asked about the victory of the Islamic parties in the Egyptian elections, Barak said that “the Islamization process in Arab countries is very disturbing. It is too early to tell how these changes will affect the area. I hope any government formed in Egypt will understand there is no choice but to maintain the framework of international agreements, which include the peace agreement with Israel.

On the topic of the deadlock in talks between Israel and the Palestinians, Barak said Israel sees talks as one of its main objectives.

“Anyone who reads between the lines can see a change in the Israeli position. The government is willing to hold direct negotiations at any moment, with no preconditions. We have to move toward negotiations, but things don’t happen in an empty space.” He also added he is willing to meet Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas “right now.”

Israel’s Barak plays down shadow war against Iran | Reuters.

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Defense Minister Ehud Barak played down speculation on Saturday that Israel and U.S.-led allies were waging clandestine war on Iran, saying sanctions and the threat of military strikes were still the way to curb its nuclear program.

Barak was asked in an interview whether two explosions in Iran last month showed “the war has already begun” through sabotage.

“I don’t think so,” he told Channel Two television. “I think that the answer to your question is negative.”

One of last month’s explosions in Iran killed at least a dozen members of the Revolutionary Guards, including a general. Iran called it an accident that occurred while weapons were being moved.

The Iranians have suffered from computer viruses in industrial systems. Several nuclear scientists have been killed or disappeared over the years in what Tehran says were Israeli or U.S. covert operations.

The idea that such operations may have escalated to include spectacular blasts with double-digit death tolls has stirred concern in Israel, where some commentators warned of a possible spillover into reprisals by Iran or its sympathizers abroad.

Barak neither confirmed nor denied that Israel or Western powers were trying to delay Iran’s uranium enrichment and missile programs through sabotage. But his remarks signaled doubt in the long-term efficacy of any such tactics.

“I have nothing to say about the actions themselves. I just say that if you compare the situation eight years ago, or four years ago, to today’s situation, the Iranians are much closer to nuclear capability,” he said.

“Therefore the sanctions have to be intensified, quick, determined … and therefore everyone is saying that no option should be taken off the table,” Barak added, using a phrase favored by Israel and the United States to show they consider military strikes on Iran’s nuclear sites a last-ditch option.

Barak said Israel and the United States were coordinating closely on Iran, which denies seeking nuclear weapons and has vowed to retaliate for any preemptive attack.

But the Jewish state has sovereignty and ultimate responsibility for its security, Barak added – comments that, in the past, have been widely interpreted as a threat to strike Iran unilaterally if the Israelis deems diplomacy a dead end.

On Friday, U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta used some of his strongest language yet to explain why Washington is wary of the consequences of any such action.

Addressing a pro-Israel forum in Washington, Panetta said an attack could disrupt the already fragile economies of Europe and the United States, trigger Iranian retaliation against U.S. forces, and ultimately spark a popular backlash in Iran that would bolster its rulers.

It also may not be effective. Panetta cited estimates from the Israelis that a military strike might set back Iran’s nuclear program by one to two years “at best.”

Iran has weathered several rounds of sanctions passed by the U.N. Security Council and Western powers. A U.N. watchdog report last month suggested Iran has worked on a nuclear bomb program, heightening the international pressure.

(Writing by Dan Williams; Editing by Peter Graff)

Stakelbeck on Terror.

In Part 1 of my analysis on the coming Middle East war, I wrote that the Obama administration believes—absurdly–that it can contain a nuclear-armed Iran and, therefore, will not strike the Iranian regime’s nuclear facilities. I added that, due to the apocalyptic ideology of Iran’s leadership, nothing—not sanctions, not sabotage, not cyber viruses like Stuxnet—will stop Iran from acquiring the Bomb, other than military action.

While Europe has shown a willingness to impose tougher sanctions than the U.S. (hence the storming of the British Embassy by Khomeinist fanatics on Tuesday) it similarly has no stomach for a military confrontation with Iran, particularly with the European Union on the precipice of economic disaster. So where does that leave us? In the same place we’ve been since December 2007, when a bogus National Intelligence Estimate ended any possibility that the Bush administration would use military force against Iran.

You guessed it. Israel must go it alone and attack Iran’s nuclear facilities.

Israel does not want to do it. Israel should not have to do it. But thanks to the feckless appeasement strategy of the West vis-a’-vis Iran’s mullahs, Israel must do it. There is simply no other way for Israel to deal with the prospect of a genocidal regime that publicly vows to destroy the Jewish state acquiring nuclear weapons and the missiles to deliver them to Tel Aviv. To say that the ramifications of such a strike could be unpleasant is an understatement. But Israel has no other option. And judging by the recent IAEA report on Iran’s nuclear program and various Israeli and Western intelligence estimates, it would appear that time is of the essence.

As I wrote in Part 1, 2012 will very likely by the Year of Reckoning for Iran’s nuclear weapons program. Either the mad mullahs get their blood-stained hands on the world’s deadliest weapons, or Israel stops them. Period.

So what is coming? Here are some of my thoughts and observations.

1) If you still doubt that Israel will take action against Iran after everything I laid out in Part 1, then I encourage you to take a quick look at Israel’s recent history. An existential threat was gathering in 1967. Israel struck first, obliterating Egypt’s air force on the ground and effectively ending the Six Day War before it even started. In 1981, Saddam Hussein was developing a nuclear weapon and the Israeli Air Force promptly took out Iraq’s Osirak reactor in a daring raid. Ditto in 2007, when Israel bombed Syria’s secret nuclear reactor. Notice a pattern here? Israel has a history of preemptively striking against existential threats. One notable instance when Israel did allow threats to gather occurred with 1973’s Yom Kippur War. The results were high casualties and some hairy early moments before Israel recovered and mounted a ferocious counterattack, earning an astounding victory. Lesson learned. Or so you would think. You could certainly argue that Israel has once again allowed a major threat to gather, this time in southern Lebanon in the form of Hezbollah and its arsenal of some 50,000 rockets and missiles aimed at every inch of the Jewish state. More on that shortly.

2) So when will Israel strike? One school of thought says it will wait until after the 2012 U.S. election, hoping beyond hope that President Obama–who has been openly hostile to Israel in a manner unprecedented for an American president–does not get reelected. Israel would no doubt be thrilled to see a new U.S. leader who, unlike the passive, outreach-obsessed Obama (the “Container-in-Chief”), will take the lead on the Iran issue and form a NATO coalition to take out Iran’s nuke facilities upon taking office in January 2013.

But here’s the problem: Israel might not have a year-and-a-half or so to wait around and Obama, despite his current abysmal poll numbers, may yet win reelection. So if Israel believes Iran is on the brink of having nuclear weapons, as appears the case, the strike will come before the 2012 election. It bears repeating here that Israel absolutely does not want to hit Iran’s nuclear facilities. They would prefer that a U.S.-led coalition do it, because America is obviously the most capable militarily and stands in a better position to handle the ugly international blowback and screeching UN condemnation that would follow.

More importantly, lest we forget, Israel is only the Little Satan in the eyes of the Iranian regime. America is the Great Satan and ultimate prize. We are the Iranians’ ultimate target. There’s a reason, after all, that the Iranians are working on EMP technology, not to mention intercontinental ballistic missiles that could reach the shores of the United States.

Iran has been at war with America for 32 years, a fact successive U.S. administrations have refused to accept or acknowledge. And sorry, Ron Paul, but this is America’s fight as much as it is Israel’s. If you had any knowledge or intellectual curiosity about the Middle East and Islam or the Iranian regime’s ideology, you would realize that. Judging by your stubbornly clueless GOP debate performances concerning national security issues, I won’t hold my breath for a breakhrough any time soon.

3) How will it all go down? I’m not a military strategist, but an Israeli strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities would seem to require a coordinated bombing campaign with missiles from air and sea, with the possibility of special forces on the ground in a sabotage role. Perhaps Israel has a trump card up its sleeve as well. Eli Lake of Newsweek recently wrote a fascinating piece about the possibility of Israel conducting electronic warfare against Iran as part of a preemptive strike. Here’s a snippet:

For much of the last decade, as Iran methodically built its nuclear program, Israel has been assembling a multibillion-dollar array of high-tech weapons that would allow it to jam, blind, and deafen Tehran’s defenses in the case of a pre-emptive aerial strike.

A U.S. intelligence assessment this summer, described to The Daily Beast by current and former U.S. intelligence officials, concluded that any Israeli attack on hardened nuclear sites in Iran would go far beyond airstrikes from F-15 and F-16 fighter planes and likely include electronic warfare against Iran’s electric grid, Internet, cellphone network, and emergency frequencies for firemen and police officers.

For example, Israel has developed a weapon capable of mimicking a maintenance cellphone signal that commands a cell network to “sleep,” effectively stopping transmissions, officials confirmed. The Israelis also have jammers capable of creating interference within Iran’s emergency frequencies for first responders.

In a 2007 attack on a suspected nuclear site at al-Kibar, the Syrian military got a taste of this warfare when Israeli planes “spoofed” the country’s air-defense radars, at first making it appear that no jets were in the sky and then in an instant making the radar believe the sky was filled with hundreds of planes.

Read Lake’s entire piece. Would the Israelis carry out an EMP attack, crippling the Iranian infrastructure and early warning systems prior to the bombing raid?

No matter what strategy the Israelis employ, you have to think that they’ll also target some important Revolutionary Guards and Iranian military sites, and of course, Iran’s missile capabilities (the latter tactic may have already begun). Anything to minimize the inevitable Iranian counter-strike. In that same vein, you would also think that Israel would seek to preemptively cripple Hezbollah, Hamas and Syria’s rocket and missile-launching capabilities. Does Israel have enough firepower–and manpower–to strike Iran and its proxies simultaneously? It sounds like a very tall order. But I expect them to at least try.

One thing that has to be concerning at this point is that the element of surprise that served Israel so well in ’81 with Iraq and ’07 with Syria has essentially been lost. For a decade now, Israeli leaders have warned that they will not allow Iran to go nuclear. Western leaders have done the same (although, unlike Israel, they apparently don’t really mean it). The chatter about a possible Israeli strike has gone into overdrive in the past few weeks, as have sabotage efforts against Iran’s missile and nuclear facilities. We’re likely approaching the end game here and everyone–whether Israeli, Iranian or American–seems to know it. Or maybe not, in Iran’s case.

I do not expect regime change to be among Israel’s goals, by the way, although Jerusalem would be glad to leave the Iranian regime weakened, embarrassed and ripe for an overthrow by the Iranian people.

4) How will Iran and its proxies respond? Some worst case scenarios:

–Missiles are fired at Israel from Iran. Hezbollah rains down missiles and rockets from southern Lebanon; Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad do the same from Gaza. The “Reign of Fire” of 150,000 rockets and missiles that the Iranian regime has threatened commences from all directions, including Syria.

–Tel Aviv is targeted. Israeli civilian casualties are significant.

–Some other things to watch for: Hezbollah has been talking about conducting a ground incursion into the Galilee region that would see them seek to conquer and occupy towns in northern Israel. Does Syria push troops into the Golan as well? And what about the Palestinians living in Judea and Samaria (a.k.a. the West Bank)? Do they rise up and attack local Jewish communities? How about the 1 million Israeli Arabs living in places like Nazareth and Uhm Al Fahm? Are they a potential Fifth Column in the event of a major war?

–More fallout: Does Iran activate Hezbollah and Qods Force terror cells in Europe, Latin America and the U.S to hit American and Jewish/Israeli targets? Does it cause havoc in the Strait of Hormuz, hampering the world oil supply, and target U.S. troops in Afghanistan (assuming this all goes down after the last U.S. soldier leaves Iraq)?

–The Obama administration’s instinct will be to condemn Israel’s unilateral action and stay in the background in order to appease the angry Muslim masses. But if America is attacked in the aftermath and pulled into the conflict, even in a limited role, the Obamis may find themselves in the unsavory position (for them) of standing with Israel, at least in the short term. Of course, Iran’s allies, Russia and China, might not only condemn, but even threaten Israel.

–Markets may go crazy, with oil and gas prices through the roof. Israel will be blamed by the world for all of the repercussions. The UN will threaten sanctions. Obama will distance himself from Israel publicly as much as he can. Europe will condemn Israel fiercely. And if Israel is forced to use nuclear weapons in any capacity in this conflict–including tactical nukes against Iran’s most hardened nuclear facilities–pressure will be intense for Israel to give up its nukes and make the Middle East a “nuclear free zone.”

–The Muslim world will be on fire—and that’s an understatement. We’ll see Islamo/leftist protests—many of them violent—at Israeli embassies and consulates here and across the world. We could see an upsurge in global anti-Semitism. Iran will be licking its wounds and looking for revenge. Egypt, Turkey and the other Islamist regimes will demagogue the conflict endlessly. Their populations will be in the streets demanding retaliation.

Now, remember, the preceding were my “sky is falling,” absolute worst-case scenarios. If I’m mulling over it all, you know that Israeli military and intelligence officials, a very shrewd bunch, have considered each of these scenarios over and over again for the past several years.They undoubtedly have contingency plans to deal with the blowback and prepare/protect Israel’s civilian population (see here and here, for instance).

Indeed, here are some best case scenarios for Israel:

–Iran’s nuclear weapons program is set back by at least five years in a brilliant and daring Israeli operation. The Iranian military’s response is weaker than expected, thanks to the aforementioned Israeli electronic warfare tactics. The mullahs are humiliated and more vulnerable to a democratic overthrow from within.

–Since Israel is already striking Iran, it figures it might as well go for broke and eliminate Tehran’s proxies, Hezbollah and Hamas, once and for all as a threat. It demolishes both terror organizations and also hastens regime change in Syria, removing the Assad dynasty.

–Surrounding Islamist regimes like Turkey are intimidated by Israel’s overwhelming show of military might and less eager to saber rattle.

–To review: the Iranian regime is weakened and humiliated, its nuclear weapons program set back significantly; Hamas and Hezbollah are destroyed; the Assad regime is toppled; Turkey and the various emerging Muslim Brotherhood satellites in the Middle East and North Africa are intimidated. Casualties are lower than expected. If you’re Israel, that would have to be considered a good outcome and worth the trouble. Again, that is “best case.”

Here’s what former Mossad chief Danny Yatom said recently about the pros and cons of an Israeli strike against Iran:

“There is a big argument over whether to attack Iran or not,” Yatom said. “The argument is legitimate. Some say Israel will pay a high price, no matter who does the attacking.”

“As difficult a price it may be, and even if those predicting apocalyptic results are correct – and I don’t think they are – this is still not as bad as the threat of an Iranian nuclear bomb,” he argued.

Israel can’t afford to find itself in the position of having “to wake up every morning and ask, ‘Will they go crazy and throw a bomb on us or not?’” Yatom said, adding that “the damage that an Iranian nuclear bomb can cause is so great.”

It was impossible to stake the nation’s security on predictions by those who claim a nuclear Iran can be deterred, and that the Iranian regime would not launch a nuclear attack, he said.

Yatom acknowledged that rocket attacks would likely ensue from Lebanon and Gaza following a strike, but added that Israel’s response would be “so painful and crushing that rockets will come to an end.”

“Civilian facilities and infrastructures in Lebanon and Gaza will be hit. Innocent civilians could be hurt. But the barrage of rockets will no longer be falling over our heads,” he added.

The world did not have much time left to act on Iran, the former Mossad head warned, adding that “there is an evaluation that they crossed the red line. They have the knowledge to make the bomb. All that is needed now is the decision to do it… The world has a year, probably less.”

5) Perhaps the ultimate wild card in all of this is, what does Syria do? As long as Bashar al-Assad is still in power (a very uncertain proposition at this point), I believe that Syria, an Iranian client state, does indeed get involved this time and fire rockets at Israel. Assad may see attacking the hated Zionist entity as a last gasp way to distract from his domestic troubles. If he hangs on to power–and remember, that’s a big “if“–I believe seeing Hezbollah, Hamas and Iran fire away at his mortal enemy would be irresistible to Assad. He would join in. And remember, Syria has the largest chemical weapons stockpile in the Middle East.

Of course, if Assad dared use WMD’s against Israeli population centers, Israel would react with overwhelming force. This is where I take off my “secular” analyst hat and don my Believer hat.

In the Book of Isaiah, Chapter 17, verse 1, the Hebrew prophet says the following:

The burden of Damascus. Behold, Damascus is taken away from being a city, and it shall be a ruinous heap.

Ladies and gents, Damascus is the oldest inhabited city in the world. It has never been utterly destroyed, even by the Mongols. But the Bible is clear that a day is coming when Damascus will cease to exist. What could provoke such destruction? Could it be that the Assad regime will make a monumental miscalculation in regards to Israel and target Tel Aviv? What do you suppose Israel’s response would be in such a scenario? If you said “Damascus would be a ruinous heap,” you’d be in the ballpark. Perhaps Assad will not be the Syrian leader that provokes such wrath, and perhaps Israel will not be the one to administer it. But given all that we know, we have to at least consider the possibility.

Whatever the case, we will find out the answers to all of these questions very soon.

The bottom line, once again, is this: for Israel, the only thing worse than attacking Iran’s nuclear facilities is Iran acquiring the Bomb.

Fasten your seat belts for a very interesting 2012.

At least 23 dead as Syria violence intensi… JPost – Middle East.

    BEIRUT – At least 23 people were reported killed in Syria on Saturday as violence intensified in the eighth month of unrest against President Bashar Assad, pushing the death toll close to 4,600, according to a leading activist group.

In a three-hour, night-time battle in the north-western city of Idlib near the Turkish border, seven members of the security forces, five army rebels and three civilians were killed, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) said.

Five civilians were shot dead by security forces in central Homs province, and a man’s body was returned to his family five days after he had been arrested.

The United Nations’ top human rights forum has condemned Syria for “gross and systematic” violations by its forces, including executions and the imprisonment of some 14,000 people.

Syrian authorities say they are fighting foreign-backed “terrorist groups” trying to spark civil war who have killed some 1,100 soldiers and police since March.

An “Arab Spring” of revolts – triggered by an uprising in Tunisia in January – has reshaped the political landscape of the Middle East this year and toppled leaders in Egypt, Libya and Yemen.

Syrian opposition groups say defectors from Syria’s conscript army are increasing their attacks on government security forces trying to suppress revolt against 41 years of Assad family rule.

Syria faces deepening international and regional isolation, with the Arab League, the European Union and the United States piling on increasingly tough sanctions to pressure Damascus to stop the bloodshed and talk to its opponents.

China and Russia oppose sanctions and last month scuppered Western efforts to pass a UN Security Council resolution condemning Assad’s government.

Syrian security forces report clashes with ‘terrorists’

The state news agency SANA gave a detailed account of operations by Syrian security forces, including clashes with “terrorists”, arrests, the explosion of roadside bombs and the defusing of explosive devices.

It said special forces caught dozens of wanted men in the area of Tel Kalakh who had been smuggling weapons, drugs and armed men from Lebanon into Syria.

Special forces also captured 14 gunmen who, SANA said, had been killing and kidnapping civilians and soldiers.

According to the British-based SOHR, nearly a quarter of the 4,600 on its death toll are from Syrian security forces.

In Deraa, “special forces clashed with armed terrorist groups trying to attack security centers in rural parts of the province. One of the gunmen was killed in the exchange of fire,” SANA reported.

“Special forces also clashed with armed terrorists in Idlib after they tried to attack a public roads building and several security detachments. Special forces were able to kill one of the gunmen and wound a number of others. One member of the security forces was injured.”

Army engineers in Hama disabled two improvised explosive devices planted in the city, the agency reported.

The SANA correspondent said a source told the agency two other IEDs had exploded, one when a security patrol was passing near a sports stadium, injuring two. The second IED explosion caused no injuries.

In Lattakia, an IED exploded in front of an electrical workshop, starting a fire in which two people died, the agency reported.

Expert: Cyber attack on Iran began in 2008 – Israel News, Ynetnews.

American technology researcher says mysterious Conficker was ‘door kicker’ for Stuxnet, challenging common belief that computer virus was built by Eastern European criminal gang for financial fraud purposes

Reuters

A cyber warfare expert claims he has linked the Stuxnet computer virus that attacked Iran’s nuclear program in 2010 to Conficker, a mysterious “worm” that surfaced in late 2008 and infected millions of PCs.

Conficker was used to open back doors into computers in Iran, then infect them with Stuxnet, according to research from John Bumgarner, a retired US Army special-operations veteran and former intelligence officer.

“Conficker was a door kicker,” said Bumgarner, chief technology officer for the US Cyber Consequences Unit, a non-profit group that studies the impact of cyber threats. “It built out an elaborate smoke screen around the whole world to mask the real operation, which was to deliver Stuxnet.”

While it is widely believed that the United States and Israel were behind Stuxnet, Bumgarner wouldn’t comment on whether he believes the Americans and Israelis also unleashed Conficker, one of the most virulent pieces of so-called malware ever detected. He wouldn’t name the attackers he believes were behind the two programs, saying the matter was too sensitive to discuss.

The White House and the FBI declined to comment.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’soffice, which oversees Israel’s intelligence agencies, also declined comment.

If Bumgarner’s findings, which couldn’t be independently confirmed, are correct then it shows that the United States and Israel may have a far more sophisticated cyber-warfare program than previously thought. It could also be a warning to countries other than Iran that they might be vulnerable to attacks.

His account leaves unresolved several mysteries. These include the severity of the damage that the program inflicted on Iran’s uranium enrichment facility, whether other facilities in Iran were targeted and the possibility that there were other as yet unidentified pieces of malware used in the same program.

Bumgarner – who wrote a highly praised analysis of Russia’s 2008 cyber assault on Republic of Georgia – says he identified Conficker’s link to Stuxnet only after spending more than a year researching the attack on Iran and dissecting hundreds of samples of malicious code.

He is well regarded by some in the security community. “He is a smart man,” said Tom Kellermann, an advisor to the Obama Administration on cyber security policy and the chief technology officer of a company called AirPatrol.

His analysis challenges a common belief that Conficker was built by an Eastern European criminal gang to engage in financial fraud.

The worm’s latent state had been a mystery for some time. It appears never to have been activated in the computers it infected, and security experts have speculated that the program was abandoned by those who created it because they feared getting caught after Conficker was subjected to intense media scrutiny.

Bumgarner’s work could deepen understanding of how Stuxnet’s commanders ran the cyber operation that last year sabotaged an underground facility at Natanz, where Iranian scientists are enriching uranium using thousands of gas centrifuges.

He provided Reuters with his timeline of the attack, which indicates it began earlier than previously thought. He said that it was planned using data stolen with early versions of Duqu, a data stealing tool that experts recently discovered and are still trying to understand. The operation ended earlier-than-planned after the attackers got caught because they were moving too quickly and sloppiness led to errors.

The view that Stuxnet was built by the United States and Israel was laid out in a January 2011 New York Times report that said it came from a joint program begun around 2004 to undermine Iran’s efforts to build a bomb. That article said the program was originally authorized by US President George W. Bush, and then accelerated by his successor, Barack Obama.

The first reports that the United States and Israel were behind Stuxnet were greeted skeptically. There are still a handful of prominent cyber security experts, including Jeffrey Carr, the author of the book “Inside Cyber Warfare: Mapping the Cyber Underworld,” who dispute the US-Israel idea. He says that circumstantial evidence paints a convincing case that China was behind Stuxnet.

Some also question Bumgarner’s findings.

“He is making assertions that have no basis in fact. Anything is possible, but the empirical evidence doesn’t show any linkage between the two,” said Paul “Fergie” Ferguson, senior threat researcher with security software maker Trend Micro.

‘Largest cyber army in the world’

He was among a group of researchers from dozens of companies who teamed up in 2009 and spent months studying Conficker. That group concluded it was impossible to determine who was behind the worm.

Ferguson said on Friday he believed Conficker was likely the work of criminals in eastern Europe, based on similarities in the coding of Conficker and previously discovered types of malware.

According to Bumgarner’s account, Stuxnet’s operators started doing reconnaissance in 2007, using Duqu, which spied on makers of components used in Iran’s nuclear and critical infrastructure facilities.

In November 2008, Conficker was let loose and it quickly spread, attacking millions of PCs around the world. Its initial task was to infect a machine and “phone home” with its location. If it was at a strategic facility in Iran, the attackers tagged that PC as a target. The release left millions of untagged machines infected with Conficker around the world, but no damage was done to them.

In March 2009, Bumgarner says, the attackers released a new, more powerful version of Conficker that started the next phase of the attack on April 1 by downloading Stuxnet onto the targeted PCs. After it completed that task, Conficker’s mission on those machines was complete.

It took Bumgarner months to conclude that Conficker was created by the authors of Stuxnet.

First, he noticed that the two pieces of malware were both written with unprecedented sophistication, which caused him to suspect they were related. He also found that infection rates for both were far higher in Iran than the United States and that both spread by exploiting the same vulnerability in Windows.

He did more digging, comparing date and time stamps on different versions of Conficker and Stuxnet, and found a correlation — key dates related to their development and deployment overlapped. That helped him identify April Fool’s Day, April 1, 2009, as the launch date for the attack.

Bumgarner believes the attackers picked that date to send a message to Iran’s leaders. It marked the 30th anniversary of the declaration of an Islamic republic by Ayatollah Khomeini after a national referendum.

He also identified two other signals hidden in the Stuxnet code, based on the dates when key modules were compiled, or translated from programming text into a piece of software that could run on a computer.

One coincided with a day when Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said his nation would pursue its nuclear program despite international objections, and another with the day that he made a highly controversial appearance at Columbia University in New York.

The operators communicated with Stuxnet-infected computers over the Internet through servers using fake soccer websites that they built as a front for their operation: http://www.mypremierfutbol.com and http://www.todaysfutbol.com.

If Iranian authorities noticed that traffic, they would be deceived into assuming it was from soccer fans, rather than suspect that something was awry, Bumgarner said.

Once Conficker had pulled Stuxnet into computers in Iran there was still one big hurdle, he said. Those infected computers weren’t yet in the target – the underground uranium enrichment facility at Natanz.

Getting the virus in there was one of the trickiest parts of the operation.

Computers controlling the rapidly rotating gas centrifuges were cut off from the Internet. The best way to attack was to put the malware on a device like a USB thumb drive, and then get somebody to connect that drive to the system controlling the centrifuges.

Stuxnet was programmed to automatically jump from an infected PC to a USB drive as soon as it was put into a computer. That was the easy part. Getting somebody to be a human “mule” by bringing that USB drive to Natanz and plugging it into the right machine was a logistical nightmare.

It was impossible to predict when somebody with an infected USB drive would visit the plant. It could take a week or it might be six months.

“It’s a painstakingly slow game of chess,” said Bumgarner. “They had to keep making moves and countermoves until they reached the centrifuges. Then it was checkmate.”

That was probably delivered by somebody who regularly visited the facility and had reason to share information electronically – an academic affiliated with an engineering program at one of Iran’s universities or a worker at a company that provided technology to the facility, according to Bumgarner. He or she was almost certainly unaware of what was happening, he said.

Bumgarner is not sure when Stuxnet first hit Natanz, but suspects that early versions only did limited damage. He believes the attackers grew impatient with the pace at which it was damaging the facility and as a result they performed the cyber equivalent of injecting steroids into Stuxnet, adding modules to make it spread faster and inflict more damage. They deployed an enhanced version in January 2010, and two months later an even more powerful one.

Bumgarner believes the juiced-up malware was effective in damaging the centrifuges. But just as steroids have side effects on humans, so the additional modules had a negative impact on the malware: They started causing infected machines to act abnormally.

A then-obscure security firm known as VirusBlokAda in Belarus reported that it discovered Stuxnet after a piece of the souped-up virus made a computer in Iran behave erratically. International investigations followed, which eventually uncovered the attacks on Natanz.

“It blew their operation wide open,” says Bumgarner.

Yet its creators may still have other irons in the fire, thanks to Conficker, which lies dormant in millions of PCs around the globe in strategic locations such as Iran, China, Russia, India and Pakistan.

“Conficker represents the largest cyber army in the world,” Bumgarner said. “These soldiers are just waiting for their next mission.”

Syria opposition leader: We would drop Iran, Hezbollah ties – Haaretz Daily Newspaper | Israel News.

Syrian National Council leader Burhan Ghalioun calls current Iran-Syria relationship ‘abnormal’; says Assad has lost ‘grasp on reality.’

By Reuters

The collapse of the 40-year-old Assad regime in Syria would radically change the politics of the Middle East, reducing the influence of Iran and its Islamist proxy Hezbollah in Lebanon, the main Syrian opposition leader in exile has said.

Syria would align itself with the Arab League and the Gulf, Syrian National Council leader Burhan Ghalioun told the Wall Street Journal in an interview in France.

	Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Syrian President Bashar Assad and Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah meeting in Damascus on February 25, 2010.
	Photo by: AP

“Our future is truly tied to the Arab world and the Gulf in particular,” he was quoted as saying in a WSJ transcript.

Damascus would have no special relationship with Iran and Hezbollah if President Bashar Assad lost power, he said.

“The current relationship between Syria and Iran is abnormal,” Ghalioun told the daily. “Syria is the center of the Arab Orient. It cannot live outside its relationship with the Arabian Peninsula, the Gulf countries, Egypt and others.”

“There will be no special relationship with Iran. This is the core issue – the military alliance. Breaking the exceptional relationship means breaking the strategic military alliance. We
do not mind economic relations.”

Syria has had close ties with Tehran since the early years of the Islamic Republic of Iran, founded in 1979.

“As our relations with Iran change, so too will our relationship with Hezbollah. Hezbollah after the fall of the Syrian regime will not be the same. Lebanon should not be used
as it was used in the Assad era as an arena to settle political scores,” Ghalioun told the paper.

Ghalioun did not go into likely relations with the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas. He said the Council had links to the Palestine Liberation Organization, of which Hamas is not currently a member.

Regional sources told Reuters on Friday that the Iranian-backed Palestinian movement is quietly reducing its presence in its long-term Damascus headquarters as Assad’s future looks uncertain.

They said the Hamas delegation in the Syrian capital, which once numbered hundreds of exiled Palestinian officials and their relatives, had shrunk to a few dozen.

In Beirut, a Hamas representative said the group was “still committed to supporting Assad”.

No-fly zone?

Ghalioun said the Council sought political and financial support from “the Arab League, the EU, Turkey, and the West”.

“We asked to apply pressure on Russia and China and to make use of all civilian protection measures. This is why (French) foreign minister (Alain) Juppe called for a humanitarian corridor.”

“Our main objective is finding mechanisms to protect civilians and stop the killing machine. If a humanitarian corridor is able to achieve this, then that is important,” the Syrian National Council leader said.

A humanitarian corridor and a buffer zone “doesn’t mean military intervention to topple the regime”, he stressed.

“This is different than the organized military intervention that happened in Iraq for regime change. We count on Syrians to bring down the Syrian regime. We want the international
community to stop the oppression of the Syrian people.”

If Russia could be convinced that Assad’s opponents and the West were not considering military intervention in Syria, as NATO did in Libya, Moscow might be persuaded not to use its UN Security Council veto to block humanitarian intervention.

But Ghalioun also mentioned a no-fly zone, which implies a degree of military intervention.

“We will meet with the foreign minister of Turkey who is thinking of this with the Europeans to discuss the developments in what he mentioned as a no-fly zone,” Ghalioun said.

“Assad got several offers of asylum,” he told the paper at his home near Paris. “The Arab League and Turkey offered to help find him a safe haven. It is clear that he wants to continue and I believe he is not mature and he doesn’t have a grasp on reality. He is delusional.”

DEBKAfile, Political Analysis, Espionage, Terrorism, Security.

DEBKAfile Special Report December 3, 2011, 2:25 PM (GMT+02:00)

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta with US President

US President Barack Obama declared in ringing tones Wednesday, Nov. 30, “We don’t compromise when it comes to Israel’s security. No ally surpasses Israel in importance to the US.” Three days later, US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta in a lecture to the Brookings Institute was crystal-clear about what America expects Israel to deliver in return.

He cited “Israeli estimates” to argue against an Israeli strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities because “it would set back (the program) by one to two years at best.” He urged Israel to take risks and get to “the damn negotiating table” with the Palestinians, and “mend fences with countries like Turkey, Egypt and Jordan, which share an interest in regional stability”- in view of Israel’s “growing isolation in a volatile region.”

The content and tone of the defense secretary’s lecture were clearly designed to rebut Israel Defense Minister Ehud Barak’s comments Thursday, Dec. 1, that as a sovereign state, Israel is bound to determine its own security needs and the ultimate responsibility for its national security rests with the government in Jerusalem and the Israeli Defense Forces – no one else.

Panetta’s lecture was long on generalizations and contradictions and short on facts.

The “Israeli estimates” he cited referred to the most outspoken opponents of the Netanyahu-Barak government, namely the former Mossad chief Meir Dagan, the ex-chief of staff Gaby Ashkenazi, former military intelligence chief Amos Yadlin, as well as Kadima leader Tzipi Livni.

debkafile: Their political agenda would tend to overrule their true views on the merits of an Israeli strike on Iran’s nuclear sites. It also runs contrary to the assessment of every responsible, knowledgeable Israeli intelligence and military expert, who all believe an attack could delay Iran’s nuclear armament by three or four years at the least.

Yet Panetta chose the contrary, minority view to support his arguments against an Israeli attack.

He also contradicted himself on at least one point:

On the one hand, the defense secretary told the Washington forum that, “No greater threat exists to the security and prosperity of the Middle East than a nuclear-armed Iran,” adding that Obama has not ruled out using military force to stop Iran from going nuclear.

On the other hand, Panetta warned “the consequences (of an Israeli attack) could be that we have an escalation that …would not only involve many lives… but trigger Iranian retaliation against US forces, and ultimately spark a backlash in Iran that would bolster its rulers.”

The facts contradict this assertion: An opinion poll secretly conducted at the universities of Tehran, Shiraz and Isfahan in early November showed that 72 percent of those canvassed were certain the population of Iran’s cities would rise up against the Islamic regime the moment the US or Israel attacked its nuclear program.

As to the secretary’s argument that it would also be hard for attackers to reach Iran’s nuclear installations because some of them (the centrifuge plant transferred to Fordo, near Qom) have already been moved underground, he failed to answer two key questions:

1. Why was Israel held back from carrying out a military operation when those installations were still on the surface and vulnerable?

2.  By continuing to hold back Israel back, is he saying that Iran should be allowed to go all the way to manufacturing a nuclear bomb without military interference? Is the US defense secretary advising Israel to learn to live with a nuclear-armed Iran, even though its menace is constantly expanding?

Panetta did not supply an answer to either question. But he was a lot clearer on Iran’s threat to American security when he said: “…any disruption of the free flow of commerce through the Persian Gulf is a very grave threat to all of us” and a redline for the US.”
Was he saying that a nuclear-armed Iran was not a red line for America?

The defense secretary then offered the opinion that “sanctions and diplomatic pressure were working” to isolate Iran. debkafile‘s Middle East sources emphasize that he would not find a single informed politician, general, intelligence official or economist in the region who agreed with him. Just the reverse: the region’s leaders and international financial community report that the Islamic Republic has overcome sanctions with remarkable success and they have not slowed down its nuclear progress by a second.

The US would safeguard Israel’s security, said Panetta, but “Israel has a responsibility to pursue shared goals (with the US) – to build regional support for Israeli and United States’ security objectives.”

He was referring to the US offer of a security shield in return for Israel’s pursuit of “shared goals.” The only trouble with that offer is that when it was put before Saudi Arabia, the Gulf Emirates, Turkey, Egypt and Jordan, they agreed to pursue only certain “shared goals” – but not those affecting their national security, especially on the Iranian question, which they preferred to address by developing their own independent nuclear options. Therefore, the US shield on offer would be very limited.

His assumption that if Israel could persuade the Palestinians to sit down for peace talks and if it reached out to Turkey, Jordan and Egypt, relations would instantly improve, is just as fallacious.

Perhaps Panetta has not heard that Mahmoud Abbas stands by his year-long refusal to face Israel across any “damned tables” and only this week tried to manipulate the Middle East Quartet into forcing Israel to accept an indirect track.
Neither does he address the anti-Israel posture adopted by the rulers of Egypt, Turkey and Jordan to persuade their people of their affinity with the Islamist forces rising in the region, like the ultra-orthodox Salafis of Egypt.

Neither Israel, nor any of the mainstream Arab governments accept the Obama-Panetta proposition that time will magically temper the extremism of the Islamist regimes. They have before them the example of a former Democratic president, Jimmy Carter, who made the same argument 32 years ago for the West to dump the shah and welcome Khomeini’s ayatollah regime.

It is time for Jerusalem to state clearly to the Obama administration that there is no way to reconcile Israel’s essential security needs with the rejection of a military operation to cripple Iran’s nuclear program; or to promote the rise of Islamist forces in the Arab capitals neighboring on the Jewish state and at the same time hold Israel to account for not reaching out to them.

Israel must put its cards on the table, after Panetta put his, by saying: “I understand the view that this is not the time to pursue peace, and that the Arab awakening further imperils the dream of a safe and secure, Jewish and democratic Israel. But I disagree with that view.”