WarSclerotic

Over Half of IAF’s Flights – Unmanned Drones – Defense/Security – News – Israel National News.

IAF UAV

Weiss said that “the flight hours of UAVs require a growing amount of missions, made possible by the growth of forces in significant numbers in recent years.”

Lt. Col. Weiss noted that the IAF is rapidly developing the use of alternative energy in UAVs. “Many UAVs already use solar energy and in the future UAVs will use fuel cells,” reported the IDF Website’s Idan Soncino.

“The spectrum of tasks is growing bigger,” he said. “Already today, [the UAVs] are active in all types of IAF operations – from intelligence gathering to supporting ground forces. But there is plenty more that UAVs can do. There are endless possibilities for this platform.”

‘Saudi Arabia may join nuclear arms race’ – Israel News, Ynetnews.

Ex-spy chief says Saudi Arabia to consider acquiring atom weapons to match region rivals Israel, Iran

AFP

 Saudi Arabia may consider acquiring nuclear weapons to match regional rivals Israel and Iran, its former intelligence chief Prince Turki al-Faisal said on Monday.

“Our efforts and those of the world have failed to convince Israel to abandon its weapons of mass destruction, as well as Iran… therefore it is our duty towards our nation and people to consider all possible options, including the possession of these weapons,” Faisal told a security forum in Riyadh.

“A (nuclear) disaster befalling one of us would affect us all,” said Faisal.

Israel is widely held to possess hundreds of nuclear missiles, which it neither confirms nor denies, while the West accuses Iran of seeking an atomic bomb, a charge the Islamic Republic rejects.

Riyadh, which has repeatedly voiced fears about the nuclear threat posed by Shiite-dominated Iran and denounced Israel’s atomic capacity, has stepped up efforts to develop its own nuclear power for “peaceful use.”

Abdul Ghani Malibari, coordinator at the Saudi civil nuclear agency, said in June that Riyadh plans to build 16 civilian nuclear reactors in the next two decades at a cost of 300 billion riyals ($80 billion).

He said the Sunni kingdom would launch an international invitation to tender for the reactors to be used in power generation and desalination in the desert kingdom.

The United Nations has imposed successive packages of sanctions against Tehran over its refusal to suspend uranium enrichment. Those measures have been backed up by unilateral Western sanctions.

By moving up Likud primary, Netanyahu out to clean house – Haaretz Daily Newspaper | Israel News.

(It occurs to me that he may be doing it to lull Iran into a false sense of security until the primary at the end of January.  Remember, everything done at this point has to be seen in the context of the impending war. – JW)

Following Gilad Shalit’s release, and with a Labor primary in the past, the prime minister isn’t going to pass on an opportunity to strengthen his hold at home.

By Yossi Verter

Benjamin Netanyahu speaking at the Knesset, Nov. 23, 2011.

For the second time in four years, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pulled the rug under fellow contenders for the leadership of the Likud party, namely, Vice Prime Minister Silvan Shalom. That was accomplished by scheduling the party primaries earlier than anticipated, January 31, 2012, in less than two months, in a move characterized by many as a show of underhanded opportunism.

Encouraged by the flattering polls predicting a glowing victory both within the Likud party and from without, Netanyahu decided to eliminate the nuisance of party primaries.

After the Labor party elected Shelly Yachimovich, and following the Gilad Shalit prisoner swap, Netanyahu feels he is in prime condition for a fight. In the realm of local politics (as opposed to the international arena) Netanyahu never misses an opportunity.

He identified January 31, 2012, as a golden opportunity to reaffirm his leadership. For him, this will be a walk in the park. With this surprising move, Netanyahu isn’t just planning to win; he is planning to enjoy himself, at the expense of his long-time rival, Shalom.

In 2007, while the Likud was still in the opposition, Shalom relentlessly threatened to compete against Netanyahu, who had enough, and suddenly announced that primaries will be held the summer of that year.

Shalom was left unready, without the machinery needed to compete, or the time to prepare. He was forced to drop out of the race, alleging Netanyahu was running the party like “the Syrian Ba’ath Party.”

Netanyahu has yet to forgive Shalom for that saying. One wonders what Shalom will say today, with the Ba’ath party not what it used to be. Haaretz reporter Ophir Bar-Zohar reported that Likud members close to Shalom said he plans to fight Netanyahu’s decision through legal means.

Moshe Feiglin, the right-wing extremist, may be Netanyahu’s main challenger. If so, he will attract the votes of the Likud’s dissenting members, but on the day after primaries this will not matter.

The decision will affect Tzipi Livni, chairperson of the Kadima party, who last week postponed the primaries in her party to an unknown date. Now, with the Labor party already after their primaries, and with the Likud soon choosing its leader, the pressure on her to hold the primaries is expected to grow. She will likely be forced to give in.

Has a War with Iran Already Begun? – Michael Hirsh – International – The Atlantic.

By Michael Hirsh

Violent incidents between Iran and the West have been increasing

Protesters storm the British embassy in Tehran / AP

Two incidents that occurred on Sunday–Iran’s claim of a shoot-down of a U.S. drone, and an explosion outside the British embassy in Bahrain–may have been unrelated. But they appear to add to growing evidence that an escalating covert war by the West is under way against Iran, and that Tehran is retaliating with greater intensity than ever.

Asked whether the United States, in cooperation with Israel, was now engaged in a covert war against Iran’s nuclear program that may include the Stuxnet virus, the blowing-up of facilities and the assassination or kidnapping of scientists, one recently retired U.S. official privy to up-to-date intelligence would not deny it.

“It’s safe to say the Israelis are very active,” the official said, adding about U.S. efforts:  “Everything that [GOP presidential candidate] Mitt Romney said we should be doing–tough sanctions, covert action and pressuring the international community  — are all of the things we are actually doing.” Though the activities are classified, a senior Obama administration official also would not deny that such a program was under way. He indicated that the U.S. was not involved in every action, referring to recent alleged explosions at Isfahan and elsewhere. But, he added: “I wouldn’t assume that everything we do is coordinated.”

Former undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns, who oversaw America’s Iran engagement during the Bush administration, asked Sunday about reports that the U.S. program began under George W. Bush, said he could not comment on intelligence matters.

Photos of an Iranian military base near Bid Kaneh in before (top) and after (bottom) a large explosion reportedly occurred, apparent damage from which can be seen / Institute for Science and International Security

In September, the head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, Fereydoun Abbasi-Davani, accused Great Britain, Israel and the U.S. of conducting attacks on him and other Iranian scientists.”Six years ago the intelligence service of the UK began collecting information and data regarding my past, my family, the number of children,” Abbasi-Davani told a news conference at the annual conference of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna. Abbasi-Davani, who was said to have been wounded in 2010 car bomb explosion, said the attacks were carried out by Israel with the “support of the intelligence services of the United States and England.”

Last week, Iranian protesters stormed the British embassy in Tehran. Dominick Chilcott, Britain’s ambassador to Iran, later said the attack occurred  “with the acquiescence and the support of the state.” Then, on Sunday, Bahrain’s interior ministry announced that an explosion occurred inside a minibus parked near the British Embassy. There were no immediate reports of serious damage or injuries.

U.S. officials alleged in October that agents acting for Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, which has increasingly exerted control over the Tehran regime, were involved in a plot to kill that Saudi ambassador to Washington in a restaurant. Iran denied the allegations. Then, on Sunday, in what have been another escalation, Iran’s news agency reported that Iranian armed forces shot down an unmanned U.S. spy plane that illegally crossed the country’s eastern border.

Responding to the Iranian report, NATO command in Afghanistan released a terse statement Sunday: “The UAV to which the Iranians are referring may be a US unarmed reconnaissance aircraft that had been flying a mission over western Afghanistan late last week. The operators of the UAV lost control of the aircraft and had been working to determine its status.”

The White House declined to comment but officials did not seem unduly alarmed, suggesting that the drone’s capture would not provide Iran with significant information about U.S. surveillance technology and techniques.

Trita Parsi, president of the National Iranian American Council in Washington, said the tit-for-tat incidents “add up to a very worrisome picture,” in part because “the Iranians are absorbing all of these assassinations without seeing the pace of their nuclear program slow down to the extent it would be acceptable to the West.” But if Iranian retaliations grow serious enough, he said, they could provide “the pretext for a much larger war” in which the Israelis, and possibly the Americans, launch a full attack on Iran.

Mark Hibbs, a nuclear expert at the Carnegie Endowment in Germany, says the intensity of the covert war indicates that this is where the U.S. and Israel are putting their energy for now.  “If the U.S. or Israel were determined to take Iran’s nuclear installations out they wouldn’t be wasting time pinpointing individual scientists like this,” he says. Still, he points out, that Israel’s 1981 attack on Iraq’s Osirak reactor was also preceded by assassination attempts on Iraqi scientists.

By accident or not, it’s entirely possible the covert war could escalate into a real one, experts say.  “I am less enthusiastic about how effective all this going to be than some people in the administration,” says Matthew Bunn, a nuclear investigator at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government. Bunn says he has occasionally discussed the program with the Obama administration officials, and “some have broadly suggested they think this is major element of slowing down Iranian progress.”

He’s not so sure. “Take Stuxnet. It’s possible that a thousand centrifuges went down” because of sabotage by the mystery computer virus _ a super sophisticated program said to have caused substantial parts of Iran’s uranium enrichment program to self-destruct several years ago. “But Iran has a thousand more than they would require to enrich to highly enriched uranium” needed for a bomb. Bunn also notes that Iran is increasingly keeping its key scientists such as Mohsen Fakrizadeh, said to be the “Oppenheimer” of the Iranian program, hidden away from sight and burying its facilities deeper underground.

Beyond that, says Hibbs, “Some of the concern in the expert community is that in going this route we’re unleashing forces we cannot control.”

The Iranian Threat to International Peace and Security-by PipeLineNews.org.

By EMERSON VERMAAT

December 5, 2011 – San Francisco, CA – PipeLineNews.org – “In the midst of all the diplomatic commotion, Iran continued to build its uranium enrichment capability. When our inspectors visited Natanz on March 20 (2007), they saw that Iran had installed a total of one thousand centrifuges. It was both ironic and distressing to recall that just one year earlier the buildup of Iran’s enrichment program could have been halted at thirty to forty centrifuges.”

This is a quote from Mohamed ElBaradei’s book “The Age of Deception.” Between 1997 and 2009 ElBaradei was Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Nuclear “centrifuge technology” was also used in Pakistan and North Korea when these two countries built a nuclear bomb. This technology originated in the Netherlands where a Pakistani atomic spy named Abdul Qadir Khan stole it in the 1970s. He returned to his home country to become “the father of the Pakistani atom bomb.”

Although all his inspectors were increasingly alarmed by Iran’s nuclear program and frequent attempts to cover it up, ElBaradei, an Egyptian Muslim, naively assumed “that Iran’s goal is not to become another North Korea – a nuclear weapons possessor but a pariah in the international community – but rather Brazil or Japan, a technological powerhouse with the capacity to develop nuclear weapons if the political winds were to shift, while remaining a non-nuclear weapon state under the NPT.”

ElBaradei also writes about his visit to Iran’s “Supreme Leader,” ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the successor of the late ayatollah Khomeini. Khamenei did not make any concessions on Iran’s highly suspicious nuclear enrichment program, or as ElBaradei puts it, “he saw no reason to show flexibility about enrichment.” “Iran, he insisted, had never had a nuclear weapons program; to do so, he told me, would be against Islam.”

Hollow words coming from Iran’s highest religious and political leader, and ElBaradei fell for them. It reminds me of Adolf Eichmann, the man who wanted to kill all the Jews and was a personal friend of fanatical jihadists such as Haj Amin Al-Husseini, the grand mufti of Jerusalem who wanted the same. On at least two occasions, Eichmann showed Red Cross delegations around in the Nazi concentration camp of Theresienstadt assuring them that the Jews were treated quite well. (Numerous inmates were deported to Auschwitz before the arrival of these delegations.) “One does not always have to tell the truth to our opponents,” Eichmann told his friend Willem Sassen in Buenos Aires in 1957. Another typical Eichmann deception operation was forcing Jews in Auschwitz to write postcards to their relatives, boring the message: “We feel well, we are working. Regards to….” The postcards were dated and the address of the sender was invariably “Walze” or “Waldsee.” On one occasion, however, a mistake had been made, Pinchas Freudinger, a Hungarian Jew who survived the Holocaust, testified at the Eichmann Trial in Jerusalem: “Someone instead of writing ‘Walze’ had written ‘Auschwitz,’ and then erased it – the last letters “itz” were visible.”

ElBaradei, though, also realized “that Iran had cheated on their reporting obligations for twenty years.” Yet, he believed “that the Iranians could be allowed a small R&D (Reseach and Development, V.) enrichment program, as a face-saving gesture.” He told Ali Khamenei he “had no wish to see Iran subjected to escalating sanctions by the UN Security Council.”

In her book “Statecraft: Strategic for a Changing World” former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher issued a strong warning against Iran’s nuclear ambitions. What she wrote back in 2002 is still very topical today: “The evidence that Iran may indeed be poised to become a nuclear power comes from three sources, which together seem irrefutable. First, there are strong suspicions that Iran’s attempts to acquire fissile material in Russia and other former Soviet republics, and to press ahead with a nuclear research prorgram and the building of uranium-producing reactors, indicate military purposes. Second, there are now numerous statements on the record by Iranian high officials about the need for the country to have a nuclear capability. (One of them was Rafsanjani, V.) Third, there is the significance to be attached to the Iranian missile program. While it is relatively easy to conceil programs for the development of chemical, biological or even nuclear weapons, missile programs are much more obvious. But this has not deterred Iran. Using North Korean technology, it has produced and successfully tested a Shebab-3 missile (range eight hundred miles), is developing a Shebab-4 (probable range 1200 miles) and is planning a Shebab-5 (range perhabs six thousand miles). It is difficult to understand why Iran would be making such efforts to develop ever-longer-range, and highly expensive, missiles only to place upon them conventional warheards.”

These words were written when ElBaradei was in charge of the nuclear watchdog IAEA.

“The development of a nuclear payload for a missile”

Yukiya Amono, IAEA’s current Director General, is much better and straightforward. The latest IAEA report on Iran is extremely critical. “During an inspection on 23 and 24 October 2011, the Agency (IAEA) verified that Iran had installed all 174 centrifuges in each of two cascades, neither of which had been connected to the cooling and electrical lines, and had installed 64 centrifuges in a third cascade.”

“The Agency is still awaiting a substantive response from Iran to Agency requests for further information in relation to announcements made by Iran concerning the construction of ten new uranium enrichment facilities.” “Iran has not provided information, as requested by the Agency in its letter of 18 August 2010, in connection with its announcement on 7 February 2010 that it possessed laser enrichment technology.”

“Since 2002, the Agency has becone increasingly concerned about the possible existence in Iran of undisclosed nuclear related activities involving military related organizations, including activities related to the development of a nuclear payload for a missile, about which the Agency has regularly received new information.”

‘The information indicates that Iran has carried out the following activities that are relevant to the development of a nuclear explosive device:

• Efforts, some successful, to procure nuclear related and dual use equipment and materials by military related individuals and entities;
• Efforts to develop undeclared pathways for the production of nuclear material;
• The acquisition of nuclear weapons development information and documentation from a clandestine nuclear supply network; and
• Work on the development of indigenous design of a nuclear weapon including the testing of components.”

“Given the concerns identified above, Iran is requested to engage substantively with the Agency without delay for the purpose of providing clarifications regarding possible military dimensions to Iran’s nuclear program.” This is not likely to happen, though, since Iran has cheated the IAEA for nearly 25 years now.

Iranian intelligence officers are working day and night to obtain this kind of technology. They have been very successful so far. Trade relations between Iran and highly industrialized countries such the Netherlands and Germany have intensified over the years. Iranian immigrants have been recruited by Iranian intelligence operatives and forced to cooperate with them. (In Germany alone, there are some 50,000 Iranian immigrants.) If they refuse to do so there will be repercussions against family members in Iran. A number of these Iranians are encouraged to study technology at universities. This is how Pakistani atom spy Dr. A.Q. Khan, the father of the Pakistani atomic bomb, started his career. After finishing his doctoral dissertation at the Technical University of Delft, the Netherlands, he began to work for the Uranium Enrichment Reseach Facility (URENCO) in the eastern city of Almelo. He then began to pass on essential information on nuclear technology to the Pakistani intelligence service. After his cover was blown he fled to Pakistan but continued to cooperate with Dutch businessmen who assisted him in making his bomb. One of them was Henk Slebos, a former study friend from Delft University. The Dutch government was not able to properly handle the Khan case, and Khan even visited the Netherlands a number of times although he was officially banned from entering the country.

The fallacy of normal diplomatic relations with Iran, a known state sponsor of terrorism

The recent attack on the British embassy in Tehran by the so-called “Basij militia” shows that Iran is not a normal state. It took the British by surprise. “We are outraged by this,” a British Foreign Office official said on November 29, 2011. “It is utterly unacceptable and we condemn it.” A long overdue decision was made by Britain to break diplomatic relations with Iran.

For too long European leaders, especially the Germans, the French, the British and the Dutch naively believed in dialogue and “normal diplomatic ties” with the Iranian regime. I still remember my own visit to Iran in 2000 when I had to cover Dutch Foreign Minister Jozias van Aartsen’s visit to Tehran and Isfahan for Dutch TV. Friendly faces all over, but journalists could not move around freely without some Iranian intelligence officer watching them.

Two years later, former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher critized this attitude: “Far from relaxing our guard against Iran, we should regard it as posing a growing threat to the security of the West and its allies,” she writes. She called a recent visit by the British Foreign Secretary to Tehran “ill-conceived.” “The Irianian authorities are not even prepared to support punitive action against their old enemy the Taliban – so deep is their hatred of the West.” Earlier this year, Wikileaks documents showed that Iran did even supply arms to the Taliban. “The enemy of my enemy is my friend,” is the Iranian dictum. That’s why a brutal dictatorship like communist North Korea assisted the fanatical Islamists in Iran by providing missile and nuclear technology.

“The main practioner of state terrorism in Britain during the 1990s was believed to be the Iranian Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS),” writes Christopher Andrew in his thorough study “The Defence of the Realm.” One of their targets was British novelist Salman Rushdie, but they failed to assassinate him. “The (British) Security Service learned in May 1992 that Mehdi Seyed Sadighi of the MOIS London station was tasked with collecting operational intelligence on Rushdi,” writes Andrew. “Sadighi was expelled, as was a second MOIS officer who operated under student cover. Over the next few months there was a series of MOIS-inpired operations to target Rushdie. Others continued more intermittently for the rest of the decade.” MOIS is still very active in today’s Britain. vThe same applies to Germany. “Iran is planning on attacking U.S. military airfields in Germany, to preemt a possible strike on Tehran,” the German paper Bild reported. A German businessmen was recently arrested on charges of “suspicion of espionage activities to sabotage.” He was reportedly working with the Iranian embassy in Berlin and was planning terrorist attacks against U.S. forces in Germany.

The German domestic security service BfV is not only monitoring the Iranian embassy in Berlin but also Hezbollah and Hamas networks. They noticed that the “Islamic Center Hamburg” (IZH) and its “Imam Ali Mosque” are promoting Iranian causes thoughout Europe.

Egypt and Iran

The victory of the Muslim Brotherhood in the recent Egypian elections as disastrous as was the victory of Hamas in the Gaza strip in January 2006. The Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party received 35 percent of the vote. Hamas is the Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood. By the summer of next year the Muslim Brotherhood is likely to be in power in Egypt as well. A militant Salafist party even received 24 percent of the vote. What will happen to the peace treaty with Israel? What will happen to the Coptic Christians – ten percent of the Egyptian population? There was an alarming news report on Dutch TV on December 2. It showed that many Coptic Christians are deeply concerned by the rising influence of the Muslim Brotherhood and ultra-conservative Salafist movements. Ever since the beginning of the so-called Arab Spring Coptic Christians have been subjected to intimidation, harrassment and violence on the part of Muslims. Churches have been burned down. Coptic Christians in Cairo told the Dutch newsreporter that they no longer feel safe in Egypt. They now want to flee Europe – small and peaceful Holland is their favorite destination.

What will happen to the army, once the Muslim Brotherhood is in power? According to a recent report in Haarez, Egypt’s ruling Supreme Military Council is deeply concerned by the Islamist election victory. Army sources tell Al-Hayat “that the army will accept the results but insist on preserving the country’s secular nature and human rights of the Egyptian people.” “Al-Jazeera reported the Islamic bloc won 60 percent of the vote in the first round of Egyptian’s parliamentary elections.”

The first priority of the Muslim Brotherhood will be to take full control of the army. Their example is Turkey’s prime minister Recep Tayyib Erdogan, an Islamist who succeeded in overcoming resistance by secularly minded army officers and is now cracking down on press freedom. (About one hundred journalists are in prison now.) Erdogan belatedly discovered, though, that Iranian and Syrian leaders cannot be trusted.

Once the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood is in power, they will establish closer ties with Iran. Iran supports both Hezbollah and Hamas, two dangerous terrorist movements. Hezbollah operates on a world wide scale and is also active in Latin America and Europe. And now Iranian influence in Egypt is bound to increase. This will pose a direct threat to Israel.

Emerson Vermaat is an investigative reporter in the Netherlands. Website: emersonvermaat.com

Sources

Mohamed ElBaradei, The Age of Deception. Nuclear Diplomacy in Treacherous Times (London/New York: Bloomsbury, 2011), p. 212 (“…not another North Korea…”), pp. 248, 249 (“When our inspectors visited Natanz…” “Iran had cheated on their reporting obligations…”), p. 251 (“..a small R&D enrichment program…”), p. 269 (“escalating sanctions”), p. 274 (meeting ayatollah Khamenei).

Willem Sassen, typewritten transcript of his interviews with Adolf Eichmann (1957/58), Tape 25, pp. 2, 3. (Author’s files on Eichmann.)

The Trial of Adolf Eichmann, Session 52, May 25, 1961.

Margaret Thatcher, Statecraft: Strategic for a Changing World (New York: Harper Collins Publishers, 2002), p. 239-241.

IAEA, Board of Governors: Report by the Director General, Implementation of the NPT Safeguards Agreement and relevant provisions of the Security Council resolutions in the Islamic Republic of Iran, Gov/2011/65, 8 November 2011, p. 5, 7 (“nuclear payload for a missile”), p. 8 (“development of a nuclear explosive device “).

Verfasssungsschutzbericht 2010 (Cologne: Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz, 2011), pp. 273, 274 (Imam Ali Mosque), pp. 356, 357 (recruiting Iranian immigrants).

De Volkskrant (Amsterdam), November 19, 2011, p. 1, as well as “Het Vervolg,” pp. 8, 9 (“Lekken atoomgeheimen ernstiger”).

Christopher Andrew, The Defence of the Realm. The Authorized History of MI5 (London: Allen Lane, 2009), pp. 800, 801.

IPT News December 2, 2011 (“Iran may target American bases in Germany”); De Telegraaf (Amsterdam), December 2, 2011, p. 13 ( “Duitsland doelwit Iran”).

RTL Nieuws (Dutch TV), December 2, 2011 (19:30 hours Dutch time). Coptic Christians intimidated by militant Muslims.

Haaretz, December 3, 2011 (“Egypt’s ruling military council ‘deeply concerned’ by Islamist election victory”).

ANALYSIS-Cold War with Iran heats up across Mideast | Energy & Oil | Reuters.

* West, Israel, Gulf states in mounting confrontation

* “Proxy war” worries in Syria, Iraq

* Suspicions of covert operations within Iran

By Peter Apps, Political Risk Correspondent

LONDON, Dec 5 (Reuters) – Worries of Israel striking Iran might or might not be overblown but across the region the largely hidden “cold war” between Tehran and its enemies is escalating fast, bringing with it wider risk of conflict.

Speculation Israel might attack Iran’s nuclear programme has been rife in the Israeli media and oil markets in recent weeks, with concerns that Tehran might retaliate with devastating attacks on Gulf oil shipments.

But that debate, experts say, misses large parts of the bigger picture. An increasingly isolated Iran alarms not just Israel and the West but its Gulf neighbours, especially longtime foe Saudi Arabia, and they are already fighting back – and the confrontation goes well beyond simply tightening sanctions.

From proxy wars in Iraq and Syria to computer worm attacks and unexplained explosions in Iran – to allegations of an assassination plot in Washington – a confrontation once kept behind the scenes is breaking into increasingly open view.

The storming of Britain’s Tehran embassy last week – and the tit-for-tat shutdown of Iran’s embassy in London – were just the latest signs that already limited dialogue is beginning to break down. That, analysts say, is inherently dangerous.

“With Iran, you have a government that is increasingly isolated and acting in increasingly unpredictable ways,” says Jon Alterman, director of the Middle East programme at the Centre for Strategic and National Studies in Washington.

“There is certainly the risk that a country will take the deliberate decision to attack Iran. But there is also the risk that something happens that provokes… a war that nobody planned and nobody wants.”

With the euro zone crisis still far from over and worldwide demand already faltering, such action and the resulting oil price surge could be disastrous for the global economy.

Confrontation is, of course, far from new. Tehran has long used militant groups such as Lebanon’s Hezbollah and Hamas in the Palestinian territories to shape regional politics and strike enemies, particularly Israel.

The United States and Britain long accused Iran of using Shi’ite Muslim militias in Iraq to kill Western troops and impose Tehran’s agenda.

The Sunni-ruled states of the Gulf, particularly Saudi Arabia and Bahrain, say Iran stirs up unrest in their Shi’ite communities, although many Western analysts believe blaming Iran for protests this year in those countries is an overstatement or at least oversimplification.

Many such confrontations across the region appear escalating fast – and becoming much harder for Washington and its allies to control.

PROXY WARS

“U.S. and Western power in the region is weakening, and that is leaving a vacuum – most notably in Iraq – and you can see the main stakeholders in the region reacting to Iran’s readiness to fill that vacuum,” says Reva Bhalla, head of analysis at US private intelligence company Stratfor.

This year’s uprising in Syria – Iran’s rare Arab friend – has created a new battlefield. Since the early days of the uprising, U.S. officials repeatedly and pointedly said they believed Assad’s government was receiving support from Tehran.

Assad has since been rapidly abandoned by the Arab League, in a diplomatic effort led by Saudi Arabia and the other Sunni Arab Gulf states. Analysts and officials say that could have as much to do with pushing back against Iran as in reining in killings and rights abuses in Syria itself.

Saudi or other Arab backing for the increasingly armed opposition could escalate matters further, potentially producing a sectarian civil war lasting years and spilling across borders into neighbouring states.

In Iraq, the withdrawal of U.S. forces by the end of this year leaves more room for both Iran and Sunni Arab neighbours to intervene through proxy militias. At worst, that could reignite the Sunni-Shia infighting that nearly tore the country apart during the US occupation.

“A proxy Saudi-Iranian war in Iraq represents a very considerable threat to oil supplies,” said Alastair Newton, chief political analyst at Japanese bank Nomura.

POWER STRUGGLE

Some of the increased friction with its neighbours could be a symptom of a power struggle within Iran itself, Newton said.

“I think one of the reasons you’re seeing temperature rising between Iran and others is because you’re seeing temperature rising in Tehran itself.”

Recent events such as the embassy storming, in which Iran seemed willing to tear up the international rulebook, could be a sign of increasing clout of hardline clerics and Revolutionary Guard commanders.

The attack on Britain’s embassy prompted widespread international condemnation and looks to have ushered in a much tighter sanctions. That too may strengthen the hardliners.

The United States said in October it had caught Iran plotting to blow up the Saudi ambassador to Washington DC in a downtown restaurant. Whether or not the plot was genuine – and whoever was behind it – it marked a further worsening of relations.

COVERT ACTION

Iran’s enemies appear to be using unconventional methods against it, suspected of striking within its borders. Israel and the United States both make clear they view covert operations as a sensible alternative to conventional military action.

Last year’s Stuxnet computer worm, which damaged computers used in industrial machinery, was widely believed to have been a U.S.-Israeli attack to cripple Iranian nuclear centrifuges.

Several Iranian nuclear scientists have been killed or disappeared, and Iran blames U.S. or Israeli intelligence services.

Two explosions last month in Iran, one of which killed a Revolutionary Guards gunnery general and around a dozen other officers, prompted widespread speculation in Israel that its intelligence services were involved.

Iran said the first blast was an accident and has not given clear accounts of the second incident.

Israeli officials refuse to confirm or deny they were behind any specific incidents. Several commentators and newspapers warned such action could still backfire badly – perhaps prompting the kind of rocket attacks on Israel launched last week by Hizbollah from Lebanon.

“Faced with such operations, the Iranian regime is embarking on and will embark on a series of actions of its own,” said a front-page article in the Israeli newspaper Maariv by Nadav Eyal, foreign editor for Israel’s Channel Ten television.

As to whether a deliberate air strike on Iran’s nuclear program is genuinely more likely in the coming months, experts are divided. The U.S. withdrawal from Iraq makes it possible for Israeli jets to pass through its airspace without needing U.S. permission. But many say the costs would be too high.

“The problem is that no one knows what the mid-term consequences would be,” said Alterman at Washington’s Centre for Strategic and International Studies. “It could simply encourage the regime in place and intensify their commitment to following a nuclear program with even more energy than before.” (Additional reporting by Dan Williams in Jerusalem; Editing by Peter Graff)

Will Assad’s Swan Song be War on Israel? – Defense/Security – News – Israel National News.

Syria is showing its muscle with war games, and an ex-IDF chief says the closer Assad’s demise is, the greater the threat to Israel.

Scud missile — aimed at Israel?

Israel news photo: US Navy

Syria is showing its muscle Monday with war games, and Israeli Knesset Member Shaul Mofaz (Kadima), a former IDF Chief of Staff, said that the closer Syrian President Bashar Assad comes to his demise, the greater the threat to Israel.

“There is a reasonable possibility that in the twilight window of his regime, Assad will try to turn attention from the massacre of his citizens toward a confrontation with Israel.” he warned.

Syria has surface-to-surface Scud missiles that can easily reach Israel, and an attack on Israel would most certainly be joined by Hizbullah, which along with pro-Syrian factions effectively dominates Lebanon.

Assad’s military fired missiles in a ground-air military exercise this past weekend that official Syria media was “similar to a real battle.” The government added that the war games show “the capabilities and the readiness of missile systems to respond to any possible aggression” and that the army is “ready to defend the nation and deter anyone who dares to endanger its security.”

Iran and Russia are virtually the only major countries who have not turned their backs on Assad, whose regime has murdered more than 3,000 protesters in the nine-month Arab Spring uprising.

His defiance has left him in a do-or-die situation among warnings from former friends, such as Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, that he might meet the same fate as ousted Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak or Muammar Qaddafi, who met his end with a bullet in the head.

His brutal suppression of demonstrators was too much even for the Arab League, which is desperately trying to convince him to silence the guns and tanks wielded by his soldiers and secret police.

DEBKAfile, Political Analysis, Espionage, Terrorism, Security.

DEBKAfile Exclusive Report December 5, 2011, 2:41 PM (GMT+02:00)

Multiple Launch Rocket System in action

The actions and words of Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Syrian ruler Bashar Assad in the last 72 hours indicate they are poised for a regional war, including an attack on Iran, for some time between December 2011 and January 2012.

In their different ways, both have posted road signs to the fast-approaching conflict as debkafile‘s Middle East sources disclose:

1.  Saturday, Dec. 3, Syria staged a large-scale military exercise in the eastern town of Palmyra, which was interpreted by Western and Israeli pundits as notice to its neighbors, primarily Turkey and Israel, that the uprising against the Assad regime had not fractured its sophisticated missile capabilities.

debkafile‘s military sources advise attaching more credibility to the official Damascus statement of Sunday, Dec. 4: “The Syrian army has staged a live-fire drill in the eastern part of the country under war-like circumstances with the aim of testing its missile weaponry in confronting any attack.”
Videotapes of the exercise, briefly carried on the Internet early Monday before they were removed by an unseen hand, support this statement. They showed a four-stage exercise, in which missile fire was a minor feature. Its focus was on the massive firing of self-propelled 120mm cannon, brigade-strength practice of 600mm and 300mm multiple launch rocket systems (MLRS), offensive movements of Syrian armored brigades backed by ground-to-ground missiles with short 150-200 kilometer ranges. They drilled tactics for repelling enemy reinforcements rushed to combat arenas.
All this added up to is an impressive Syrian demonstration of its ability to ward off an attack on Syrian soil by turning a defensive array into an offensive push for taking the battle over into the aggressor’s territory, whether the Turkish or Israeli armies or a combined Arab League force backed by NATO.

2.  Israel made its rejoinder to the Syrian war message 24 hours later.

Addressing a ceremony honoring the memory of for Israel’s founding father David Ben-Gurion, Netanyahu recalled how 63 years ago, Ben-Gurion declared the foundation of the State of Israel in defiance of pressures from most of Western leaders and a majority of his own party. They warned him that he would trigger a combined Arab attack to destroy the fledgling state  just three years after the end of World War II.

But fortunately for us, said the prime minister, Ben-Gurion stood up to the pressure and went through with his decision, otherwise Israel would not be here today.

“There are times,” said Netanyahu, “when a decision may carry a heavy price, but the price for not deciding would be heavier.”

“I want to believe,” he said, “we will always have the courage and resolve for the right decisions to safeguard our future and security.”

Although he did not mention Iran, it was not hard to infer that the prime minister was referring to a decision to exercise Israel’s military option against Iran’s nuclear program in the face of crushing pressure from Washington and insistent advice of certain Israeli security veterans.

Defense minister Ehud Barak, who was standing behind the prime minister’s shoulder, was as tense as a coiled spring.

3. Six hours later, Netanyahu dropped a bombshell on the domestic political scene: He announced his Likud party would hold elections, including primaries, before January 31, 2012 – two years before schedule and a year before Israel’s next general election. As head of one of the most stable and long-lived coalition governments ever to have ruled Israel, he is under no pressing domestic need of a demonstration of leadership at this time.
4.  In the last two weeks, the Netanyahu government has been subjected to acerbic criticism on the part of one Obama administration official after another. They have presented Israel as having fallen into the hands of right-wing extremists who are engaged in a mad race to suppress the judiciary and diminish the civil rights of women and children – not to mention Palestinians.

Secretary of State of Hillary Clinton went to unimaginable lengths when she likened Israel to Iran because fringe ultraorthodox group’s in a couple of suburbs in Jerusalem and Bnei Brak were fighting for gender segregation on public transport against the government and the courts.

She was clearly aiming to undermine the Netanyahu government’s democratic credentials – and therefore his moral legitimacy – for going to war to halt Iran’s attainment of a nuclear weapon.
4.  The unusually powerful US and Russian naval buildups in the waters around Syria and Iran.
Washington sought in late November to give the impression that the George H.W. Bush Carrier Strike Group was anchored off Marseilles, when it was spotted in the eastern Mediterranean opposite Syria.

Moscowthen rushed to Syria’s defense by airlifting 72 anti-ship Yakhont missiles (Western-coded SSN-26) to Damascus. These water-skimming weapons can hit naval targets at a distance of 300 kilometers.

After that the Bush, whose freedom to approach Syrian or Lebanese shores, had been curtailed by the new weapon reaching Syria, departed to an unknown destination, while the USS Carl Vinson strike group took up position opposite Iran.

Moscowis also playing hide and seek with its only air carrier Admiral Kuznetsov. It was announced that the vessel would set sail for the Mediterranean on Dec. 6. But on Nov. 25, it was sighted passing Malta and chugging past Cyprus four days later on its way to join the flotilla of three Russian guided missile destroyers already anchored off Syria.

Neither the United States nor Russia would have concentrated two powerful fleets in the proximity of Syria and Iran unless they were certain a military conflagration was imminent. While any of the prime movers, Washington, Moscow, Tehran, Israel or Bashar Assad, may at the last moment step back from the brink of a regional war, at the moment, there is no sign of this happening.

Analysis – U.S. ramps up warnings on Iran strike risks – The West Australian.

Hosenball, Reuters December 5, 2011, 2:28 pm

Reuters

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The United States has pointedly ramped up its public warnings over the last few weeks about the risks of military action against Iran, accompanied by private words of caution to Israel, which sees Tehran’s nuclear push as a direct threat.

But so far, at least, comments by U.S. and Israeli officials suggest that Washington’s private lobbying has yet to convince Israeli hard-liners and even some moderates that alternatives, like sanctions and diplomatic pressure, will ultimately succeed in curbing Iran’s nuclear ambitions.

It is unclear whether the differing views are any indication about whether Israel might be moving closer to a go-it-alone military strike, an option Tel Aviv has ruled out for the moment. Indeed, that may ultimately not be the case.

Rhetoric has periodically escalated over the years, often bolstering pushes – like the present one – for tougher sanctions against Iran.

But Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in a speech on Sunday widely seen within Israel as hinting about policy on Iran, spoke about making “the right decision at the right moment,” even when allies object.

A nuclear-armed Iran, Netanyahu has said, is an existential threat to Israel.

Netanyahu’s comments came on the heels of U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta’s strongest comments yet explaining America’s concerns about a military strike on Iran.

Panetta said it risked “an escalation” that could “consume the Middle East in confrontation and conflict that we would regret.” It could also hobble the fragile U.S. and European economies and might do little to actually stop Iran from getting an atomic weapon – a goal Tehran denies having.

Iran says its uranium enrichment is for peaceful purposes.

Panetta, citing conversations with his “Israeli friends,” said an attack would only set back Iran’s nuclear program by one to two years at best. He also warned about blowback to U.S. forces in the region.

“The United States would obviously be blamed and we could possibly be the target of retaliation from Iran, striking our ships, striking our military bases,” Panetta told a forum in Washington on Friday.

Panetta privately outlined U.S. concerns in talks with Israel’s Defense Minister Ehud Barak in Canada last month, including the impact a strike would have on the world economy.

Analysts say Tehran could retaliate by closing the Strait of Hormuz, the waterway where about 40 percent of all traded oil passes.

GLOBAL MELTDOWN

President Barack Obama, who is gearing up for a re-election battle next year, has had more trouble than his Republican predecessor, George W. Bush, in winning Israeli trust.

Bruce Riedel, a former adviser to the Obama administration and former senior CIA expert on the Middle East, said Washington was deeply wary of being dragged into a conflict that, from its perspective, might be unnecessary.

“Obama knows a strike on Iran by Israel will create a regional war and a global economic meltdown that America will have to clean up,” Riedel said.

“And he knows Israel – with its own considerable nuclear arsenal – does not face an existential threat from a nuclear Iran.”

But, even considering likely retaliation on U.S. forces, the top U.S. military officer told Reuters in an interview this week he did not know whether the Jewish state would even give the United States notice ahead of time if it decided to act.

General Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, also suggested there was a gap in perspective between Israel and the United States, which sees sanctions and diplomatic pressure as the right path to take on Iran.

“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.

Iran is facing another wave of sanctions following a report last month by the U.N. nuclear watchdog which said Tehran appeared to have worked on designing an atom bomb and may still be pursuing secret research to that end.

Barak said on Thursday an Israeli attack on Iran was not imminent. But, asked about Dempsey’s comments to Reuters, Barak said Israel “greatly respects” the United States.

“But one must remember that ultimately, Israel is a sovereign nation and the Israeli government, defense forces and security services – not others – are responsible for Israel’s security, future and existence,” Barak said.

Barak, in a radio interview, said Israel would be very glad if sanctions and diplomacy brought the Iranian leadership to a clear decision to abandon its nuclear military program.

But, “unfortunately, I think that is not going to happen,” he said.

(Additional reporting by Jeffrey Heller in Jerusalem and David Alexander in Washington; Editing by Warren Strobel and Philip Barbara

The Looming Middle East Security Crisis – Keith B. Payne – National Review Online.

The immediacy of Iranian nuclear and missile proliferation allows little room for delay.