WarSclerotic

December 10, 2011 Briefs
• Palestinians resume missile fire Saturday morning with 5 Qassams landing harmlessly in Eshkol district and Ashkelon environs.
• Friday night, after 13 Palestinian missile attacks, Israel aircraft raided terrorist targets in Rafah. S. Gaza.
• The IDF voiced regret for civilian casualties in earlier raid, blamed Hamas for deliberately planting military installations in residential districts.
• Assad regime gives Homs’s 1.5 million dwellers 72 hours to drop resistance or face massive military assault.
• Family of ex-FBI agent Robert Levinson who disappeared 4 years ago in Iran pleaded for his release. They published a hostage video they received in 2010 from unidentified source.
• Haifa Institute of Technology scientist Daniel Shechtman accepts 2011 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for discovery of quasicrystals at royal ceremony in Stockholm Saturday.
Israeli air traffic to Eilat under Hamas-Bedouin missile menace from Egyptian border
10 Dec. Israel’s targeted killing Thursday Dec. 8 of Ismail Batash, commander of the “Army of Believers” (a Hamas terrorist front group), may have done more harm than good. Aside from triggering a hail of Palestinian missiles against Israel, debkafile‘s sources report it strengthened the Hamas-Salafist Bedouin pact in northern Sinai and is speeding up the transfer of its terrorist infrastructure to that region – out of Israel’s reach. The terrorist peril to southern Israel, including Eilat, has mounted, while the IDF’s hands are tied.
The six Egyptian combat battalions and tank units deployed in Sinai rushed for the exits, giving ground to the increasingly belligerent Salafi Bedouin and the Palestinian Hamas and Jihad Islami advancing from the Gaza Strip. The Bedouin have acquired high-precision anti-air rockets Strela-3-SA-14, Igla-1 SA-16, Gimlet SA-16 and Grouse SA-18 – with a killing range of 6 kilometers. They threaten Israeli air traffic in the south.
December 11, 2011 Briefs
• Barak: Assad will not last beyond a few weeks.
• Civilian killed in ammunition test accident at IDF base in N. Israel.
• Israel cannot accept Iranian and Hamas missile bases in Gaza Strip – Steinitz, Yishai.
• Two failed attempts to assassinate Libya’s army chief Gen. Khalifa Hifter in Tripoli after national army tried to take over airfield controlled by Zintan militia.
• Israel launches another communications satellite from Kazakhstan. Amos 5 will orbit earth once every 24 hours at an altitude of 40,000 km.
• Israeli windsurfer Lee Korzits wins gold at Perth, Australia World Championship, her second.
Nuclear knowhow, S-300 missiles are Iran’s price for Russian, Chinese access to US drone
11 Dec. Iran is driving a hard bargain for granting Russian and Chinese teams access to the US stealth drone RQ-170 it captured undamaged last week. debkafile reports: The price, they were told, includes advanced nuclear and missile technology, especially systems using solid fuel, the last word on centrifuges for enriching uranium and the S-300PMU-1 air defense system which Moscow has consistently refused to sell Tehran. Israel’s prime minister sent foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman to Moscow to try and stop the deal. This super-weapon is effective against stealth warplanes and cruise missiles and therefore capable of seriously impairing any US or Israeli large-scale air or missile attacks on Iran’s nuclear sites. But Putin refused to discuss it.
December 12, 2011 Briefs
• Obama says US has asked Iran to return captured surveillance drone. “We’ll see how the Iranians respond,” he said.
• Iran’s Nat Sec Adviser Saad Jalilee arrives in Moscow for deal to hand over US drone secrets for Russian nuclear technology and arms.
• Obama heralds end of divisive Iraq war, warns Iraq’s neighbors US still a major player in region. He held White House talks with Iraqi PM al Maliki as US troops complete withdrawal.
• US put drone strikes in Pakistan on hold so as not to push relations “past the point of no return”.
• Explosion and fire at steel plant in central Iranian province of Yadz kills 7 people, including foreign nationals, injures sixteen.
• New Israeli ambassador Yacov Amitai arrives in Cairo three months after Egyptian mob sacked embassy.
• Katyusha fired at Israel from S. Lebanon early Monday fell short, injured a Lebanese woman near Bint Jbeil.
• Israel cabinet approves budget for comprehensive plan to curb flood of African work-seekers.
Iran to practice Strait of Hormuz closure while unlocking US drone secrets
12 Dec. Bigheaded from capturing the US stealth RQ-170 Sentinel drone, Tehran Monday, Dec. 12 announced plans soon for a navy drill to practice closure of the Strait of Hormuz, the most important oil transit channel in the world. Iranian lawmaker Parviz Sorouri said, “Iran will make the world unsafe if the world attacks Iran.” The drill will challenge US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta’s recent warning that Iranian disruptions of Persian Gulf free traffic would be a red line for the US.
The Iranian lawmaker said Iranians experts were in the final stages of “cracking” the drone’s secret technology, although he did not say when this research would be complete. “Our next action will be to reverse-engineer the aircraft,” he said. “In the near future we will be able to mass produce it. Iranian engineers will soon build an aircraft superior to the American one.”
December 13, 2011 Briefs
• Syrian army defectors Tuesday ambushed and killed 7 soldiers near Idlib in retaliation for 11 civilian deaths. Syrian soldiers earlier battled armed men trying to reach Idlib from Turkey.
• Iran rejects US call for return of captured US spy drone. The aircraft was now property of Iran and Iran will decide what to do with it, says defense minister Ahmad Vahidi.
• Foreign ministry in Tehran also demands US apology for drone’s intrusion.
• Iran indicts 15 people accused of spying for US and Israel – Tehran’s chief prosecutor. No specifics on identities or when they were detained.
• UN: Syrian crackdown deaths exceed 5,000 as local elections take place. Damascus rejects figure as “incredible”.
• New Canadian citizens must remove face coverings including niqab or burqa while taking oath of citizenship.
• Woman beheaded Monday in Saudi Arabia for practicing “witchcraft an sorcery”. Human rights group notes steep rise in capital punishment in oil kingdom.
• Israel’s Chief Rabbi and other settler rabbis condemn fringe settler group’s break-in to an IDF camp, throwing stones at a senior officer and vandalizing vehicles. Netanyahu ordered security forces to take aggressive action against the 50 suspected rioters.
US units exiting Iraq reach Jordan to forestall Syrian attack
13 Dec. Units of US troops evacuated from Iraq have been diverted to positions in Jordan opposite a Syrian tank concentration building up across the kingdom’s northern border, debkafile reports. The incoming US contingents, housed at the King Hussein Air Base of al-Mafraq, 10 kilometers from the Syrian border, are the first US boots to hit the ground directly opposite Assad’s army, brought there by Bashar Assad’s threat to set the Middle East on fire if the pressure against him persists.
The American units came from the big Iraqi Ain al-Assad air base in the western province of Al Anbar opposite the Jordanian border which is in the process of evacuation as the US military drawdown in Iraq approaches completion. Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, when he met US President Barack Obama at the White House Monday, approved the transfer.
December 14, 2011 Briefs
• Obama confirmed US troops would leave Iraq by the end of the month.
• Gunfight between supporters of rival candidates closed a polling station on Cairo’s outskirts in second round of Egypt’s vote on Wednesday. One person injured in another shooting outside Suez City.
• Hamas PM Hanyeh: Armed resistance is the only way to liberate Palestinian lands.
Iran propositions Saudis, seeks anti-US pact, offers nuclear cooperation
14 Dec. Iranian Intelligence Minister Heidar Moslehi visited Riyadh Monday, Dec. 12 with a large delegation and a proposition for Crown Prince Nayef: For an anti-US and anti-Zionist pact on regional issues. Moslehi boasted that after seizing top US secret drone technology by a successful cyber attack, Iran was unquestionably the top regional power. The Iranians pushed hard for a partnership with the Saudis on such issues as oil, Iraqi, Syria, Afghanistan, Lebanon and Yemen, on most of which Tehran and Riyadh are in direct collision. The Saudis moved fast to take the ayatollahs down a peg or two.
December 15, 2011 Briefs
• A three-round mortar volley from Gaza explodes in the Eshkol district Thursday.
• Panetta arrives in Baghdad for Casing Stars and Stripes ceremony in Baghdad marking end of US Iraq war. From the 2003 invasion, the war claimed 4,487 American lives, with 32,226 wounded in action.
• Syrian troops stormed Hama, kill at least 10 people, to break “strike of dignity” staged by opposition. Outside city army deserters ambushed military jeep convoy killed eight soldiers.
• In testimony to Congress, US diplomat Fred Hof, expert on Syria, calls Bashar Assad “dead man walking”.
• Netanyahu vetoes definition of rioting West Bank settler youths as “terrorists”. Orders these suspected “lawbreakers and anarchists” placed under administrative detention, tried by military courts.
• Israeli authorities demolish two illegal structures at Mitzpe Yitzhar northeast of Ramallah.
• Iran is to put on display four Israeli and three American unmanned drones claimed in its possession. The most advanced is the US RQ-170 Sentinel downed Dec. 4.
• Israel publishes names of 550 jailed Palestinians to be released Sunday in Stage 2 of prisoner swap for Gilead Shalit.
• US Congress enacts partial freeze on Pakistan aid, harsh new sanctions on Iran aimed at cutting off its central bank from global financial system.
Iran transfers all its nuclear plant underground
15 Dec. Iran says all its nuclear facilities, including uranium enrichment centrifuges, are now underground and safe from US and Israeli attack. Israeli Defense Minister Barak has warned that once underground, Iran’s nuclear infrastructure could no longer be attacked and no one would know when a start was made on a nuclear weapon. debkafile: Iran has obtained from North Korea the special metals for advanced uranium enrichment up to weapons grade – contrary to Western claims that their short supply had stalled enrichment.
debkafile‘s intelligence sources report Iranian statement referred to the third-generation, faster IR2 and IR4 centrifuges moved to the underground nuclear city at Fordo near Qom to start enriching the 20-percent grade uranium Iran has accumulated to 60 percent, a step before weapons grade.
This accumulated stock is sufficient for four or five nuclear bombs.

Dennis Ross

One of the most intriguing events in Washington this week was a talk given by President Barack Obama‘s senior adviser Dennis Ross Tuesday, Dec. 13, at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, of which he was once director.
Ross is newly retired from his two years (since June 2009) as Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for the Central Region, with overall responsibility for the region which encompasses the Middle East, the Persian Gulf, Afghanistan, Pakistan and South Asia.
Because it was the first time since the Arab Revolt began in Tunisia in Dec. 2010 that a senior White House policy shaper in the areas of those uprisings has spoken publicly, his words were followed intently by politicians and intelligence personnel in many Western and Middle Eastern capitals.
Ross’s appearance also had an intriguing domestic political and personal dimension.
Many Washington pundits expected him to criticize Obama on the Middle East. His comments would have been pointers to the mood in the White House and the level of optimism in the presidential staff about the president’s prospects for reelection in November 2012. Ross’ diplomatic career moves during his 34 years in Washington since 1977 under six American presidents, Democrat and Republican, have often been a reliable barometer of the political fluctuations in the American leadership.
Did Obama offer Clinton the running mate slot?
But DEBKA-Net-Weekly‘s Washington sources report the pundits were disappointed. Ross did not criticize the president, although they deduced from his restraint that he believes Obama’s chances of a second term are still good. (According to a former senior presidential aide, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, in private conversations, Obama is the first American president to raise more than $1 billion for his campaign a year before the vote.)
Ross was more cagy. He said he preferred to take time out from politics until 2016 and then see who is in line for the presidency before resuming his government activity, an attitude some Washington watchers linked to Hillary Clinton‘s decision to resign as Secretary of State at the end of Obama’s first term and seek the Democratic nomination for president in 2016.
Obama is expected to persuade her to stay on and replace Joe Biden as his running mate, although she is unlikely to take the offer, say those observers.
With that piece of gossip in mind, Dan Raviv of CBS asked Ross: Were there differences between you and others (in Obama’s administration) on this (Middle East, Iran) issues? Is that why you left? And does the administration just want to prevent nuclear (Iran), or will it go further towards regime change?
Ross replied: “I left because I had promised my wife as a condition for going back… that I would go in for two years. She tolerated a third year. There was no other reason. There are always going to be disagreements in administrations.”
US security ties with Israel, Saudis stronger than ever
This answer drew understanding smiles; It was taken as confirming a disagreement between Obama, who is after a common language with the current Iranian leadership and Hillary Clinton, who would go for a policy of regime change.
Answers to a number of questions posed by Robert Satloff, the executive director of the Washington Institute, opened a window to a number of basic Obama policy positions in the Middle East and Persian Gulf.
Asked how do “Arab Spring” changes affect the US-Israel and US-Saudi relationships, Ross answered: “Both leaderships came to realize that this was not something the United States could have prevented (alluding to initial Saudi and Israeli frustration with the US for not intervening to save Egypt’s Mubarak).
“In terms of the US and Israel today, the security relationship has never been as strong as it is. Not just in terms of security assistance but in terms of the whole array of the relationship, of discussions of national security issues.
“With the Saudis and Gulf Council states, ‘security coordination’ – air defense, missile defense, maritime defense, early warning, level of cooperation – is unprecedented. The infrastructure of those relationships is stronger than ever. There are differences but there will always be differences. The fundamentals are solid.”
DEBKA-Net-Weekly‘s sources translate these remarks as meaning that President Obama and his strategic advisers have opted to raise US military-intelligence cooperation with Israel and Saudi Arabia to an unprecedented level compared to previous presidents and give them all the sophisticated arms they need.
But here comes the caveat: Washington is determined to disencumber itself of the burden of diplomatic and policy coordination in the Middle East and Persian Gulf with both these countries.
Obama no longer coordinates Mid East policies with Israel or Saudi Arabia
This is the first time since President Obama took office in 2009 that a key shaper of this policy, Dennis Ross, has frankly stated that the US administration no longer accepts the need to coordinate its strategy with Riyadh and Jerusalem ahead of execution in those key regions.
Israel and Saudi Arabia still benefit from America’s military umbrella and their security needs are met, but America’s regional policy is separate from and may conflict with theirs. If this policy generates a security problem for either Israel or Saudi Arabia, the Obama administration will let them have all the hardware they need to stay out of harm’s way, but will not digress from its own chosen path.
Clearly, President Obama differs from his predecessors in that, while addressing Israeli and Saudi security needs, he refuses to tie US policy to either of their strategic interests. This was glaringly apparent in his handling of the Arab Revolt.
This policy departure came up in another question posed to Ross:
Satloff again: What about Iran being an “existential” problem for Israel but not for the US, however critical a problem it is? And why don’t people believe Obama is serous about preventing Iran from getting nukes?
Ross: From the Israeli standpoint, Iran with nuclear weapons is an existential threat, but to the States the threat is not existential, but it is a threat to US vital security interests.
A nuclear Iran is an existential problem for Israel and Saudis – not for America
“Let’s assume that Iran has nuclear weapons and we (US) have a Middle East where Israel and others are looking at Iran with nuclear weapons. You are not going to have a stable situation where anyone can feel that they are going to wait. If there is the slightest indication that Iran is changing its readiness, can Israel wait? This is not a Cold War situation – unlike Soviets-US, Iran and Israel do not communicate. The potential for miscalculation would be enormous. If Iran has nuclear weapons the potential for nuclear war in the Middle East goes up dramatically.”
On Iran, therefore, the gap between Washington on the one hand and Riyadh and Jerusalem on the other is clearly defined. The Saudis and Israelis both view a nuclear-armed Iran as an existential threat. Obama accepts a state of Cold War with Iran and finds it possible to live with its nuclear weapons.
The former presidential adviser had only one terse comment to make on the Israel-Palestinian issue. He said this issue is still important but there is an “entirely new frame of reference.”
DEBKA-Net-Weekly‘s Washington sources report that Obama recently issued a secret Presidential Directive to his administration’s diplomatic staff to freeze all activity on the Palestinian question.
On Obama’s credibility, Ross said: “The administration prides itself on a certain reality that it does what it says.” From day one, Obama wanted to get Osama bin Laden, “and he does what he says. When he says all options remain on the table, it doesn’t mean that force is his first choice, but it means that that’s an option that he intends to exercise.”

Leon Panetta

US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta told a Fox News interviewer Tuesday, Dec. 13, that the US stealth drone campaign “along the Iran-Afghanistan border” will “absolutely” continue, despite the loss of a valuable and sophisticated drone to the Iranians. The US military has no plans to halt the drone operation out of Western Afghanistan, he insisted. “Those operations have to be protected in order to do the job and the mission that they’re involved with,” he said.
Panetta’s affirmative was essentially a negative, say DEBKA-Net-Weekly’s military sources.
US drone flights over Iran will not be renewed because the Afghanistan-Iranian border will not be crossed. Therefore, the downing of the spy drone by Iran has seriously impaired US – and consequently – Israel’s military-intelligence operations. The Pentagon clearly fears Iran has acquired the means to down and capture more US unmanned aerial vehicles.
This directly contradicts comments by Representative Mike Rogers (R-Mich.), who before a Foreign Policy Initiative-sponsored forum in Washington repeatedly dismissed as false Iranian claims that one of its electronic warfare units brought down the RQ-170 Sentinel. He insisted it had fallen into Iranian hands because of a technical malfunction.
If it was only a malfunction, DEBKA-Net-Weekly asks, why has the US halted its drone flights over Iran?
In similar episodes in the past, the US military and the CIA normally reacted by increasing drone flights over hostile territory to prove to the enemy they have not been slowed down or abandoned their missions.
A world-class electronic warfare master helped Iran capture the drone
Since Saturday, Dec. 4, when the news broke of the Iranian RQ-170 capture, Western and Middle East intelligence circles have stopped contradicting the Iranian version of a cyber attack and are indeed coming around to the conviction that this attack extended beyond the drone.
Some suggest that the Iranians not only cracked the Sentinel’s secret software but also penetrated the command and control center running the drones from CIA Headquarters at Langley in McClean, Virginia and delved into the satellite connection between Langley and the drone.
This assumption led to the conclusion that, since a feat that comprehensive was beyond the known capabilities of Iran, outside help must have been forthcoming from one of the few world-class masters of electronic warfare – one in command of the technology for filtering through billions of coded communications relayed from Langley to satellites and cracking the coded links between Langley and one specific satellite and between that satellite and the drone.
The same master hand would also have been able to reprogram the directives guiding the satellite and the RQ-170 – unbeknownst to the CIA headquarters – by falsifying the images appearing on the screens in Langley. The drone would have been misrepresented as complying with its original programming although it had been commandeered by Iran and was obeying its new masters.
The vehicle’s CIA handlers in Langley did not activate its self-destruct mechanism because they were not aware it was out of their control. By the time it was discovered, it was too late; the mechanism along with the rest of the drone’s systems had been disconnected and passed to its new controllers.
The misfortune was compounded by the discovery that the RQ-170 was captured on its very first mission over Iran. Its seizure at the moment it crossed over the border from Afghanistan meant that it fell into waiting hands which were alerted in advance about the precise moment of its secret arrival.
Iran credited with intelligence – though not cyber – coup
This information could only have originated in one or two places – or both:
1. Access to the decision to send the RQ-170 over Iran that was reached at a meeting attended by four or at most five people: President Barack Obama, Defense Secretary Panetta, National Security Adviser Tom Donelon, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Gen. Martin Dempsey and Central Intelligence Director David Petraeus.
2. Round-the-clock monitoring of the coded communications bouncing between the command center in Langley, a specific satellite and the Sentinel drone.
Whoever staged the cyber attack on the unmanned vehicle must have had knowledge of the day and hour of its maiden flight into Iranian airspace and the place in Kandahar from which it was sent on its journey. They would also have taken for granted that the US drone was the precursor to an imminent attack on Iran’s nuclear installations and been concerned to preclude the RQ-170 from making unwelcome discoveries.
It is seriously doubted in Washington and by other Western experts that Iran is in command of the sophisticated cyber systems for managing this complex task.

Hadi al-Ameri

The self-confidence generated by its capture of the American stealth drone Dec. 4 galvanized Tehran into a spurt for spreading its diplomatic wings, while not letting up on its arm-twisting tactics.
Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki was the object of this tactic this week when Tehran bullied him into placing his Trade Minister Hadi al-Ameri in the party he took with him to Washington for talks to wind up the US war in Iraq.
Al-Ameri is a regular visitor to Iran. He lives in a private residence near Tehran belonging to the Iranian al Qods Brigades; his wife is born in Iran and his children live permanently in Kermanshah in western Iran.
When he last visited Tehran, he was granted an audience with Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, whose hand he habitually kisses to signify his absolute loyalty.
Before the Iraq war, the new Iraqi trade minister planned and executed 150 terrorist operations on Tehran’s behalf.
A graduate of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) military command and staff course, Al-Ameri worked under the al Qods Brigades command in the course of the Iraq war. Working closely with al Qods commander Gen. Ghassem Soleimani, he was instrumental in establishing IRGC and al Qods control over the incumbent Iraqi government’s security, military and administrative machinery.
Al-Ameri’s presence in the al-Maliki delegation to Washington raised a hullabaloo in and around the White House. Iranian regime notables rubbed their hands in glee.
Obama determines to cultivate pro-Iranian radicals in Baghdad
Questioned about the ex-terrorist’s admission to the talks President Barak Obama and the Iraqi prime minister held Monday, Dec. 12, the White House handed the media a photo of former President George W. Bush greeting Sayyed Abdul Aziz al-Hakim in late 2006. He was then leader of the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq which was part of the violent pro-Iranian Badr force.
It was the White House’s way of saying that even President Bush was obliged to hobnob with prominent Iraqis who took their orders from Tehran.
Iran planted al-Ameri under the US president’s nose to demonstrate to the American people that no matter who was president, he would have to swallow the hard reality of the ruler of Baghdad having to bend the knee to Tehran. And that included al-Maliki.
DEBKA-Net-Weekly’s intelligence and Iranian sources say that Tehran’s provocations of the US president are carefully measured.
To seriously undermine Obama, Iran needed only to expose the instruction he gave US intelligence last month for an intensive outreach to the radical Iraqi Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, an influential figure in today’s Iraq, who is highly unpopular in America after spending eight years either waging war on American soldiers or away in the Iranian holy city of Qom for close communion with Iran’s clerical leaders.
The exit of US troops from Iraq by the end of the month coincides with the Iraqi cleric’s switch away from radical dissidence. He now embraces the Iraqi political mainstream and calls for an Islamic democracy to rise in Baghdad.
President Obama decided the Iraqi cleric’s altered attitude made him worth cultivating – especially in view of the secret dialogue he is conducting with Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan. They are reported to be discussing how to promote the establishment of moderate Islamist regimes friendly to the US in Arab capitals.
Tehran: Washington’s ties with Iraqi radicals weaken the US
Iran’s leaders are not bothered by the relationship the Obama administration is developing with al Sadr. They are sure that any time they want, they can force him to toe their line by having the Qom clergy, whom he would never dare defy, haul him back.
They also believe that Washington’s association with al Sadr puts the US administration in a position of weakness in Iraq and vis-à-vis Tehran.
With the sense that Iraqi leaders are in its pocket, Tehran embarked on its next diplomatic assault:
Iranian Intelligence Minister Heidar Moslehi was sent to Riyadh Monday, December 12, for “an exchange of information” with Saudi Crown Prince Nayef bin Abdulaziz and intelligence chiefs led by Prince Muqrin bin Abdulaziz. The visit was set up with the help of Omani Foreign Minister Yusuf bin Alawi.
Tehran understood that it would be hard to persuade Saudi royals to accept official Iranian visitors less than three months after Iran was charged with conspiring to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to Washington, unless the trip was characterized as an opportunity to share intelligence.
Once Moslehi and party sat down with Prince Nayef, they showed their true colors. They struck a posture of superiority, fired up by their success in downing an American stealth drone and unlocking its secrets, and quickly suggested that the Saudis join Iran in establishing an anti-American and ant-Zionist Middle East alliance.
Its centerpiece was to be an Iranian-Saudi axis for leading this alliance into a series of steps for cutting the US and Turkey out of their roles in the Arab Revolt. It would be powered by Iran’s military, intelligence and nuclear prowess and Saudi strength and wealth.
Moslehi dangled before the Saudi princes the bait of a share in Iran’s nuclear program if they could reach understandings on oil, Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, Lebanon and Yemen.
Iranian-Saudi leverage alone can force Assad to share power with opposition
DEBKA-Net-Weekly‘s Iranian sources report the Islamic regime’s leaders do not delude themselves into expecting the Saudis to turn away from their fundamental policies and accepting the entire package they put on the table in Riyadh. They hope for modest though critical pickings from their initiative in three key spheres:
1. Tehran believes it can extract a few inches of common ground from Riyadh’s profound mistrust of Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan and his neo-Ottoman ambitions, and the close collaboration he and President Obama have forged for toppling Syrian President Bashar Assad.
(See a separate item in this issue).
The Iranians thought it worth trying to draw Riyadh into reaching over the heads of the US and Turkey and using combined Saudi-Iranian leverage to make Assad accept opposition participation in his regime. Neither Washington nor Ankara is able to swing this, Moslehi explained. He warned that unless the violence in Syria is stemmed, it may well degenerate into a regional conflagration and draw both Iran and Saudi into the fray against their better judgment.
But, said the Iranian visitors, if the Saudi government played ball with them in Syria, Tehran would be forthcoming on Iraq and Afghanistan. In other words, Tehran was offering Riyadh terms in those arenas that would push the US to the sidelines. Anyway, said the Iranian minister, after Syria, get ready for the Americans to turn their backs on the region.
Saudis would be biggest losers if a US oil embargo on Iran caused Hormuz closure
2. On the nuclear issue, Tehran hopes for some sort of Saudi response to Iran’s offer of unspecified participation in its nuclear program. Moslehi emphasized Iran’s keenness to head off a regional nuclear arms race. He gave the Saudis an opening to define in general terms what sort of cooperation would satisfy them and assured Prince Nayef that Tehran would go a long way to accommodate them.
3. On the oil issue, the Iranian intelligence minister informed the Saudi crown prince that it was a mistake for Tehran and Riyadh to leave Washington free to impose an oil embargo on Iran because this step would generate a Gulf war and block exports from the entire Persian Gulf region, Saudi Arabia most of all.
Moslehi said Tehran knew that the Obama administration was leaning hard on Saudi Arabia to step up production by mid-2012 to meet the needs of Japan and India, which depend on Iranian oil. But, he said, nothing would come of that move if Tehran decides to close the narrow Strait of Hormuz channel. That option is on the Iranian table, he said – even at the risk of a military showdown with the United States.
Tehran’s idea therefore was for the two biggest oil producers of the Gulf to join forces to head off a war confrontation in the Persian Gulf.
According to our sources, Prince Nayef listened carefully to the Iranian propositions. He promised to put them before King Abdullah and the senior princes and let Tehran have Riyadh’s reply soon.

Syria has rushed Scud surface missile launchers to its Turkish border and is augmenting the armored units strung out along its border with Jordan.
These military movements were disclosed Thursday night, Dec. 15 by DEBKA-Net-Weekly‘s exclusive military and intelligence sources as US special operations forces continued to stream in from Iraq to the Jordanian-Syrian frontier.
This is the first time since the outbreak of the uprising against Bashar Assad nine months ago that American troops stand face to face opposite Syrian military forces (as debkafile first disclosed on Dec. 13).
Our sources also report that Syria has deployed 21 missile launchers in firing positions on its northern border opposite the Turkish town of Hatai (Alexandretta). They include five Scud D missiles with chemical warheads.
The missiles were moved into position in broad daylight to make sure they were spotted by Western satellites and Turkish military surveillance.
As this issue closed Thursday night, Syria continued to direct more missiles of unknown types to the Turkish frontier.
On arrival in Jordan, the US units are settling in at the King Hussein Air Base of al-Mafraq, 10 kilometers from the Syrian border. This week they started building positions and watchtowers in the Jordanian villages of Albaej, Zubaydiah and al-Nahdah Houshan, as well as alongside the Sarhan Dam of the Yarmoukh River which marks a section of the border,
Since last Saturday, Dec. 10, Syrian tank forces have been piling up opposite the Jordanian town of Bura Al Harir.
Our sources also revealed Thursday night that Russia has been airlifting to Syria supplies of face masks for protection against chemical and biological weapons and quantities of medical supplies. So far three million gas masks have arrived, equivalent to the membership of the ruling Alawite sect.
It looks very much that if war break out the Syrian ruler will be concerned to protect the members of his own sect and leave the rest of the population to fend for itself.

Joe Biden

By treating visiting US Vice President Joe Biden to the finest Gaziantep cuisine to be found in Istanbul, his Turkish hosts were signifying a shared secret meaningful enough for them to shepherd the vice president through one of Istanbul’s busiest markets on Dec. 4 for a special lunch.
Gaziantep, a town of 1.3 million in southeastern Turkey, is one of the oldest continuously inhabited towns in the world. It is situated 185 kilometers (115 miles) northeast of Adana and 127 kilometers by road north of Aleppo, Syria.
So what stopped Turkish officials driving Biden to Gaziantep to sample its excellent food in situ?
Three compelling reasons, divulged here by DEBKA-Net-Weekly’s Turkish sources:
One: In Gaziantep, the US has established a top-secret logistical intelligence headquarters for orchestrating the campaign in Syria and across the Middle East to rid Damascus of Bashar Assad and his family.
Two: The Turkish and American security details guarding the US vice president decided it would be too dangerous for him to go to Gaziantep in person because the town is already swarming with Syrian, Iraqi, Iranian and who knows? other secret agents and he would be safer in an Istanbul restaurant.
Three: The flavors of Gaziantep delicacies sufficed to symbolize the close and intimate understanding President Barack Obama’s administration and Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan have cultivated and the near unison they have achieved – not only with regard to Syria but the trends afoot across entire Middle East
The Obama-Erdogan mutual trust duo
President Obama has come to appreciate Erdogan as the only Muslim leader in the region he can trust to bring to reality the vision he laid out in his June 4, 2009 Cairo University speech.
Obama declared then: “I have come here to seek a new beginning between the United States and Muslims around the world: one based upon mutual interest and mutual respect; and one based on the truth that America and Islam are not exclusive.”
Turkish officials for their part say President Obama is the only Western leader who understands their rulers and extends a helping hand for their Islamic and Middle East goals which center on promoting Islamic politicians willing to embrace the “Turkish model” of moderate, pragmatic Muslim rule.
On the basis of this friendship, the Obama administration set up in the ancient Turkish town a clandestine center for their joint campaign against Assad. Its location near the Syrian border enables US agents to interact directly with the various opposition factions fighting the Assad regime and so avoid the glaring shortcoming Washington suffered in the Tunisian, Egyptian and Libyan uprisings, namely distance from the active arenas.
A Turkish security source told DEBKA-Net-Weekly that the functioning of the US Gaziantep headquarters under Turkish security protection perfectly embodies American-Turkish collaboration in shaping the Arab Revolt.
US designates Syrian army for takeover from Assad
Unlike the Egyptian, Libyan and Yemen uprisings, in which the Americans were constantly taken by surprise, the US outpost in Turkey, which cooperates with Paris and Doha, invests heavily in keeping America two or three steps ahead of the action. It is also there to keep agreed goals on track and guard against the tumult in Syria veering out of control.
Washington and Ankara are worried, or rather terrified, that their loss of control in Syria might not just lead to a blow-out in the entire region, but would drop Syria itself into the pit of a civil war bloodier even than the communal conflict afflicting Iraq for the last decade.
To keep matters in hand, the Americans plan to topple Bashar Assad and his gang in careful stages, moving forward to the next only when the situation is under control and the transition promises to be smooth.
Our intelligence sources list five focal points of the American master plan for his ouster:
1. Action to keep heavy weaponry out of the hands of Syrian rebels, including the Syrian Free Army–SFA. This is not easy because while the Americans and Turks refrain from supplying this sort of hardware to opposition fighters, the Saudis, Qataris and certain elements in Jordan and Lebanon are providing them with heavy machine guns, anti-tank missiles and mortars. Of late, the US has managed to reduce this flow.
2. Keeping heavy guns out of rebel hands is essential to Washington’s plan for the Syrian army to come out of the crisis in good enough shape to step in when the Assad regime is removed.
No other Damascus actor, the Americans believe, is capable of preventing Syria imploding into civil war – even though military brutalities brought the country to the brink of one. Therefore, arming the rebels with heavy weapons for fighting soldiers would be counter-productive to Washington’s goal of preserving the Syrian army for its post-Assad role.
Qatar offers Moallem a palace and hard cash for defecting
3. The US has a covert operation going to penetrate the top military echelons and win their support. So do the Persian Gulf States led by Qatar – albeit by different tactics.
They aim at splitting the ranks of the Assad regime by tempting top officials to defect. Last week, Qatar offered Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Moallam a grand palace, lifelong protection and a gift of tens of millions of dollars for ditching Bashar Assad. He declined, reluctant to abandon his family to the mercies of the Assad gang.
The Americans are working on two tracks: One is to try and recruit Trojan horses from among high-ranking Syrian officers by appealing to their ethnic affinities through co-religionists or sect members (Kurds, Alawites, Christians or Druzes). The other is to head-hunt defectors to the West or Turkey from among the hundreds of Syrian officers of different ranks attending military academies outside Syria – about 400-500 in Russia and another 150 at Pakistan’s command and staff school.
4. The Americans have turned their attention to the Aleppo Governorate, the most populous in the country, and the 3.5 million inhabitants of its capital, Syria’s business and financial center and the backbone of its middle class. By balking at joining the uprising, Aleppo has made itself the opposition’s Achilles heel and a strong asset for the Assad regime.
Gaziantep’s proximity to Aleppo – 127 kilometers by road – was one of the reasons for its choice as the US center of operations.
In early November, Arab-speaking American agents infiltrated the city to organize groups for a sweeping campaign of civil disobedience aimed at bringing Aleppo to a standstill as the vanguard for other cities.
Aleppo to front a campaign of civil disobedience
DEBKA-Net-Weekly’s intelligence sources report that in the next few days, these agents aim to start the ball rolling in Aleppo with big street demonstrations and sit-down strikes at university campuses. Thousands, or even tens of thousands, of protesters will block traffic thoroughfares in the metropolitan area and shut down essential facilities such as power stations, bus terminals and railway hubs, actions designed to undermine government authority.
Undercover US agents are also telling activists to start instituting mass refusals to pay taxes, renew licenses, settle utility bills and use banks for trading – civic tools for upending the economy from within.
Because the army, security forces and the Alawite Shabiha militia have never had to grapple with civil disobedience on the scale of a large city, Aleppo will soon be shut down.
5. To bring the campaign to the rest of Syria, American agents and Syrian activists have smuggled in thousands of satellite phones and distributed them in the cities, towns and villages throughout the country.
They are wired to American telephone firms and paid for out of the US intelligence budget.
Opposition cell leaders can now stay in touch with the Gaziantep center and with fellow activists in other parts of the country without the Syrian security and intelligence officers tapping into their phones to locate their whereabouts or cut them off.
Syria for the dress rehearsal, Iran for the performance
According to our Washington sources, US intelligence circles make no bones about using Syria for the dress rehearsal ahead of the main performance in Iran within the coming three months before the Majlis elections in March, 2012.
Of course, this would depend on everything in Syria going according to plan. However, a sudden spurt this week of violent opposition clashes with the army and a surge in the rate of defections from the Syrian military were not taken into account in the American master plan. Therefore, the contest threatens to slide out of the control of the Gaziantep headquarters too – and not just of the Assad regime in Damascus.