WarSclerotic

70,000 Syrians rally as Arab monitors visit Homs; tanks seen leaving flashpoint city.

Al Arabiya

Tuesday, 27 December 2011

Best Option to Stop Nukes? The Military. « Commentary Magazine.

Evelyn Gordon | @evelyng1234 12.27.2011 – 8:00 AM

Matthew Kroenig, a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations who formerly served as a special adviser on Iran policy in the Defense Department​, has an excellent article in Foreign Affairs on why a U.S. attack on Iran is the least bad of the available options. Kroenig lays out a detailed argument for why military action is feasible, why it’s preferable to a nuclear Iran and what the U.S. could do to minimize the inevitable fallout, and I sincerely hope Washington policy makers are reading it.

But there’s another argument that’s worth adding to Kroenig’s list: the relative track records of military versus nonmilitary efforts to stop nuclear proliferation.

In an article in the New York Times last week, another former U.S. official intimately involved in nuclear policy — Robert Gallucci​, who served as chief negotiator with North Korea during President Bill Clinton​’s administration — criticized the Bush administration for not taking a hard line on Pyongyang’s transfer of nuclear technology to Damascus. Syria, he noted dryly, might well have nuclear weapons today “had it not been for Israel’s version of a nonproliferation policy — aerial bombardment of the site.” And while Gallucci didn’t mention it, the same is true of Iraq.

In fact, Syria and Iraq are the only two countries where military action has ever been tried to halt a nuclear program. And so far, both are nuke-free. Moreover, in both cases, military action spared the world a nightmare. The current unrest in Syria would create a real danger of terrorist groups obtaining nuclear materiel had Israel not destroyed Syria’s reactor in 2007. And by bombing Iraq’s reactor in 1981, Israel made it possible for a U.S.-led coalition to go to war to reverse Iraq’s 1990 invasion of Kuwait – an invasion that, had it gone unchecked, would have destabilized the entire vital oil-producing Gulf region, but which the world would have had to swallow had Iraq had nukes by then.

By contrast, consider the track record in places where military action wasn’t tried, like Pakistan and North Korea. Both not only have the bomb, but have merrily proliferated ever since to some of the world’s worst regimes. And in Pakistan’s case, there’s the added fear that radical Islamists will someday take over the unstable country, along with its nukes.

In fact, nonmilitary sanctions have never persuaded any country to abandon a nuclear program: The few countries that have scrapped such programs did so not in response to sanctions, but to domestic developments (regime change in South Africa) or to fear of military action (Libya after the U.S. invaded Iraq in 2003).

So far, the same is proving true in Iran, where years of nonmilitary sanctions have slowed its nuclear development, but have utterly failed to halt it, or to alter its leaders’ determination to pursue it. That confronts America with a stark choice: stick to nonmilitary methods that have never succeeded in the past until Iran becomes the next North Korea, or switch to military methods, which have worked in the past.

For if history is any guide, there is no third option.

IDF Chief: Israel Can’t Escape Gaza Incursion – Defense/Security – News – Israel National News.

Benny Gantz

IDF Spokesperson

IDF Chief of Staff Benny Gantz on Tuesday said there is “no escape” from launching a major operation to root out Hamas in Gaza.

“From time to time, we face rocket fire from the Gaza Strip and we understand the continuing buildup from the Egypt region,” Gantz said. “I believe that the state of Israel cannot continue to live under the active threat of Hamas in the Gaza Strip.”

“Sooner or later, there will be no escape from conducting a significant operation,” Gantz continued. “The IDF knows how to operate in a determined, decisive and offensive manner against terrorists in the Gaza Strip.”

Gantz said that any such operation would be premeditated and quick.

On the third anniversary of Operation Cast Lead, Gantz expressed satisfaction with the high level of deterrence Israel gained from it.

Critics, however, say that a Gaza incursion would be unecessary if such deterrence had been achieved and accuse then Prime Minister Ehud Olmert of caving to international pressure and ordered the IDF to pull out before it had achieved its strategic aims in Gaza.

Nor, they say, does Israel face rockets and mortars from Gaza “from time to time,” noting that thousands of rocket and mortar shells have been launched by terrorists Gaza at Israel’s southern communities since Operation Cast Lead was concluded.

Military analysts say Israel’s airstrikes-for-rocket-attacks strategic posture vis-a-vis Gaza has proven ineffective against Hamas and perpetuated the poor security situation of Israel’s southern communities. Over 1 million Israelis live under the threat of persistent rocket attacks from Gaza.

Gantz joins his predecessors Shaul Mofaz, Moshe Yaalon, Dan Halutz, and Gabi Ashkenazi in admitting the need for a major ground operation in Gaza. Former Maj. General Yoav Galant and Minister of Internal Security Yitzhak Aharonovitch have also called for such an operation.

70,000 protest Assad as Arab monitors arri… JPost – Middle East.

    BEIRUT – Tens of thousands of Syrians in Homs rallied on Tuesday against President Bashar al-Assad, emboldened by Arab peace monitors’ first tour of the flashpoint city, after the army withdrew some tanks following battles that killed 34 people in 24 hours.

“There are at least 70,000 protesters. They are marching towards the city center and the security forces are trying to stop them. They are firing tear gas,” Rami Abdelrahman of the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights told Reuters.

The observers want to determine if Assad is keeping his promise to implement a peace plan to end his uncompromising military crackdown on nine months of popular revolt that has generated an armed uprising, edging Syria towards civil war.

Some protesters shouted “we want international protection” in a video posted on YouTube apparently showing a street encounter with the Arab League observers in which some residents argued and pleaded with them to venture further into the Baba Amr quarter, where clashes have been especially fierce.

Bursts of gunfire erupted towards the end of a video, after a resident yelled at one monitor to repeat what he had just told his headquarters.

“You were telling the head of the mission that you cannot cross to the second street because of the gunfire. Why don’t you say it to us?” the man shouted, grabbing the unidentified monitor by his jacket.

The monitor said he was not authorized to make statements.

Gunshots crackled nearby as two monitors and two men wearing orange vests stood amid a crowd of residents, one begging the team to “come and see; they are slaughtering us, I swear.”

Activist reports just before the monitors arrived said up to a dozen tanks were seen leaving Baba Amr but others were being hidden to fashion a false impression of relative normality in the city while observers were around.

“My house is on the eastern entrance of Baba Amr. I saw at least six tanks leave the neighborhood at around 8 in the morning (0600 GMT),” Mohamed Saleh told Reuters by telephone. “I do not know if more remain in the area.”

Al Jazeera television showed an estimated 20,000 Syrians in a square in Khalidiya, one of four districts where there has been bloodshed as rebels fight security forces using tanks.

They were whistling and shouting and waving flags, playing music over loudspeakers and clapping. Women were advised to leave because of the risk of bloodshed. But a speaker urged the men to “come down, brothers.”

The protesters shouted “We have no one but God” and “Down with the regime”. An activist named Tamir told Reuters they planned to hold a sit-in in the square.

“We tried to start a march down to the main market but the organizers told us to stop, it’s too dangerous. No one dares go down to the main streets. So we will stay in Khalidiya and we will stay here in the square and we will not leave from here.”

Assad increasingly isolated

The autocratic Assad is internationally isolated. Western powers and his neighbors Turkey and Jordan have called on him to step down, which would end a 41-year-old family dynasty.

He says he is fighting Islamist terrorism steered from abroad and has defied calls to make way for a reformist succession as has transpired in Egypt, Libya and Tunisia after popular uprisings toppled dictators this year.

Armed insurgency is eclipsing civilian protest in Syria. Many fear a slide to sectarian war between the Sunni Muslim majority, the driving force of the protest movement, and minorities that have mostly stayed loyal to the government, particularly the Alawite sect to which Assad belongs.

Analysts say the Arab League is anxious to avoid civil war. Western powers have shown no desire to intervene militarily in a volatile region of Middle East conflict. The UN Security Council is split, with Russia – a major arms supplier to Assad – and China opposed to any hint of military intervention.

Assad’s opponents appear divided on aims and tactics. He retains strong support in important areas – including Damascus and the second city Aleppo – of the country, and maintains a critical anti-Israel alliance with Iran.

Opposition willing to “wait and see”

Homs protesters appeared to take heart from the monitors’ sudden presence. They want to impress on the Arab League mission that it must not let its teams be hoodwinked by the state and be shown places where life looks relatively normal.

As the monitors arrived, tanks were seen leaving the Baba Amr district which activists say was pounded for the past four days. Hundreds have been killed in Homs in the revolt – among the 5,000 the United Nations have died as a result of violence nationwide since protests began in March.

In Baba Amr on Monday, activist video showed bodies in pieces and buildings smashed as if by heavy weapons. The images were impossible to verify but hard to fake.

“We do not want to jump to conclusions and say that this delegation is not objective or did not look for the truth,” said Moulhem Droubi, top ranking Muslim Brotherhood member on the Syrian National Council, the opposition umbrella group in exile.

“It is not fair yet to judge. Let’s wait and see what it will do,” he told Reuters by phone from somewhere outside Syria.

“I expect it will be able to write a report with many facts because the facts are so clear. If they go to Baba Amr they will see that there is destruction.”

On the border with Turkey, Syrian forces killed “several” men from an “armed terrorist group” trying to cross into Syria, the state news agency SANA said on Tuesday.

The northern border has become the route of choice for infiltration by army defectors fighting to topple Assad since Turkey’s government, once a close ally, parted ways with him over the bloody repression of protesters.

SANA also reported that said “an armed terrorist group targeted and sabotaged a gas pipeline near Rastan in Homs province” on Tuesday. The pipeline has been attacked several times in recent months and returned to operation each time.

Damascus has barred most foreign journalists from the country, making it hard to check events on the ground.

Syria stalled the Arab League for months before accepting the monitoring mission, the first significant international intervention on the ground since the start of the popular revolt inspired by Arab pro-democracy uprisings this year.

The Arab delegation, led by Sudanese General Mustafa Dabi, started with 50 monitors who arrived on Monday. About 100 more are to follow soon.

West of Eden-Israel News – Haaretz Israeli News source..

Israelis and many Americans are convinced that President Obama will ultimately back away from attacking Iran. They may be wrong.

By Chemi Shalev

“When American officials declare that all options are on the table, most Israelis do not believe them. They have concluded, rather, that when the crunch comes (and everyone thinks it will), the United States will shy away from military force and reconfigure its policy to live with a nuclear-armed Iran.”

This was the bottom line of “What Israelis Hear When Obama Officials Talk About Iran”, an article written by William Galston, a senior research fellow at Brookings, after he canvassed the Israeli participants in the recent Saban Forum held in Washington in early December.

	U.S. President Barack Obama.
	Photo by: Reuters

Since that diagnosis, rendered only three weeks ago, the content, tone and intensity of American pronouncements on Iran have undergone progressively dramatic changes. These include:

• December 16: President Obama, in a speech before the Union of Reform Judaism, goes from the passive “a nuclear Iran is unacceptable” to the assertive “We are determined to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons.”

• December 19: Secretary of Defense Panetta, hitherto the main articulator of the pitfalls of an attack on Iran, suddenly ups the ante by declaring that Iran might be only a year away from acquiring a nuclear bomb, that this the “red line” as far as the U.S. is concerned, and that Washington “will take whatever steps necessary to deal with it.”

• December 20: General Martin Dempsey, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, tells CNN that “the options we are developing are evolving to a point that they would be executable, if necessary”, adding: ‘My biggest worry is that they (Iranians) will miscalculate our resolve’.

• December 21: Dennis Ross tells Israel’s Channel 10 television that President Obama would be prepared to “take a certain step” if that is what is required and “this means that when all options are on the table and if you’ve exhausted all other means, you do what is necessary”.

• December 22: Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak, commenting on the above statements, says that they “make clear a fact that was already known to us from closed-door (discussions). It makes clear to Iran that it faces a real dilemma.”

• December 23: Matthew Kroenig, former Special Adviser on Iran at the Pentagon, publishes an article in the prestigious Foreign Affairs, entitled “Time to Attack Iran”, in which he lays out the case for an American offensive against Iran – sooner rather than later.

Israeli analysts, however, remain unconvinced. Influenced, perhaps, by their own experience with Israel’s cynical political leadership, they have ascribed much of this newly-found oomph in American utterances to an elections-inspired attempt by the Obama Administration to “show support for Israel” at a time of political need. Conversely, they maintain that the change in the American tone is a result of new intelligence information that was presented by Barak to Obama in their December 16 meeting in Washington.

Both of these assessments may or may not be true, but they fail to tell the whole story. The timing of the reinvigorated American rhetoric is undoubtedly tied to the December 18 withdrawal of the last American troops from Iraq. The U.S. Army and the Pentagon have long opposed inflammatory rhetoric toward Tehran during the withdrawal, for fear it might endanger U.S. troops in Iraq. With the withdrawal complete, the Administration felt free to adopt a much more belligerent tone, literally overnight.

As to the substance of American policy, Israelis appear to have persuaded themselves that, despite his vigorous prosecution of the war in Afghanistan and his successful and deadly pursuit of al-Qaida, Obama remains “soft” on Iran and will ultimately back down when push comes to shove. This perception has been fed by Obama’s ill-fated attempt to “engage” with Iran, his initial courtship of the Arab and Muslim world, what is widely perceived as his pro-Palestinian tendencies – and the overall animosity and prejudice directed at the president by many of his detractors.

The Republicans are so convinced, in fact, that they are basing much of their foreign policy campaign against Obama on the assumption that he will ultimately capitulate to Tehran. That may be a dangerous assumption on their part.

In his speech at the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony in December 2009 – possibly forgotten because of the ridiculously premature or spectacularly misdirected awarding of the prize – Obama spoke of a “just war” which can be waged “as a last resort or in self-defense”. After warning of the danger posed by Iran’s nuclear campaign, he said “those who seek peace cannot stand idly by as nations arm themselves for nuclear war.”

In the days after that speech in Oslo, Christian theologian Reinhold Niebuhr was often cited as a source of inspiration for Obama, and it was Niebuhr who wrote, “contemporary history refutes the idea that nations are drawn into war too precipitately. It proves, on the contrary, that it is the general inclination of democratic nations at least to hesitate so long before taking this fateful plunge that the dictator nations gain a fateful advantage over them.” Obama may not want to fall into that pattern.

People believe what they want to believe, but Obama has already proven – in Afghanistan, in Libya, in the offensive against al-Qaida, in the drone war in Somalia, Pakistan and Yemen – that he is no pacifist and does not shy way from using military force when necessary. And while he has stuck to his prepared script that “all options are on the table,” people who have heard Obama speak about Iran in closed sessions have no doubt that if all else fails, including “crippling” sanctions and international isolation, Obama would order a U.S. attack on Iran, if he was convinced, as he appears to be, that it posed a clear and present danger to America’s national security.

And there can be no doubt – notwithstanding claims by the radical left and the isolationist right – that a nuclear Iran would be an unmitigated disaster for American interests, above and beyond the existential threat to Israel. Arab countries would be confronted by a stark choice between subservience to Tehran and the dangerous pursuit of their own nuclear prowess; Muslim extremism would flourish at a particularly precarious juncture in Arab history, compelling newly-emergent Muslim parties, especially in Egypt, to opt for extreme belligerence toward America and Israel; under a protective nuclear umbrella, Hamas and Hezbollah and others of their ilk would be able to run amok with impunity; the entire Middle East would be destabilized and America’s oil supplies held hostage by a self-confident and bellicose Iran. The standing of the U.S., after it is inevitably perceived as having lost out to the Ayatollahs, would reach an all-time low. Russia and China would gradually become the dominant powers in the region. Tehran would be free to expand and further develop its nuclear arsenal and ballistic missile capability. And Israel, America’s main ally in the region – perhaps in the world – would face a continuous mortal and ultimately paralyzing threat from an increasingly implacable enemy.

Given their doubts about Obama’s resolve to order a U.S. military attack, Israeli analysts have tended to focus on the existence, or lack thereof, of an American “green light” for an Israeli attack on Iranian nuclear facilities. Indeed, one of the arguments made by Kroenig in Foreign Affairs is that a U.S. attack “can also head off a possible Israeli operation against Iran, which, given Israel’s limited capability to mitigate a potential battle and inflict lasting damage, would likely result in far more devastating consequences and carry a far lower probability of success than a U.S. attack.”

But it is far from clear whether America’s acknowledged operational and logistical advantage is the most compelling argument against an Israeli attack, and whether Israel is indeed incapable of “inflicting lasting damage” on Iran. After years and years of preparation, and with the wily Barak at the helm, one should “expect the unexpected” from an Israeli attack. It would definitely not be a rerun of the 1981 bombing raid on Iraq’s nuclear reactor at Osirak, not in scope, not in intensity, not in the means of delivery and not in the yield and sophistication of the weapons that will be thrown into battle.

But there are other profound drawbacks to an Israeli attack and corresponding advantages to an American offensive. An Israeli attack would rally the Arab and Muslim world behind Iran, strengthen radical Islamists, neutralize potentially sympathetic countries as Saudi Arabia and further distance Turkey from Israel and the West. The U.S. would have no choice but to support Israel, even though such support would inflame animosity toward Washington throughout the Muslim world. An American attack, on the other hand, would restore Washington’s stature and power of deterrence in the Arab world, could unite most of the Sunni monarchies and oil Sheikdoms in tacit assistance, at the very least, for the military effort, could facilitate Turkish neutrality and enable European support, and would sideline the incendiary issue of Israel, just as it did when Jerusalem maintained a “low profile” during the first two Gulf wars. It might also decrease the intensity of a combined Iranian-Hamas-Hezbollah and possibly Syrian counterattack against Israel, and would, in any case, free Israel to defend itself and to effectively deal with such an onslaught.

And yes, though hardly devoid of risks, it might very well ensure Barack Obama’s reelection next November.

To be sure, despite Republican protestations to the contrary, American voters are ambivalent about a U.S. attack on Iran. In a recent Quinnipiac University Survey, 55 per cent of voters said the U.S. should not take military action against Iran – but 50 per cent would nonetheless support it, if all else fails. And 88 per cent believe that a nuclear Iran posed a serious threat or a somewhat serious threat to American national security.

In the end, it would all come down to timing. The closer to elections that an American attack on Iran would take place, the more it would work in Obama’s favor. Though his left wing flank and possibly large chunks of the Democratic Party would not differentiate between Iraq and Iran, would draw historic parallels with the Bush Administration’s bogus evidence of Iraq’s WMD capabilities and would vehemently criticize Obama for “betraying his principles” – Obama would probably sway most independents and even moderate Republicans who would be swept up in the initial, patriotic wave of support for a campaign against a country that the Republican candidates for the presidency have described as America’s number one enemy. And Obama could point out to the American public that contrary to Iraq, no ground troops would be involved in Iran.

A significantly earlier attack, however, would be far riskier. The initial patriotic fervor might dissipate and the wider ramifications would begin to sink in, including potential Iranian retaliation against American targets, and, perhaps more significantly, the disruption of oil supplies, an unprecedented spike in oil prices and an ensuing and crippling blow to U.S. economic recovery.

If one wants to be absolutely cynical, perhaps Panetta’s one-year deadline was intentionally calibrated with this election timeline. Though there is no basis to suspect Obama of making political calculations, and without detracting from what is sure to be a serious American effort to get sanctions and possibly regime change to do the trick – October would be ideal. That’s the month that Henry Kissinger chose in 1972 to prematurely declare that “peace is at hand” in Vietnam, thus turning Richard Nixon’s certain victory over George McGovern into a landslide; that’s the month that Ronald Reagan feared Jimmy Carter would use in 1980 in order to free the Iran hostages and stop the Republican momentum; and that’s the month that many of Obama’s opponents are already jittery about, fearing the proverbial “October Surprise” that would hand Obama his second term on a platter.

Two things are certain: the Republicans, who are now goading Obama for being soft on Iran and beating their own war drums, would reverse course in mid air with nary a blink and accuse the president of playing politics with American lives and needlessly embroiling it in a war which probably could have been avoided if he had been tough on Iran in the first place.

And what about the Jewish vote? That would be Obama’s, lock, stock and barrel, including those Jewish voters who cannot forgive him for the Cairo speech, the bow to King Abdullah, the 1967 borders, the lack of chemistry with Netanyahu and that the fact that he has yet to produce evidence that he isn’t, after all, a closet Muslim.

And in Israel, no doubt about it, he would be forever revered as the ultimate Righteous Gentile.

US: Iran regime profiting from s… JPost – Iranian Threat – News.

    The Obama administration accused the elite of Iran’s regime and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) on Tuesday of profiting “on the back of the average Iranian” as the nation’s currency plunges under pressure from international sanctions.

The new allegation coincided with the decline in the market value of the Iranian rial, which has dropped about 15 percent against the dollar in the past five weeks and 35 percent since March, according to Tehran’s independent Donya-e-Eqtesad newspaper. The 39 percent difference between the central bank’s official rate and market rates on Dec. 21 was the largest in almost two decades, economists in Tehran and Washington said in interviews.

RELATED:
‘Speculation that Israel nuclear-armed deters Iran’

US Treasury Undersecretary David Cohen said the gap between the two rates has provided an arbitrage opportunity exploited by officials and businesses affiliated with the IRGC, the elite military arm that’s under international sanctions for suspected nuclear weapons work and terrorism. They are among regime elements able to obtain foreign currency at the favorable official exchange rate and sell it for a profit in exchange bureaus at the market rate, he told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in written testimony Dec. 1.

“Ordinary Iranians are urgently seeking out foreign currency such as dollars or euros for safety, yet they are having trouble accessing hard currency, and when they can, they have to pay the unofficial market rate,” said Cohen, the Treasury undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence.

“At the same time, senior government officials and preferred businesses, including IRGC-owned and controlled operations, are able to access foreign exchange at the official rate, essentially engaging in profitable arbitrage on the back of the average Iranian,” according to Cohen.

The assertion that the IRGC and senior regime members are profiting from the rial’s fall raises questions about whether sanctions are having the unintended effect of enriching entities involved in nuclear and missile proliferation, said Ken Katzman of the non-partisan Congressional Research Service in Washington and author of a book on the IRGC.

“Clearly sanctions are hurting the economy, but are the sanctions putting pressure on the key institutions they are intended to pressure, or could it be making the government more powerful relative to the population than it was before?” Katzman said in an interview.

IRNA: Iran warns could stop oil … JPost – Iranian Threat – News.

    TEHRAN – Iran’s first vice-president warned on Tuesday that the flow of crude will be stopped from the crucial Strait of Hormuz in the Gulf if foreign sanctions are imposed on its oil exports, the country’s official news agency reported.

“If they (the West) impose sanctions on Iran’s oil exports, then even one drop of oil cannot flow from the Strait of Hormuz,” IRNA quoted Mohammad Reza Rahimi as saying.

About a third of all sea-borne oil was shipped through the Strait in 2009, according to the US Energy Information Administration (EIA), and US warships patrol the area to ensure safe passage.

Tensions over Iran’s nuclear program have increased since the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) reported on Nov. 8 that Tehran appears to have worked on designing a nuclear bomb and may still be pursuing research to that end. Iran strongly denies this and says it is developing nuclear energy for peaceful purposes.

Iran has warned it will respond to any attack by hitting Israel and US interests in the Gulf, and analysts say one way to retaliate would be to close the Strait of Hormuz.

Most of the crude exported from Saudi Arabia, Iran, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and Iraq – together with nearly all the liquefied natural gas from lead exporter Qatar – must slip through a 4-mile (6.4 km) wide shipping channel between Oman and Iran.

Activists say Syria pulls tanks from Homs before monitors’ arrival; U.N. meddling urged.

Al Arabiya

Tuesday, 27 December 2011

Demonstrators protest against President Bashar al-Assad after Friday prayers in Kafranbel, near Idlib. (Reuters)

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DEBKAfile, Political Analysis, Espionage, Terrorism, Security.

DEBKAfile Exclusive Report December 27, 2011, 12:00 PM (GMT+02:00)

Libyan ex-al Qaeda’s Abdel Hakim Belhaj

The Qatar oil emirate, encouraged by its successful participation in the campaign to overthrow Libya’s Muammar Qaddafi, has established a Sunni Arab intervention force to expedite the drive for Syrian President Bashar Assad’s ouster, debkafile‘s military sources report. The new highly mobile force boosts the anti-Assad Free Syrian Army, whose numbers have jumped to 20,000 fighters, armed and funded by Qatar and now forming into military battalions and brigades at their bases in Turkey.

When they saw the Syrian massacre continuing unabated this month, the Qatari and Saudi rulers approved a crash program for the Qatari chief of staff Maj.-Gen Hamas Ali al-Attiya to weld this mobile intervention Sunni Muslim force out of al Qaeda linked-operatives for rapid deployment on the Turkish-Syrian border.

A force of 2,500 has been recruited up until now, our sources report. The hard core is made up of 1,000 members of the Islamic Fighting Group in Libya-IFGL, which fought Qaddafi, and 1,000 operatives of the Ansar al-Sunna, the Iraqi Islamists which carried out 15 coordinated bomb attacks in Baghdad last Thursday killing 72 people and injuring 200.

Qatar has just had them airlifted from Libya and Iraq to the southern Turkish town of Antakya (Antioch) in the border province of Hatay.
It is in this town of quarter-of-a- million inhabitants that the new Sunni force has located its command center and separate camps for the two main contingents to undergo intensive training for combat missions in the embattled Syrian towns and provinces of Idlib, Homs, Jabal al-Zawiya, scenes of the fiercest clashes between Syrian troops and rebels.

debkafile also reveals that the man appointed top commander of the Sunni intervention force headquartered in Antioch is none other than Abdel Hakim Belhaj, whose militia last August seized control of Tripoli after it was captured from Qaddafi by NATO and Qatari forces.

He has picked his deputies – Al-Mahdi Hatari, former head of the Tripoli Brigade and loyal crony Kikli Adem.
Qatari officers have set up communication links between the Libyan and Iraqi camps and since last week are coordinating their operations with the Free Syrian Army.

This flurry of military activity is taking place under the watchful gaze of the Turkish military and its intelligence services but they are not interfering.

debkafile‘s military and counter-terror analysts stress that the rise of a new Qatari-led Sunni Muslim rapid intervention force breaks fresh strategic ground with ramifications for the United and Israel as well as for the Gulf Arab countries, Syria, Libya and Iraq.
1.  A year has gone by since the Arab Revolt first broke out in December 2010. Yet this is the first time a Sunni Muslim power has established an intervention force – one moreover which is composed almost entirely of fighting men drawn from the ranks of al Qaeda and its extremist Islamist affiliates and allies.

2.  The new Sunni force, funded by the Persian Gulf oil states, is silently backed by the US and NATO members, with Turkey in the forefront of this support group. This means that the Sunni-Shiite divide is spiraling into overt conflict with Western support afforded to one side.
3.  Despite finding itself increasingly isolated by its Arab neighbors, Tehran has so far not intervened directly in conflicts in which it owns an interest – such as Gulf Cooperation Council-GCC intervention against a Shiite-led uprising in Bahrain, and now Sunni militias and terrorists enlisted to battle the Allawite regime of Iran’s closest ally, Bashar Assad in Damascus.
4.  Iran’s Lebanese proxy. Hizballah’s Hassan Nasrallah, must also be feeling an uncomfortable draft coming from a Sunni fighting force near his strongholds and carrying out raids against his closest ally, Bashar Assad. He can’t ignore the possibility of that force conducting similar excursions against his own Shiite militia.

5.  Israel too must find cause for concern in the rise of a Sunni military intervention force capable of moving at high speed from one arena to another and made up almost entirely of Islamist terrorists. At some time, Qatar might decide to move this force to the Gaza Strip to fight Israel.

An Iran War Scenario- It Could Happen This Way – Op-Eds – Israel National News.

Dr. Avi Perry

Dr. Avi Perry (Fried), a talk show host at Paltalk News Network (PNN), is the author of “Fundamentals of Voice Quality Engineering in Wireless Networks,” and more recently, “72 Virgins,” a thriller about the covert war on Islamic terror. He was a VP at NMS Communications, a Bell Laboratories – distinguished staff member and manager, as well as a delegate of the US and Lucent Technologies to the ITU—the UN International Standards body in Geneva, a professor at Northwestern Universit and Intelligence expert for the Israeli Government. He may be reached through his web site http://www.aviperry.org

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Vital, undisputed intelligence have been pointing to the sorry reality that Iran is merely two-months away from having assembled a nuclear bomb.

US presidential elections are only seven months away. If Iran is left unchallenged and becomes a nuclear power, Obama and the Democrats will go down in history as the great cowards who let it come to pass. The Republicans will make sure of that before winning the race to the White House.

Not to worry. Obama is motivated and so is his team. The Israeli government is also ready.

So – Let’s go!

The Iranians have amassed most of their air defenses all around their nuclear installations. Their early warning systems have also been geared toward alarming in the event of an approaching attack on these sites. Hizbullah and Hamas are on standby mode. Just in case, they would retaliate with a non-stop missile barrage on all major Israeli cities, including Jerusalem. So what if some Palestinian Arabs become martyrs? It’s good for morale.

The buzz is in the air since the US has moved one more aircraft carrier into the Persian Gulf. The price of oil has skyrocketed already. Russia and the rest of the oil exporting countries are laughing their way to the banks.

Day 1:

It’s D-Day. A pre-dawn coordinated attack by US and Israeli forces has just been launched. But wait… Iranian nuclear sites are left untouched. Where are they hitting?

The reports are sneaking back in to Jerusalem and to the Pentagon. The Iranian navy has been sunk; the Iranian long range missiles have been destroyed on the ground; the Iranian air force and airfields have been damaged beyond repair. The mullahs and their Revolutionary Guards have lost their ability to retaliate. The straits of Hormuz will remain open to oil traffic; however, no container ships are ready to set sail as of yet.

In midday, Hizbullah and Hamas launch rocket attacks on Israeli cities, and the Israeli air force is busy taking them out; Lebanon’s infrastructure is already devastated. Both Hizbullah and Hamas are crying foul; they want the Israelis to stop while they keep carrying their rocket attacks. Israeli reserves are called in. They are amassed along the Lebanon border, the Golan Heights and along the Gaza border with Israel.

It’s still quiet along the Israeli-Syrian border, but it could turn ugly at any moment.

Day 2:

It’s leadership day. Iranian command and control, Revolutionary Guards headquarters and training camps including major outposts, as well as top political and military leadership—are all targeted. It’s a slow but crucial day. On the Israeli front, rocket fire continues; Israeli air and ground forces continue their push; Israeli citizens in shelters are suffering, but the attacking Arabs are the ones calling for the UN and Russia to intervene.

Day 3:

Finally, Iranian nuclear sites are in the crosshair of US command. Iranian air defenses in and around these sites are being disabled by American stealth bombers and cruise missiles. At the same time, bunker buster bombs are hitting the underground nuclear facilities. Massive explosions can be heard many miles away.

The Israeli air force is on the go over Lebanon and Gaza. Israeli tanks and armored vehicles cross into both territories. Tel Aviv, Haifa and the rest of Israel are under rocket attacks, but no missiles are getting out from Iran itself.

Missiles, air and ground war keep going. Gaza is surrounded and is under siege. The Hamas leadership is nowhere to be seen. Hizbullah has been successful in launching a single long range missile that was intercepted in midair. Hizbullah bases in Southern Lebanon have been run over by Israeli military.

Day 4:

Iranians are crowding the streets in Teheran. The Iranian Spring is on its way. Rocket fire from Gaza has been diminishing considerably. Egypt intervenes diplomatically, trying to arrange for a cease fire. The Gaza strip is cut in half and the Southern Philadelphia corridor has been taken over by the Israeli military. The Israeli Military has been seen in the outskirts of Gaza. Rocket fire from Lebanon is still significant.

Day 5:

Russia has been quiet all throughout the campaign. It has enjoyed the resulted high price of oil, then why hurry? However, the end is near, and Iran will survive. Russia needs this weighty trade partner. Time has come for some blaring rhetoric.

The UN has been working hard to impose a cease fire between Israel and Hizbullah. Efforts are underway and it looks like a day or two before final signatures.

Day 6:

It’s relatively quiet along the Israeli borders. A cease fire has been arranged between all warring parties in Israel’s vicinity.

Iran is embroiled in a full scale uprising. It looks and sounds like a civil war. The nuclear cloud has been whited out; the Revolutionary Guards have been demoralized; the Iranian nation has been trying to reap the fruits of freedom, taking it away from the dictatorship of the religious militants.

Day 7:

The sun still rises in the East. It’s a new spring day. Life will be beautiful one day soon.