WarSclerotic

‘World should bomb Syria’ – Israel News, Ynetnews.

Special: In first interview with Israeli media, two Syrian exiles urge world to wake up

Orly Azoulay

WASHINGTON –Rahim knows the Syrian horror story from the inside: A short while after the great uprising got underway, in late March, he was detained, imprisoned and tortured. A few weeks later he managed to somehow flee from prison, cross the border, hide in the mountains and escape to the United States, where he was granted asylum.

“I cannot yet reveal the exact story of the escape route,” he says. “I left family behind, and any mistake I make could cost them their lives.”

Western diplomats who learned to appreciate Rahim’s activity on behalf of human rights in Syria and his efforts in the struggle to topple Bashar Assad’s oppressive regime helped him behind the scenes as much as they could. Since then, for some three months now, he has been hiding somewhere, receiving inside information from comrades left behind in the homeland, and using social networks to provide updates on the daily horrors taking places there, far away from the public eye.

Rahim is a human database who has recorded and filed everything that has happened in Syria since the start of the uprising. He is apparently the last of the activists in the campaign to replace the regime who managed to leave the country and secure an asylum. The information he possesses is fresh and up-to-date.

Rahim is not his real name. He must not be exposed, especially not in an Israeli media outlet. He is unwilling to be photographed, even from behind or as a silhouette. The moment he entered the home where our meeting was held, he violated Syrian law, which bans any contact with Israelis. By law, such meeting constitutes treason.

Yet this is the smallest risk he has assumed. The great risk is that someone will hurt his relatives in Damascus: His parents and siblings. “If authorities find out that I spoke to you, they will butcher my family. This is a brutal, radical regime. What people know in the West is merely the tip of the iceberg. They don’t know about the torture, the raping of women and the massacres of civilians by snipers during funerals.”

“In recent months, people started to bury their dead in their backyards, in improvised graves, until the dust settles. People are scared to gather in public. If more than five people come together, it constitutes an illegal gathering, and then the army arrives and fires indiscriminately.”

‘We don’t hate Israel’

Rahim received his permit to stay in the US courtesy of one of the organizations affiliated with the State Department. He joined his friend Amar here (another pseudonym.) Amar too was an anti-regime activist. Some three years ago, when he was sitting at an Internet café at the heart of Damascus, security agents raided the site, cuffed him, and threw him in jail. He was released after a few weeks and somehow made it to America. Today he heads the Syrian exile organization and provides authorities and the media with information about what goes on in his homeland: Abuse, murder, rape and other acts of grave violence perpetrated by Assad supporters against protestors.

Both of them are in their early 30s and seek to topple the regime. They reside in a suburb of a large city and cannot keep in touch with family members left behind, because the Syrian regime listens in. For lack of other choice, they convey their well-wishes via mediators, learned to avoid being followed, evade people who can endanger them, and like every exile dream of the day when they can board a plane to Damascus and land in the free Syria.

I brought Israeli-made Turkish coffee for my meeting with them. The Mideastern coffee made the atmosphere more relaxed. The cigarettes were lit one after another and a short while later the tension and suspicion evaporated.

Why are you telling your story to the Israeli media? Do you wish to convey a message to the government in Jerusalem?

“We do it so that you bomb Assad’s palace,” Amar quips. “But seriously now: I’m not a captive of the myth that Jews run the world and America, but Israeldoes have power and influence. We are engaged in a public relations campaign worldwide to put Bashar Assad on trial for crimes against humanity and for war crimes. If Israel supports the move, it would be greatly helpful.

“The Syrian opposition and Israel share a joint interest. We have no ideological hatred for Israel or for Jews. I know that’s what you think, but it’s not the case. It’s true that for years they taught us to hate Israel and fight is, but many Syrians already realized that they are being taught to hate Israel to divert attention away from the oppression in the country. We realized that Assad senior and junior educated people to hate Israel in order to stay in power; to blind us with hate for Israel so that we don’t channel our energies to the fact that we live with no freedom or future.

“This is over. People got it. Assad still has his supporters, the Alawites who depend on him, because if he falls they will fall too. Yet among other groups, and there are very diverse ethnic groups in Syria, he lost support. In the army too there are thousands of defectors by now, and they left with their weapons. They are hiding away, getting organized, and at the right moment they will act.”

‘Most Syrians despise Iran’

We head to the computer. Amar opens his encrypted files, which contain photographs and videos smuggled by the rebels. On the screen we see protestors in the city of Homs burning Hezbollah flags with fury and also burning Hassan Nasrallah’s photos. This is a new phenomenon in Syria, which for years allowed the group to arm itself.

“In all protests thus far, an Israeli flag wasn’t burned even once,” Amar says. “This uprising demonstrates that the Syrian people’s hatred is reserved for Assad’s tyrannical regime and for those who support it and safeguard it. They realize that Hezbollah caused Syria grave damage.”

“They also burned Iranian flags in the protests. I can promise you that the alliance between Syria and Iran that threatens the Middle East will come to an end after Assad is gone. Most Syrians despise Iran, because it dragged Syria into becoming an ostracized state. The protestors are also burning Russian flags, because Russia supports Assad in the United Nations,” he says. “It’s not as though there are no disagreements with Israel. There are. A dispute over borders. The Golan is ours and we shall demand it back under any regime. Yet there is no hatred for Israel and for the Jews. We, the young people’ proved it.”

Iran has played a key role in assisting Assad. Both Rahim and Amar tell of Iranian-speaking snipers who do not speak Arabic being deployed across Damascus and helping in repressing the protests. Rahim adds that other Arab world protests, in Tunisia, Egypt, Bahrain and Libya inspired Syrian’s citizens.

“Social networks played a key role for us too,” he says. “We were able to call or protests and convey messages. Yet then the terrible oppression started. In a protest held on March 15, authorities detained a group of 13 or 14 year-old boys who chanted against the regime and another boy who wrote on a wall ‘Assad go home.’ They were thrown into prison and when their fathers came to release them, members of the secret police told them: ‘If you want your children, bring your women in their place.

“Some of the children were eventually released and others were not. Among those who remained in prison was the boy who drew the graffiti. Two months later, they sent his mutilated body to his parents. He underwent severe abuse; his fingernails were pulled out before he was beaten to death. They told the parents: ‘That’s what happens to those who write a slogan against the leader.’ The parents photographed the body and sent us the images.”

Women raped, children killed

The testimonials include reports by husbands whose wives were raped in front of them by security agents and by brothers who say their sisters were raped as a form of revenge. There are many testimonials by parents about their children being sexually abused and dozens of horrific photos of mutilated and dismembered bodies.

An expert team of the UN’s Human Rights Commission in Geneva recently published a report asserting that since the protests started and through November, Syrian security forces detained some 100,000 people and killed more than 5,000, including at least 256 children. Some of them were tortured beforehand, both physically and sexually. The report contains difficult photos and videos. For example, a soldier shooting a two-year-old girl to death and telling the parents: “She should die now instead of growing up to be a protestor.”

However, Amar says the figures he possesses are much higher. “I estimate that nearly 15,000 protestors were killed so far. The report does not take into account people who were buried in backyards or those who disappeared.”

Zainab Hosseini was 18 when her parents last saw her in April. She disappeared from her home and only a few weeks later her brother was summoned to pick up her body. The sight he encountered was horrifying: Zainab’s head was severed and her face was completely mutilated. The grave violence used against her made it impossible to identify her. The brother assumed that the regime decided to punish him by hurting his sister because he acted against the government. He invited CNN to his home and published the photographs. Yet a few days later the regime presented Zainab alive and claimed that the protestors are making false accusations against security forces.

However, Rahim says the regime was unable to answer one question: “Whose mutilated body was it that was handed over to the family? Perhaps it wasn’t Zainab, but there was a body of a girl there who underwent terrible torture. Who tortured and murdered her? Who’s this girl?”

Israeli opportunity

A few weeks ago, Amar met with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. He presented to her, among other things, information about soldiers who defected and plan to launch a guerilla fight against the army. “To my surprise, she asked that the defectors lay down their arms,” he says. “That’s an odd request. Why didn’t they ask the rebels in Libya to lay down their arms? How can they do it if at any moment they can be fired at and murdered? It’s impractical.”

“I can’t understand why the Americans are silent,” Amar says. “We expected them to intervene. Militarily. To bomb the Syrian army from the air. They intervened in Libya and managed to prompt Gaddafi’s removal, and that is what we expect them to do to Assad now. Thus far, more people were killed in Syria than in Libya at the point where Obama decided to launch a military offensive in order to avert a greater massacre. NATO also bombed in Kosovo when it was necessary. Why this hypocrisy?”

“Obama urged Assad to leave, but he won’t leave out of his own accord. He’s a coward, he’s naïve, and he is convinced that he has support. He boasts that his children support him. His wife benefited him greatly over the years by providing, with her very presence, a moderate image in the eyes of the world, yet people who met her said she is very shallow and we don’t count on her to influence him to leave.”

Meanwhile, Rahim stresses that Syria is a secular state and that the West should not fear a radical Islamic takeover. “We have many groups, but we live with respect for each other. What’s clear is that the oppressive regime must pass from this world. Our slogan is freedom and dignity. This is what Syria deserves, and we hope that the world will help us, including Israel.”

These voices reached Israel too. Knesset Member Isaac Herzog, who is a member of the Knesset’s Defense and Foreign Affairs Committee, met with Syrian exiles in Washington in recent weeks and he suggests that we listen to them.

“We in Israel often complain that they don’t know us and don’t understand us. We should know that we too do not possess sufficient understanding of our neighbors, and when it comes to Syria we see total ignorance. Following these and other meetings, I can say that what’s happening there does not resemble any other change taking place in our region. The Syrians are a secular nation comprising a fascinating coalition of ethnicities.”

“In my view, following the Assad era there is a chance for positive processes vis-à-vis Israel as well, and they will require us to meet the challenge,” Herzog says. “The US and its partners, along with human rights groups, must grant the protestors more massive support, so that these processes mature as quickly as possible. Otherwise Syria will be plunged into chaos.”

For the exiles, the clock is ticking. Every passing day means more fatalities, more wounded and more prisoners. This is on top of the personal fears for the safety of family members left behind. “The world must wake up,” both Rahim and Amar say. “This is a call for help and for intervention. Assad will not leave on his own accord. He isn’t Mubarak. In order to prevent more bloodshed the world must do something. Now.”

Israpundit » Blog Archive » Israeli military prepares for a new type of war.

U.S., Israel Discuss Triggers for Bombing Iran’s Nuclear Infrastructure – The Daily Beast.

Dec 28, 2011 4:45 AM EST

The Obama administration tries to assure Israel privately that it would strike Iran militarily if Tehran’s nuclear program crosses certain “red lines”—while attempting to dissuade the Israelis from acting unilaterally. Eli Lake reports exclusively.

When Defense Secretary Leon Panetta opined earlier this month that an Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities could “consume the Middle East in a confrontation and a conflict that we would regret,” the Israelis went ballistic behind the scenes. Michael Oren, Israel’s ambassador to Washington, lodged a formal diplomatic protest known as a demarche. And the White House was thrust into action, reassuring the Israelis that the administration had its own “red lines” that would trigger military action against Iran, and that there is no need for Jerusalem to act unilaterally.

Panetta’s seemingly innocent remarks on Dec. 2 triggered the latest drama in the tinder-box relationship that the Obama administration is trying to navigate with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government. With Republicans lining up to court Jewish donors and voters in America in 2012, Obama faces a tricky election-year task of ensuring Iran doesn’t acquire a nuclear bomb on his watch while keeping the Israelis from launching a preemptive strike that could inflame an already teetering Middle East.

The stakes are immensely high, and the distrust that Israelis feel toward the president remains a complicating factor. Those sentiments were laid bare in a speech Netanyahu’s minister of strategic affairs, Moshe Ya’alon, gave on Christmas Eve in Jerusalem, in which he used Panetta’s remarks to cast doubt on the U.S.’s willingness to launch its own military strike.

Ya’alon told the Anglo-Likud, an organization within Netanyahu’s Likud party that caters to native English speakers, that the Western strategy to stop Iran’s drive for nuclear weapons must include four elements, with the last resort being a military strike.

“The fourth element of this combined strategy is the credible military strike,” Ya’alon said, according to a recording of the speech provided to The Daily Beast. “There is no credible military action when we hear leaders from the West, saying, ‘this is not a real option,’ saying, ‘the price of military action is too high.’”

The lack of trust between the Israeli and American leaders on Iran has been a sub-rosa tension in the relationship since 2009.  Three U.S. military officials confirm to The Daily Beast that analysts attached to the Office of the Secretary of Defense are often revising estimates trying to predict what events in Iran would trigger Prime Minister Netanyahu to authorize a military attack on the country’s nuclear infrastructure. Despite repeated requests going back to 2009, Netanyahu’s government has not agreed to ask the United States for permission or give significant advanced warning of any pending strike.

The sensitive work of trying to get both allies on the same page intensified this month. Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak visited Washington last week to go over Iran issues; and the undersecretary of state for political affairs, Wendy Sherman, and a special arms control adviser to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Robert Einhorn, were in Israel last week to discuss Iran as well. Panetta for his own part has revised his tone on the question of Iran’s nuclear program, telling CBS News last week that the United States was prepared to use force against Iran to stop the country from building a nuclear weapon.

The new diplomacy has prompted new conversations between the United States and Israel over what the triggers—called “red lines” in diplomatic parlance—would be to justify a pre-emptive attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities.

Matthew Kroenig, who served as special adviser on Iran to the Office of the Secretary of Defense between July 2010 and July 2011, offered some of the possible “red lines” for a military strike in a recent Foreign Affairs article he wrote. He argued that the U.S should attack Iran’s facilities if Iran expels international nuclear weapons inspectors, begins enriching its stockpiles of uranium to weapons-grade levels of 90 percent, or installs advanced centrifuges at its main uranium-enrichment facility in Qom.

In an interview with The Daily Beast, Kroenig also noted that Iran announced in 2009 that it was set to construct 10 new uranium enrichment sites. “I doubt they are building ten new sites, but I would be surprised if Iran was not racing to build some secret enrichment facilities,” Kroenig said. “Progress on new facilities would be a major factor in our assessment of Iran’s nuclear program and shape all aspects of our policy towards this including the decision to use force.”

Until recently, current and former Obama administration officials would barely broach the topic in public, only hinting vaguely that all options are on the table to stop Iran’s program. Part of the reason for this was that Obama came into office committed to pursuing negotiations with Iran. When the diplomatic approach petered out, the White House began building international and economic pressure on Iran, often in close coordination with Israel.

All the while, secret sabotage initiatives like a computer worm known as Stuxnet that infected the Siemens-made logic boards at the Natanz centrifuge facility in Iran, continued apace. New U.S. estimates say that Stuxnet delayed Iran’s nuclear enrichment work by at most a year, despite earlier estimates that suggested the damage was more extensive.

Last week in a CBS interview, Panetta said Iran’s development of a nuclear weapon is a “red line.” White House advisers have more recently broached the subject more specifically in private conversations with outside experts on the subject.

Patrick Clawson, the director of research for  the Washington Institute for Near East Policy said, “If Iran were found to be sneaking out or breaking out then the president’s advisers are firmly persuaded he would authorize the use of military force to stop it.” But Clawson added, “The response they frequently get from the foreign policy experts is considerable skepticism that this is correct, not that these people are lying to us, but rather when the occasion comes we just don’t know how the president will react.”

Henry Sokolski, the executive director the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center, said “You don’t propose and go about doing an oil embargo unless you are serious about taking the next step, and the next step for the administration is clearly some form of military action, and people who have left the administration like Dennis Ross have made it clear that this is precisely what’s on this administration’s mind.”

Ross did not respond to emails and phone calls requesting comment.

Ironically, Panetta often is the official the Obama administration uses to engage Israel. “Panetta has been straightforward with the Israelis and they seem to appreciate that,” one senior administration official said. “The Israelis view Panetta as an honest broker.” In some ways that is why his remarks stung Netanyahu’s government so much.

Complicating matters, the Dec. 2 remarks also came at the same time a high-level delegation of Israeli diplomats, military officers and intelligence officials were in Washington for an annual meeting called the strategic dialogue. At the meeting, the Israeli side offered a new presentation on Iran’s nuclear program suggesting that Iran’s efforts to build secret reactors for producing nuclear fuel were further along than the United States has publicly said.  Some of the intelligence was based on soil samples collected near the suspected sites.

Part of the issue now between the United States and Israel are disagreements over such intelligence. The Israelis and the U.S. both believe that Iran suspended its work on weaponization, or the research and testing on how to fit an atomic explosion inside a warhead, in 2003 shortly after the U.S. invasion of Iraq.

The Israelis, however, say the Iranians started that work again in 2005, according to Israeli officials and Ya’alon, who said this in his speech on Christmas Eve. The 2007 and 2011 U.S. national intelligence estimates for Iran say this weaponization work remains suspended.

The Israelis also say a recent document uncovered by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) that shows detailed plans for constructing a “neutron initiator,” or a pellet that sits at the middle of the nuclear core and is crushed by high explosives in a nuclear explosion, is evidence that Iran is continuing its weaponization work. The latest IAEA report released in November said members states had shared intelligence alleging that Iran had conducted explosive tests associated with nuclear weapons research.

A senior administration official told The Daily Beast, “Both Americans and Israelis agree that some research and design work is probably continuing in the event the Iranians decide to move ahead with weaponization.”

The intelligence disagreement is significant in part because one of the factors in drawing up red lines on Iran’s program is how much progress Iran has made in constructing secret enrichment facilities outside of Natanz, where IAEA inspectors still monitor the centrifuge cascades. In 2009, the Obama administration exposed such a facility carved into a mountain outside of the Shiite holy city of Qom. The IAEA has chastised the Iranians for not fully disclosing their work on the Qom site until the United States forced the regime’s hand.

IDF assessing plans to counter possible Cairo … JPost – Defense.

    A debate is raging within the IDF regarding the so-called inflection point when it will need to begin establishing new formations and procuring new platforms to counter a future threat from Egypt.

The current assessment within the IDF is that Egypt will, for the coming years, retain the peace treaty with Israel due to its need for continued financial and military assistance from the United States.
Nevertheless, there is concern within the military over two different scenarios involving the deployment of Egyptian military forces into the Sinai Peninsula, which is supposed to be demilitarized under the 1979 peace treaty.

The first scenario involves an Egyptian decision to deploy troops there for training. The second scenario sees the movement of an Egyptian division into the peninsula, on the sidelines of a future Israeli war with Hezbollah or Syria, as a demonstration of unity with the Arab countries.

“In both cases, Israel will be in a quandary regarding what to do,” a senior defense official explained recently. “On the one hand, no Israeli prime minister will go to war with Egypt over such violations but on the other hand, if we don’t respond then we are turning a blind eye to the violation.”

As a result, the IDF Planning Directorate has recommended that a Muslim Brotherhood victory in the ongoing Egyptian elections serve as the cutoff line for when the military should begin establishing long-lead items – such as new divisions and combat squadrons.

“These are formations that take a number of years to create, and that is why we will need to begin working on them sooner rather than later,” a senior IDF officer explained.

Shortly after taking up his post in February, Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Benny Gantz decided to take a cautious approach visa- vis Egypt and not recommend the implementation of an immediate procurement plan aimed at establishing new units.

This was done with the understanding that even if the Muslim Brotherhood takes over in upcoming elections, it will still take some time before Egypt threatens Israel again as it did in the days leading up to the Yom Kippur War in 1973.

For that reason, the past year has been devoted mostly to learning about Egypt, dusting off old maps and preparing conceptually for the future.

Now, however, with a Muslim Brotherhood victory appearing to be quite clear, one possibility under growing consideration is to reestablish units that the IDF dismantled seven years ago.

The main obstacle to all of these plans is the shortage of funds.

While Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has apparently decided not to cut the defense budget for the coming year, the decision to establish new formations would require a major financial investment, which the country does not appear to be prepared to make.

The IDF’s NIS 42 billion budget – under which the IDF formulated its new multi-year plan called Halamish – does not include preparations for a confrontation with Egypt, which would require the country to invest billions of additional shekels.

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.

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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.