WarSclerotic

Hamas’ prime minister in Gaza embarks on trip to Iran – latimes.com.

REPORTING FROM GAZA CITY — Ismail Haniyeh, Hamas’ prime minister in the Gaza Strip, left Monday for a regional tour that will include stops in Qatar and Iran.

Haniyeh’s tour will focus on raising investment and reconstruction funds for the war-torn coastal enclave, said Yusuf Rizqa, his political adviser.

It is the second foreign trip in two months for Haniyeh, who some believe is trying to raise his international profile as part of a power struggle with Hamas politburo chief Khaled Meshaal. Haniyeh recently visited Sudan, Turkey and Tunisia.

Meshaal has also been on the move, this week making his first visit to Jordan since 1999.

Haniyeh will stop in Iran at the official request of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, according to Taher Nono, a spokesman for the prime minister.

Iran has been a strategic supporter and donor for the Islamist militant movement, which has ruled Gaza since 2007. But Tehran reportedly cut back its funding of Hamas recently because Hamas has refused to express public support for Syrian President Bashar Assad, who is fighting to retain power amid a 10-month-old popular revolt in his country.

Though Haniyeh has remained in Gaza, other Hamas leaders, including Meshaal, have used Damascus as a base. But the recent unrest in Syria has caused most Hamas officials to leave the country.

Clinton to back U.N. resolution on power transfer in Syria.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton will join the foreign ministers of France and Britain at the United Nations to push for a resolution on the transfer of power in Syria, the BBC reports.

Update at 3 p.m. ET: In a message to besieged Syrians, Clinton said in a statement: “We stand with you,” Clinton told them in a statement.

“The status quo is unsustainable,” Clinton said. “The longer the Assad regime continues its attacks on the Syrian people and stands in the way of a peaceful transition, the greater the concern that instability will escalate and spill over throughout the region.”

Original post: Talks on the resolution will begin at the U.N. in New York on Tuesday, the Associated Press reports.

CAPTION

Ugarit News group via APTN

France says 10 of the 15 countries on the Security Council now support the Arab League’s proposal for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to hand power to a deputy, the BBC says.

Russia, however, has that it will use its veto to block a resolution.

“This document isn’t balanced and it opens the door to intervention in Syrian affairs,” Gennady Gatilov said, according to the Interfax news service as reported by Bloomberg News.

The latest draft resolution proposed by the West isn’t fundamentally different to an October resolution on Syria vetoed by Russia, and “obviously can’t be supported by us,” he said.

Syrian forces heavily shelled the restive city of Homs today and troops pushed back dissident troops from some suburbs on the outskirts of Damascus in an offensive trying to regain control of the capital’s eastern doorstep, activists said, according to the AP.

Activists reported at least 28 civilians killed today.

The United Nations estimated several weeks ago that more than 5,400 people have been killed in Syria’s crackdown since the uprising against Assad’s rule began in March.

The bloodshed has continued since — with more than 190 killed in the past five days — and the U.N. says it has been unable to update the figure, the AP reports.

BBC News – Russia ‘to block’ Syria vote at UN Security Council.

Russia has said it will block a draft UN Security Council resolution calling for a transfer of power in Syria because it “leaves open the possibility of intervention” in Syria’s affairs.

The US, the UK and France are lobbying on behalf of the Arab League’s draft text, which calls for President Bashar al-Assad to hand power to a deputy.

The White House said Mr Assad had lost control of Syria, adding “he will go”.

But Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister said the text was “not balanced”.

Meanwhile, fighting in Syria continued as government troops bombarded the central city of Homs. Heavy machine gun fire was reported in the restive Bab Amr district.

At least 225 tank shells were fired at the suburbs of Damascus, activists said.

The Local Co-ordination Committees, a network of anti-government groups, said 58 people were killed on Monday.

Their claims could not be independently verified, as the the BBC other international media are severely restricted inside Syria.

Earlier, reports said the Syrian army had regained control of some Damascus suburbs recently held by rebel forces.

Qatari backing

Moscow, which has maintained its ties to Damascus, has so far resisted moves for a UN resolution condemning the violence in Syria. Russia has a naval base in the country and supplies arms to Syria.

“The current Western draft… certainly cannot be supported by us,” Deputy Foreign Minister Gennady Gatilov told the Interfax news agency.

Mr Gatilov said the draft was “not balanced” and “leaves open the possibility of intervention in Syrian affairs”.

The White House said it supported a political solution to end the violence in Syria. However, spokesman Jay Carney said President Assad had lost control of his country and his regime would fall.

France says 10 of the 15 countries on the Security Council now support the Arab League text. A minimum of nine council members must lend their backing in order for a resolution to be put to a vote.

However, Russia – as one of the five permanent council members – can veto any proposed resolution.

The BBC’s Barbara Plett, at the UN, says Russia views the resolution as a first step towards regime change.

The UK has urged Moscow to reconsider its opposition.

“Russia can no longer explain blocking the UN and providing cover for the regime’s brutal repression,” said a spokeswoman for Prime Minister David Cameron.

On Monday, Russia also offered to mediate talks between the Syrian government and the opposition – a suggestion the opposition rejected out of hand.

The Syrian government has rejected the Arab League plan, which would see Mr Assad’s deputy forming a national unity government within two months.

The prime minister of Qatar and the secretary-general of the Arab League are also going to New York to seek support for the draft text. Qatar heads the League’s committee dealing with the Syrian crisis and has previously called for Arab countries to send troops into Syria.

On Saturday, the Arab League announced it was suspending its month-old monitoring mission in Syria because of an upsurge of violence.

Tank shells

Reports from Damascus say residents in some areas heard the sound of bombing in the early hours of the morning.

Heavy fighting has taken place in the eastern suburbs for several days.

Over the weekend, troops loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad launched an offensive targeting several areas under the control of the rebel Free Syrian Army (FSA).

They retook control of the suburb of Ghouta, with activists saying the FSA had beaten a “tactical” retreat.

On Monday, the Syrian army held funerals for 22 of its members killed in the previous 24 hours. The BBC’s Jim Muir, in neighbouring Lebanon, says on average 20 members of the security forces are being killed each day.

Reports have emerged suggesting security forces may have killed senior army defector Lt-Col Hussein Harmoush, one of the first military officers to publicly declare his opposition to Mr Assad last year.

However, the Free Syrian Army, many of whose members are based in Turkey, said they could not confirm the death.

Syria Troops Fight Rebels Near Damascus Before UN Security Council Meeting – Bloomberg.

Syrian troops battled for control of rebel-held suburbs of Damascus ahead of a United Nations Security Council meeting to address an Arab proposal to end the crisis.

The government sent tanks and armored vehicles into the areas yesterday, said Rami Abdel Rahman, head of the U.K.-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and Mahmoud Merei, head of the Arab Organization for Human Rights. Forty-one people were killed yesterday, Abdel Rahman said.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and European foreign ministers will attend tomorrow’s Security Council meeting to support an Arab League plan calling for Assad to step down in favor of a national unity government.

“The United States condemns in the strongest possible terms the escalation of the Syrian regime’s violent and brutal attacks on its own people,” Clinton said in a statement today. She said that tomorrow “the international community should send a clear message of support to the Syrian people: We stand with you.”

The violence has left more than 5,000 dead since the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad began in March and has intensified since the Arab League halted its observer mission last week.

Eleven months into the unrest, the European Union and the U.S. have yet to overcome Russia’s resistance at the UN’s decision-making body to hold Assad responsible for the crackdown. His government has blamed “terrorists” and foreign provocateurs for fomenting the protests.

‘Brutal Repression’

“We believe the United Nations must act to support the people of Syria and Russia can no longer explain blocking the UN and providing cover for the regime’s brutal repression,” U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron’s spokeswoman, Vickie Sheriff, told reporters in London today.

Russia’s Foreign Ministry said Syria’s government agreed to hold talks with the country’s opposition in Moscow. Russia is waiting for a response from opponents of Assad, the ministry said in a statement published on its website today.

Burhan Ghalioun, leader of the opposition Syrian National Council, rejected talks with the Syrian government unless Assad is removed, Al Arabiya reported. The council is demanding “the departure of Assad as a first step in the transition process,” its spokeswoman, Bassma Kodmani, said in a text message today.

Clashes between government forces and the Free Syrian Army, made up of defectors and armed civilians, have been ongoing for three to four days in the Damascus suburbs of Douma, Saqba, Harasta, Irbin and Zamalka, Merei said.

An “armed terrorist group” attacked a pipeline transporting gas between Homs and Banias, the state-run Syrian Arab News Agency reported today.

Echoes of 1967 in Israel’s Iran Dilemma « Commentary Magazine.

One of the interesting aspects of yesterday’s New York Times Magazine cover story about Israel’s decision whether or not to strike at Iran’s nuclear program came from a passage in which author Ronen Bergman describes his meeting with former Mossad chief Meir Amit. Amit, who headed Israel’s intelligence agency at the time of the 1967 Six-Day War, described a meeting with the CIA station chief in Tel Aviv during the lead up to that conflict. According to the transcript of the meeting, which was given to Bergman, the American spy threatened Israel and did all in his power to prevent the Jewish state from acting to forestall the threat to its existence from Egypt and other Arab states that were poised to strike.

The lessons of this confrontation certainly put Israel’s current dilemma about attempting to pre-empt Iran’s ability to threaten the Jewish state with extinction via a nuclear weapon in perspective. Bergman provides no firm answer to the question of whether or not Israel will go ahead and strike Iran even if, as was initially the case in 1967, it must happen over the objections of the United States. But he does attempt to give a coherent framework for how the decision can be made as well as providing a bit more background on the chief Israeli critic of a strike on Iran.

According to Bergman, Israel has three criteria for deciding to act on their own on Iran:

 1. Does Israel have the ability to cause severe damage to Iran’s nuclear sites and bring about a major delay in the Iranian nuclear project? And can the military and the Israeli people withstand the inevitable counterattack?

2. Does Israel have overt or tacit support, particularly from America, for carrying out an attack?

3. Have all other possibilities for the containment of Iran’s nuclear threat been exhausted, bringing Israel to the point of last resort? If so, is this the last opportunity for an attack?

For the first time since the Iranian nuclear threat emerged in the mid-1990s, at least some of Israel’s most powerful leaders believe the response to all of these questions is yes.

I’m not sure he’s right about that, especially when it comes to the first two points. While Israel can inflict serious damage on Iran, there’s no question that to do the job properly it will require American involvement. And though it may well be that ultimately the Obama administration will give Israel the same blinking green light it got in 1967, a close read of most of the statements coming out of Washington lately on the subject may lead to a different answer. It remains to be seen whether Obama is more afraid of the terrible consequences of an Iranian nuclear device for the world as well as Israel as he is of the fallout from an Israeli attack. Elsewhere in the piece, Bergman presents an Israeli assessment of what many believe is a feckless American stand on the issue that seems more the product of magical thinking than an analytic process:

“I fail to grasp the Americans’ logic,” a senior Israeli intelligence source told me. “If someone says we’ll stop them from getting there by praying for more glitches in the centrifuges, I understand. If someone says we must attack soon to stop them, I get it. But if someone says we’ll stop them after they are already there, that I do not understand.”

Just as fascinating is his account of the activities of Meir Dagan, another former Mossad chief who has been quoted incessantly in the American press largely because he is a vocal critic of the idea of an Israeli strike on Iran.

Bergman allows Dagan his say on the matter in which he bitterly criticizes both Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as well as Defense Minister Ehud Barak. But his is one of the rare accounts in the U.S. press to also note the spymaster carries a political grudge against the two because they did not reappoint him to his position after the fiasco in which Mossad personnel were exposed while carrying out a hit on a Hamas terrorist in Dubai.

Though he is often represented in the Western press as someone who minimizes the danger from Iran, Bergman also corrects this impression. Dagan seems as intent on stopping Iran as Netanyahu and Barak, but he thinks it can be better achieved by Mossad’s cloak-and-dagger assassinations of Iranian scientists and/or sabotage of Iranian facilities. But it’s far from clear the Iranians haven’t already overcome those tactics.

The other Israeli critic of a strike on Iran that he cites is Rafi Eitan, the 85-year-old former spook whose most famous achievement in his field was the Jonathan Pollard disaster (something Bergman fails to note). He believes it is a foregone conclusion that Iran will go nuclear and thinks the only way to avert the danger is to promote regime change. While the replacement of the Islamist dictatorship with a democratic government would be an improvement, waiting around for that to happen doesn’t seem particularly prudent, especially when you consider the consequences.

Bergman’s conclusion is Israel will attack Iran sometime this year because of a growing consensus it has no choice but to do so. If Barack Obama wishes to avert that overcome, he is going to have to prove to the Israelis he means business about sanctions that will bring the Iranian economy to its knees. But given the ambivalent signals emanating from Washington on that subject, everything Netanyahu and Barak are hearing is more likely to be hardening their conviction that, as Bergman writes, “only the Israelis can ultimately defend themselves.”

Behind the Cover Story: Ronen Bergman on Whether Israel Will Attack Iran – NYTimes.com.

‘Iran renaming ships to circumve… JPost – Iranian Threat – News.

By REUTERS

Using a series of legal loopholes, Iran has renamed over a dozen cargo ships in the past year as it seeks to circumvent sanctions on arms transfers and the supply of nuclear-related equipment, according to a new study released on Monday.

The report was published by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) and included an analysis of reported incidents of illicit arms and drug transfers in recent years.

According to the report, the Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Lines (IRISL) has renamed a total of 90 out of its 123 ships since 2008. The company has also reflagged a significant percentage of its fleet, which dropped off the list of the top 100 fleets in the world last April. It previously was ranked as the 23rd largest container line in the world.

Israel has captured a number of Iranian arms ships transferring weaponry to terrorists groups in the region in recent years. Last week, The Jerusalem Post reported on efforts by IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Benny Gantz to recruit EU countries to help counter Iranian smuggling throughout the region. Gantz raised the issue with European counterparts he met at NATO headquarters earlier this month.

Last March, Navy commandos seized the Victoria, which was transporting 50 tons of weaponry – including advanced radar-guided anti-ship missiles – to Hamas in the Gaza Strip. The ship was owned by a German company and was flying a Liberian flag.

In late 2009, the Navy seized the Francop which was carrying hundreds of tons of weaponry en route to Hezbollah in Lebanon. It was also owned by a German company and was flying an Antiguan flag.

“The Iranian ships are being shuffled like a deck of cards in a Las Vegas casino,” explained Hugh Griffiths, one of the authors of the report and an arms trafficking expert at SIPRI. “There is a constant game of cat and mouse being played and the renaming and reflagging of vessels of different states is a way of trying to avoid inspection because of sanctions.”

The report, Griffiths said, was the culmination of two years of work by SIPRI during which it created the Vessel and Maritime Incident Database which contains information on countries and shipping lines suspected of illicit activity.

According to the SIPRI report, in October 2010 Germany removed ships suspected of being owned by IRISL from its shipping registry after the European Union imposed sanctions on the state-owned shipping company. The report claims however that despite the sanctions, other EU member states – Cyprus and Malta – continue to have Iranian ships on their registries.

Jimmy Carter Does It Again.

When it comes to the Middle East, the former president never ceases to amaze.

In an interview published in Time, he was asked: “What do you think it means that Iran seems to have its first nuclear fuel rod?”

His complete answer: “Well, of course, the religious leaders of Iran have sworn on their word of honor that they’re not going to manufacture nuclear weapons. If they are lying, then I don’t see that as a major catastrophe because they’ll only have one or two military weapons. Israel probably has 300 or so.”

There you have it. In 51 words, Carter demonstrates convincingly why he should stay out of the business of Iran analysis.

Not that he was much better at it while in the White House.

Remember his famous expression of confidence in the Shah — “an island of stability” — when one year later the Iranian leader was ousted and had to flee the country?

And the catastrophic U.S. attempt, under Carter, to free the 52 American hostages taken by the Shah’s successors, that failed for the lack of a working helicopter?

And the fact that those hostages languished in Iranian hands for 444 days, only to be released the very first day Carter’s successor, Ronald Reagan, took office?

Carter did not understand Iran then. Judging by the Time interview, he still doesn’t.

First, how could any serious observer begin a response by mentioning that “the religious leaders of Iran have sworn on their word of honor that they’re not going to manufacture nuclear weapons”?

Of what possible relevance is such a comment, other than to suggest that Carter may actually give it credence?

A regime that has been found to lie about everything else — its leaders claimed there were no nuclear enrichment facilities, that there were no homosexuals in the country, that its women were the freest in the world, that the Holocaust never took place, and that its 2009 elections were transparent — is actually given the benefit of the doubt by the former president.

He begins the next sentence with the phrase, “If they are lying.”

Again, he himself isn’t sure.

Perhaps he thinks, in contradistinction to the International Atomic Energy Agency, UN Security Council, Obama administration, European and Gulf leaders, and Israel, that all the Iranian leaders really want is peaceful nuclear energy, nothing more.

And then comes the clincher. Even if the Iranians by some chance are lying, he said, “then I don’t see that as a major catastrophe because they’ll only have one or two military weapons.”

How could anyone possibly know how many bombs Iran might build, if left unchecked? This year, it might be one or two; next year, ten or twenty; and so on.

Second, at the end of the day, the real issue is not how many bombs Iran would have, but the very fact that it possessed the weapon.

That would change everything in its relations with its neighbors and beyond.

Iran would derive incalculable power and confidence from the mere fact that it crossed the line. Going forward, all other countries would have to factor the nuclear element into their dealings with Tehran — and, it should be added, with such allies as Syria, and such non-governmental partners as Hamas and Hezbollah.

Third, one of the most ominous changes could well be a new arms race in the region, already the most volatile in the world.

What countries might, in response, move towards nuclear-weapons programs of their own, driven by fear (think Saudi Arabia) or “prestige” (think Turkey)?

Then the risk of catastrophe by design, miscalculation, or accident goes up exponentially.

So, too, does the chance of a further spread of the weapons. Remember A.Q. Khan, the Pakistani scientist who ran the Walmart of nuclear-weapons technology?

Impossible to conceive of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez seeking nuclear help from his Iranian friends to achieve the same position in Latin America that Iran aspires to in its neighborhood? Not in my book.

Fourth, Carter should go back and read the words of Hashemi Rafsanjani, the former Iranian president, who said: “[T]he use of even one nuclear bomb inside Israel would destroy everything.”

For Carter to imply that Israel is safe and secure from Iranian nuclear designs by dint of having more bombs is, well, naïve, all the more when Iran’s defining eschatology is added to the picture. If religious fervor should trump rational behavior in Tehran, all bets are off.

And finally, Carter once again displays his misreading of Israel, something he has regrettably made a habit of in recent years and also, incidentally, on vivid display in the same Time interview.

Israel still lives with the shadow of the Holocaust. How could it not?

A leader set forth a plan to establish a 1,000-year Reich and destroy the Jewish people. Few took him seriously. Indeed, there were those at the time — all titled, confident and credentialed — who sounded very much like Carter in his assessment of present-day Iran.

They were dead wrong, and the world paid a horrific price for failing to grasp Hitler’s intentions earlier.

Of one thing we can be certain: Israel will not place its trust in Carter’s reading of Iran. Nor should anyone else.

More than one option – Israel Opinion, Ynetnews.

Op-ed: Iran strike does not have to target nuke sites, could hit sensitive facilities, infrastructure

Alex Fishman

DF Chief of Staff Benny Gantz recently characterized 2012 as the “year of decision” on the Iranian nuclear issue. Defense Minister Ehud Barak talks about an “operational window of opportunity” for striking Iran’s nuclear sites that is gradually closing down.

Some say this window is five-months long, while more cautious observers talk about 18 months. One way or another, the countdown has already begun – in the course of 2012, all parties will complete their preparations (for attack or for sustaining a strike.) For the time being, we are in the midst of a wave of threatening rhetoric that will keep mounting.

The plethora of statements on the Iranian issue in the past week does not offer anything new or attests to agreement between the United States and Israelregarding the intensity and pace of steps needed vis-à-vis Iran. However, the frequency of the statements constitutes a warning: The military option is on the table, today more than ever before. Should Iran’s military nuclear development continue, the gun is already loaded.

Publicly at least, the US chose to move closer to the Israeli position, which argues that the diplomatic-economic weapon isn’t enough; one must also wave the military stick. And indeed, the Americans are accompanying their statements against Iran with military moves such as troop deployment in the Gulf and public discussions of preparations and capabilities.

Secret dialogue?

Yet the talk about a military strike being capable or incapable of stopping Iran’s nuclear program includes an element of deception. After all, curbing Iran’s nuke project does not necessarily have to include the bombing of dozens of Iranian nuclear facilities.

A military strike is just one aspect of the attempt to convince the Iranian regime that developing nuclear weapons does not pay off. A convincing military attack does not have to target fortified nuke sites; such assault could also be convincing if it hits sensitive government sites or important infrastructure targets, which are not necessarily related to the nuclear project. The second element is of course the significant economic sanctions.

This year, the Free World will be embarking on the deciding round against the nuclearizing Iran. Should the Iranians fail to curb themselves, the entire region will start the countdown. It is possible that at the end of the process the decision will be not to strike Iran, and then we shall find ourselves facing the direct path to an Iranian bomb.

There is also the possibility that as result of the effective pressure, some kind of secret dialogue track with Iran will be launched in order to give Tehran the option to withdraw. It is very possible that reports about Iran’s invitation for inspectors to return to its nuclear sites signals the beginning of such secret dialogue.

Iran ground force commander: U.S. wouldn’t dare attack us – Haaretz Daily Newspaper | Israel News.

Brigadier General Ahmad Reza Pourdasta says America and its allies are ‘fearful of the Iranian forces and nation’; U.S. Defense Secretary warns that Iran only a year away from producing a nuclear bomb.

By Haaretz

The Iranian army’s ground force commander said Monday that the United States and its allies would not dare launch an attack on the Islamic Republic, Iran’s state-run Press TV reported.

“They are fearful of the Iranian forces and nation,” Press TV quoted Brigadier General Ahmad Reza Pourdastan as saying.

	A Saegheh ground-to-sea missile is fired by Iran’s Revolutionary Guard during a military maneuver, April 25, 2010.
	Photo by: AP

Pourdastan said that despite the fact that the U.S. dispatched the USS Carl Vinson aircraft carrier to the Persian Gulf, and despite the advanced weaponry in America’s possession, fears of an Iranian retaliation would deter any kind of attack by the U.S.

The U.S. and European nations have recently increased pressure on Iran by imposing a wide-reaching oil embargo over Tehran’s disputed nuclear program.

Earlier Monday, U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta warned that Iran is only one year away from producing a nuclear weapon, saying that the U.S. “will take whatever steps necessary” to stop it.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said earlier this month that Iran would stand up to growing international pressure over its nuclear program and threatened to “respond to attacks.”

Iran has retaliated to the growing pressure with threats to block oil transport through the Strait of Hormuz, which carries a large part of Middle East oil to the rest of the world.