WarSclerotic

Israel debate on Iran strike gains urgency – FT Specials News – IBNLive.

Jerusalem: There is no question that gives more leaders in more countries more sleepless nights than this: Will Israel attack Iran?

The answer is, analysts and officials say, largely unknowable. It depends on decisions yet to be taken, and assessments yet to be made.

What the past week has shown, however, is that leaders in Iran, Israel and the US are approaching these decisions with a growing sense of urgency. As Ehud Barak, the Israeli defence minister, said earlier this week: Time is not simply running out – it is “urgently running out”.

Mr Barak turned up the rhetorical heat even further in a speech at the Herzliya security conference on Thursday night. Highlighting an increasingly important concern for Israel, he said Iran’s nuclear programme was fast becoming immune to military attack.

Israel’s worry is that Iran is moving more and more elements of its nuclear project into bunkers and underground facilities that will be difficult, if not impossible, to destroy. This development effectively creates a second ticking clock that is unrelated to Iran’s progress towards nuclear capability. Dealing with the programme “later”, Mr Barak said, “may be too late”.

On the face of it, the recent spike in Israeli anguish is puzzling. Both the European Union and the US have just agreed to introduce the toughest economic sanctions against Tehran so far, in a fresh effort to halt Iran’s nuclear programme. The measures are designed to hit, directly and indirectly, Iranian oil exports, the country’s principal source of revenues.

Even Israeli leaders, who have spent years calling for tighter sanctions, say recent measures are having a real and damaging effect on the Iranian economy.

Indeed, many current and former members of Israel’s security establishment seem to view the Iranian situation with greater sang-froid than politicians such as Mr Barak and Benjamin Netanyahu, the prime minister. They say a unilateral Israeli strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities is not only risky but also – at least for the time being – unnecessary.

According to this school of thought, the latest cycle of sanctions, coupled with a long-running covert effort to sabotage the Iranian programme, is succeeding. “We are winning the war against Iran – and I am more confident this year than last year,” Efraim Halévy, a former head of Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency, said this week.

New US and European sanctions, however, create risks and opportunities for Israel. Shmuel Bar, director of studies at the Institute of Policy and Strategy in Herzliya, says the latest package of measures, for all their benefits, may also have an “accelerator” effect. Iran, he told the Herzliya conference this week, may be thinking: “I have got to get to nuclear capability as soon as possible” before the sanctions threaten the survival of the regime in Tehran.

The second complication thrown up by the anti-Iran sanctions is that much of the economic pain will only begin in several months. Israel knows that launching a strike during this period would completely undermine the international effort to stop the Iranian programme through sanctions and diplomacy, and could create a dangerous rift with its closest allies in Europe and North America. At the same time, Israel is desperate not to create the impression that the military option is off the table – even for only a few months.

“The people here who read intelligence reports might think that Iran is advancing more rapidly than the sanctions,” says Yoel Guzansky, the former head of the Iran desk on Israel’s National Security Council.

Pointing out that some of the most punishing sanctions will be phased in only gradually, he adds: “June may be too late for Israel.”

Mr Guzansky, now a fellow at the Tel Aviv-based Institute for National Security Studies, says the spike in Israeli concern is fed not least by the realisation that it does not see eye-to-eye with the US, which opposes a military strike at this stage.

“Everyone agrees on where Iran is [in terms of its nuclear programme],” he says. “The problem is one of threat perception. The Americans are 10,000 miles away from Iran. This just doesn’t threaten them as it does Israel.”

Judging by the flurry of recent meetings between senior American and Israeli military and security officials, the two sides are hard at work trying to bridge their differences. Most Israeli analysts believe Washington still has an effective veto over any Israeli decision to strike Iran. What is less clear, however, is whether the US wants to exercise that veto – and whether Israel will give Washington the opportunity to do so in the first place.

One key recent change, analysts say, is that the US has largely withdrawn from Iraq, and today no longer controls Iraqi airspace. This removes what used to be seen as an important constraint on Israel: the need to co-ordinate a strike with the US military in Iraq, and create a safe flight path for Israeli aircraft en route to Iran.

“Israel would have had to co-ordinate a strike also from the operational viewpoint,” says Ephraim Kam, the deputy director at Israel’s Institute for National Security Studies. “That calculation has changed.”

Some say the recent escalation in Israeli rhetoric may be designed, above all else, to keep up the pressure on Iran to back down and on the West to accelerate sanctions. Diplomats say they have no reason to doubt Mr Netanyahu and Mr Barak would much prefer a peaceful resolution of the standoff. Israel’s fundamental position, however, remains the same: Iran’s nuclear programme must be stopped, one way or the other.

DEBKAfile, Political Analysis, Espionage, Terrorism, Security.

DEBKAfile Exclusive Report February 4, 2012, 11:16 AM (GMT+02:00)

1,000 Israeli paratroops jump in big drill

US Secretary of State Leon Panetta has been outspoken about a possible Israeli offensive against Iran taking place as of April and one American TV channel theorized simplistically Friday, Feb. 3, about Israel’s tactics. At the same time, no US source is leveling on the far more extensive American, Saudi, British, French and Gulf states’ preparations going forward for an offensive against the Islamic Republic.

Tehran too is gearing up for conflict: The Iranian Guards Ground Forces chief Brig. Gen. Mohammad Pakpour Saturday, Feb. 4 announced the start of a three-week exercise in southern Iran and the Strait of Hormuz under conditions of war. debkafile: The “exercise” is in fact an Iranian military buildup ahead of a possible American or Israel attack.

debkafile‘s military sources report a steady flow of many thousands of US troops for some weeks to two strategic islands within reach of Iran, Oman’s Masirah just south of the Strait of Hormuz and Socotra, between Yemen and the Horn of Africa. (DEBKA-Net-Weekly 526 of Jan. 27 was the first world publication to reveal the massive concentration of American might on the two islands.)
This concentration was held by the White House as sufficiently urgent to relent on its refusal to admit the ousted Yemeni leader Ali Abdullah Salah to America for medical treatment. He won permission in exchange for his consent to the Socotra military buildup.

There are now two potential triggers for a Middle East confrontation with Iran. They are closely interrelated: The urgent need for action this year to preempt Iran’s nuclear bomb program before it is too late and the Syrian army’s appalling and escalating butchery of civilians.
Even as world powers haggled over a bogged-down UN Security Council motion for ending the loss of life, a continuous Syrian bombardment beginning early Saturday, Feb. 4, is estimated to have left a record 350 dead and up to 1,300 wounded in the Homs district of Khaldiyeh. The casualty figures continued to climb Saturday as Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov threatened a “scandal” if the Western-Arab text were put to the vote.
Bashar Assad was clearly determined to wipe out every family and home in the defiant Homs suburb in case the world body agreed on a ceasefire resolution.

Our military sources report that the Saudis this week wound up their own intensive preparations for war. Large forces are now deployed around Saudi oil fields, pipelines and export facilities in the eastern provinces opposite the Persian Gulf, backed by anti-missile Patriot PAC-3 batteries. American, British and French fighter-bombers have been landing at Saudi air bases to safeguard the capital, Riyadh.

Israel has accelerated, expanded and focused its military drill regimen for the coming conflict. Tuesday, Jan. 31, a division-scale exercise practiced the drafting of reservists under projected heavy missile bombardment of military bases, induction centers, national highways and towns from at least three directions: Syria, Lebanon and the Gaza Strip, as well as Iran.
Thursday, Feb. 2, Military Intelligence Chief Maj. Gen. Avivi Kochavi disclosed that 200,000 missiles and rockets, including thousands of long-range projectiles, were currently pointed at Israel, the only country in the world facing a threat on this scale.
Two weeks earlier, the IDF Paratrooper Brigade staged its biggest exercise in over 15 years: More than 1,000 paratroopers jumped from the sky over southern Israel together with their departmental and squadron commanders. Israel sought to demonstrate that it commands enough fighting manpower to operate deep inside enemy territory, as well as the planes for delivering the combatants.

In his sermon to followers Friday, Feb.3, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei made it clear that Iran’s allies would be involved in any confrontation and Israel was a prime target:  Iran, he said, is ready to help anyone who confronts “cancerous” Israel. He also warned Washington, “The war itself will be ten times as detrimental to the US.”
Khamenei credited Iran’s help for achieving Hizballah’s “victorious” attack on Israel in 2006 and for Hamas’ “success” in beating back Israel’s anti-missile operation in Gaza that year.

The Supreme Leader was clearly egging on Iran’s allies, Syria, Hizballah and the Palestinian Hamas and Jihad Islami, to go for Israel again.

debkafile‘s Middle East analysts challenge the hypothesis heard in Israel and other places that the massive war preparations going forward at this time are backing for sanctions, contrived to propel Iran to the negotiating table and accept a deal for halting its nuclear weapon program.
Our sources stress that these military preparations are for real and are taken very seriously by all the governments concerned because Tehran is far from being intimidated by threats.

Khamenei confirmed authoritatively Friday what other Iranian officials have consistently maintained, that Tehran will not give up its nuclear plans no matter how much pressure is brought to bear. Iran had its chance to cool some of the pressure by opening up to a team of International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors who visited Tehran last week – but chose not to do so.

In their three-day stay, the inspectors were denied access to any Iranian nuclear facility, notably the Parchin plant 30 kilometers southwest of Tehran, which is developing nuclear bombs and warheads – or even interview the scientists employed there.

While Israel’s military preparations for hostilities with Iran are now widely reported, two gaps remain to be filled, says debkafile:
1.  As the ayatollahs witness the vast US, Saudi, Israel, British, French and Arab Gulf war preparations around their borders, will they opt to watch and wait for the sword to fall, or will they try and get in first with a hammer blow against Israel, a course Khamenei hinted at broadly in his latest speech.
2. Are Washington and Jerusalem in alignment – or at least in tacit accord – on who goes first against Iran’s nuclear installations? The reports and statements coming from US sources make it sound as though only an Israeli attack is in the offing. Informed circles in Tehran, Damascus, Riyadh and Jerusalem are not so sure.

Syrian opposition: 260 dead in government assault – Israel News, Ynetnews.

Syrian forces launch offensive on Homs, killing and wounding hundreds, activists say; Syrian authorities deny attack. UN Security Council readies to vote on resolution to unseat President Assad

News Agencies

In a barrage of mortar shells, Syrian forces killed at least 260 people and wounded hundreds in Homs in an offensive that appears to be the bloodiest episode in the nearly 11-month-old uprising, Syrian opposition officials said Saturday.

The assault in Homs, which has been one of the main flashpoints of opposition during the uprising, comes as the UN Security Council prepares to vote on a draft resolution backing an Arab call for President Bashar Assad to give up power.

The Syrian government denied launching the deadly offensive, saying that civilians who were killed overnight died at the hand of “gunmen,” the official SANA news agency reported.

According to the report, news footage broadcast by satellite channels showed “civilians who were kidnapped and killed by gunmen.”

The regime accused the militants of trying to pressure the UN to pass an anti-Assad resolution.

The Syrian National Council, the country’s umbrella opposition organization, said the death toll in Homs was more than 260 people in shelling that began late Friday. Much of the killings – about 140 – were reported in the Khaldiyeh neighborhood.

“This is the worst attack of the uprising, since the uprising began in March until now,” said Rami Abdul-Rahman, the head of the Observatory, which tracks violence through contacts on the ground.

The reports could not be independently confirmed.

It was not immediately clear what precipitated the attack, but there have been reports that army defectors set up checkpoints in the area and were trying to consolidate control.

UN to vote on resolution

Earlier on Friday, deadly clashes erupted between government troops and rebels in suburbs of the Syrian capital and villages in the south, sparking fighting that killed at least 23 people, including nine soldiers, activists said.

Assad is trying to crush the revolt with a sweeping crackdown that has so far claimed thousands of lives, but neither the government nor the protesters are backing down and clashes between the military and an increasingly bold and armed opposition has meant many parts of the country have seen relentless violence.

The UN Security Council will meet Saturday morning to take up a much-negotiated resolution on Syria, said a diplomat for a Western nation that sits on the council.

The diplomat spoke Friday on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to be quoted by the media.

The move toward a vote came after US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton spoke by telephone with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in an effort to overcome Russian opposition to any statement that explicitly calls for regime change or a military intervention in Syria.

The US and its partners have ruled out military action but want the global body to endorse an Arab League plan that calls on Assad to hand power over to Syria’s vice president.

Russia’s deputy foreign minister, Gennady Gatilov, said Friday that Moscow could not support the resolution in its current form. But he expressed optimism that an agreement could be reached, according to state news agency RIA Novosti.

Assad’s regime has been intensifying an assault against army defectors and protesters. The UN said weeks ago that more than 5,400 people have been killed in violence since March. Hundreds more have been killed since that tally was announced.

Iran starts month-long naval exercises in Strait of Hormuz – Haaretz Daily Newspaper | Israel News.

Iran has threatened to close the strategic waterway in retaliation for Western sanctions; on Friday, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei warned against strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities.

By The Associated Press and Reuters

Iran says its powerful Revolutionary Guard is starting naval exercises near the Strait of Hormuz, the critical Gulf oil tanker route that Iran has threatened to close in retaliation for tougher Western sanctions.

Iranian state media said Saturday the warships will conduct a month of maneuvers. Western navies, meanwhile, have boosted their presence in the Gulf led by the American aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln.

Iran has made no attempts to disrupt shipping through the strait, the route for one-fifth the world’s crude oil. The U.S.and allies have said they would respond to any blockade.

The Iranian war games follow stern warnings by Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, about any possible U.S.or Israeli attacks against Iran’s nuclear facilities.

The Obama administration is increasingly anxious about Israeli leaders’ provocative public comments on Iran’s nuclear program but does not have hard proof that Israel will strike Iran in the near future, according to U.S. and European officials.

Iranian navy fires a Mehrab missile during the “Velayat-90” naval wargames in the Strait of Hormuz in southern Iran on January 1, 2012.

‘Iranian threat against Jewish t… JPost – Iranian Threat – News.

Iran warns world of coming great event.

Says ‘evil hegemony’ soon will be defeated by power of Allah

By Reza Kahlili

Amid crippling sanctions over its nuclear weapons program, Iran is continuing to prepare itself for war against the West, and now is warning of a coming great event.

“In light of the realization of the divine promise by almighty God, the Zionists and the Great Satan (America) will soon be defeated,” Ayatollah Khamenei, the Iranian supreme leader, is warning.

Khamenei, speaking to hundreds of youths from more than 70 countries attending a world conference on the Arab Spring just days ago, told a cheering crowd in Tehran that “Allah’s promises will be delivered and Islam will be victorious.”

The countries represented included Bahrain, Egypt, Libya, Palestine and Tunisia, all of which have been involved in the Arab Spring.

In his remarks, Khamenei advised the youths to remain vigilant, stating that the Islamic awakening in the region has delivered several blows to the enemies of Islam and that all Muslims, despite their own historical and social differences, remain united in opposing the “evil hegemony of the Zionists and the Americans.”

Khamenei then claimed the current century as the century of Islam and promised that human history is on the verge of a great event and that soon the world will realize the power of Allah.

Many clerics in Iran have stated that Khamenei is the deputy of the last Islamic messiah on earth and that obedience to him is necessary for the final glorification of Islam.

Khamenei has been heard to say that the coming of the last Islamic Messiah, the Shiites’ 12th Imam Mahdi, is near and that specific actions need to be taken to protect the Islamic regime for upcoming events.

Mahdi, according to Shiite belief, will reappear at the time of Armageddon. Selected forces within the Revolutionary Guards and Basij reportedly have been trained under a task force called “Soldiers of Imam Mahdi” and they will bear the responsibility of security and protecting the regime against uprisings. Many in the Guards and Basij have been told that the 12th Imam is on earth, facilitated the victory of Hezbollah over Israel in the 2006 war and soon will announce publicly his presence after the needed environment is created.

Sources within Vali’eh Amr, the revolutionary forces in charge of the supreme leader’s protection, also recently revealed an assassination attempt on Khamenei that was thwarted just in time.

SepahOnline reports that last year during Khamenei’s visit to the port of Asalouyeh in southern Iran, Revolutionary Guards found pistols and hand grenades hidden by one individual dressed as a janitor in a barracks that Khamenei was set to attend. The supreme leader was then returned to Tehran immediately.

Other sources within the Guards report that following Barack Obama’s letter to the Iranian leader last month requesting negotiations, Khamenei ordered Iranian officials to speak positively about holding nuclear talks and giving hope to Obama and other Western leaders that a negotiated solution is possible.

This was apparent after a trip of U.N. nuclear inspectors to Iran this week, who called the talks positive.

At the same time, his directive to the Guards ordered a speedy completion of the Iranian nuclear bomb program in which Guards’ missiles can be armed with nuclear warheads. Khamenei believes once that’s achieved, Iran can test a nuclear bomb, letting the world know that Iran has joined the nuclear-armed club and that any confrontation will result in destruction of much of the Western world.

The Revolutionary Guards not only can hit all U.S. bases in the Middle East with their ballistic missiles but also reach most capital cities in Western Europe. The Guards, with the help of China and North Korea, are working on intercontinental ballistic missiles. But more dangerous to America, as reported last July, is the Guards action in arming their vessels with long-range ballistic missiles and their expansion of their mission into the Atlantic Ocean, right into the Gulf of Mexico.

Any Iranian military or commercial vessel easily could get right outside the U.S. coastline and in less than 60 seconds fire a ballistic missile armed with a nuclear payload and detonate it over U.S. skies in an electromagnetic attack that would plunge America back into the 18th century.

Studies show within just one year after such an attack, two-thirds of Americans would cease to exist and the rest would live under dire conditions.

The radicals ruling Iran not only have prepared for mass suppression of their own people as they get close to their confrontation with the West, but also have prepared to fuel unrest through their proxies in the Middle East and elsewhere.

SepahOnline, with sources within the Guards, reports that Afghanistan will soon witness an increase in terrorist activities against U.S. forces. The Guards not only are training Taliban fighters in Iran close to the Afghan border, but are shipping armaments to forces in Afghanistan with an order to create instability by harming U.S. forces and destabilizing the Afghan government.

Guards agents have also been ordered to do the same in Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and other Gulf counties.

The Guards also announced the imminent formation of a defensive unit to deal with possible radioactive contamination. Although they did not say why, they could be preparing for a nuclear exchange with the West once Iran becomes nuclear-armed.

WND previously has reported that the chieftains in Iran also are preparing to execute their own internal critics and opponents at the right time.

This was similar to action taken by the founder of the Islamic regime in 1988, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.

In the book, “A Time to Betray,” the CIA spy in the revolutionary guards reveals the mindset of the Shi’ite clerics and how they aspire for the destruction of the world. They truly believe the end of time is here. As revealed last year, the Iranian secret documentary “The Coming is Upon Us” clearly indicates that the radicals ruling Iran believe the destruction of Israel will trigger the coming of last Islamic Messiah.

Israel, U.S. Divided Over Timing of Potential Military Strike Against Iran – Bloomberg.

The U.S. and Israel are publicly disagreeing over timing for a potential attack on Iran’s disputed nuclear facilities, as that nation’s leader said it won’t back down.

The U.S. and Israel have a “significant analytic difference” over estimates of how close Iran is to shielding its nuclear program from attack, Aaron David Miller, a former Mideast peace negotiator in the Clinton administration, said today.

“There’s a growing concern — more than a concern — that the Israelis, in order to protect themselves, might launch a strike without approval, warning or even foreknowledge,” he said in an interview.

The differing views were underscored by public comments this week by senior Israeli and U.S. defense officials.

Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak said yesterday that Israel must consider conducting “an operation” before Iran reaches an “immunity zone,” referring to Iran’s goal of protecting its uranium enrichment and other nuclear operations by moving them to deep underground facilities such as one at Fordo, near the holy city of Qom.

‘Nearing Readiness’

“The world has no doubt that Iran’s nuclear program is steadily nearing readiness and is about to enter an immunity zone,” Barak said in an address to the annual Herzliya Conference at the Interdisciplinary Center campus north of Tel Aviv. “If the sanctions don’t achieve their goal of halting Iran’s nuclear weapons program, there will arise the need of weighing an operation,” Barak said.

The U.S. holds the view that “there is still time and space to pursue diplomacy” with Iran over its nuclear program, State Department spokesman Mark Toner said today in Washington. He added that the U.S. “is absolutely committed to preventing Iran from getting nuclear weapons.”

In Iran, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said today that his nation won’t abandon its nuclear efforts and warned that a strike against the nuclear program would damage U.S. interests in the Middle East “10 times over,” according to the Associated Press. He said, without providing details, that he would disclose a letter that he said President Barack Obama sent Iran’s leaders.

Referring to Israel as a “cancerous tumor,” Khamenei said in his Friday sermon that “if any nation or any group confronts the Zionist regime, we will help.” He said that Iran has assisted anti-Israel groups such as Hezbollah and the Palestinian Hamas.

SWIFT Sanctions

The U.S. Senate Banking Committee unanimously approved yesterday a bill that would increase the economic pressure on Iran. The proposal targets Iran-related banking transactions, Iran’s national oil company and leading tanker fleet, joint ventures in mining and energy projects. It also would require corporate disclosure of Iran-related activity to the Securities and Exchange Commission.

One provision calls on the administration to provide a report to Congress within 60 days detailing Iran-related financial transactions facilitated by the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication, the Belgian member-owned institution known as Swift, and its competitors. The measure would give the president authority to sanction Swift to cut off such services. A similar bill, with stronger language mandating the imposition of sanctions, was submitted in the House yesterday.

Within Israel, there isn’t consensus that striking Iran is either good or necessary. Ephraim Halevy, a former head of Israel’s Mossad security agency, is one of two former intelligence chiefs who have spoken against a strike.

Panetta’s Concerns

U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta declined to comment directly on a report by Washington Post columnist David Ignatius that Panetta believes there is a strong likelihood Israel will strike Iran in April, May or June. Panetta and other U.S. officials have repeatedly warned Israel not to act alone.

“Israel has indicated that they’re considering this” through public statements, Panetta told reporters traveling with him yesterday in Brussels. “And we have indicated our concerns.”

Israelis think Iran will reach the immunity zone in “half the time the Americans think it will,” Miller said. “To take that difference and talk about a growing rift” between Israel and the U.S. “is by and large an overstatement,” he said.

Obama-Netanyahu Relations

Tension between Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu may be complicating communications on the issue, a U.S. defense official said. “There’s no love lost between the two of them, and there’s a trust deficit,” said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to speak to the news media.

Defense officials have been concerned that Obama hasn’t warned Netanyahu directly enough about the risks of a Israeli preemptive strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities, including for U.S. interests in the region such as bases in in Kuwait, Bahrain and Qatar, according to the official.

James Clapper, the U.S. director of national intelligence, said Jan. 31 that communication with Israel was good. “We’re doing a lot with the Israelis, working together with them,” he told the Senate intelligence panel.

Unknown Intentions

The chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Martin Dempsey, has said it is “premature” to resort to military force because sanctions are starting to have an impact on Iran. In a Jan. 26 interview with National Journal, Dempsey said he delivered a similar message of caution to Israel’s top leadership during a visit to the Jewish state in early January.

U.S. intelligence agencies think Iran is developing capabilities to produce nuclear weapons “should it choose to do so,” said Clapper.

“We do not know, however, if Iran will eventually decide to build nuclear weapons,” he said.

While leaders of both countries agree that time must be given to gauge the impact of the latest set of economic sanctions on Iran, Israel’s patience is shorter than that of the U.S., Ephraim Kam, deputy director of Tel Aviv University’s Institute for National Security Studies, said.

‘Too Late’

“It will take at least six months to see whether sanctions are effective and by then it may be too late,” said Kam, author of the 2007 book, “A Nuclear Iran: What Does it Mean, and What Can be Done.”

“We’re definitely using different clocks,” he said.

Israeli Army Chief of Staff Lieutenant-General Benny Gantz told the Herzliya conference on Feb. 1 that his nation must be “willing to deploy” its military assets because Iran may be within a year of gaining nuclear weapons capability. Gantz said international sanctions are starting to show some results.

Moshe Yaalon, Israel’s vice prime minister and its former top military commander, played down Iran’s ability to shelter its activities from a military attack. “It’s possible to strike all Iran’s facilities, and I say that out of my experience as IDF chief of staff,” he said at the conference, referring to the Israeli Defense Forces.

The U.S., its European allies and the International Atomic Energy Agency have challenged the government in Tehran to prove that its nuclear work is intended only for energy and medical research, as Iranian officials maintain.

Mehdi Khalaji, an Iran specialist at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said in an interview that he doubts that the U.S. or Iran will launch a military strike this year. Rather, he cited the possibility than Iran might stage a provocation and use any response as an excuse to launch an asymmetrical attack against U.S. and Israel targets using proxies such as Hezbollah.

My Man From Davos Says 90% Chance Israeli Attack on Iran – Forbes.

I had dinner tonight in New York  with an old Davos hand just back  from Switzerland with the inside word from the powers-that-be.

The bad news is the  high expectation of an exogenous event that could throw economic recovery, an advancing stock market, and a mending Europe to the winds– and usher in  a period of fear and uncertainty punctuated by oil spiking to God knows what price, to shortages of energy, to profit margins squeezed in industries that require petroleum additives, not to speak of events that could trigger catastrophe in the Middle East. My own response is disbelief that these public statements by Israeli journalists in the NY Times,  the opinion of our Secretary of Defence, and anxiety from Iranian specialists will turn into reality.

My man from Davos came with good news as well. It is now abundantly clear, he told me, that the European Central Bank run  by Mario Draghi, has staunched any potential meltdown of  Europe’s banking system by  emulating Messrs. Greenspan and Bernanke with copious monetary supplies.  So, the lesson of America in 2008 has been carried across the sea to Europe where the very able and pragmatic Draghi has done his job well.  This is an enormous relief to the banking system, to other sovereign governments and the investor class. The Dow industrial average is now only 1300 points below the alltime high of 14,100 set in October, 2007.

The meeting with the Occupy Davos forces, camped out in tents  in the snow was a farce, with  the Davos regulars alienated by the acting out of the Occupy forces, and fleeing the meeting in order to avoid any physical confrontation. The dreamers who idolize this global movement should all be sent to Vermont without their granola. We still await a real dialogue about the future of capitalism and democracy, a pragmatic program that can begin to narrow the spreading distance between the haves and the have-nots.

Pray that the Iranian nuclear bomb crisis, the oil coming through the Straits of Hormuz, and the threat of military action by Israel are somehow brought to a halt and resolved in such a way as to maintain the precarious stabilization of the global economy.

Banking Hub Adds to Pressure on Iran – WSJ.com.

By JAY SOLOMON and ADAM ENTOUS

An organization that is central to the international banking system said it is working with U.S. and European governments to address their concerns that its financial services are being used by Iran to avoid sanctions and conduct illicit business.

Current and former U.S. officials said that if the Belgium-based organization, the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication, or Swift, bans sanctioned Iranian entities from using its network, Tehran could find itself virtually incapable of conducting electronic financial transactions.

“This would be the knockout blow,” said Avi Jorisch, a former U.S. Treasury Department official who has worked on Swift.

Enlarge Image

Zuma Press

Iran’s Ayatollah Ali Khamenei addresses Friday prayers in Tehran.

The move to squeeze Tehran’s finances adds to a growing sense of pressure on the regime, after U.S. and Israeli officials this week raised the threat of a potential Israeli military attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities.

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta weighed in on the rising sense of crisis on Friday. Meeting with U.S. troops in Germany, Mr. Panetta said nations were now unified behind sanctions, and appeared to indirectly caution Israel against taking any actions that could open rifts within the international community.

“The whole international community has said: ‘Don’t do it,’ ” Mr. Panetta said at the Ramstein Air Base. But if Iran pushes ahead with production of a nuclear bomb, Mr. Panetta added, “we have all options on the table and we’ll be prepared to respond if we have to.”

Iran says it isn’t developing nuclear weapons. Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in a Friday sermon marking the anniversary of the Islamic Revolution, said sanctions were only helping Iran. “They will make us more self-reliant….We wouldn’t achieve military progress if sanctions weren’t imposed on Iran’s military sector.”

Swift has been under increasing pressure from activist groups, and this week from Congress, to cut its ties to Tehran.

On Thursday, the Senate Banking Committee passed a bill that could lead to sanctions against Swift’s board of directors and ownership if the organization doesn’t cut off Iran’s central bank and other Iranian firms that have been sanctioned by the U.S. and European Union.

Lawyers for Swift visited Washington on Friday and met with members of the Congress, according to legislative staff.

Swift facilitates the flow of most electronic financial transactions. Virtually all major banks and finance firms use it to send financial data and messages on its secure network.

Swift initially released a statement this week arguing that its services didn’t place it in violation of sanctions law. But in its statement released Friday, Swift indicated that it was taking the new U.S. legislations seriously.

“Swift fully understands and appreciates the gravity of the situation,” the organization said in a statement released Friday, referring to the new U.S. legislation. “We are working with U.S. and EU authorities…to find the right multilateral legal framework which will enable Swift to address the issues.”

Swift’s board of directors is comprised of executives from some of the world’s most important banks. This week, activist group United Against Nuclear Iran wrote to board members arguing that they are acting outside U.S. law by allowing designated Iranian banks to use Swift’s services. They argued that Swift’s guidelines mandate that its cut ties to Iran.

Adding to growing efforts to pressure Iran, Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak this week appeared to suggest that an Israeli attack may be imminent. “Whoever says ‘later” might find that ‘later’ is too late,” he said.

Some Israeli officials privately advise against taking the heightened rhetoric very seriously. “People should be more on alert when we stop talking about it,” said an Israeli official. “The world will only learn about it after it’s happened.”

—Joshua Mitnick contributed to this article.

Iran-Latin America links: a scary scenario – Andres Oppenheimer – MiamiHerald.com.

By Andres Oppenheimer

aoppenheimer@MiamiHerald.com