WarSclerotic

Ayalon calls on UN to impose oil … JPost – Diplomacy & Politics.

DEBKAfile, Political Analysis, Espionage, Terrorism, Security.

DEBKAfile Special Report February 9, 2012, 5:20 PM (GMT+02:00)

US Air Force airlift over Sinai to the Gulf

As the US and Israel carried on bickering over the right time to strike Iran’s nuclear sites, their war preparations continued apace. debkafile‘s military sources report that flight after flight of US warplanes and transports were to be seen this week cutting eastward through the skies of Sinai on their way to Gulf destinations, presumably Saudi Arabia, at a frequency not seen in the Middle East for many years.

The three International Atomic Energy inspectors who spent the last three days of January in Tehran had asked to meet the hitherto invisible head of Iran’s nuclear bomb program, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, 50, a general of the Revolutionary Guards. The Iranians pretended to be deaf. They also kept the inspectors away from any nuclear installations. A senior Obama administration official termed the visit “foot-dragging at best and a disaster at worst.”

debkafile‘s intelligence and military sources note that without talking to Fakhrizadeh or any of the 600 nuclear engineers and scientists working under him, unless one of them defects, there is no way the West can determine what exactly is going on in Iran’s nuclear program stands and which installations have been moved to underground facilities.

No one doubts now that advanced centrifuges and stocks of enriched uranium – 3.5 percent and 20 percent grades alike – have been moved to Iran’s underground bunker site at Fordo near Qom, which the US administration has claimed its bunker buster bombs cannot reach and which Israel’s Defense Minister Ehud Barak has defined as “a zone of immunity.”
In their ongoing argument with Jerusalem, American officials commented crossly this week that “Israelis are looking at the problem too narrowly.”
Clearly Israel, unlike America, envisions the Iranian “problem” from the narrow viewpoint of potential victim of an Iranian attack. Sunday, Feb. 5, Alireza Forghani, head of the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s strategic team, was quoted as remarking, “It would only take nine minutes to wipe out Israel.”
The remark came from a just-published detailed and serious paper by an Iranian study group which advised Tehran not to wait to be attacked but to launch a preemptive strike against the Jewish state.
Wiping Israel out in 9 minutes would require a nuclear weapon. It therefore behooves Israel to narrow its vision and focus closely on Iran’s nuclear potential and intent.

By now, the Obama administration and the Netanyahu government have pretty well run out of semantic ammunition for their dingdong over how long to wait for sanctions to bite before going on the military offensive against Iran’s nuclear sites and who should do the deed.
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu plans a trip to Washington in March and will almost certainly get together with President Barack Obama.  That is a date to watch.
Israel leaders have not given up warning that time is running out for a military strike that could stop Iran from developing nuclear weapons. Obama’s comment to NBC TV Sunday Feb. 4, “I don’t think that Israel has made a decision on what they need to do,” has been interpreted by some circles in Washington as meaning that Israel has agreed to wait long enough to give tough sanctions a chance.

debkafile‘s sources say that interpretation is wishful thinking rather than based on fact. The president’s comment was another attempt to keep Israel within certain lines of restraint.

Rock Center with Brian Williams – Israel teams with terror group to kill Iran’s nuclear scientists, U.S. officials tell NBC News.

Mehdi Marizad / Fars via AP file

A car that was bombed by two assailants on a motorcycle in Tehran on Jan. 11, killing Iranian nuclear scientist Mostafa Ahamdi Roshan, is removed by a mobile crane. The photo was distributed by the semi-official Iranian photo agency Fars.

Deadly attacks on Iranian nuclear scientists are being carried out by an Iranian dissident group that is financed, trained and armed by Israel’s secret service, U.S. officials tell NBC News, confirming charges leveled by Iran’s leaders.

ROCK CENTER EXCLUSIVE

The group, the People’s Mujahedin of Iran, has long been designated as a terrorist group by the United States, accused of killing American servicemen and contractors in the 1970s and supporting the takeover of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran before breaking with the Iranian mullahs in 1980.

The attacks, which have killed five Iranian nuclear scientists since 2007 and may have destroyed a missile research and development site, have been carried out in dramatic fashion, with motorcycle-borne assailants often attaching small magnetic bombs to the exterior of the victims’ cars.

U.S. officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the Obama administration is aware of the assassination campaign but has no direct involvement.

The Iranians have no doubt who is responsible – Israel and the People’s Mujahedin of Iran, known by various acronyms, including MEK, MKO and PMI.

Mohammad Javad Larijani, a senior aide to Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, describes what Iranian leaders believe is a close relationship between Israel’s secret service, the Mossad, and the People’s Mujahedin of Iran, or MEK, which is considered a terrorist organization by the United States.

“The relation is very intricate and close,” said Mohammad Javad Larijani, a senior aide to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, speaking of the MEK and Israel.  “They (Israelis) are paying … the Mujahedin. Some of their (MEK) agents … (are) providing Israel with information.  And they recruit and also manage logistical support.”

Moreover, he said, the Mossad, the Israeli secret service, is training MEK members in Israel on the use of motorcycles and small bombs.  In one case, he said, Mossad agents built a replica of the home of an Iranian nuclear scientist so that the assassins could familiarize themselves with the layout prior to the attack.

Much of what the Iranian government knows of the attacks and the links between Israel and MEK  comes from interrogation of an assassin who failed to carry out an attack in late 2010 and the materials found on him, Larijani said. (Click here to see a video report of the interrogation shown on Iranian televsion.)

The U.S.-educated Larijani, whose two younger brothers run the legislative and judicial branches of the Iranian government, said the Israelis’ rationale is simple. “Israel does not have direct access to our society. Mujahedin, being Iranian and being part of Iranian society, they have … a good number of … places to get into the touch with people. So I think they are working hand-to-hand very close.  And we do have very concrete documents.”

Two senior U.S. officials confirmed for NBC News  the MEK’s role in the assassinations, with one senior official saying, “All your inclinations are correct.” A third official would not confirm or deny the relationship, saying only, “It hasn’t been clearly confirmed yet.”  All the officials denied any U.S. involvement in the assassinations.

As it has in the past, Israel’s Foreign Ministry declined comment. Said a spokesman, “As long as we can’t see all the evidence being claimed by NBC, the Foreign Ministry won’t react to every gossip and report being published worldwide.”

For its part, the MEK pointed to a statement calling the allegations “absolutely false.”

The sophistication of the attacks supports the Iranian claims that an experienced intelligence service is involved, experts say.

In the most recent attack, on Jan. 11, 2012, Mostafa Ahamdi Roshan died in a blast in Tehran moments after two assailants on a motorcycle placed a small magnetic bomb on his vehicle. Roshan was a deputy director at the Natanz uranium enrichment facility and was reportedly involved in procurement for the nuclear program, which Iran insists is not a weapons program.

Previous attacks include the assassination of Massoud Ali-Mohammadi, killed by a bomb outside his Tehran home in January 2010, and an explosion in November of that year that took the life of Majid Shahriari and wounded Fereydoun Abbasi-Davani, who is now the head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization.

In the case of Roshan, the bomb appears to have been a shaped charge that directed all the explosive power inside the vehicle, killing him and his bodyguard driver but leaving nearby traffic unaffected.

Although Roshan was directly involved in the nuclear program, working at the huge centrifuge facility between Tehran and Qom, Iran’s religious center, at least one other scientist who was killed wasn’t linked to the Iranian nuclear program, according to Larijani.

Speaking of bombing victim Ali-Mohammadi, whom he described as a friend, Larijani told NBC News, “In fact this guy who was assassinated was not involved in the nitty-gritty of the situation.  He was a scientist, a physicist, working on the theoretically parts of nuclear energy, which you can teach it in every university. You can find it in every text.”

“This is an Israeli plot.  A dirty plot,” Larijani added angrily. He also claimed the assassinations are not having an effect on the program and have only made scientists more resolute in carrying out their mission.

Not so, said Ronen Bergman, an Israeli commentator and author of “Israel’s Secret War with Iran” and an upcoming book tentatively titled, “Mossad and the Art of Assassination.”

Israel has long used assassination against its enemies, “hoping that by taking out individuals, they can alter, change the course of history,” says Ronen Bergman, an Israeli commentator and author of “Israel’s Secret War with Iran” and an upcoming book tentatively titled “Mossad and the Art of Assassination.”

Bergman said the attacks have three purposes, the most obvious being the removal of high-ranking scientists and their  knowledge. The others:  forcing Iran to increase security for its scientists and facilities and to spur “white defections.”

He explained the latter this way: “Scientists leaving the project, afraid that they are going to be next on the assassination list, and say, ‘We don’t want this.  Indeed, we get good money, we are promoted, we are honored by everybody, but we might get killed.  It isn’t worth it.  Maybe we should go back to teach … in a university.’”

There are unconfirmed reports in the Israeli press and elsewhere that Israel and the MEK were involved in a Nov. 12 explosion that destroyed the Iranian missile research and development site at Bin Kaneh, 30 miles outside Tehran.  Among those killed was Maj. Gen. Hassan Moghaddam, director of missile development for the Revolutionary Guard, and a dozen other researchers. So important was Moghaddam that Ayatollah Khamenei attended his funeral.

Unlike the assassinations, Iran claims the missile site explosion was an accident; the MEK, meanwhile, trumpeted it but denied any involvement.

Indeed, there may be other covert operations carried out either by Israel acting alone or in concert with others, according to Bergman.

“Two labs caught fire,” said Bergman, enumerating the attacks. “Scientists got blown up or disappeared.  A missile base and the R&D base of the Revolutionary Guard exploded some time ago, with the director of the R&D division of the Revolutionary Guard being killed along with … his soldiers.”

Bergman added, “So, a long series of … something that was termed by an Israeli (Cabinet) minister … as ‘mysterious mishaps’ happening and rehappening to the project. Then the Iranians claim, ‘This is Israeli Mossad trying to sabotage our attempts to be a nuclear superpower.’”

Dr. Uzi Rabi, director of the Dayan Center at Tel Aviv University, said the supposed accidents could all be part of “psychological warfare” conducted against Iran. “It seems logical. It makes sense,” he said of possible MEK involvement, “and it’s been done before.”

Rabi, who regularly briefs Israel’s parliament, the Knesset, on Iran also said the ultimate goal of the range of covert operations being carried out by Israel is “to damage the politics of survivability … to send a message that could strike fear into the rulers of Iran.”

For the United States, the alleged role of the MEK is particularly troublesome.  In 1997, the State Department designated it a terrorist group, justifying it with an unclassified 40-page summary of the organization’s  activities going back more than 25 years.  The paper, sent to Congress in 1998, was written by Wendy Sherman, now undersecretary of state for political affairs and then an aide to Secretary of State Madeleine Albright.

The report, which was obtained by NBC News, was unsparing in its assessment. “The Mujahedin  (MEK) collaborated with Ayatollah Khomeini to overthrow the former shah of Iran,” it said. “As part of that struggle, they assassinated at least six American citizens, supported the takeover of the U.S. embassy, and opposed the release of the American hostages.”  In each case, the paper noted, “Bombs were the Mujahedin’s weapon of choice, which they frequently employed against American targets.”

“In the post-revolutionary political chaos, however, the Mujahedin lost political power to Iran’s Islamic clergy. They then applied their dedication to armed struggle and the use of propaganda against the new Iranian government, launching a violent and polemical cycle of attack and reprisal.”

U.S. officials have said publicly that the information contained in the report was limited to unclassified material, but that it also drew on classified material in making its determination to add the MEK to the U.S. list of terrorist organizations.

Sean Gallup / Getty Images file

Maryam Rajavi, president of the National Council of Resistance of Iran, greets several hundred Iranian expatriates who had gathered to welcome her at Tegel Airport in Berlin, Germany, on March 22, 2010.

The MEK and its sister organizations have since the beginning been run by Massoud and Maryam Rajavi, a husband-wife team who have maintained tight control despite assassination threats and internal dissent. Massoud Rajavi, 63, founded the MEK, but since the U.S. invasion of Iraq has taken a backseat to his wife.

The State Department report describes the Rajavis as  “fundamentally undemocratic” and “not a viable alternative to the current government of Iran.”

One reason for that is the MEK’s close relationship with Saddam Hussein, as demonstrated by this 1986 video showing the late Iraqi dictator meeting with Massoud Rajavi. Saddam recruited the MEK in much the same way the Israelis allegedly have, using them to fight Iranian forces during the Iran-Iraq War, a role they took on proudly.  So proudly, they invited NBC News to one of their military camps outside Baghdad in 1993.

“The National Liberation Army (MLA), the military wing of the Mujahedin, conducted raids into Iran during the latter years of the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq War,” according to the State Department report. The NLA’s last major offensive reportedly was conducted against Iraqi Kurds in 1991, when it joined Saddam Hussein’s brutal repression of the Kurdish rebellion. In addition to occasional acts of sabotage, the Mujahedin are responsible for violent attacks in Iran that victimize civilians.”

“Internally, the Mujahedin run their organization autocratically, suppressing dissent and eschewing tolerance of differing viewpoints,” it said. “Rajavi, who heads the Mojahedin’s political and military wings, has fostered a cult of personality around himself.”

The U.S. suspicion of the MEK doesn’t end there. Law enforcement officials have told NBC News that in 1994, the MEK made a pact with terrorist Ramzi Yousef a year after he masterminded the first attack on the World Trade Center in New York City.  According to the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, Yousef built an 11-pound bomb that MEK agents placed inside one of Shia Islam’s greatest shrines in Mashad, Iran, on June 20, 1994.  At least 26 people, mostly women and children, were killed and 200 wounded in the attack.

That connection between Yousef, nephew of 9-11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammad, and the MEK was first reported in a book, “The New Jackals,” by Simon Reeve. NBC News confirmed that Yousef told U.S. law enforcement that he had worked with the MEK on the bombing.

In recent years, the MEK has said it has renounced violence, but Iranian officials say that is not true, that killings of Iranians continue.  Still, through some deft lobbying, the group has been able to get the United Kingdom and the European Union to remove it from their lists of terrorist groups.

The alleged involvement of the MEK in the assassinations of Iranian nuclear scientists provides the U.S. with a cloak of deniability regarding the clandestine killings. Because the U.S. has designated the MEK as a terrorist organization, neither military nor intelligence units of the U.S. government, can work with them.  “We cannot deal with them, “ said one senior U.S. official. “We would not deal with them because of the designation.”

Iranian officials initially accused the Israelis and MEK of being behind the attacks, but they have since added the CIA to the list. Three days after the Jan. 11, 2012, bombing in Tehran that killed Roshan, the state news agency IRNA reported that Iran’s Foreign Ministry had sent a diplomatic letter to the U.S. claiming to have “evidence and reliable information” that the CIA provided “guidance, support and planning” to assassins directly involved in the attack.  

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton  immediately denied any connection to the killings. “I want to categorically deny any United States involvement in any kind of act of violence inside Iran,” Clinton told reporters on the day of the attack.

But at least two GOP presidential candidates have no problem with the targeting of nuclear scientists.  In a November debate, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich endorsed “taking out their scientists,” and former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum called it, ”a wonderful thing.”

The MEK’s opposition to the Iranian government also has recently earned it both plaudits and support from an odd mix of political bedfellows.

A group of former Cabinet-level officials have joined together to support the MEK’s removal from the official U.S. Foreign Terrorist Organization list, even taking out a full-page ad last year in the New York Times calling for the removal of the MEK from the U.S. terrorist list.  Former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean, former U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey, former U.N. Ambassador John Bolton; former Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge, former FBI Director Louis Freeh and former Rep. Patrick Kennedy were among those whose signatures were on the ad.

“There’s an extraordinary group of bipartisan or even apolitical leaders, military leaders, diplomats, the United States … the United Kingdom, the European Union, even a U.S. District Court in Washington, said that this group that was put on the foreign terrorist organization watch list in 1997 doesn’t deserve to be there,” Ridge said in November on “The Andrea Mitchell Show” on MSNBC TV.

U.S. politicians also have been pushing the U.S. government to protect the 3,400 MEK members and their families at Camp Ashraf in Iraq, about 35 miles north of Baghdad.  With the departure of U.S. troops, the MEK feared that Iraqi forces, with encouragement from Iran, would attack the camp, leading to a bloodbath. At the last minute, however, agreement was brokered with the United Nations that would permit the MEK members’ departure for resettlement in unspecified democratic countries.  As of this week, there’s been little movement on the planned resettlement.

Jassim Mohammed / AP file

Iranian fighters with the National Liberation Army, the military wing of the MEK, clean armored personnel carriers in 1997 after a field exercise near Camp Ashraf in Iraq.

The Iranians see what’s happening as terrorism and hypocrisy by the United States.  They have forwarded documents and other evidence to the United Nations – and directly to the United States, they say.

“I think this is very cynical plan.  This is unacceptable,” said Larijani. “This is a bad trend in the world.  Unprecedented.  We should kill scientists … to block a scientific program?  I mean this is disaster!”

Daniel Byman, a professor in the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University and also a senior fellow with the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution, said that if the accounts of the Israeli-MEK assassinations are accurate, the operation borders on terrorism.

“In theory, states cannot be terrorist, but if they hire locals to do assassinations, that would be state sponsorship,” said Byman, author of the recent book, “A High Price: The Triumphs and Failures of Israeli Counterterrorism.” “You could argue that they took action not to terrorize the public, the purpose of terrorism, but only the nuclear community.  An argument could also be made that degrading the program means that you don’t have to take military action and thus, this is a lower level of violence and that really these are military targets, where normally terrorist targets are civilians.”

But ultimately, Byman said, there is a “spectrum of responsibility” and that Israel is ultimately responsible.

Ronen Bergman, while not speaking on behalf of the Israeli government, suggests that there is a justification, citing an oft-repeated but disputed quote in which Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s said that Israel should be wiped off the face of the earth.

“Meir Degan, the chief of Mossad, when he was in office, hung a photograph behind him, behind the chair of the chief of Mossad,” notes the Israeli commentator.  “And in that photograph you see — an ultra-orthodox Jew — long beard, standing on his knees with his– hands up in the air, and two Gestapo soldiers standing — beside him with guns pointed at him.  One of — one of them is smiling.

“And Degan used to say to his people and the people coming to visit him from CIA, NSA, et cetera, ‘Look at this guy in the picture. This is my grandfather just seconds before he was killed by the SS,’” Bergman said. “’… We are here to prevent this from happening again.’”

Richard Engel is NBC News’ chief foreign correspondent; Robert Windrem is a senior investigative producer.

US election hands Netanyahu giant dilemma on Iran | The Jewish Chronicle.

Netanyahu: a strike this year?

The strategic timetable for the next nine months is becoming increasingly clear. Israel’s apparent plans to strike Iran this year are limited by one crucial date: November 6 – the day of the US presidential elections.

Although he wishes with all his heart for a Republican victory, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is predicting the re-election of Barack Obama. A second-term president, not constrained by electoral necessities, will be able to apply a lot more pressure on the Israeli government not to attack.

Israel’s window for action will probably close even earlier than November. The first reason for that is also electoral. Mr Netanyahu fears that a re-elected President Obama may find ways of supporting Israel’s opposition parties, so he is expected to call early elections, probably by October.

The two men who are most in favour of a strike on Iran, the Prime Minister and his Defence Minister, Ehud Barak, will not wait for someone else to give the order – if an attack has to be launched, it is their destiny to make that call.

Aside from the American and Israeli election seasons, weather also affects the timing of a potential operation. While Israeli planners are certain that the air force has sufficient planes with the necessary range and payloads to cause enough damage to set the Iranian nuclear programme back, at least by three years, optimal conditions are needed to maximise that damage. That means a strike some time between May and September, when the Persian skies are clear of clouds.

The third factor is the Iranian effort to move its uranium enrichment process underground, to the subterranean installation near the city of Qom.

Mr Barak and other senior Israeli defence officials claimed last week at the Herzliya Conference that the Iranians are close to entering this “zone of immunity”. The inference is clear: an attack will have to take place before that. If it does not, Israel will not be able to prevent a decision by Tehran to make a quick dash for nuclear-military capability.

Now that the timetable is clear, the terms of reference for the debate within Israel, and between Jerusalem and Washington, are also clarifying.

Messrs Netanyahu and Barak are convinced that action is needed before the centrifuges are moved underground and, if no one else acts, it rests on Israel to do the deed.

Some very senior figures in Israel’s defence and intelligence community believe that this is not “the last chance” and that an attack at this junction will be counter-productive.

They are supported by the fact that the White House and Pentagon also believe that there is still enough time to let the new sanctions on Iran take effect before resorting to the military option.

Bloodletting underway in Syria, as rebels falter – CBS News.

It’s a bloodletting in Syria. Civilians are facing tanks. There’s every indication the dictatorship is moving to crush, once and for all, the eleven-month-old rebellion against the 40-year dictatorship of the Assad family.

Homs, a city of 1.7 million people, which is a little bit more than Philadelphia, is under siege by tanks and artillery for the fifth day in a row. Scenes like this are playing out in several Syrian cities and towns tonight.

Syria matters because of its neighborhood. It borders both Israel and Iraq. While the government there has banned independent reporting, CBS News correspondent Clarissa Ward got to the battle lines with the rebels.

Syrian rebels carry their wounded after battles with the Assad regime

(Credit: CBS)

Ward found a battle being fought by farmers and workers, very close to home.

Just outside of the city, the rebels moved in on a checkpoint set up by the Syrian army to choke off rebel traffic. The men crept through an olive grove. Then the attack began. As they opened fire, the enemy remained hidden from view.

“You are surrounded,” the rebel leader called out to the Syrian soldiers. “Defect and join us.”

But there was no surrender, and the battle raged on

For rebel-held Syrian towns, constant funerals
U.S. mulls humanitarian aid, not arms, for Syrian rebels
Syria’s rebels: Ordinary men fight and die
U.S. closes Syria Embassy, pulls all staffMany of the fighters were young and inexperienced, like Fouad Khashan, a 23-year-old mechanic. Hey was among the group that was yelling “charge!” as they lobbed grenades at the enemy. But the bullets kept on coming.

Moments later Fouad was hit. Under fire, the commander struggled to lift his limp body. Other men joined in to help.

They tried to reclaim this checkpoint. They haven’t been able to do it yet and now there is a casualty. Someone has been hurt very badly. They try to take him to a hospital.

By the time they got him there, Fouad was dead.

At the hospital, body after body was hurried up the stairs. The men weeping for their fallen brothers.

“The honor of the Arabs is dead,” said one man, who then cursed President Assad.

Later, with guns blazing and crowds chanting, the dead were carried home. Where the women waited, their wailing piercing the night air.

“Bashar al Assad is a dog,” one woman cried.

At least four people were killed in the fighting Wednesday.

The rebel fighters are simply no match for the army regulars. They have no military training. They’re not physically fit. They’re up against an army with artillery, tanks. Soon the Syrian army will begin to use air power as well.

Many rebels say at this point there’s no turning back. Too much damage has been done. Too much blood has been shed. They’ve been living under repression 40 years. They want to speak their minds with freedom, choose their own government. And they’re willing to die to get there.

Will America sacrifice Israel? – Israel Opinion, Ynetnews.

Op-ed: Israel-Iran countdown has already begun, but will Washington help the Jewish State?

Giulio Meotti

Historian Niall Ferguson writes in Newsweek that “Israel and Iranare on the eve of destruction in a new Six Day War.” Bret Stephens in the Wall Street Journal warns that if Israel will not destroy Tehran the Jewish State will risk another Yom Kippur scenario.

The Israel-Iran countdown has already begun, but will Washington help the tiny Jewish State? Will Israel strike Iran even without America’s “green light?”

American taxpayers fund some 20-25% of Israel’s defense budget, with the Jewish State being the largest recipient by far of American aid since World War II. Moreover, the United States has cast 40 vetoes to protect Israel in the UN Security Council.

IDF relies on American support (Photo: IDF Spokesman’s Office)

The above facts have made Israel highly dependent on the US for economic, military and diplomatic support. There is a quid pro quo for such support, but also a limit to what even that degree of dependence can buy.

Former Prime Minister Menachem Begin once told a US ambassador: “We’re not a vassal state.” But it seems he got it wrong. Over the years, Israel has becomes subservient to the United States and “America’s 51st state.” It is no wonder perhaps that Obama’s Administration fomented a war on Jerusalem and treated Israel like a banana republic.

Washington doesn’t support Israel because the Jewish State’s democracy or respect for human rights. America’s interest in Israel’s strategic value – rather than shared values, the Holocaust or “David and Goliath” – has always been the primary motivation for US aid. But it can change tomorrow, especially if Israel’s survival becomes a heavy burden for Washington.

That’s why Israel must remember that she is America’s ally and client, but not friend.

The first US presidents after Israel was established – Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy and Johnson – gave nothing to Jerusalem. If Israel’s birth in 1948 had depended solely on US support, the Jewish State would not have been reborn then.

Truman maintained a US embargo against arms sales to the Israeli and Arabs, which was effective only against Israel. Eisenhower expelled Israel from Sinai and Gaza without a peace treaty. Prior to the Six Day War, Abba Eban approached Johnson and all he got was an arms embargo on the Middle East.

Israel can stand tall in the face of its powerful ally because it never asked American soldiers to spill their blood for its defense. It’s Washington that must beg for Israel’s alliance, as it cannot afford disengagement from the only democracy in that dark region.

But will the US eventually be compelled to sacrifice Israel on the altar of realism, when Iran’s knife will descend on Isaac? And will the Jewish state’s leadership dutifully bind Israel on the altar?

‘Iran must attack Israel by 2014… JPost – Iranian Threat – News.

By REUTERS

Nasrallah: Tehran won’t order Hezbollah strikes if Israel attacks – latimes.com.

REPORTING FROM BEIRUT — Iran will not ask Hezbollah to intervene in the event of an Israeli strike on Iranian nuclear facilities, the leader of the militant group has told his followers. The Hezbollah chief also made the unusual acknowledgement that his group receives both material and financial aid from the Islamic Republic — no secret to regional and world governments.

In a speech delivered Tuesday evening by video link to throngs of supporters, a black-turbaned Sheik Hassan Nasrallah said Tehran will not ask Hezbollah for anything if Israel strikes Iran. He said, however, that Hezbollah would consider its options if such an attack occurs, ruling nothing out.

The U.S. government labels Hezbollah a terrorist group.

Recent reports about a potential Israeli military strike at Iran’s nuclear facilities have spurred speculation that Lebanon-based Hezbollah could launch retaliatory attacks into Israeli territory.

While acknowledging that his group receives aid and support from the Islamic Republic, something that Hezbollah has generally left opaque, Nasrallah denied that Hezbollah takes its marching orders from Tehran.

“Yes, we have been receiving moral and political support and financial aid in all its possible ways and available forms from the Islamic Republic of Iran since 1982,” Nasrallah said, according to Lebanese media accounts, in a speech marking the birthday of the prophet Muhammad.

Nasrallah was essentially confirming recent comments by Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The Iranian leader affirmed that Iran has assisted Lebanon’s Hezbollah and the Palestinian group Hamas.

In his address, Nasrallah also denied allegations of Hezbollah involvement in money-laundering and drug- smuggling to finance its activities.

“We have sufficient money, weapons, ammunition and financial ability to carry out our duty,” said Nasrallah.

In December, the Obama administration slapped sanctions on two Lebanese Colombian men and related companies for allegedly laundering money on behalf of Colombian and Mexican drug cartels. Media reports, quoting U.S. officials, say one of the firms was linked to an alleged drug boss who stood accused of operating a money-laundering scheme for Hezbollah.

The powerful Hezbollah cleric has hailed the popular revolts sweeping the Arab world. But Nasrallah has been less enthusiastic about the almost yearlong uprising against Syrian President Bashar Assad, a longtime ally of both Hezbollah and Iran.

In his speech, Nasrallah again proclaimed support for the embattled Syrian leader and his planned reform agenda, which many in the Syrian opposition dismiss as a sham designed to buy time for a doomed regime.

“They are saying that it’s too late to make reforms,” Nasrallah said, “but how is it too late and there is a war in Syria?”

The Associated Press: Syrian forces renew bombardment in Homs.

BEIRUT (AP) — Activists say Syrian forces have renewed their deadly, weeklong assault on Homs in the heaviest bombardment the city has seen since the country’s uprising began in March.

Hundreds of people have been reported killed since last Friday in a steady rain of rockets, mortars and machine-gun fire.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights says at least 12 people were killed Thursday morning but an exact death toll couldn’t immediately be determined because of the chaos in the city.

President Bashar Assad’s regime is trying to crush pockets of dissent in the city of 1 million people. Many areas have been under the control of army defectors who want to bring down the regime by force.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP’s earlier story is below.

BEIRUT (AP) — The European Union will impose harsher sanctions on Syria, a senior EU official has said, as Russia tried to broker talks between the vice president and the opposition to calm violence. Activists reported at least 50 killed in the regime’s siege of the restive city of Homs.

Russia, a close ally of Syria, and the West are pushing down starkly different paths in trying to deal with Syria’s nearly 11 months of bloodshed. After blocking a Western and Arab attempt to bring U.N. pressure on President Bashar Assad to step down, Russia has launched a bid to show it can resolve the turmoil.

Moscow is calling for a combination of reforms by the regime and negotiations, without calling for Assad to go. Its provisions are so far finding no traction with the opposition, which dismisses promises of reform as empty gestures, refuses any negotiations while violence continues and says Assad’s removal is the only option in the crisis.

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said outside forces should let Syrians settle their conflict “independently.”

“We should not act like a bull in a china shop,” Putin said Wednesday, according to the ITAR-TASS news agency. “We have to give people a chance to make decisions about their destiny independently, to help, to give advice, to put limits somewhere so that the opposing sides would not have a chance to use arms, but not to interfere.”

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, who met with Assad Tuesday in Damascus, told reporters in Moscow that the Syrian president delegated to his vice president, Farouk al-Sharaa, responsibility for holding a dialogue with the opposition.

Lavrov blamed both Assad’s regime and opposition forces for instigating the violence, which the U.N. says has killed well over 5,400 people.

“On both sides, there are people that aim at an armed confrontation, not a dialogue,” Lavrov said.

Rebel soldiers are playing a bigger role in Syria’s Arab-Spring inspired uprising, turning it into a more militarized conflict and hurtling the country ever more quickly toward a civil war.

In their meeting Tuesday, Assad said the government was ready to talk to the opposition and would cooperate with “any effort that boosts stability in Syria.”

The regime’s crackdown on dissent has left it almost completely isolated internationally and facing growing sanctions. The U.S. closed its embassy in Damascus on Monday and five European countries and six Arab Gulf nations have pulled their ambassadors out of Damascus over the past two days. Germany, whose envoy left Syria this month, said he would not be replaced.

In Brussels, a senior EU official said the 27-nation bloc will soon impose harsher sanctions against Syria as it seeks to weaken Assad’s regime.

The official said the new measures may include bans on the import of Syrian phosphates, on commercial flights between Syria and Europe, and on financial transactions with the country’s central bank. The European Union imports 40 percent of Syria’s phosphate exports.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity in keeping with EU rules, said some measures would be adopted at the EU foreign ministers meeting on Feb. 27. But he stressed the nature of the measures to be adopted remained unclear since the ministers are concerned over the impact on the Syrian public.

The U.N.’s top human rights official Navi Pillay called on nations to immediately act to stop the bloodshed, saying she was “appalled” by the Syrian regime’s offensive against the central city of Homs, where activists say hundreds have been killed since Saturday.

She said the killings show an “extreme urgency for the international community to cut through the politics and take effective action to protect the Syrian population.”

In New York, U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon told reporters that the Arab League planned to send observers back to Syria and had asked the U.N. to consider a joint mission.

The U.N. chief provided no specifics, but the idea appears aimed at giving the regional group a boost after the league’s earlier mission was pulled out of the country because of security concerns.

Ban called the continuing violence “unacceptable” and added: “I fear that the appalling brutality we are witnessing in Homs, with heavy weapons firing into civilian neighborhoods, is a grim harbinger of worse to come.”

On the ground, Syrian forces persisted with their assault on Homs, the country’s third largest city, trying to put down what has been an epicenter of the uprising.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said at least 53 people were killed in Wednesday’s shelling of the Homs neighborhoods of Bayadah, Baba Amr, Khaldiyeh and Karm el-Zeytoun. The group also said that 23 homes were heavily damaged in Baba Amr alone.

Omar Shaker, an activist in Baba Amr, said his neighborhood was under “very intense shelling” by tanks, mortars, artillery and heavy machine guns. Shaker added that he counted five bodies Wednesday in his district. The death tolls, which the groups say they gather from activists on the ground, could not be independently confirmed. Syrian authorities keep tight control on the media.

“The situation is dire. We are short of food, water and medical aid. Doctors have collapsed after treating the wounded without rest for five days,” Shaker said. “We want Lavrov to come and spend a night in Homs to see what we have been passing through.”

The activist urged the international community to set up a safe passage so that women and children can leave volatile areas of Homs.

The head of the Observatory, Rami Abdul-Rahman, said the regime was trying “exhaust rebels in preparation for storming neighborhoods.”

The Observatory reported at least another eight civilians killed around the country.

The Assad regime says terrorists acting out a foreign conspiracy to destabilize the country are behind the uprising, not people seeking to transform the authoritarian regime.

Syria’s state-run TV said gunmen fired mortar rounds at the oil refinery in Homs, one of two in Syria, setting two fuel tankers on fire. It also said attackers denoted a car bomb in the Homs neighborhood of Bayadah, killing and wounding a number of civilians and troops.

Regime forces launched assaults on the village of Tseel in southern Daraa province on the Jordanian border, and the rebel-controlled mountain resort town of Zabadani, north of Damascus, the Observatory and another activist group, the Local Coordination Committees, reported.

Troops loyal to Assad also clashed with army defectors in the northwestern province of Idlib, bordering Turkey, the two groups said.

Haggai Carmon: It’s Saudi Arabia, Stupid!.

Huffington Post

With the winds of Israel-Iran war looming, albeit thus far primarily in the media, many observers speculate whether Israel will launch an attack on Iranian nuclear installations. With the Holocaust as a fresh memory, Israelis do not take lightly the Iranian leadership’s repeated threats to wipe Israel off the map. In 1929 Adolph Hitler used the same rhetoric when he called for the annihilation of all European Jews, but his ideas were brushed off as “just talk.”

Are 2012 threats similar to Hitler’s message in 1929? Outside the files of the US top secret files, there could be no safe and sober assessment regarding Iranian intentions and capabilities. The intentions are manifested loud by their leaders. But do they have the capability to produce a nuclear bomb, mount it on a jet or missile to accurately hit Israel? Intelligence sources say, not yet, but soon.

A close review of the geo political situation in the region shows that we have been exposed to a first rate propaganda campaign that fools many with respect to the Iranian intentions. Iranian leaders may be zealots, but they are far from being stupid. They know that if attacked, Israel will deliver Iran a retaliatory strike that would send Iran to the stone age or earlier. Many Israelis are convinced that their government, although sounding thick hints while it rattles the saber, Israel will not attack Iran. There are multiple reasons for that belief: among them is the understanding that nuclear Iran is more an American and European problem than Israeli. Israel’s small size, its mixed Jewish and Arab population, and the location of sites holy to all Muslims make an Iranian nuclear strike on Israel less likely. Apparently, many in Iran do not share the thought that Israel will not attack first. That explains why Israelis enjoy life on the beach and in the cafés, while Iranians are readying themselves for a strike.
There’s little doubt that Iran is developing nuclear weapons. Then, if Israel is not the target, who is?

Think of the 1992 U.S. presidential elections when James Carville, Bill Clinton’s strategist created the phrase, “It’s the economy, stupid.” Perhaps it’s time we describe the current crisis as, “It’s Saudi Arabia stupid!” Sunni Saudi Arabia is Shiite Iran’s decades old nemesis over the leadership of Islam. It’s Iran major contender for the leadership of Islam. Saudi Arabia is home of the sacred city Mecca and the Kaaba, the most sacred site in Islam and the Saudi King is regarded as the patron of the sites holy to Muslims.

Saudi Arabia has the largest oil reserves in the world. It is the world’s top oil exporter and producer. The Saudi Ghawar oil field is the largest in the world and accounts for about half of Saudi’s oil production. Ghawar is estimated to produce 6.25% of global oil production. The problem is that Ghawar is located near the Persian Gulf, just opposite Iran. To hurt the world’s oil supply, Iranians need not block the Strait of Hormuz and face the huge flotilla the U.S., the UK and France are assembling near the Strait. Why engage in a maritime war with no chances of winning when the Iranians can torch the worlds’ largest oil field in a matter of hours with short range missiles? Obviously, such an attack would not be taken lightly by the US 5Th fleet docked close by. However, the immediate damage to world’s economy would be significant. With that attack, the Iranians could send a double message: To the U.S. – if you continue to hurt us with the sanctions, we will hurt your economy by sending oil price to the stratosphere. And to Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf States the message would be: the Americans can’t protect you. Therefore, you’d better come under our wings, recognizing that Iran is the leader of the Ummah el Islam, the Islamic Nation. That term was coined by Ayatollah Khomeini when he aspired to crown Iran as the leader of the Islamic world. And the Iranian nuclear bomb? That would be a shield rather than a dagger. Iran will use it as a deterrent against the West from attacking it for subjugating the major oil producers of the world. With the Ayatollah’s hands on the world’s major oil spigots, the Iranians could doom Western economies unless their new conditions are met. Among them, a coveted seat as a permanent member in the UN Security Council with veto powers.

Joseph Goebbels, the Nazi Propaganda Minister was quoted as saying that he prefers an end of horror rather than endless horror. Which part of his phrase will become a reality in the region? Weeks away we will find out.

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