WarSclerotic

Hamas Supports Syrian Opposition – NYTimes.com.

Khaled Elfiqi/European Pressphoto Agency

Hamas’s prime minister in Gaza, Ismail Haniya, greeted supporters after Friday Prayer, where he had spoken out against President Bashar al-Assad.

By FARES AKRAM

GAZA —A leader of Hamas spoke out against President Bashar al-Assad of Syria on Friday, throwing its support behind the opposition and stripping Damascus of what little credibility it may have retained with the Arab street. It was Hamas’s first public break with its longtime patron.

Hamas’s prime minister in Gaza, Ismail Haniya, said during Friday Prayer, “I salute all people of the Arab Spring, or Islamic winter, and I salute the Syrian people who seek freedom, democracy and reform.”

The worshipers shouted back, “God is great” and “Syria! Syria!”

Mr. Haniya made his remarks in support of the uprising that is seeking to oust Mr. Assad, a reversal after years in which Mr. Assad has given safe haven to leaders of Hamas while helping supply it with weapons and cash in its battle against Israel.

But the remarks were almost as significant for where they were made: in Cairo, at Al Azhar Mosque.

During the years in which Syria supported Hamas, Egypt’s leaders were hostile to the group, treating it as a despised relative of the Muslim Brotherhood, which was also tagged an outlaw and banned. So Mr. Haniya’s remarks in Egypt served as another measure of how much has changed since popular uprisings began to sweep the region, removing President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt and now trying to topple Mr. Assad.

Mr. Haniya’s comments confirmed a distance between Hamas and Damascus that emerged several weeks ago when the group’s leadership abandoned its longtime base in Syria as the environment there became more violent. The remarks, which were seen as the group’s official position because of Mr. Haniya’s role, reflected a progressively deeper split with Mr. Assad. Hamas also recently allowed residents of Gaza to stage protests against Mr. Assad and in support of the uprising.

In Syria, the protest movement began peacefully, but Mr. Assad’s forces struck back with lethal force.

In Cairo, as Mr. Haniya spoke, the crowds also shouted against Iran and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, both of which continue to support Mr. Assad and have long been hailed on the Arab street for remaining defiant toward Israel. That was yet another significant shift caused by the Arab uprisings.

“No Iran, no Hezbollah. Syria is Islamic,” protesters chanted, according to Agence France-Presse.

Iran has been a key supporter of Hamas. On Thursday, Al Sharq Al Awsat, a London-based Arabic newspaper, published remarks by Ezzat al-Rashq, a member of the Hamas political bureau, who said that Iran had been the main financial supporter for the Hamas government in Gaza. Without the Iranian money, he said, Hamas would have never been able to pay its 45,000 government employees.

Mr. Haniya is in Cairo with other Hamas leaders from Gaza and abroad to meet with Mahmoud Abbas, president of the Palestinian Authority, to try to form a government of national reconciliation between the two rival Palestinian movements. The plan for such a government was agreed to last May, along with a plan for Palestinian elections. But numerous disputes remain an obstacle.

Pressure Points » Syria, Israel, and “World Opinion”.

by Elliott Abrams

The complaint that the Obama administration believes in “leading from behind” received new strength yesterday, when Secretary Clinton made an astonishing comment about the Syrian opposition. It came in the context of the Assad regime’s continuing massacres, an accusation from the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights that crimes against humanity are being committed, and the gathering today of 70 nations in Tunis to discuss the Syrian situation.

The Secretary of State said of the Syrian opposition that “they will, from somewhere, somehow, find the means to defend themselves….” And that was viewed as a toughening of the American position! The Secretary added that “world opinion is not going to stand idly by.”

“World opinion” has a long history of standing idly by, actually, as the Syrians being attacked by tanks now understand–and as everyone from Kosovars to Darfurians to Iraqi Shia who rose up against Saddam know well. In fact the Secretary’s malapropism is telling: of course “opinion” does not “stand idly” or end its passivity, for in the world it is nations that act. Or, like ours now, fail to act to help Syrians defend themselves from a murderous assault. They do not need more meetings such as the one in Tunis, nor more words, nor UN votes. With perhaps 7,500 dead and the number climbing each day, they need concrete help.

Among the many lessons here, one is about power and powerlessness. Syrians are being slaughtered because they do not yet have the power to defend themselves, just like people in Kosovo before them (where we heard the same nonsense about not militarizing the struggle or how we must avoid “just increasing the level of violence” as arguments against helping them).

And just like the Jews of Europe in the 1930s. Israelis are familiar with that story, and have noted well the willingness of “world opinion” not only to “stand idly by” when they are being attacked but attack them for their self-defense and even try to prevent it. Israelis remember that when the United States sought to resupply them when they stood at the precipice of disaster in the 1973 War, European nations refused us the right to land our Air Force planes for refueling. They remember the vicious comments their defense in the 2008 “Cast Lead” operation in Gaza elicited, after 12,000 rockets had been launched from Gaza into Israel. To this day, Israel is the only country on earth expected to “stand idly by” while rockets land on its territory. In fact two landed today–shot from Gaza.

I mention all of this because of another debate about self defense and self help, that surrounding Israel and the Iranian nuclear weapons program. As Israelis consider their options and face a future in which Iran  builds a nuclear weapon, threatens them, or attacks them, they cannot be much reassured by the Tunis conference and the refusal to help Syrians defend themselves. They must wonder if some day they will hear an American secretary of state saying of them that “they will, from somewhere, somehow, find the means to defend themselves….” and “world opinion is not going to stand idly by” while they are under attack.

Leslie H. Gelb: The Iran-Washington Conspiracy? – The Daily Beast.

Feb 24, 2012 4:45 AM EST

Both Washington and Tehran are maneuvering to head off an Israeli attack against Iran, a process of intriguing diplomatic gamesmanship.

By Leslie H. Gelb

Both sides have reached the conclusion that war is worse than continued uncertainty—at least for the time being, as far as the United States is concerned.

Iran and Obama Share a Common Goal: Stopping Israel « Commentary Magazine.

Veteran foreign policy pundit Leslie Gelb taps into an uncomfortable truth today when he writes in the Daily Beast about the unspoken agendas at play in the debate about how to stop a nuclear Iran. As Gelb puts it, both the Obama administration and the Islamist regime in Iran are employing a common tactic as well as a shared goal in their diplomatic maneuverings in the dispute about Tehran’s nuclear ambitions. Both are doing their best to pretend there is a serious chance for substantive negotiations on the nuclear issue. And both are doing so because their priority is not so much to actually resolve the issue but to prevent Israel from attacking Iran. Given that President Obama has been escalating his rhetoric about his determination to stop Iran’s plans, this is a shocking charge, since it casts everything Washington is saying on the subject in a cynical light. The problem though is Gelb is almost certainly right.

Gelb stipulates that the common agenda between Washington and Tehran does not mean they are acting in concert. The lines of communication between the two governments are so tenuous that such collaboration would be impossible even if suspicion between them were not so intense. But the priority for both is to be able to postpone any resolution of the issue. Obama’s hope is that by holding out the prospect sanctions will bring Tehran to heel, he can exert sufficient leverage on Israel in order to prevent them from attacking Iran. Such an attack would unleash a host of unforeseen circumstances that might upset his re-election plans. Similarly, the ayatollahs would like to give just enough room for talks about talks in order to play for more time to continue developing their weapon plans. Yet, because it is painfully obvious sanctions will not work and the only point of negotiations would be to allow Iran to run out the clock on their nuclear timetable, the push to put off any attack appears to be tantamount to a concession that the West and Israel will have to live with a nuclear Iran.

An attack on Iran by Israel would be a perilous undertaking, so it is not surprising Israel’s government has not made up its mind about making such a decision. However, both Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak understand that even if the West undertakes a complete oil embargo of Iran sometime later this year that would not guarantee Tehran would wave the white flag on its nuclear plans. They also know the longer they wait the chances for a successful strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities will diminish.

But the biggest factor influencing their decision will be their level of trust in President Obama’s promises on Iran. The administration has done little to inspire confidence in their sanctions plan due to the reluctance with which they have pursued the project. The Israelis know Obama’s default position will always be a preference for negotiations even if talks with Iran are not merely doomed to failure but will actually serve the Islamist regime’s purpose of delaying action.

Even more worrisome is that the administration’s determination to squelch unilateral action by Israel seems to be greater than its alarm about Iran. Hence, the multiple statements by American defense and military figures seeking to throw cold water on the idea of an attack on Iran may have had the opposite effect on Israel than Obama intended. Rather than convince them to listen to the Americans’ advice and rely on their diplomatic tactics to stop Iran, they may have instead persuaded Netanyahu and Barak that Obama has no intention of ever taking action. While Obama must continue to insist an Iranian nuke is a non-starter while he is running for re-election, the Israelis understand the White House may be singing a far different tune next January once Obama’s lease on the premises is extended for another four years.

Like Gelb, the Israelis may well believe Obama’s show of concern about Iran and his notion that sanctions and diplomacy will avert that nuclear threat is mere playacting whose only purpose is to put them off. The question facing Netanyahu and Barak is whether they are prepared to play along with Obama while hoping a delay will not prove fatal to their country’s security.

Never Underestimate Israeli Ingenuity.

IAF Mirage Fighter Jet during Yom Kippur War. Photo: wiki commons.

As the battle of both words and deeds heats up between Iran and the west, some experts have begun to question whether Israel even truly has the capability to effectively strike Iran’s nuclear facilities. A recent assessment by American defense officials, for example, outlined the difficulties that Israel’s air force would have in conducting an attack on Iran. Other analysts have claimed that Israel is creating a disinformation campaign about its capabilities in order to deter its adversaries. The truth, however, is that Israeli ingenuity has proven itself time and again, with Israel’s enemies consistently regretting when they have underestimated Israeli military capabilities.

As far back as Israel’s war of independence in 1948, when Arab armies invaded the same day the nascent Jewish state was born, Israelis proved their ingenuity and resolve in the face of overwhelming odds. Ben Gurion himself was told that Israel had about a 50/50 chance of being victorious. Yet with their backs against the wall, the Israeli military proved itself to be a capable and lethal force. In 1948, much like 1967 and 1973, Israel did not have the technological superiority over its neighbors as it enjoys today. During the 1967 Six Day War, as enemy troops were amassed on its borders and international waterways were sealed off to Israeli shipping, nobody would have predicted such an overwhelming victory in six short days. During its initial air strike back in June of 1967, the Israel Air Force took the calculated risk of deploying nearly its entire fleet of aircraft to preemptively attack Egypt and later Syria, leaving less than a dozen planes to protect its airspace.

Conventional wars alone were not the only time Israelis beat the odds. While analysts have gone to great lengths in explaining that Iran’s nuclear facilities today are nothing like Iraq’s Osiraq nuclear reactor that was destroyed in an Israeli raid back in 1981, they fail to appreciate the enormous feat accomplished over 30 years ago. Back then, Israel had to develop what had been unknown or unavailable capabilities to strike at an enemy seemingly too far from its borders. It did so successfully, as it had in the 1976 hostage rescue in Entebbe, as well as the bombing of the seemingly out-of-reach PLO headquarters in Tunis in 1985.

Yet it is not just distance that the Israelis have managed to overcome, but tactics and technologies as well. In the 1973 Yom Kippur War, Israel was faced with a very effective surface-to-air-missile (SAM) umbrella developed by the Soviets and employed on the Egyptian border. In a few short weeks the IDF developed new tactics, doctrine and technologies to overcome these defenses. During the 1982 air battle over the Bekaa Valley, Israel used unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) to pick apart and destroy the vast SAM sites that the Syrians had put into play, pioneering the role and significance of the drone aircraft.  In 2007, the Israel Air Force again managed to overcome technological difficulties, as it hacked and shut down the sophisticated and “impenetrable” Tor-M1 missile system that the Syrians had purchased from Russia.

There is no doubt that an attack on Iran would be unprecedented in the level of sophistication, planning, and sheer cunning that it would require. Yet if the order was given to the IDF to attack Iran’s nuclear program, more than a few surprises would emerge. Even a surgical strike would see the use of limited, if covert ground forces that would operate in conjunction with the air force. If history is a good indicator, the traditional flight paths being considered by military analysts would not be the only ones used by Israel, and Israeli technologies in the form of UAVs, extended fuel pods for attack aircraft, jamming devices, satellites, computer viruses, and naval forces, would all operate at once to inflict and assess damage on Iran’s nuclear sites.

Although a level of uncertainty regarding a potential Israeli strike on Iran remains, it would be prudent to remember that when it comes to carrying out its mission: never underestimate Israeli ingenuity.

Dr. Joshua Gleis is an international security consultant and political risk analyst. He is the author of Withdrawing Under Fire: Lessons Learned from Islamist Insurgencies (Potomac Books, March 2011), and co-author of Hezbollah and Hamas: A Comparative Analysis (Johns Hopkins University Press, Fall 2012).

Iran and Israel: Who’s the bigger threat? – latimes.com.

U.S. Toughens Defenses in Persian Gulf: Israel-Iran Conflict Imminent? – International Business Times.

By Amrutha Gayathri

DEBKAfile, Political Analysis, Espionage, Terrorism, Security.

DEBKAfile Exclusive Report February 25, 2012, 8:52 AM (GMT+02:00)

Doctors in Jordan refused entry to Syria

Under the protection of the United States, Turkey, Britain, France, Italy, Qatar and the UAE, the first Red Cross convoys reached Homs Friday, Feb. 24. They began evacuating untreated injured victims and bringing medical aid to the city devastated and beleaguered by Bashar Assad’s troops. This ICRC corridor marked the first step toward foreign intervention in the Syrian crisis.

debkafile’s military sources report exclusively that it came about after Washington and Ankara warned Assad through confidential channels that if his forces interfered with the emergency medical route for Homs, US and Turkish warplanes would take off from air bases in East Turkey and give the medical convoys air cover, thereby opening the door for a Western-Arab plan for resolving the Syrian crisis (which was first revealed exclusively in DEBKA-Net-Weekly 530 out Friday, Feb. 23.)
Assad’s response to the warning is unknown.
Early Saturday, US President Barack Obama delivered his harshest denunciation yet of the Assad regime.
The International community must continue sending the message to Syria’s president to step down, and “use every tool available to prevent the slaughter of innocents. It is time for a transition and time for that regime to move on.”

Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, addressing the Friends of Syria conference in Tunis Friday, said: “I am convinced Assad’s days are numbered, but I regret there will be more killing before he goes.”
Neither spelled out the manner of the Syria ruler’s exit but it was clear from Clinton’s words that Washington did not expect him to go without a fight.

Our intelligence sources report that expectation of international protection for Homs was signified Friday by the insistence of two injured Western correspondents, Paul Conroy of the Sunday Times and Edith Bouvier of La Figaro, that they would only leave the battered city if evacuated by the International Red Cross.

They were injured in the same bombardment of the Baba Amr district of Homs which last week killed Marie Colvin and Remi Ochlik in their clandestine press center.
Conditions of the 20,000 to 30,000 people trapped in Bab Amr are worsening by the hour, the Red Cross spokesman in London reported, as sensitive negotiations take place between the ICRC and the Damascus government. They aim at gaining protection for the city of Homs and an aid corridor through which to evacuate the wounded to Turkey and bring in essential supplies, granting them the status of “safe havens” free of a Syrian military presence.
In the initial stage of this plan, Western officials are talking about cooperation between the Syrian Red Crescent and the International Red Cross. Such cooperation if it took place might signify Assad’s willingness to go along with the international effort – or at least tolerate it without resistance.

The creation of a safe haven in Homs, initially to provide the distressed populations with medical and humanitarian aid, would serve as a precedent for other parts of Syria and obviously diminish the regime’s control over the country. This is clearly more than Assad is willing to accept as of now.

There was no sign of a ceasefire Saturday morning; no letup in Syrian military shelling of Homs or savage assaults in other parts of the country after some 200 deaths were reported in the last 48 hours..

A group of Arab medics waiting in Jordan with medical supplies was refused entry to Syria. They declared a hunger strike until the Syrian authorities let them in.
The Tunis conference’s formal decisions as articulated by Clinton focused on diplomatic pressure and sanctions for bringing the Syrian ruler to heel. Arab diplomats, led by the Saudi Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal, took exception to this line, demanding direct action and a major international effort to arm and reinforce the anti-Assad rebels who are hopelessly outgunned by Assad’s forces.

‘Iran ready to wipe Israel off the map’ – Israel News, Ynetnews.

Tehran’s deputy defense minister warns Jerusalem against strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities, says ‘any action by Zionist regime will bring about its destruction’

Dudi Cohen

As speculations over a possible strike on Iran‘s nuclear facilities grow, the Islamic Republic is exacerbating its rhetoric.

Deputy Defense Minister Ahmad Vahidi on Friday warned Israel against mounting such an attack: “Any act by the Zionist regime against Iran will bring about its destruction.””Iran’s warriors are ready and willing to wipe Israel off the map,” he declared.

Hezbollah, he added, “Is at the forefront of the fight against Israel and it is growing stronger by the day.”

Speaking at a ceremony honoring past Hezbollah commanders, Vahidi said that “Israel is weaker than it has ever been and its army is tired and humiliated… This is why it is trying to solve its problems by talking about taking action against Iran. But these are ridiculous statements.

UN watchdog: Iran rapidly increases controversial nuclear work – Haaretz Daily Newspaper | Israel News.

International Atomic Energy Agency says in report that Iran has tripled its capacity to enrich uranium to elevated levels.

Iran has tripled its capacity to enrich uranium to elevated levels, the United Nations nuclear watchdog said in a report on Friday.

Iran’s enrichment of uranium up to 20 per cent has caused concern in the West because it is theoretically much easier to turn such material into bomb-grade material than uranium enriched at below five percent.

	Iran’s Bushehr nuclear power plant.
	Photo by: Reuters

Iran has doubled the number of centrifuges for enriching to 20 percent at its fortified underground site at Fordo, according to a copy of the report by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) obtained by DPA.

Iran has now made more than 100 kilograms of higher-enriched material, less than half the amount needed for a nuclear warhead, the document said. Iran denies seeking a nuclear weapon.

Officials in Teheran this week gave the IAEA a document that aimed to answer allegations about nuclear projects, but the document contained nothing but dismissals of the agency’s concerns, “largely on the grounds that Iran considered them to be based on unfounded allegations,” the IAEA said.