WarSclerotic

IDF strikes terror cell in Gaza, thwarts attac… JPost – Defense.

Palestinians say 2 wounded in strike; 2 rockets fired from Gaza land in Eshkol, Sha’ar Hanegev Regional Councils.

By IDF spokesperson

Daniel Wagner: Electoral Politics Influence Possible Israeli Attack on Iran.

It is surely the case that when President Obama and Prime Minister Netanyahu meet at the White House on March 5th, the timing of a potential Israeli attack on Iran will be on the agenda. Another topic of discussion — whether purposeful or inadvertent — is likely to be how such an attack would influence, or be influenced by, the upcoming Israeli and U.S. elections.

In December, Mr. Netanyahu announced early primary elections, which some political observers saw as political opportunism, but others saw as a the ability for the Prime Minister to consolidate his power and reaffirm his political stance in advance of an expected call for an early general election late in 2012 — presumably, near the time of the U.S. presidential election in November. If so, the two country’s electoral cycles would be on a parallel track, which may be a precursor to determining the timing of an Israeli and/or U.S. attack on Iran. The question is, would it occur before or after the elections?

Nothing tends to rally voters around the flag — and incumbent politicians — like a war. Israel’s leadership is certainly mindful of Israeli public opinion, which is evenly split about the wisdom of attacking Iran and fears of a more localized conflict with Hamas and Hezbollah should an attack occur. Even given the disparity of opinion, there are reasons for the Israeli leadership to wish to carry out an attack prior to elections, since as many Israelis support an attack as oppose it, and Mr. Netanyahu enjoys a comparatively strong political position.

But there is another important reason in favor of an attack prior to Israeli elections. The conclusions of the Winograd Commission — an Israeli government-appointed body charged with identifying what went wrong during Israel’s invasion of Lebanon in 2006 — showed that Israel cannot survive unless all the people of the region believe that Israel has the leadership, military capabilities, and social robustness to allow it to deter those of its neighbors who wish to harm her. The Commission said that Israel should seek peace with its neighbors and make necessary compromises to ensure its survival, but this must be done from a position of social, political and military strength. Apart from the potential existential threat posed by an Iranian nuclear strike on Israel, on the basis of the Commission’s conclusions, Israel has little choice but to attack Iran in order to demonstrate it is strong in the face of extreme adversity.

Although the U.S. populace is war weary, after nearly a decade of war in Afghanistan and Iraq, the results of the recent Pew Research Center poll on the views of the American electorate on this subject are revealing. According to the Pew survey from February 12, 2012, 58% of the 1,500 people surveyed said it is more important to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons — even if it means the need to take military action against Iran — with the support of 50% of Independent voters, 55% of Democrats, and 74% of Republicans. 64% of Americans do not think economic sanctions will be effective against Iran. Half those polled believe the U.S. should stay neutral if Israel were to bomb Iran, with 39% saying the U.S. should support Israel.

Our guess is that if Israel were to bomb Iran, in the end, the majority of the Israeli population would support such a decision, and the U.S. population would end up supporting a U.S. decision to support Israel. A 2006 Pew study notes that throughout history, in Middle Eastern conflicts, the U.S. population has steadfastly supported Israel. And a 2010 Gallup poll of more than 1,000 adults found support for Israel versus the Palestinians among the U.S. populace was at 63% — the highest it had been since 1991, when Israel was bombarded by Scud missiles from Iraq.

The Israeli population knows what needs to be done in order to secure Israel’s security in the long-term, and Mr. Netanyahu knows that in the face of extreme adversity, Israelis rally around their leaders, but may demand answers later. Similarly, Mr. Obama knows that there has never been a question about whether the American people will in the end support military operations that ensure the survival of Israel. Electoral politics may indeed influence the course of events between Israel, Iran and the U.S. in the coming months, but in the end, Israelis and Americans will do what they have always done — support Israel in the face of adversity.

*Daniel Wagner is CEO of Country Risk Solutions – a cross-border risk management firm based in Connecticut (USA) – Director of Global Strategy with the PRS Group, and author of the new book Managing Country Risk. Alexios Giannoulis is a research analyst with CRS.

Possible Iran attack tests Israel-U.S. relations as elections approach | News | National Post.

By Jeffrey Heller and Matt Spetalnick

JERUSALEM/WASHINGTON — Ever since their first awkward encounter — a hastily arranged meeting in a custodian’s office at a Washington airport in 2007 — Iran has been one of the few issues on which Barack Obama and Benjamin Netanyahu have been able to find some common ground.

Nearly five years ago, neither man was yet in power but both hoped to be, and though they were very different politicians they grabbed the opportunity to size each other up when their paths crossed.

The Israeli right-winger came across, at first, as strident in his views, while the newly declared Democratic presidential candidate seemed wary. But when Netanyahu insisted on the urgent need to do more to isolate Iran economically and Obama said “tell me more,” the mood suddenly brightened, according to one account of the meeting.

It was part of what Netanyahu, who first served as prime minister from 1996 to 1999, has described as a 15-year personal effort to “broaden as much as possible the international front against Iran,” a foe that has called for Israel’s destruction.

Obama, then a first-term senator, would go on to introduce an Iran divestment bill in Congress on the way to winning the White House in the 2008 election.

Now, with Obama and Netanyahu due to meet in Washington on March 5, the Iranian nuclear standoff will again top the agenda. But this time, a trust deficit between the two leaders could make it harder to decide what action to take against the Islamic Republic over its nuclear program.

The Obama administration, increasingly concerned about the lack of any assurance from Israel that it would consult Washington before launching strikes on Iran’s nuclear sites, has scrambled in recent weeks to convince Israeli leaders to give sanctions and diplomacy more time to work, U.S. officials say.

Israel has been listening — but after a series of high-level U.S. visits there is no sign it has been swayed.

Defense Minister Ehud Barak, who along with Netanyahu met U.S. National Security Adviser Tom Donilon last week, complained privately afterward that Washington is lobbying for a delay in any Israeli attack on Iran while time is running out for such a strike to be effective, Israeli political sources said.

Barak has spoken publicly of an Iranian “zone of immunity” to aerial attack, a reference to the start of additional uranium enrichment at a remote site believed to be buried beneath 80 metres (265 feet) of rock and soil near the city of Qom.

Donilon’s visit to Israel coincided with a cautionary note from General Martin Dempsey, chairman of the U.S. joint chiefs of staff, who told CNN it would be “premature to exclusively decide that the time for a military option was upon us.”

The United States, Dempsey said, has counseled Israel “that it’s not prudent at this point to decide to attack Iran.” He said sanctions were beginning to have an effect and it is still unclear whether Tehran would choose to make a nuclear weapon.

Obama and top aides have said they do not believe Israel has made a decision to attack Iran even as they caution about devastating consequences in the Middle East — and potentially around the globe — if it does so.

U.S. intelligence sources say they would expect little or no advance notice from Israel, except possibly as a courtesy call when any bombing mission is at the point of no return. But one line of thinking within the Obama administration is that this might be best for the United States since any sign of complicity would inflame the Muslim world.

“When it comes to something that the Israeli government considers essential to Israel’s security, they will take whatever action they deem necessary, even if there is a level of disagreement with other countries, including the United States,” said Michael Herzog, a former chief of staff to Barak and now an international fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East policy.

Obama and his national security team have yet to determine how the United States would respond if Israel does attack Iran, one U.S. official said. But the growing chorus of warnings from Washington – Israel’s biggest source of military assistance – serves as a stark message of the potential fallout in relations between the two longtime allies.

The debate over the possibility of an Israeli strike has exposed an important difference of opinion over Iran, which says it is enriching uranium for peaceful purposes.

“We are of the opinion that the Iranian regime is a rational actor,” Dempsey said in the CNN interview. “And it’s for that reason, I think, that we think the current path we’re on is the most prudent path at this point.”

Netanyahu has made clear he believes that kind of thinking is wrong-headed.

“Since the dawn of the nuclear age, we have not had a fanatic regime that might put its zealotry above its self-interest,” he told The Atlantic in 2009. “People say that they’ll behave like any other nuclear power. Can you take the risk? Can you assume that?”

ELECTION OPPORTUNITY

An Israeli strike ahead of the November 6 U.S. elections would put Obama in a serious political bind.

Already defending himself against Republican accusations that he has been too tough on Israel and not tough enough on Iran, he would be reluctant, at least initially, to come down hard on Netanyahu for fear of undercutting support among Jewish voters and other pro-Israel constituencies as he seeks re-election.

It’s that perceived window of opportunity for Israel to strike at a time when incumbent candidate Obama might be shy about challenging Netanyahu that has helped to fuel speculation of an Israeli attack soon.

But for Netanyahu to go ahead with an attack in defiance of Washington, he would risk not only damaging his country’s most crucial alliance but also face the near-certain prospect of Iranian retaliation with no immediate U.S. military help — or even a commitment to provide any.

More likely, Obama and Netanyahu will try to keep their differences behind closed doors and present a united front against Iran in next month’s talks.

Any further public rift between the two leaders, who will meet a day before the Super Tuesday voting contests in which 10 states hold presidential primaries or caucuses, would likely be seized upon by Republican candidates looking for ammunition against Obama.

And, for the second straight year, Netanyahu will be able to emerge from any White House chill into the warm embrace of the powerful pro-Israel lobby, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), whose annual convention he will address in Washington.

But Israel, in weighing military action, faces the risk of a backlash from Congress and the American public if oil prices spike during a still-fragile economic recovery or if the United States is hit by revenge attacks on its interests around the world.

“It’s the law of unintended consequences,” said an outside expert who advises the White House on national security. “This could lead to the first real reassessment in a generation of how America and Americans feel about Israel.”

One American Jewish leader who knows both leaders played down the prospects of any dramatic shift in U.S.-Israeli relations.

Malcolm Hoenlein, executive vice chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, told Reuters that strong bipartisan understanding for what he called Israel’s “responsibility to its citizens” meant that “nothing” would happen to ties between the two countries.

Last May, Netanyahu received 29 standing ovations when he addressed a joint meeting of Congress at the invitation of its Republican leadership. In the run-up to the November U.S. election, a senior legislator of his Likud party has been active in cultivating relations with top Republicans.

BLUFF?

Though U.S. officials have no reason to believe Israel is bluffing, some both inside and outside the administration suspect that Netanyahu is overstating the immediate danger of an Iranian nuclear “break-out.”

Netanyahu, they say, may be seeking to pressure the United States and its European partners to move further on new oil-related sanctions, put enough of a scare into China and Russia to get them to ease resistance to tighter enforcement and extract a firmer U.S. commitment to military action if Tehran takes concrete steps toward bomb-making.

But even if his top generals and intelligence chiefs advise that it is time to act, questions remain whether Netanyahu, who lacks the extensive military resume of most of his predecessors, will be ready to do so, especially if it means going it alone without the United States.

An Israeli security source said that unlike Netanyahu’s predecessor Ehud Olmert, who conducted wars in the Gaza Strip and Lebanon and ordered the bombing of a suspected Syrian nuclear reactor during his 2006-2009 tenure, Israel’s current leader finds it hard to decide on risky operational matters.

For his part, Obama will be hesitant at this point to go further than his mantra that “all options are on the table” in dealing with Iran, and is likely to make clear to Netanyahu that without international legitimacy unilateral military action could backfire on Israel and lead to diplomatic isolation.

Moreover, the consensus in the U.S. defense community is that Israel, acting alone militarily, would only be able to slow Iran’s nuclear progress by months or possibly a couple of years.

That assessment is echoed by Israeli security officials, though they argue that their armed forces’ capabilities may have been underestimated — even by the friendly, informed Americans.

They note that Israel destroyed Iraq’s atomic reactor in 1981 knowing that this would only postpone Saddam Hussein’s quest for a bomb. Kept in the dark about the tactically audacious sortie, Washington responded angrily, at first. But it later thanked Israel for removing a potential Iraqi threat.

“The IDF (Israel Defense Forces) has been preparing its capabilities for years,” chief of staff Lieutenant-General Benny Gantz said, without elaborating, in February 18 comments to Israeli reporters, when asked about the prospects for an imminent war on Iran.

Israel lacks heavy long-range air force bombers, but its advanced F-15 and F-16 warplanes could hit sites in western Iran and further inland with air-to-air refueling and by using stealth technology to overfly hostile Arab nations.

It could also launch ballistic Jericho missiles with conventional warheads at Iran, according to a 2009 report by the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

Commandos might be deployed to spot targets and possibly launch covert attacks. Drones could assist in surveillance and possibly drop bombs of their own. Barak has said he believes the home front would suffer “maybe not even 500 dead” if Iran or its allies in Lebanon and Gaza retaliate with missile barrages.

Complicating matters is a basic lack of trust between the Obama administration and Netanyahu’s government, born in part out of the president’s earlier failed efforts to jumpstart Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking by pressuring Israel to freeze Jewish settlement expansion.

The last time Obama and Netanyahu met at the White House, in May, the Israeli leader bluntly took the president to task in remarks to reporters in the Oval Office, lecturing him on Jewish history and flatly rejecting his proposal that Israel’s 1967 borders be the basis for negotiations on creating a Palestinian state. Obama was furious and relations hit rock bottom.

Little more than a year before, Israel had announced a major new settlement expansion in East Jerusalem — a move that embarrassed Vice President Joe Biden during a visit — and Obama ordered Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to call Netanyahu and dress him down.

Not long afterwards, Obama walked out of tense talks with Netanyahu at the White House and left the Israeli prime minister cooling his heels while he had dinner with his family — treatment widely interpreted as a snub by Israeli media.

Frosty relations between the two leaders have thawed somewhat over the past year as Obama has taken a tougher line on Iran sanctions while refraining from any new Middle East peace drives. Obama also scored points with Israelis for opposing a Palestinian bid for UN statehood recognition last September.

“Open lines and security channels have brought the relationship to a particularly good point and at the same time there hasn’t been tension of late on other issues,” a senior administration official said.

But some Obama aides remain suspicious of Netanyahu’s motives. They are convinced that he would prefer to see a Republican take control of the White House in 2013 for fear that Obama’s re-election would give him a freer hand to push anew for Israeli concessions to the Palestinians during a second term.

And any look at the Iranian equation cannot ignore the Holocaust factor — the alarm-ringing “never again” theme Netanyahu invokes in speech after speech about the existential threat that Israel, widely believed to be the Middle East’s only nuclear power, would face if Iran got the bomb.

Those who claim to know Netanyahu well say he means what he says; it is his job to ensure the Jewish state’s survival. He has made clear that in addition to the Iranian threat, he sees Israel at risk from the deep uncertainty sown by the Arab spring uprisings, especially with the toppling of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, who was seen by Israel as a guardian of its peace treaty with Egypt.

An address to Israel’s parliament in January on the annual International Holocaust Remembrance Day could easily be tweaked into the kind of statement the government might issue as Israeli planes head home from their Iranian bombing missions.

“We cannot bury our heads in the sand. The Iranian regime openly calls for the destruction of the State of Israel; it is planning the destruction of Israel; and it is working to destroy Israel,” he said.

“In the end, with regards to threats to our very existence, we cannot abandon our future to the hands of others. With regard to our fate, our duty is to rely on ourselves alone.”

© Thomson Reuters 2012

PM Won’t Get a Cup of Coffee at the White House – Global Agenda – News – Israel National News.

John Bolton

http://cubachi.com

Former United States ambassador to the U.N., John Bolton, appeared on Fox News on Thursday, explaining why he believes that the upcoming meeting between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and U.S. President Barack Obama is going to be a “very unpleasant” one.

He said it is “no accident” that the Unites States is sending senior officials to meet with Israeli leaders prior to the “crucial sit-down” between President Obama and Prime Minister Netanyahu on March 5^th.

The visits of General Martin Dempsey, U.S. National Security Advisor Thomas Danilon, and Director of Intelligence Tom Clapper to the region, he said, are all unremitting attempts at dissuading Israel from attacking Iran.

It is more like “an invasion plan of the United States invading Israel, as opposed to dealing with the real problem, which is Iran,” Bolton claimed.

“The reason you see these top officials going to the region,” he continued, is that they are telling Prime Minister Netanyahu that he “better give President Obama the answer he wants to hear” during their upcoming meeting, which is that Israel will not attack Iran.

“Netanyahu is not going to say that,” he said. “This is going to be a very unpleasant meeting between the two leaders when it occurs.“

Netanyahu is scheduled to travel to Washington, D.C. to address The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) policy conference and, as Bolton said, he “can’t come to Washington without meeting with the President, so it may be one of those meetings where Netanyahu doesn’t get a sandwich and a cup of coffee at the White House, but they have to have it. “

Obama is also scheduled to address the pro-Israel lobby, as well.  When asked why he believes Obama is going to do so, Bolton replied that the President needs “to try to make the case that he is standing right there, shoulder to shoulder, with Israel to try to protect them against an Iranian nuclear threat, but the fact is that administration has just lost its compass when it comes to a policy. They are still are arguing that sanctions can be effective… I think that is completely inaccurate.”

Bolton continued to say that he believes it would be in Iran’s best interests to give off the impression that the sanctions are effective.

“Iran’s most valuable commodity is time,” he said. “All they need is just a little bit more time and then they can get nuclear weapons.”

Bolton was surprised that they rebuffed the UN inspectors so abruptly, but hopes that “world leaders, in some countries, at least, [will] say [that] diplomacy does not have a chance here… We’ve to confront the reality that if we don’t, or if someone doesn’t act, that Iran will get nuclear weapons and then there won’t be any point in sanctions or diplomacy.”

Are Israelis paranoid? You bet. – Frida Ghitis – MiamiHerald.com.

BY FRIDA GHITIS

fjghitis@gmail.com

Is Washington Casting Israel as the ‘Bad Cop’ to Pressure Iran? | World Opinion and Editorial Right Side News.

Senior officials from the Obama administration have begun descending on Israel once again to ensure that Jerusalem holds off on an attack on Iran. That, at least, is the message the White House is seeking to generate.  

“The national security advisor [Tom Donilon] and the American intelligence head [James Clapper] are coming for an urgent visit. They will ask [Israel] not to attack Iran right now,” a front-age caption said in this Sunday’s Yedioth Ahronothnewspaper.

Donilon arrived on Sunday, and began a series of meetings with Defense Minister Ehud Barak and Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu. Clapper is due to arrive later this week.

Indeed, the two visits, together with recent comments by other senior figures warning Israel not to strike Iran, suggest that a media campaign is underway to prevent any surprise Israeli strike on Iran’s nuclear weapons program.

America’s close ally, Britain, issued its own warning to Israel against an attack in recent days as well.

But just who is really the target of all this pressure? The problem with the official picture – that of an anxious Obama Administration asking Israel to stand down – is that it’s public.

Why are such high-level, hugely important messages being relayed from Washington to Jerusalem via the public sphere, rather than being passed on through secret channels, as one would expect from allies communicating over an issue as fateful as how to stop the Islamic Republic’s military nuclear drive?

The answer appears to be that the real designated recipient of the warnings is Iran.

The U.S. government and European leaders have just accepted Iran’s proposals to reopen nuclear negotiations. Their role as the ‘good cop,’ the side willing to listen and resolve the confrontation peacefully, is devoid of value without a ‘bad cop’ looming in the background.

By publicly presenting Israel as a Rottweiler on a leash being held back by President Obama, the White House hopes to increase the very low chance that another round of negotiations with Tehran might actually lead somewhere.

So far, every past round of negotiations has proven to be another stall tactic by the Iranians, buying them time – and legitimacy – as the centrifuges continue to spin in Iran.

Not only are the centrifuges spinning, they are also being moved to an underground nuclear site near Kom, called Fordow, built deep into a mountain to protect it from airstrikes and missiles.

Officials in the Pentagon and State Department don’t really believe that the latest round of sanctions on Iran will work, according to a recent Guardian report. Nor do they believe that the European oil embargo will stop the centrifuges.

If the sanctions are an inadequate ‘bad cop’ to goad the Iranians into taking negotiations seriously, perhaps the threat of Israeli action will do the trick – this, at least, appears to be the thinking behind the public pressure.

The image of an Israeli Rottweiler straining at the leash is not exactly fair, though. Israel’s neighbors are imploding, and radical Islamist forces are sweeping to power around it. Israel is determined to ensure that a fanatical Shi’ite republic sworn to its destruction does not become armed with atomic bombs.

Iran has armed two jihadi terrorist enclaves on Israel’s borders with tens of thousands of rockets. Hamas in Gaza, and Hezbollah in southern Lebanon, are both quietly in the midst of massive armament programs, and are procuring ever-increasing numbers of rockets and sophisticated weaponry such as guided missiles, from Iran.

If Iran went nuclear, it would also set off a Middle Eastern nuclear arms race.

That means unstable Sunni countries could be armed with doomsday weapons, which could then fall into the hands of fanatics, posing a threat to global security as a whole.

The resulting international security environment would become intolerably dangerous. Nuclear proliferation could make the leap to non-state actors.

Hence, the attempt to portray Israel as an aggressive player that needs restraining is misleading, and cynical. An equally convincing ‘bad cop’ alternative to negotiations could have been created by an international community, one that is united and able to pose a credible military option if all other means to stop the Iranians fail.

But that cannot exist if Western officials continue to present the possibility of military strikes as being unhinged Israeli machinations, instead of trying to build up a global commitment to halt Iran through any means necessary.

Yaakov Lappin, JINSA Visiting Fellow, is a journalist for the Jerusalem Post, where he covers police and national security affairs. For more information on the JINSA Visiting Fellows program, click here.

Just who’s foiling Jerusalem? – Haaretz Daily Newspaper | Israel News.

For Iran, this is the right time to push for the bomb without fear of an American military sanction.

By Avigdor Haselkorn

What Happens After Israel Attacks Iran | Foreign Affairs.

Since its birth in 1948, Israel has launched numerous preemptive military strikes against its foes. In 1981 and 2007, it destroyed the nuclear reactors of Iraq and Syria, operations that did not lead to war. But now, Israelis are discussing the possibility of another preemptive attack — against Iran — that might result in a wider conflict.

The public debate in Israel about whether Jerusalem should order a strike on Iran’s nuclear program is surprisingly frank. Politicians and policymakers regularly discuss the merits of an attack in public; over the past year, for example, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak have sparred regularly and openly with former Mossad director Meir Dagan, the most prominent opponent of an Israeli operation. But much of the conversation is focused on whether Israel should strike, not on what might happen if it does — in other words, the result on the “day after.”

Indeed, the analysis in Israel about the possible effects of an operation against Iran is limited to a small, professional elite, mostly in government and behind closed doors. This intimate circle that does consider scenarios of the “day after” concentrates almost exclusively on what an Iranian response, direct or through proxies, might look like. This is not surprising, given that Israel must worry first and foremost about the immediate military implications of an Iranian counterattack. But in doing so, Israeli policymakers are ignoring several of the potential longer-term consequences of a strike: the preparedness of Israel’s home front; the contours of an Israeli exit strategy; the impact on U.S.-Israel relations; the global diplomatic fallout; the stability of world energy markets; and the outcome within Iran itself. Should Israel fail to openly debate and account for these factors in advance of a strike, it may end up with a strategic debacle, even if it achieves its narrow military goals.

Israeli officials have thought extensively about how the first moves of a military conflict between Jerusalem and Tehran might play out. Ephraim Kam, a former Israeli military intelligence officer and deputy head of Israel’s Institute for National Security Studies (INSS), reflected the general consensus in the security establishment when he wrote in the Institute’s 2010 strategic assessment that Iran may respond in two possible ways to an Israeli attack: missile strikes on Israel, either directly or through allied organizations such as Hezbollah or Hamas; or terror attacks, likely on Israeli targets abroad by Iranians or those proxy groups.

A direct Iranian response would involve a missile barrage from Iran onto Israeli territory, similar to the volley of rockets launched at Israel by Iraq during the first Gulf War. Only one Israeli citizen died then, and it seems that Israeli officials estimate that the damage of a similar Iranian strike would be greater, but still limited. This past November, Ehud Barak, referring to possible direct and proxy-based Iranian retaliation, said that “There is no scenario for 50,000 dead, or 5,000 killed — and if everyone stays in their homes, maybe not even 500 dead.” Barak’s calm also reflects Israel’s previous experience in preempting nuclear threats. Iraq did not respond when Israel destroyed its nuclear facility in 1981, disproving the doomsday predictions made by several Israeli experts prior to the strike, and Syria remained silent when Israel bombed its nascent reactor in 2007.

Israeli policymakers also do not seem particularly concerned about the prospect of a proxy response. They recognize that Hezbollah, as it did in 2006, can target Israel with a large number of rockets. Yet in an interview with Ronen Bergman in The New York Times late last month, several Israeli experts argued that, regardless of a potential battle with Iran, the probability of an extended conflict with Hezbollah is already high. According to this logic, an attack on Iran would merely hasten the inevitable and might actually be easier to sustain before, not after, Iran acquires nuclear weapons. In addition, the new constraints now operating against Hezbollah — the ongoing revolt in Syria chief among them — might even limit the ability of the organization to harm Israel in a future conflict. Indeed, over the past several months, the Secretary General of Hezbollah, Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, has emphasized the group’s independence, saying on February 7 that “the Iranian leadership will not ask Hezbollah to do anything. On [the day of an Israeli attack on Iran], we will sit, think and decide what we will do.”

Meanwhile, the Israeli security establishment remains confident that Iran and its proxies will have trouble staging large-scale attacks on Israeli or Jewish targets abroad. Iran and Hezbollah have done so successfully in the past, most notably in response to Israel’s assassination, in 1992, of Hezbollah’s first secretary general (they are strongly suspected to have directed suicide bombings against the Israeli embassy and the Jewish community center in Buenos Aires in 1992 and 1994, respectively). Israeli experts such as Kam agree that such attacks could occur again in the wake of a strike on Iran, but argue that Tehran’s ability to respond is limited, likely due to its own handicaps and the restrictions posed by the post-9/11 global effort against terrorism. They gained support for their theory in mid-February, when, according to preliminary evidence, Iranian agents staged clumsy, botched attacks on Israeli targets in Georgia, India, and Thailand, injuring only one person in New Delhi and ending in humiliation in Bangkok, with one operative accidentally blowing off his legs.

Balanced against these threats is the expected benefit of an Israeli bombing campaign. According to Bergman, the Israeli defense community estimates that it can inflict a three-to-five-year delay on the Iranian nuclear project. But in its optimistic estimation about the success of an attack and about Israel’s ability to deter any response, it has failed to address, at least publicly, several crucial factors.

Although Israel has buttressed its home-front preparedness since its 2006 war with Hezbollah, it seems that it must do much more to ready the country for the rocket and missile attacks that it is expected to endure after a strike against Iran’s nuclear program. In a move that Israelis are now sardonically mocking, the former minister for home front defense, Matan Vilnai, left his post in February to become Israel’s ambassador to China. Before departing, Vilnai staged an angry outburst during a Knesset subcommittee meeting on February 7 over the lack of homeland preparedness, creating such a stir that the chairman had to end the meeting. Data presented at the session reveal the source of Vilnai’s frustration: a quarter of all Israelis do not have the most basic physical shelter needed to weather sustained rocket fire. Gas masks, a basic safety measure against a chemical attack, are available to only 60 percent of the population. And Vilnai’s former ministry lacks the bureaucratic muscle to win the resources and funds necessary to improve the situation. When the Netanyahu administration established the ministry early last year, the Israeli journalist Ofer Shelah called it “the big lie” because it “has no authority, no independent budget, and no ability to affect national priorities.”

The lack of readiness within Israel is all the more worrisome in light of the fact that Israeli analysts have spent little time discussing an exit strategy. An Israeli strike might follow a version of the previous attacks against the Iraqi and Syrian nuclear programs, which did not lead to conflict. Or, following the example of Israel’s 1982 invasion of Lebanon, it might spark a prolonged war. That operation, intended to remove the threat of armed Palestinian groups within two days, instead lasted 18 years, and contributed to the evolution of a new enemy in Hezbollah. Similarly, Israel’s invasion of Lebanon in 2006 had no clear exit strategy and lasted an unexpected 33 days, ending in confusion. Without serious public discussion about the possibility of a long war with Iran, Israel could enter an extended conflict unprepared to provide for and defend its citizens.

Israeli leaders have also failed to address in public the effect of an Israeli strike on U.S.-Israel relations. There is, of course, much conversation about whether the United States and Israel agree on the need for a strike, and, if so, when it should occur. So far, it seems, Jerusalem and Washington remain united in their opposition to Iran’s nuclear program, but are not yet in agreement about the time for military action; indeed, Israel has refused to commit to warning Washington in advance of an attack. Should Israel bomb Iran, it could easily provoke a crisis with or without first informing the United States, especially if the Obama administration has to intervene. Once again, Israeli strategic thinking on the issue is likely informed by the 1981 bombing of Iraq’s nuclear reactor. The attack infuriated the White House, which condemned it and, in punishment, suspended the delivery of some aircraft to Israel. Yet Washington retroactively approved of the strike and restored and even strengthened its relationship with Jerusalem — a process that Netanyahu may expect to repeat itself. The prime minister might also be calculating that, in an election year, Obama would prefer to avoid openly criticizing Israel after an attack.

In addition, the broader diplomatic impact of an Israeli strike has also received little open attention. The former Mossad director Meir Dagan has raised the possibility that an attack might disrupt the existing international pressure on Iran, which is now beginning to place severe strain on the regime, and make it harder for that coalition to re-form in the event that Iran restarts its program. On the whole, however, Israeli leaders have not confronted that possibility, seeming to place faith in the efficacy of the three-to-five year delay that they hope a strike will achieve.

Also largely missing from Israel’s public analysis is the question of how a bombing campaign would affect worldwide energy markets. As a small country with a limited global perspective, Israel rarely needs to consider the international impact of its actions. The few Israeli analysts who have looked into this question have tended to underplay Iran’s intention, and capability, of acting on its threat to close the Strait of Hormuz. Last month, for example, Amos Yadlin, the former director of Israel’s military intelligence, and Yoel Guzansky, the former head of the Iran desk of Israel’s national security council, argued in a paper for the INSS that it is highly doubtful that Iran would block the waterway.

That lack of perspective extends to what might happen inside of Iran after a strike. The public discourse about an attack rarely includes any consideration of whether a bombing campaign would galvanize Iranians to rally around the current leadership, ruining any chance of the regime change that might ultimately be necessary to end the threat of a nuclear program. Israel remains unwilling to estimate whether a strike would hurt or help the cause of the dissidents; its failure to predict the Arab Spring has humbled its proclivity for making such forecasts.

And so there is a gap in Israel’s debate about Iran. Although Israeli experts focus heavily on the immediate implications of the “day after,” they neglect, with a few exceptions, the broader repercussions of an attack. Ironically, then, at the core of the elite, scientific calculations regarding an attack on Iran and its aftermath stands a certain kind of fatalism. It is based on the traditional trust that Israelis place in their leaders, and on their sense that open conversation might in fact harm Israeli interests. But the lack of public debate may, in the event of an attack, leave Israel handicapped both in its ability to strike and to defend itself.

In particular, a lack of open discussion leaves the Israel Defense Forces as the primary source of information and analysis on a strike. The IDF, given its narrow focus on the military aspects of an attack, may fail to fully consider its potential political and diplomatic impact. A more public debate might strengthen those in the bureaucracy who are urging the Israeli government to weigh those other factors as carefully as the military planning. The elevation of those voices could then prevent Israeli leaders from operating on the basis of limited information and faulty assumptions. If history is any guide, Israeli policymakers could benefit from such an expansion of the conversation. Israel’s disastrous invasion of Lebanon in 1982 began with a war plan that the public had not vetted. The operation ended after overwhelming pressure from civil society, a process that took nearly two decades. To avoid a similar strategic blunder in confronting Iran’s nuclear program — either as a result of an attack, or a failure to do so — Israel should give the public a stake in the debate about the “day after” much sooner than that.

DEBKAfile, Political Analysis, Espionage, Terrorism, Security.

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei

Iranian voters go to the polls on March 2 to choose their next parliament (Majlis) amid mounting political chaos within the Islamic regime and a potential war.
Their two top figures, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, are venting their mutual antipathy with mounting stridency. Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) officers are branching out to establish a religious center to challenge the supreme authority of the Qom-based clerical establishment and find a replacement for Khamenei who would place paramount rule of the country into Guards hands.
These violent fluctuations in the destiny of the Islamic Republic’s 80 million inhabitants take place under the potential threat of an attack by Israel – alone or with the United States – to destroy their vaunted nuclear achievements.
Tehran’s counter-threat of a preemptive strike against its “enemies” is a measure of its misgivings, according to DEBKA-Net-Weekly’s Iranian sources.
Khamenei’s axe-men are using all their wiles to thwart the election of contenders from the rival Ahmadinejad’s faction. They accuse the president of diverting vast amounts of state funds valued at millions of dollars to buy votes, sending his supporters on canvassing expeditions to weddings and funerals and staging his own performances on “national” stages attended prominently by his favorite candidates.
Ahmadinejad is “a heretic” – Khamenei, infallible

Ahmadinejad is now accused of propagating – under the influence of his closest adviser Esfandyar Rahim Mashaee – a heretical brand of “Iranian Islam” versus the Supreme Leader’s’ “Arabic Islam.”
This charge has a bizarre ring against the sound and fury of the uprising against the rule of Bashar Assad, Iran’s closest ally.
The president hit back by calling for Ayatollah Khamenei to submit to the oversight of state institutions and jurisdiction of elected bodies.
Khamenei’s backers fought off this demand by declaring the Supreme Leader (Valy-e Faqih – Custodian and Religious Prodigy) above the law and outside any lay jurisdiction.
In the heat of the debate, the extreme fundamentalist cleric Seyyed Abbas Nabavi quoted the Supreme Leader as emphasizing at a closed meeting that on no account would he expose himself to criticism. He cited the words of Ayatollah Khomeini, founder of Iran’s Islamic Revolution, who limited the authority of the Council of Experts to examining the legality of a Supreme Leader’s election but certainly not sit in judgment on his performance.
His followers are trying to drag Ahmadinejad and his friends into the multi-billion corruption trial which opened last week. The 32 defendants in the dock face death sentences if found guilty. The charge sheet, said by informed sources to run to 12,000 pages, lists some of the president’s closest cronies among the accused.
Ahmadinejad threatened in the past that if his colleagues were incriminated, he would publish the dossiers of scores of senior regime officials guilty of embezzling and robbing state coffers. Khamenei was not deterred from ordering the prosecution to refer two of the president’s closest aides for trial.
Two-thirds of Iran’s factories shut down, enrichment continues regardless

The feud between the two men is exacerbated by Iran’s plunging economy and the shortage of foreign currency in consequence of international sanctions.
Two big industrialists, Reza Qasri and Mehdi Mir-Abdolahyan, disclosed this week that only 38 percent of Iran’s industrial plants are still working; 25 percent have shut down and 17 percent are on their last legs. The factories are perishing for lack of foreign currency to purchase raw materials, the cancellation of state subsidies and the cheap Chinese products flooding the markets.
Not long ago, Ahmadinejad promised five million new jobs within a year. This promise has become farcical in the light of Iran’s empty state treasury.
His unpopularity is such that some circles are demanding not just to keep his supporters out of the new Majlis but to abolish the presidency altogether. They prefer a prime minister appointed by the Supreme Leader instead of an elected president. Khamenei is said to quite fancy the idea.
At the same time, the two rivals agree that even extreme economic deprivation is an acceptable price to pay for the sake of Iran’s national nuclear program. No slowdown is therefore to be expected in response to sanctions. Indeed, Iran continues to expand highly enriched uranium production apace heedless of the damage sanctions are causing its economy.

DEBKAfile, Political Analysis, Espionage, Terrorism, Security.

Jay Carney

A slightly softer breeze blew in from Washington on Tuesday, Feb. 21, when White House spokesman Jay Carney said: “Israel and the United States share the same objective, which is to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon.”
But the US controversy with Israel over the Iran question eased by no more than a notch. Carney spoke only for Washington when he went on to say: “There is time and space for diplomacy to work, for the effect of sanctions to result in a change of Iranian behavior.”
While the first sentence of this statement was fair, Jerusalem strongly doubts the availability of time and space for diplomacy to work and does not believe for a moment that sanctions will change Iran’s behavior.
Neither did Carney’s statement represent the understanding Washington and Jerusalem reached in high-powered dialogue this week. Both sides worked hard to apply brakes to the downturn in relations before the dispute over a nuclear Iran exploded into public friction at the White House meeting March 5 between President Barack Obama and Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu. It was necessary to avoid a brawl during the former’s campaign for re-election.
The key understanding they reached, DEBKA-Net-Weekly’s sources report, was for the US and Israel to conduct a joint reevaluation or reassessment of pooled intelligence on Iran’s nuclear progress, after which each side would present its conclusions with a view to working toward agreed action.
Obama and Netanyahu will determine the reevaluation’s upshot

The ultimate decision for crystallizing steps against Iran would be made by President Obama and Prime Minister Netanyahu.
US National Director of Intelligence James Clapper was due in Israel Thursday, Feb. 23 to kick off the process by talks with Israeli intelligence and military chiefs.
The agreed reassessment would be designed to address the three most pressing issues confronting Jerusalem and Washington:
1. Iran is determined to acquire a nuclear weapons capability and develop a rapid breakout capacity and is forging ahead relentlessly towards these goals. Two interconnected cascades of 174 IR-1 centrifuges each have already been installed at the underground Fordo Fuel Enrichment Plant (FFEP) near Qom. Only half (348) are being fed with 20-percent enriched uranium, which UN International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) guidelines classify as Highly-Enriched Uranium (HEU). The other half will be activated soon to expand 20 percent enrichment. By producing larger quantities of highly enriched uranium, Iran will shorten the timeline for achieving breakout capacity.
Enriched uranium stocks rise constantly

Raising the level to 90 percent, or weapons grade, would require a minimum of additional work and time.
Tehran’s claim that 20-percent grade uranium was being produced solely for its medical research reactor was knocked down by US Central Intelligence Director David Petraeus, who testified that stocks far exceed this reactor’s needs.
Iran’s accumulating stockpile of HEU, soon to be augmented by increased production at Fordo, will reduce the time needed to produce fuel for a nuclear weapon to six weeks (as debkafile reported exclusively on Feb. 22). From that moment on, Iran can assemble a nuclear bomb or warhead any time the Islamic regime in Tehran so decides.
2. According to additional intelligence input reaching the IAEA in Vienna, the military complex at Parchin is used for experiments simulating various stages of a nuclear explosion.
Therefore, notwithstanding US and European sanctions, Iran is forging ahead without pause to build up its enriched uranium stocks and at the same developing nuclear explosive materials.
Israel believes Iran is just one step short of a nuke

Given these data, Israel regards Iran’s nuclear progress as way past breakout capacity, with only one more stage left to go before the manufacture of an operational nuke. This Israel cannot afford to let happen.
Tuesday, Feb. 21, the IAEA inspection team visiting Tehran cut short its stay after being refused access to Parchin and being stonewalled when its members asked questions about activities at the installation.
3. Tehran also reached breakout point in its military pugnacity Tuesday when Deputy Armed Forces Commander Gen. Mohammad Hejazi suddenly announced that Iran would not wait to be attacked but would strike its enemies first.
Both the US Pentagon and Israel’s high command are taking this threat very seriously.