WarSclerotic

Top Iran official: Enemies will face ‘rainy day’ weapons in case of attack – Haaretz Daily Newspaper | Israel News.

Defense Minister Ahmad Vahidi hails Iran’s independent weapons industry, military, adding that the U.S. would have to take a ‘new environment’ under consideration.

By Haaretz

Iran is prepared with hidden “rainy day” military capabilities it is saving for when it is attacked, Iranian Defense Minister Ahmad Vahidi said on Tuesday, warning potential enemies of a “new environment” created by Iran’s developing arms industry.

	Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, right, waving to media as he arrives with his Defense Minister Gen. Ahmad Vahidi in Tehran, Iran, Sunday, Feb. 26, 2012.
	Photo by: AP

Earlier Tuesday, a U.S. intelligence official familiar with the discussions between top Israeli officials and Pentagon counterparts said that Israel indicated it would not warn the U.S. if they decide to launch a pre-emptive strike against Iranian nuclear facilities.

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The pronouncement, delivered in a series of private, top-level conversations, sets a tense tone ahead of meetings in the coming days at the White House and Capitol Hill.

Israeli officials said that if they eventually decide a strike is necessary, they would keep the Americans in the dark to decrease the likelihood that the U.S. would be held responsible for failing to stop Israel’s potential attack.

Referring to the possibility of an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities, the country’s defense minister warned possible perpetrators of Iran’s secret weapons capabilities, saying that the “Islamic Republic of Iran has many hidden capabilities which are kept for rainy days.”

“We have not yet revealed all our capabilities,” Vahidi told the semi-official Fars news agency, stressing the added value of Iran’s independently run and operated military industry.

“Undoubtedly, since our defense is an independent and defensive one based on our own defensive policies, special defense doctrines and our own indigenous defense and internal capabilities, the U.S. will face a completely new environment when gets involved with the new issues that Iran is pursuing and it will be obliged to think of this new environment,” Vahidi said

The top Iranian official also spoke of what he said was the United States’ inability to influence Iran’s military progress, saying that, “naturally, they cannot reach this point since we have not displayed all our capabilities and capacities.”

“These days Americans badly fear that an incident happens in the region and they can’t stand against the Islamic Republic’s firm positions vis-à-vis that given event,” Vahidi told Fars.

Netanyahu: Nuclear Iran Would Choke World Economy – Defense/Security – News – Israel National News.

PM Binyamin Netanyahu

Israel news photo: Flash 90

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday warned a nuclear-armed Iran would exercise de facto control the major Gulf oil producers and “choke” the global economy.

“Everyone needs to understand that if we’re worried today about rising oil prices we shall be far more worried if Iran, heaven forbid, gains control over the energy centers in the Persian Gulf,” Netanyahu on Israeli radio. “Iran would be able to dictate far higher oil prices and, by so doing, choke the world economy.”

“Anyone who is interested in stopping the manipulative use of oil production, its influence on world markets, the threats to the world’s economies, must also for that reason enlist to stop Iran’s nuclear race,” he added.

His comments come amid world concern over spiking oil prices due to Iran’s ability to negatively impact energy markets.

Israel, the United States, its Western allies, and Gulf Arab states fear Iran’s self-proclaimed peaceful nuclear program is a weak facade for a nuclear weapons program.

Tehran denies the charge, but the International Atomic Energy Agency said in a report on Friday that Iran had tripled its capacity to enrich uranium to 20-percent purity since November.

Enriching uranium to 20 percent is a major step towards purifying it to the 90-percent level needed for a nuclear weapon.

Most analysts believe Iran already has a sufficient stockpile of 20% enriched uranium to produce a 15 kiloton nuclear weapon should Tehran decide to push for weaponization. That process, they say, would take Iran 2.5 to 3 months.

Israel, which maintains a policy of nuclear ambiguity is widely considered to the sole nuclear power in the Middle East, and has said all options – meaning a potential military strike – are on the table ensure Iran doesn’t join the so-called “nuclear club.”

Iranian officials have repeatedly called for the destruction of Jewish state and called Israel a “one bomb state.”

However, Jerusalem is under intense pressure from Washington and Europe not to launch a pre-emptive military strike, leading Israeli officials to charge they are more concerned about oil prices and imminent electoral races than world security.

Netanyahu has said Iran will top the agenda when he meets with US President Barack Obama for talks in the White House on March 5.

DEBKAfile, Political Analysis, Espionage, Terrorism, Security.

DEBKAfile Exclusive Report February 28, 2012, 10:46 AM (GMT+02:00)

How real is this scenario?

The media duel over Iran between the Obama administration and the Netanyahu government went up a notch Tuesday, Feb. 28 with an Associated Press report by Kimberly Dozier asserting that Israel had decided finally that if an attack on Iran was judged necessary, the US would be kept in the dark “so as not to be held responsible for failing to stop a potential Israeli attack.”
Referring to this claim, debkafile’s military and intelligence sources note that Washington would hardly need a heads-up from Israel because it commands every possible resource for finding out for itself what Israel is up to and for determining if its actions are for real or red herrings.

Indeed, last Sunday, Feb. 19, Washington’s suspicions were aroused by an Israeli military spokesman’s bulletin on the stationing of an Iron Dome anti-missile battery in the Tel Aviv district. Israel was asked for clarifications. To avoid appearing to have buckled down under US pressure, Israel waited four days before announcing a change of plan and the deployment instead of three batteries in Beersheba, Ashkelon and Ashdod, towns which are in line for missile attacks from Gaza rather than Iran.
US and Israeli sources stress that if the country were indeed headed for war, it would not be possible to conceal every sign of preparation, especially such civil defense measures as building up stocks of medicines, fuel and food, or orders to local authorities to make bomb shelters ready.

Whenever Israel is suspected of switching over to eve-of-war mode, the Obama administration sends high officials over to talk to Israelis and find out what is going on. Indeed Western intelligence sources have taken to using the frequency of those visits as a barometer for judging the seriousness of an approaching Israeli attack on Iran.
Last week, the US President’s National Security Adviser Tom Donilon spent time in Israel after Chairman of the US Chiefs of Staff Gen. Martin Dempsey.  He left Tuesday, Feb. 21, followed two days later by National Intelligence Director James Clapper. Sunday, Feb. 26, Israel’s Defense Minister Ehud Barak flew to Washington. March 5, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu arrives at the White House for his date with President Barack Obama.

Most of these US-Israeli discussions have been devoted to laying the ground for this summit by a joint reevaluation of US and Israeli intelligence on Iran’s nuclear progress, whose conclusions will be put before the two leaders.
Both governments are meanwhile setting the scene for the event with tendentious media leaks, often drawing on outdated, long-refuted materials.

One of the least plausible items was run by AP Tuesday, claiming, “US intelligence and special operations officials have tried to keep a dialogue going with Israel, despite the high-level impasse, sharing with them options such as allowing Israel to use US bases in the region from which to launch such a strike as a way to make sure the Israelis give the Americans a heads-up.”
The basic facts emerging from the hot air surrounding the issue are that the Obama administration is dead set against any Israeli military action against Iran and that it remains an active option. The president and his advisers are working overtime to prevent it happening. The last thing on Washington’s mind therefore would be to support an attack by making US bases available merely for the sake of a heads-up. And another point: if Israel feels the need to absolve the US of responsibility, why would it use US bases?

The presence of US intelligence and special operations and intelligence officials at Israel military facilities is not news; this level of military cooperation goes back years.

Tehran draws its own conclusions from the pace of US official visits to Israel and the ding dong between the two governments over an attack on its nuclear sites. This week, Iranian Defense minister classified the dispute as “a war game” and a deliberate game of deception. Of late, whenever top White House officials touch down in Israel in unusual numbers, Tehran announces yet another “large-scale military maneuver.”

Iran says it seeks engagement on… JPost – Iranian Threat – News.

U.S. policy aimed at ‘buying time’ with Iran, says senior official – Haaretz Daily Newspaper | Israel News.

Top security adviser Antony Blinken says U.S. ‘won’t tell Israel what to do’; lambasts political partisanship in U.S. on Israel and Iran; claims Assad regime is ‘eroding’.

By Chemi Shalev

NEW YORK – U.S. policy on Iran is aimed at “buying time and continuing to move this problem into the future, and if you can do that – strange things can happen in the interim,” Anthony Blinken, National Security Adviser to Vice President Biden and Deputy Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs, said on Monday.

“You never know,” Blinken added.

	Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu meeting with U.S. President Barack Obama at the White House on July 6, 2010
	Photo by: AP

Speaking at a briefing organized by the Israeli Policy Forum (IPF) in New York, Blinken also said that the U.S. believes that Iran “has not made a decision to produce a nuclear weapon, they are not on the verge of getting a nuclear weapon, and there is still time and space for diplomacy to work.”

Carefully choosing his words, Blinken said that Israel views a nuclear Iran as “an existential threat” while the U.S. believes that it would pose “a direct and serious threat” to its own security. But, he added, “Israel has to make its own decisions. We are not in the business of telling our allies and partners what to do when it comes to their own national security.”

In a short interview with Haaretz following his briefing, Blinken said that the assessments of Israel and the U.S. on Iran are “very close” to each other, “but because we are in different places, even physically, there may be tactical differences between the two countries – but the fundamental strategic position is the same.”

On the eve of next week’s critical summit between President Obama and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Washington, Blinken added that as far as he knows, “Israel has not made any decision about what it might or might not do.” Regarding the controversial statement made last week by the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Martin Dempsey, that Iran is a “rational country”, Blinken said “you can have big debates about their rationality or lack or rationality, just as there were about the Soviet Union and China. But in the past, Iran has responded to effective pressure.”

In his words to the IPF Forum, Blinken noted U.S. President Barack Obama’s determination to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons and extolled his “unprecedented support” for Israel. “No president has done so much for Israel and for Israel’s security,” he said.

And he was unusually blunt about the partisan political attacks on the President’s Middle East record: he said what could really harm U.S.-Israeli relations and Israel’s national security is “subjecting either to the vagaries of partisan politics or election year talking points.”

“There are individuals on all sides who unfortunately use the debate over policy toward Israel for political purposes, and unfortunately, because of the season that we’re in now, that only gets worse and worse and worse. For generations, Israel has been a bastion of bipartisan consensus – the stakes are too high for us and for Israel to let that change now,” he said. “We can question each other’s judgment – but not each other’s motives.”

He also noted, without explicitly directing his comments at anyone in particular, that “there is a decent chance that the Obama-Biden Administration will be around next November, so folks who are looking how to address these issues should probably factor that in as a reasonable possibility.”

He struck a similar note concerning the “rhetorical drumbeat of war” with Iran, without specifically pointing his finger at the Republican presidential candidates and perhaps other conservative commentators and politicians to whom he was obviously referring. He said that such declarations “play into the hands of the Iranians” by “ratcheting up tensions”, causing oil prices to rise and “money to go into the pockets of the Iranians and out of ours.”

Blinken said that the Administration’s policy of diplomacy backed by tough sanctions is taking its toll on the Iranian economy, which cannot access 70% of its foreign reserves, finds it increasingly difficult to acquire materials for its nuclear industry and is being boycotted by “a list that reads like a ‘Who’s Who’ of leading companies of the world.

Intriguingly, Blinken said that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad seems “more interested” in defusing tensions with the West than Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, whose “raison d’etre is confrontation with the U.S.” At the same time,
Blinken admitted that the U.S. has “extraordinarily imperfect information” about the situation inside Iran’s feuding ruling circles.

Regarding Syria, Blinken said that the U.S. currently opposes militarization of the civil war. But he said that the pillars of the Assad regime are disintegrating, with increasing defections from the military and government and business leaders moving their families and their money out of the country.

The well-attended briefing held at the Harvard Club in New York was the latest in a series of similar meeting organized by the Israel Policy Forum, an organization set up after the 1993 Oslo Accords aimed at promoting the peace process and a two-state solution. Its fortunes were so closely tied to the peace process that it almost ceased to function during the Second Intifada. In recent months, however, it is enjoying something of a renaissance, placing itself, as one of its leaders said, “In the middle, between AIPAC and J-Street.”

War games: Tel Aviv missile drill – Israel News, Ynetnews.

Senior officials to take part in drill simulating explosion of two rockets in central Israel

Yossi Yehoshua

Preparing for escalation? Security officials are taking the threat of long-range rockets being fired at central Israel from the Gaza Strip seriously, and have decided to hold a drill to prepare for such scenario.

The exercise, to be held in the Tel Aviv area next month, will simulate rocket attacks on central Israel that are not undertaken in the framework of an all-out regional war, unlike previous missile drills.

The “Hit to the Heart” drill will be held on March 14 in the form of a war game held by senior officials and simulating rocket attacks launched without prior warning.

The exercise will involve the National Emergency Authority, IDFHome Front Command, the national information headquarters, Israel Police, Magen David Adom emergency services, the Ministry of Public Security and the Education Ministry.

Rocket to ‘hit’ mall

According to the scenario to be simulated, immediately after an anti-rocket siren throughout central Israel the Home Front Command’s hotline will receive tens of thousands of calls from residents wondering why the siren sounded and seeking further instructions.

In the framework of the drill, two minutes after the siren will sound, two rockets will be landing in the center of the country – one in Ramat Gan’s Ayalon Mall and the other in southern Tel Aviv.

As the war game is aimed for senior commanders, no actual siren will be activated and the public will not be asked to take part in the exercise.

At this time, Hamas is believed to possess Fajr-5 rockets that are capable of reaching central Israel. The IDF’s Iron Dome anti-rocket system is meant to provide protection against such incoming missiles.

Lebanon Rattles Its Saber at Israel – Defense/Security – News – Israel National News.

Ghosn and A-Jad

Reuters

Lebanon’s Defense Minister Fayez Ghosn on Monday warned Israel against “any foolishness in attacking Lebanon.”

Ghosn, who is currently on an official visit to Tehran, met Sunday with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who told him that Lebanon and Iran “should work toward unity to confront the West and Israel.”

During the visit Ghosn, a member of the Hizbullah-allied Marada Movement, also met with his counterpart Gen.Ahmad Vahidi, who made his military career in Iran’s covert foreign operations Quds force.

Vahidi is wanted by Interpol for his alleged participation in the bombing of the Jewish community center in Buenos Aires, Argentina, on July 18, 1994, in which 85 people died. He is one of five Iranians sought in the bombing.

After their meeting the two Defense Minister’s held a press conference, during which Ghosm warned Israel would face “a strong and unified army and resistance [Hizbullah], and suffer another defeat” should it invade southern Lebanon.

Ghosn was referring to the 34-day war between Israel and Hizbullah during which Israel failed to achieve the two declared goals of the military operation: destroying Hizbullah’s military infrastructure and securing the release of two Israeli soldiers who’s kidnapping by Hizbullah triggered the fighting.

Israel withdrew under intense international and US pressure even as its generals said total success was just a matter of time.

Nonetheless – despite what was seen as an operational failure in Israel – observers note that the war was a “huge strategic loss for Hizbullah,” and cost the terror organization billions in dollars of damage.

Hizbullah leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah admitted that, had he known the damage his organization would endure, he never would have authorized the kidnapping of the soldiers.

Israel, by comparison, suffered “comparatively little” economic damage, enjoyed an economic growth spurt right after the war, and inflicted asymmetrical casualties on Hizbullah.

Vahidi said “reinforcing the Lebanese Army is in the strategic policies of the Islamic Republic” and that Lebanon’s security was “an important part of stability in the region.”

“Lebanon should have a strong army to defend its interest in the region,” Vahidi said.

Ghosn responded that “Iran and Lebanon have always backed each another and we hope that bilateral interaction increases.”

“Right now there is a complete coordination between army and the resistance,” he said.

Over the weekend, Vahidi said an Israeli attack on Iran would lead to “the collapse of the Jewish state.”

Israel and Iran are at dagger points as Tehran pushes ahead with uranium enrichment and other aspects of its nuclear program, which is widely regarded as seeking nuclear weapons.

Tehran has blamed the recent assassinations of Iranian nuclear scientists on Israel, which authorities in Tehran have referred to as a “one bomb state.”

It also faces the possibility of Israeli airstrikes against its nuclear facilities. Israeli leaders say the military option must “remain on the table.”

Military analysts say an Israeli strike on Tehran’s nuclear program could result in Iran pushing Hizbullah to use its vast arsenal of rockets against the Jewish state.

Hizbullah denies its actions are dictated by Tehran, but the group is deeply beholden to Iran and would likely find itself with little choice but to spark a new war with Israel.

That has left regional observers – and Lebanese officials – wondering if Israel will launch a pre-emptive strike on Hizbullah even as IAF pilots striking in Iran radioed “bombs away.”

Iran ups repression of dissent ahead of vote: Amnesty International.

Tuesday, 28 February 2012

Iran is holding Friday a parliamentary election, its first national poll since the controversial 2009 re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. (Reuters)

inShare

Iran has escalated its crackdown on freedom of expression ahead of this week’s parliamentary election, Amnesty International said in a report published on Tuesday.

“In Iran today you put yourself at risk if you do anything that might fall outside the increasingly narrow confines of what the authorities deem socially or politically acceptable,” said Ann Harrison, interim deputy director of Amnesty’s Middle East and North Africa program.

“Anything from setting up a social group on the Internet, forming or joining a NGO, or expressing your opposition to the status quo can land you in prison,” she said.

The report entitled “We are ordered to crush you: Expanding Repression of Dissent in Iran” details repressive acts by the Iranian authorities since February 2011, including a wave of arrests.

The arrests, Amnesty said, have targeted a range of groups including lawyers, students, journalists, political activists and their relatives, as well as religious and ethnic minorities, film-makers and people with international connections, particularly to media.

“This dreadful record really highlights the hypocrisy of the Iranian government’s attempts to show solidarity with protesters in Egypt, Bahrain and other countries in the region,” Amnesty said.

It said the situation has particularly worsened in the run-up to parliamentary elections due to take place on March 2.

The clampdown has targeted electronic media, seen by the authorities as a major threat, Amnesty said, adding that attacks on dissenting views come against a backdrop of a worsening overall human rights situation in Iran, including public executions used to strike fear into society.

Amnesty called on the global community “not to allow tensions over Iran’s nuclear program or events in the wider region to distract it from pressing Iran to live up to its human rights obligations.”

“For Iranians facing this level of repression, it can be dispiriting that discussions about their country in diplomatic circles can seem to focus mainly on the nuclear program at the expense of human rights,” said Harrison.

Tension between Iran and world powers have escalated over Tehran’s nuclear program. World powers suspect Iran is making atomic weapons under the guise of a civilian nuclear program. Tehran denies the charge.

Iran is holding Friday a parliamentary election, its first national poll since the controversial 2009 re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

A total of 3,444 vetted candidates are vying for the 290 seats in the parliament, known as the majlis, to be decided by an electorate of 48 million voters.

Israel plans for second F-35 squadron – UPI.com.

TEL AVIV, Israel, Feb. 27 (UPI) — Despite deepening defense budget cuts, the Israeli air force is reported to be moving toward ordering a second squadron of 20 F-35 stealth fighters from Lockheed Martin, possibly as early as this year.

The first 20 Joint Strike Fighters were ordered in October 2010 at a cost of $2.75 billion.

Israel ultimately wants to acquire 75 F-35s, to replace Lockheed Martin’s F-16I and Boeing’s F-15I to form the spearhead of its strategic air power, particularly in terms of long-range strikes against Iran.

But the cost in the current budgetary climate is likely to be prohibitive, particularly as Israel’s military is focused on developing a range of anti-missile defense systems to confront an anticipated massive bombardment that could go on for weeks with potentially catastrophic results.

“According to initial plans, the (air force) would place the order for the second squadron in late 2012-early 2013 and begin receiving the planes in 2020,” The Jerusalem Post reported.

“It is possible, however, that the United States would attach the new squadron to the one ordered in 2010 and expedite the delivery if the order is placed soon.”

Israeli pilots are to begin training on the F-35 in the United States in 2016, with the first of the fifth-generation fighters scheduled to arrive in Israel in early 2017.

If all that goes to plan, the Israeli air force could have 40 F-35s operational by the end of the decade. These are expected to operate from the Nevatim Air Base in the Negev Desert south of Tel Aviv.

The cost of buying such a number of the new aircraft, which is intended to equip nearly every tactical warplane in the U.S. Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps over the coming years, has triggered an intense debate within Israel’s military establishment on what its future war-fighting needs will be.

Critics argue that the funds could be better spent on upgrading existing systems, such as the F-16Is and F-15Is that currently constitute the Israeli air force’s strike force.

This argument has been bolstered by the plethora of problems and hefty cost overruns that have plagued the F-35s development in recent years, and have set back production at least two years.

That would delay its operational debut until sometime after 2018 — seven years later than originally planned.

Jane’s Defense Weekly recently reported that a new Pentagon technical report on the F-35 program recommended slowing U.S. acquisition of the new jet due to a “lack of confidence” in the reliability of the design.

That timeframe is one that the Israeli air force finds unacceptable. Due to these potential delays, the air force is looking at the possibility of purchasing second-hand F-15 upgrades and other platforms from the U.S. Air Force at prices far lower than brand-new F-35s.

In December, The Jerusalem Post’s military expert, Yaakov Katz, reported that amid the growing concerns about delays in the F-35 deliveries, the Israeli air force has fast-tracked upgrades on its F-16 C/D variants with new avionics and combat systems.

The Post said senior Israeli officers say that additional delays could lead the Defense Ministry to consider buying new F-15 Eagles or F-16 Fighting Falcons from Lockheed Martin and Boeing to bridge the gap if the F-35 delivery dates are pushed back beyond 2017.

Even the U.S. Air Force fears that F-35 production orders will be cut back if the jet doesn’t enter service quickly.

These concerns are fueled by the expectation that many U.S. F-16s, which entered production in the 1980s, will soon be too old for operational use.

The Americans are already refurbishing several hundred of their Block 40 and 50 F-16s.

In Israel, the F-35 has some heavyweight backing.

Maj. Gen. Ido Nehushtan, the air force commander who steps down in April, supported the JSF acquisition and overcame heavy opposition to push through the 2010 order.

His successor, Maj. Gen. Amir Eshel, currently head of the Israeli military’s Planning Directorate, is expected to press for the second squadron order when he takes over command of the air force.

“The shrinking force structure problem points us toward fewer, but more sophisticated, platforms,” former air force commander and chief of the defense staff Lt. Gen. Dan Halutz observed recently. “The F-35 fits this trend exactly.”

Arm Syria’s Rebels – NYTimes.com.

By ROGER COHEN

LONDON — Here are some home truths about Syria. It’s going to get worse before it gets better. Nobody can put this genie back in a bottle. This is the mother of all proxy fights. The remorseless Assad regime is finished, when it dies being the only question.

Nations get to freedom from tyranny by different routes. When Communism fell, some glided from the Soviet empire into the West as others agonized. Yugoslavia — a beautiful idea that never worked — is one of several nations being invoked as possible exemplars of Syria’s bloody fate; others include Lebanon and Iraq.

The ingredients are familiar: Syria is a multiethnic state ruled with an iron fist by one minority — the quasi-Shiite Alawites — and including Christian, Druze and other minorities that between them compose about a quarter of the population. The majority is Sunni. When the iron fist comes off in countries like this, liberty is more readily seen as getting free of each other than uniting in the give-and-take of a new liberal order.

So it has proved for a year now in the Syria of Bashar al-Assad who, taking a leaf from his father’s book, has attempted to suppress through mass slaughter the quest of a broad uprising to be free of the family stranglehold. Assad is a doctor by training! No doctor ever trampled so brazenly on the Hippocratic Oath.

The Assads are a mafia, a minority (the family) within a minority (the Alawites) within a minority (the Mukhabarat secret police). They co-opted others — notably the Sunni merchant class — through imposed stability, but in essence, like every tyrant dislodged in the Arab Spring, they have ruled a nation as if it was their personal fiefdom, a plaything to be passed from father to son for the benefit of cousins and cronies.

Well, that’s over. Aleppo is the not the new Marrakesh after all. Those lovely tourism posters on London buses have been packed away. Arabs have had it with their Godfathers.

I said it’s going to get worse before it gets better. The Syrian compact is broken; a new compact under the Assads is inconceivable. Wider interests are in play. Iranian Shiite theocracy, increasingly isolated, is defending the regime against a Free Syrian Army funded in part by Saudi Sunni theocracy: that’s the proxy war.

Vladimir Putin, fearful of Russian Springs in his own neighborhood, has with signature cynicism opted to defend an old ally against U.S. demands that Assad go, an objective not pursued with any coherence until now by the Obama administration. Israel knows Assad, who helps arm Hezbollah but is a predictable and largely passive enemy. It does not know what may lie beyond a security state whose habits it can predict.

In short, Syria is dangerous. But that not a reason for passivity or incoherence. As the Bosnian war showed, the basis for any settlement must be a rough equality of forces. So I say step up the efforts, already quietly ongoing, to get weapons to the Free Syrian Army. Train those forces, just as the rebels were trained in Libya. Payback time has come around: The United States warned Assad about allowing Al Qaeda fighters to transit Syria to Iraq. Now matériel and special forces with the ability to train a ragtag army can transit Iraq — and other neighboring states — into Syria. This should be a joint effort of Western and Arab states.

At the same time, mount a big U.N.-coordinated humanitarian effort centered on enclaves for refugees in Turkey, Jordan and elsewhere, establishing, where possible, safe corridors to these havens.

Push hard to bring Russia and China around: They will not defend Assad beyond the point where that defense looks like a liability for other bigger interests in the United States, the Gulf and Europe.

I hear the outcry already: Arming Assad’s opponents will only exacerbate the fears of Syria’s minorities and unite them, ensure greater bloodshed, and undermine diplomatic efforts now being led by Kofi Annan, a gifted and astute peacemaker. It risks turning a proxy war into a proxy conflagration.

There is no policy for Syria at this stage that does not involve significant risk. But the only cease-fire I can see that will not amount to an ephemeral piece of paper is one based on a rough balance of forces. For that, the Free Syrian Army must be armed.

In the end, this course will support, not undermine, Annan’s diplomacy and perhaps open the way for the sort of transition outlined by the Arab League. In return, the divided Syrian opposition must provide a firm commitment to respect the rights of minorities. The treatment of minorities — like that of women — is one of the many pivotal tests of the Arab Spring.

If Assad falls, Iran is critically weakened. Tehran’s established conduit to Hezbollah disappears. Choosing between engineering the downfall of Assad and bombing Iran’s nuclear facilities is really a no-brainer: The former is smart and doable, the latter is folly. Assad’s wife has been buying property in London: Make her use it and make the Syrian people free.