WarSclerotic

The Ticking Clock – By Robert Haddick | Foreign Policy.

Four reasons why — this time — you should believe the hype about Israel attacking Iran.

BY ROBERT HADDICK | FEBRUARY 10, 2012

Washington Post columnist David Ignatius created a tempest last week when he reported U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta’s prediction that Israel will attack Iran and its nuclear complex “in April, May or June.” Ignatius’s column was as startling as it was exasperating. When the sitting U.S. defense secretary — presumably privy to facts not generally available to the public — makes such a prediction, observers have good reasons to pay attention. On the other hand, the international community has been openly dealing with the Iranian nuclear issue for nearly a decade, with similar crescendos of anticipation having occurred before, all to no effect. Why would this time be different?

Further, an Israeli air campaign against Iran would seem like an amazingly reckless act. And an unnecessary one, too, since international sanctions against Iran’s banks and oil market are just now tightening dramatically.

Yet from Israel’s point of view, time really has run out. The sanctions have come too late. And when Israeli policymakers consider their advantages and all of the alternatives available, an air campaign, while both regrettable and risky, is not reckless.

Here’s why:

1. Time pressure

In his column, Ignatius mentioned this spring as the likely deadline for an Israeli strike. Why so soon? After all, the Iranian program is still under the supervision of IAEA inspectors and Iran has not made any moves to “break out” toward the production of bomb-grade highly enriched uranium.

But as a new report from the Bipartisan Policy Center discusses, Iran’s uranium enrichment effort continues to advance, even after the Stuxnet computer attack and the assassination of several of its nuclear scientists. According to the report, Iran seems to be successfully installing advanced, high-efficiency uranium-enrichment centrifuges, which foreshadows a significant increase in enrichment capacity and output in the near future. More ominously from Israel’s perspective, Iran is now installing centrifuge cascades into the Fordow mountain site near Qom, a bunker that is too deep for Israeli bombs to penetrate.

On-site IAEA inspectors are currently monitoring Iran’s nuclear fuel production and would report any diversions to military use. As Tehran undoubtedly assumes, such a “breakout” (tossing out the inspectors and quickly enriching to the bomb-grade level) would be a casus belli, with air strikes from Israel likely to soon follow. Israeli leaders may have concluded that Iran could break out with impunity after the Fordow site is operational and the enrichment effort has produced enough low-enriched uranium feedstock for several bombs. According to the Bipartisan Center report, Iran will be in this position later this year. According to the New York Times, U.S. and Israeli officials differ over their calculations of when Iran will have crossed into a “zone of immunity.” Given their more precarious position, it is understandable that Israeli policymakers are adopting a more conservative assessment.

2. Alternatives to military action now fall short

Israeli leaders undoubtedly understand that starting a war is risky. There should be convincing reasons for discarding the non-military alternatives.

The international sanctions effort against Iran’s banking system and oil industry are inflicting damage on the country’s economy and seem to be delivering political punishment to the regime. But they have not slowed the nuclear program, nor are they likely to have any effect on the timeline described above. And as long as Russia, China, India, and others continue to support Iran economically and politically, the sanctions regime is unlikely to be harsh enough to change Israel’s calculation of the risks, at least within a meaningful time frame.

Why can’t Israel’s secret but widely assumed nuclear arsenal deter an Iranian nuclear strike? Israel’s territory and population are so small that even one nuclear blast would be devastating. Israel would very much like to possess a survivable and stabilizing second-strike retaliatory capability. During the Cold War, the United States and the Soviet Union achieved this mainly with their ballistic missile submarine fleets, which were always on patrol and held each others’ cities at risk. Israel does not have large numbers of submarines or any nuclear-powered subs capable of long submerged patrols. Nor can it be confident that its policymakers or command-and-control systems would survive an Iranian nuclear first strike.

Even if Iran sought a nuclear weapons capability solely to establish its own defensive deterrent, the outcome would be gross instability in the region, very likely leading to one side or the other attempting a preemptive attack (the Iranian government denies that its nuclear program has a military purpose). Very short missile flight times, fragile early-warning and command systems, and no survivable second-strike forces would lead to a hair-trigger “use it or lose it” dynamic. An Israeli attack now on Iran’s nuclear program would be an attempt to prevent this situation from occurring.

3. The benefits of escalation

A strike on Iran’s nuclear complex would be at the outer boundary of the Israeli Air Force’s capabilities. The important targets in Iran are near the maximum range of Israel’s fighter-bombers. The fact that Iraq’s airspace, on the direct line between Israel and Iran, is for now undefended is one more reason why Israel’s leaders would want to strike sooner rather than later. Israel’s small inventory of bunker-buster bombs may damage the underground uranium enrichment plant at Natanz, but they will likely have no effect on the Fordow mountain complex. Iran has undoubtedly dispersed and hidden many other nuclear facilities. An Israeli strike is thus likely to have only a limited and temporary effect on Iran’s nuclear program.

If so, why bother, especially when such a strike risks sparking a wider war? Israel’s leaders may actually prefer a wider escalating conflict, especially before Iran becomes a nuclear weapons state. Under this theory, Israel would take the first shot with a narrowly tailored attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities. Paradoxically, Israel’s leaders might then prefer Iranian retaliation, which would then give Israel the justification for broader strikes against Iran’s oil industry, power grid, and communication systems. Even better if Iran were to block the Strait of Hormuz or attack U.S. forces in the region, which would bring U.S. Central Command into the war and result in even more punishment for Iran. Israel’s leaders may believe that they enjoy “escalation dominance,” meaning that the more the war escalates, the worse the consequences for Iran compared to Israel. Israel raided Iraq’s nuclear program in 1981 and Syria’s in 2007. Neither Saddam Hussein nor Bashar al-Assad opted to retaliate, very likely because both knew that Israel, with its air power, possessed escalation dominance. Israel’s leaders have good reason to assume that Iran’s leaders will reach the same conclusion.

What about the rockets possessed by Hezbollah and Hamas, Iran’s proxies north and south of Israel’s population centers? Israel’s leaders may believe that they are much better prepared to respond to these threats than they were in 2006, when the Israeli army struggled against Hezbollah. There is no guarantee that Hezbollah and Hamas will follow orders from Tehran to attack — they understand the punishment the reformed Israeli army would inflict. Hezbollah may now have an excellent reason to exercise caution. Should the Assad regime in Damascus collapse, Hezbollah would likely lose its most important protector and could soon find itself cut off and surrounded by enemies. It would thus be a particularly bad time for Hezbollah to invite an Israeli ground assault into southern Lebanon.

4. Managing the endgame

An Israeli raid on Iran’s nuclear complex would probably not lead to the permanent collapse of the program. Iran could dig out the entrances to the Fordow site and establish new covert research and production facilities elsewhere, perhaps in bunkers dug under residential areas. Israel inflicted a major setback on Iraq’s program when it destroyed the unfinished Osirak reactor in 1981. Even so, Saddam Hussein covertly restarted the program. Israel should expect the same persistence from Iran.

So is there any favorable end-state for Israel? Israeli leaders may envision a long term war of attrition against Iran’s program, hoping to slow its progress to a crawl while waiting for regime change in Tehran. Through sporadic follow-up strikes against nuclear targets, Israel would attempt to demoralize the industry’s workforce, disrupt its operations, and greatly increase the costs of the program. Israeli leaders might hope that their attrition tactics, delivered through occasional air strikes, would bog down the nuclear program while international sanctions weaken the civilian economy and reduce political support for the regime. The stable and favorable outcome for Israel would be either Tehran’s abandonment of its nuclear program or an internal rebellion against the regime. Israel would be counting more on hope rather than a convincing set of actions to achieve these outcomes. But the imperative now for Israel is to halt the program, especially since no one else is under the same time pressure they are.

Israel should expect Tehran to mount a vigorous defense. Iran would attempt to acquire modern air defense systems from Russia or China. It would attempt to rally international support against Israeli aggression and get its international sanctions lifted and imposed on Israel instead. An Israeli assault on Iran would disrupt oil and financial markets with harmful consequences for the global economy. Israel would take the blame, with adverse political and economic consequences to follow.

But none of these consequences are likely enough to dissuade Israel from attacking. A nuclear capability is a red line that Israel has twice prevented its opponents from crossing. Iran won’t get across the line either. Just as happened in 1981 and 2007, Israel’s leaders have good reasons to conclude that its possession of escalation dominance will minimize the worst concerns about retaliation. Perhaps most importantly, Israel is under the greatest time pressure, which is why it will have to go it alone and start what will be a long and nerve-wracking war.

The Coming Attack on Iran | The Weekly Standard.

When an irresistible force meets an immovable object, something’s gotta give.

The United States and Iran have been on a collision course since the Iranian revolution in 1979, when elements of the newly proclaimed Islamic Republic took U.S. diplomats and Tehran embassy personnel hostage. U.S. relations with Iran have been bad ever since. The focus in recent years has been the Iranian program to develop a nuclear weapon, but the backdrop is Iran as a growing regional threat, not only to Israel and to U.S. and allied interests in the Persian Gulf region, but also to the many Sunni governments of the Gulf, which fear an increasingly powerful Shiite government in Tehran.

A Zelzal missile launched outside Qom, Iran, June 2011

Meanwhile, Iran props up the Assad dictatorship in Syria, meddles in Lebanon through the Hezbollah militia, supports the radical Hamas regime in Gaza, and seeks to expand its divisive clout in neighboring Iraq, a task made easier by the decision of the Obama administration to end the deployment of U.S. combat forces there. The picture that emerges is of an Iran that is not so much a problem but the problem of the broader Middle East, eclipsing even the Israel-Palestinian conflict.

The Iranian nuclear program is now variously estimated to be less than a year to three years away from a bomb, notwithstanding the U.N. Security Council-approved sanctions on Tehran, as well as tougher sanctions the United States and Europe have imposed. Iran also has a robust missile program underway. The Israeli vice prime minister recently disclosed that Tehran is working on a missile with a range of 6,200 miles, enough to reach the United States. Israel and other potential Middle East targets are already within range of Iranian missiles, as is Europe: The potential threat from Iran has served as a mainstay in the case for the deployment of a missile defense system in Europe, as well as Israel’s system. Add a murky plot disclosed last year to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to the United States by blowing up a Georgetown restaurant—a terrorist attack on American soil that would have killed many Americans—and you have a serious problem that is quickly growing worse.

What will the United States do in response? The situation in which the United States finds itself vis-à-vis Iran has acquired a logic of its own. And that logic points to U.S. military action against Iran within the next 12 months. It’s not that attacking Iran is a good option; it’s that all the other options are worse. Policymakers and commentators who think we will have other, pacific approaches are in my view mistaken. The only real hope is that the current much-expanded debate in the United States, Israel, and Europe over a military move against Iran—a marked change from just a few months ago, when even well-informed observers mostly dismissed the idea of a U.S. attack—will finally succeed in deterring Iran from pursuing its nuclear weapons program. The chances are slim.

Iranian persistence in pursuit of a nuclear weapon is the heart of the problem. Senior Obama administration officials arrived in 2009 thinking that a major part of the Iran problem was the lack of diplomacy in the George W. Bush administration. Obama’s predecessor steadfastly rejected any opening toward Iran in the absence of evidence that Tehran was abandoning its nuclear weapons ambitions and complying with its obligations under U.N. Security Council resolutions. The Obama administration accordingly reached out to Iran. The implicit terms of the bargain were that, in exchange for compliance, Iran could look forward to an end to its international isolation and the milder sanctions then in place, renewal of diplomatic relations with the United States, and an opportunity for integration into the world economy and the investment (particularly for development of its oil resources) such a reopening would bring.

The assumptions underlying this policy change present a view of the world and an attendant approach to policymaking that characterize the Obama administration. The first element is the conviction that U.S. hostility can produce only hostility in return. Whatever may have justified American hostility in the first place, the result over time could only be a vicious circle. As George Mason’s Colin Dueck has noted, a consistent theme of Obama’s foreign policy has been accommodation—a gesture on the part of the United States toward its erstwhile adversaries in the hope of reciprocation and the emergence of a way out of the snare of mutual hostility.

A second element is the view of Iran as a rational actor. Put aside talk of “rogue states,” let alone the old “axis of evil”: The Iranian government would respond, in this view, to incentives positive and negative—carrots and sticks. If the cost of continuing its nuclear program is elevated and promises to keep mounting the longer Iran persists, and if the benefit from abandoning the program would be considerable in terms of reintegration into the world economy, one could reasonably expect Iran to give up its program.

The Obama administration’s early overture to Iran was worth a try (though not to the point of turning its back on the Iranian “Green Revolution” movement that took to the streets following fraudulent elections in summer 2009). But Iran has not budged in the face of tightening sanctions, nor does it appear to value reentry into the world community as highly as the security gains it believes a nuclear weapon would provide. This does not necessarily make Iran “irrational”; it may simply mean that Iran’s rulers calculate costs and benefits differently from Americans and Europeans.

In this context, the Western rumors of war in early 2012 could be construed in part as the last peaceable attempt to persuade Iran to change course. It appears to be failing. The Iranians want a nuke and appear to be pressing ahead as fast as they can.

The United States and its allies have said repeatedly that an Iranian nuclear weapon is “unacceptable.” One must ask: Why? There are two responses to this question. The first is that the Iranian regime is so dangerous, internally unstable, and ideologically inflamed that it might use a nuclear weapon if it had one, specifically against Israel. If not a missile, then a suitcase. If not directly, then indirectly through surrogates closer at hand.

What, then, about Israel’s undeclared but widely acknowledged nuclear arsenal, which would surely be unleashed in reprisal? Perhaps there are those in Iran who would be prepared to pay such a price for the destruction of the Jewish state. Surely the rhetoric of the Holocaust-denying Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, calling for the annihilation of Israel is not reassuring. Iran might well be deterred from using a nuclear weapon against Israel by the prospect of nuclear retaliation. But what are the chances that it won’t be? Is one chance in five over the next 20 years an acceptable risk? Precise calculation of such a risk is impossible. Yet it may be worthwhile, even at considerable cost, to attempt to reduce the likelihood of a low-probability, high-impact event to zero at least for some period of time. This view is understandably more prevalent in Israel than among Americans—though if it’s a suitcase that concerns you, Tel Aviv is not the only place about which you might be concerned.

A more common worry among American analysts is the possibility that if Iran gets the bomb, Saudi Arabia will want one as a deterrent. Perhaps Iran’s neighbor Turkey will as well. From there, who knows? The fear is that Iran is the tipping point to a so-called polynuclear Middle East, which might easily extend into Central Asia. The stability of such a situation is highly open to question. If one state in the region goes on nuclear alert, all the other states will follow suit (as, likely, would the United States, Russia, and China). The regional nuclear arsenals in question will likely not be large, and each state will feel a certain “use ’em or lose ’em” pressure in fear of being attacked first. The chance of such fears leading to catastrophe—well, once again, it is incalculable, but it is not zero. Deterrence theory, even on the assumption that all of the states involved seek only to deter the others from attack, is not at all reassuring in such a scenario.

A polynuclear Middle East would be a potential second-order effect of an Iranian bomb. One could address it by trying to dissuade other states in the region from going nuclear through the extension of security guarantees. How credible they would be is another question. Would Saudi Arabia feel reassured under an American nuclear umbrella? A Pakistani nuclear umbrella? Would such an exercise in “extended deterrence” make sense to Americans?

Another undesirable second-order effect would be a nuclear-armed Iran’s throwing its weight around regionally. The Iranian government’s pernicious influence already extends well beyond its own people. An Iran that feels more secure, indeed immune from attack, would likely increase its demands on its neighbors. During the Cold War, the term “Finlandization” described a nominally independent state’s devolution under pressure to a near-satrapy of the Soviet Union. How well would the Gulf states bear up under pressure from a nuclear-armed Iran? In 2010, certainly in response to the Iranian threat, the United States began to double the size of its naval base in tiny Bahrain, home to the 5th Fleet. How welcome a presence will the United States be if Iran has the bomb and “uses” it to coerce other states in the region?

The United States (and Israel) could still, presumably, try to deter Iran both from the actual use of a nuclear weapon and from its use as an instrument of coercive diplomacy. Articles and study groups have explored the possibility of living with a nuclear Iran. Unfortunately, they generally flow from the premise that the United States must seem strong and resolute to Iran. Exactly how strong and resolute the United States and its allies will seem once Iran, in defiance of the top foreign policy priority of the United States and its allies, has tested a nuclear weapon is a question that answers itself. There is already a broad perception in the Middle East, shared by Israel and its Sunni neighbors—whose intelligence services and senior officials seem to get along rather well on matters in their mutual interest—that U.S. influence in the region is declining. They suspect this is a matter of deliberate U.S. policy. Of course, not only in the Middle East now but also in other places at other times, U.S. influence has appeared to many to be on the wane until the United States has acted emphatically to demonstrate otherwise. The United States could do so now by preventing Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon. But without question, Iran’s acquisition of a nuclear weapon would mark the effective end of U.S. credibility in the region (at least until the United States did something even more dramatic to reassert it).

As recently as a year ago, Israelis usually framed their concern about a nuclear Iran in terms of these two second-order effects: a neighborhood full of nukes and an emboldened Iran. It seemed to me then that there was a sense of hesitation on their part, almost embarrassment, about bringing up what was really foremost in their minds, which is the existential threat they believe an Iranian nuclear weapon poses to them. This was problematic, as I’m not sure a war over second-order effects is worth risking if the immediate danger of an Iranian nuclear weapon isn’t self-evident.

By now, however, Israelis have found the—is it courage? forthrightness?—to speak up about the existential danger they personally perceive. I don’t think an Iranian nuclear weapon poses an existential danger to the United States or most of the rest of our allies. Iran is not Nazi Germany. But one can hardly fault Israelis for taking Iran personally. And the fact that an Iranian nuclear weapon is more dangerous to Israel than to any other American ally does not mean Iran is or should be exclusively an Israeli problem. Iran, at this moment, may in fact be relatively weak, not strong, as the former head of Mossad, Efraim Halevy, contends. If the Iran-backed Assad regime in Syria collapses, it will be a serious blow to Iran’s position. But an Iranian nuclear weapon would represent a substantial increase in the power of a dangerous regime. That’s a matter the United States and its allies around the world cannot ignore and must not acquiesce in.

If you say something is unacceptable, you are either bluffing or are obliged to do what you can to stop it. Increasingly tight sanctions have not worked, nor blandishments. Western capitals have come round to interpreting Iranian offers to talk further on the subject, as Iran recently proposed, as playing for time while the weapons program enters a decisive stage. In fact, the recent experience of India and Pakistan going nuclear may suggest to Tehran that the quickest way out from under sanctions is nothing other than a nuclear test: Iran will be more powerful, and the world will have to adjust. What happens, then, when sanctions have not worked as time is running out?

Both the United States and Israel believe they have viable military options against Iran. Neither promises to be capable of destroying the Iranian nuclear program altogether. Degrading the program substantially, however, and delaying it potentially for years are within the realm of practical achievability. Obviously, the United States has vastly more military resources it could bring to bear on the task than does Israel. But Israel needs nothing material from the United States in order to attack Iran, nor does it need the permission of the United States.

Of course, the United States may be able to punish Israel for striking Iran against the wishes of the United States. We could, potentially, reduce military assistance to Israel, deny access to parts for weapons systems, scale back military and intelligence cooperation, or cease to protect Israel at the United Nations Security Council as the inevitable resolution condemning the attack comes forward. We could also, in advance, threaten Israel with any and all of these and other consequences. It would be surprising if the United States were not currently engaged in a policy of dual containment or “pivotal deterrence”: We promise Israel that we will dissuade Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon while threatening Israel with abandonment if it acts on its own. Israel would have to be prepared to pay a price for taking military action, and it might be high.

But if Israel perceives a truly existential threat from the Iranian nuclear program, as it appears it does, then Israel may be willing to pay a very high price indeed and at the moment of truth, tell the United States as much. (Our subject here is not U.S. domestic politics, so we will bracket and set aside the question of the viability of the U.S. making good on its threat to punish Israel.) At some point—perhaps sooner, but at the latest as Israel’s F-16s are, so to speak, revving on the tarmac—the United States must confront a very basic question: If someone is going to strike Iran, who should that be?

Sheerly from the point of view of military effectiveness, the answer must involve the United States. The Israelis know this. Our allies know this. We know it. And they know that we know, etc. Iran, once struck, will certainly want to respond. But even if the strike comes solely from Israel, will Iran confine its response to action against Israel? If not, then we are likely to find at a minimum our vital interests placed at risk. We would have to respond militarily to any attempt to, for example, shut down the Strait of Hormuz, to say nothing of an attack on a U.S. warship.

These considerations militate in favor of a U.S. decision to attack Iran should sanctions fail to dissuade the Iranians from further pursuit of a nuclear weapon. So does the fact that we already seem to have edged into a state of covert bellicosity with the Iranian government: dead scientists, mysterious explosions, Stuxnet. So does the regrettable fact that the threat of military force has entered our diplomacy only very recently; this has permitted the Iranians to dismiss the credibility of a military option, paradoxically increasing the likelihood of its necessity if we mean what we say when we say “unacceptable.”

Of course Israel would rather see the United States attack Iran than do so on its own, and not only for reasons of military effectiveness. But if an unattacked Iran is a nuclear-armed Iran, the latter would amount to a crippling failure of U.S. policy (always an option, I suppose). If an attack takes place and the United States is uninvolved, we are nevertheless unlikely to avoid involvement in the ensuing conflict. Our collision with Iran is imminent.

Tod Lindberg, a research fellow at the Hoover Institution and editor of Policy Review, is a contributing editor to The Weekly Standard.

Iran cuts off Internet access | Politics, Policy, and Technology – CNET News.

Iran has cut off access to the Internet, leaving millions of people without access to e-mail and social networks.

An individual inside the country confirmed this morning that Gmail, Hotmail, and Yahoo email are no longer available. Ditto for Facebook. So far, the government has not made any announcement about the service interruption.

But cyber-sophisticated Iranians are still able to circumvent the government by using proxy servers over VPN connections.

“The interesting thing is that when asked, they deny the fact that all these services are all blocked,” an Iranian contacted by CNET said. This individual asked to remain unidentified.

However, the Iranian noted that the regime has cut off the Internet during protests and that the buzz on the streets is that anti-government protests are planned for Saturday. February 11 marks the anniversary of Iran’s 1979 Islamic revolution.

Last month the country’s information minister told the Islamic Republic News Agency that a firewalled national Internet would soon become operational. There was no word on when the government might plan to throw the switch on what essentially would be a vast “intranet,” but it could happen any day. And that prospect has cyber activists in Iran concerned. It would give the government a hand up in its cyber cat-and-mouse battle with opponents.

Right now, if Iran now blocks proxy servers and VPN connections for more than a few days, companies with branches or headquarters in the country are cut off from communicating with fellow employees around the world other than by telephone. That forces the government to open the spigot for everyone. Once the new network goes into effect, ordinary Iranians would wake up to a more censored Internet.

“I don’t know the the infrastructure that they will use but I don’t think we have a way out of that one,” said the Iranian person. “We are getting closer and closer to North Korea.”

15,000 elite Iranian special-ops ‘head’ to Syria — RT.

AFP Photo / Fars News / Str

The regime of Bashar al-Assad in Syria is expecting up to 15,000 Iranian troops to help maintain order in the country’s provinces, a Chinese newspaper reports. Iran has yet to confirm or deny the news.

According to the central Chinese daily Renmin Ribao, the Iranian special task troops are due to be deployed in Syria’s key provinces.

The Syrian opposition announced earlier that commander of Iran’s elite Quds Force, Qassem Suleimani, advises the Syrian authorities on quashing the country’s opposition movement, the Telegraph newspaper reports.

According to the Israeli daily Haaretz, the Quds Force includes 15,000 elite soldiers, who operated in Iraq and other wars on foreign soil. The Quds is reportedly in charge of training and funding Hezbollah.

The number of advisers and troops from the Quds in Syria could reach up to high hundreds or low thousands, the Telegraph reports. The newspaper said that they have set up at least one military base near the capital Damascus.

Official Tehran has neither confirmed nor refuted the news of its military participation in Syria. However, according to the head of the country’s state news agency Mehr, it is not in Iran’s plans to send any military contingent to the country.

“As far as I know there is not and will not be any program to dispatch Iranian military troops to Syria,” Reza Moghadasi told in his interview to Voice of Russia radio station.

Seyed Mohammad Marandi from the University of Tehran, speaking to RT regarding the troops, dismissed the news as “basically Western propaganda” and attributed the claims to erroneous information received by the Chinese media.

“Iran has no troops in the country. Iran has never had troops involved in the problems within Syria.”

“Someone in the Chinese media has been receiving information that is completely false,” said Marandi.

He went on to say that the Iranian government supports Assad al-Bashar’s regime, but at the same time emphasized the fact that foreign intervention goes against Iranian policy.

“Iran’s position is based on a moral principal and that is the non-interference of hegemonic powers and the non-interference of neighboring countries in Syrian affairs,” he concluded.

Israeli website debka.com announced earlier that the UK and Qatari forces are involved with the conflict in Syria, directing tactics of the opposition forces in the bloody battle for Homs. According to the website, the presence of the foreign troops topped the agenda of talks Russia’s foreign intelligence chief Fradkov and Foreign Minister Lavrov held with Assad’s officials on Tuesday.

Syrian tanks and troops reportedly massed outside Homs on Friday. A large offensive is expected to hit the city and its neighborhood in the nearest future.

Up to 110 people have reportedly been killed in Homs on Thursday. As of yet, it is impossible to verify the number of casualties.

Konstantin Kosachev, the deputy chairman of the State Duma Foreign Affairs Committee commented that US intervention in Damascus was a precursor to regime change in Iran. He said that after the Syrian government is “forcefully removed” he expected “something similar will start happening in Iran.”

“This is not about democracy in Syria. This is not about any internal developments in this country. This is about Syrian foreign policy because Syria is considered and is, in reality, one of the closest allies of certain countries in the region.” said Kosachev.

He underlined the West’s ulterior motives in supporting a regime change in Syria and the removal of President Bashar al- Assad.

“This is a global game; this is about geo-political and geo-economic interests and unfortunately countries like Syria are being held hostage for the geo-political and geo-economic interests of Western countries.”

Syria says suicide bo mbers kill 28 in attacks on security HQs in Aleppo – The Washington Post.

By Associated Press, Updated: Friday, February 10, 7:27 PM

ALEPPO, Syria — Two suicide car bombers struck Syrian security compounds in Aleppo on Friday, killing 28 people, Syrian officials said, bringing significant violence for the first time to a major city that has largely stood by President Bashar Assad in the 11-month-old uprising against his rule.

State media touted the blasts as proof that the regime faces a campaign by terrorists, not a popular uprising against Assad’s rule. The opposition, in turn, accused the regime of trying to smear its movement as government forces try to crush rebels in one of their main strongholds, Homs.

The military, meanwhile, stepped up its siege of Homs that has reportedly killed hundreds over the past week. Soldiers who have been bombarding the central city made their first ground move, storming into one of the most restive neighborhoods.

At the same time, troops and security forces opened fire on anti-regime protesters who streamed out of mosques after Friday prayers nationwide. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said at least 27 civilians were killed.

The morning blasts in the northern city of Aleppo, Syria’s most populous, ripped apart the facades of the local headquarters of the Military Intelligence Directorate and a barracks of the Security Preservation forces in another part of the city.

At the Directorate, windows were shattered and a large crater was torn into the pavement outside the entrance. A weeping correspondent on state-run TV showed graphic footage of at least five corpses, collected in sacks and under blankets by the side of the road.

At both sites, suicide bombers in explosives-packed vehicles tried to smash into the entrances, security officials said. At the barracks, the Security Preservation forces commander Brig. Firas Abbas told an Associated Press reporter on a government-guided visit to the scene that the vehicle made it through one roadblock before detonating near the gates.

State television cited the Health Ministry as saying 28 people were killed in the two blasts and 235 wounded, including civilians and military personnel. It didn’t give a breakdown of the individual casualty toll for each blast.

State TV blamed “terrorists.” Anti-Assad activists accused the regime of setting off Friday’s blasts to discredit the opposition and avert protests that had been planned in the city on Friday.

Capt. Ammar al-Wawi of the Free Syrian Army, a rebel group that wants to bring down the regime by force, denied involvement. He said fighters from his group had a short gunbattle with troops several hundred yards (meters) from the Directorate about an hour before the explosion but they did not carry out the bombings.

“This explosion is the work of the regime to divert world attention from the crimes it is committing against the people of Homs,” he said.

The blasts were the fourth such dramatic suicide attack since late December. All occurred on Friday mornings against various security headquarters and prompted the same exchange of accusations. The earlier attacks, in the capital Damascus, killed dozens of security forces and civilians, according to Syrian officials. Nobody has claimed responsibility for any of the attacks.

Friday’s bombings were the first significant violence in Aleppo, a city of some 2 million people that is home to a prosperous business community and merchant classes whose continued backing for Assad has been crucial in bolstering his regime.

The city has seen only occasional protests. Assad’s opponents have had little success in galvanizing support there, in part because business leaders have long traded political freedoms for economic privileges. Also, the city has a large population of Kurds, who have mostly stayed on the sidelines of the uprising since Assad’s regime began giving them long-denied citizenship as a gesture to win support.

Still, hours after the explosions, hundreds of protesters marched in several Aleppo neighborhoods after Friday prayers, part of nationwide demonstrations labeled “Friday of ‘Russia is killing our children’” — denouncing Russia’s veto last weekend of a U.N. attempt to condemn Syria’s crackdown.

Regime forces opened fire on the Aleppo protesters, killing at least seven, according to the Observatory. Another activist group, the Local Coordination Committee put the Aleppo toll at 12 and said 22 others had been killed nationwide. The figures could not be independently confirmed, in part due to restrictions the Syrian government has put on journalists.

Assad’s crackdown has killed well over 5,400 people since the uprising began in March, according to U.N. estimates.

The regime’s crackdown on dissent has left it almost completely isolated internationally — except for key support from Russia and China, which delivered a double veto last Saturday to block a U.N. resolution calling on him to leave power.

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov signaled Friday that Moscow will again use its veto power at the United Nations to block any resolution aimed at ousting Assad.

“If our foreign partners don’t understand that, we will have to use strong means again and again to call them back to reality,” he was quoted as saying by the ITAR-Tass news agency.

Moscow’s stance is motivated in part by its strategic and defense ties, including weapons sales, with Syria. Russia also rejects what it sees as a world order dominated by the U.S. Last month, Russia reportedly signed a $550 million deal to sell combat jets to Syria.

Across Syria on Friday, thousands held protests denouncing the Russian position, from the northwestern province of Idlib, to the suburbs of Damascus, the Mediterranean coastal city of Latakia and the eastern town of Deir al-Zour.

A week ago, security forces launched a major assault on the central city of Homs after unconfirmed reports that army defectors and other armed opponents of Assad were setting up their own checkpoints and taking control of the most restive neighborhoods.

Days of bombardment of the neighborhoods with artillery, heavy machine guns and mortars continued on Friday, as troops on the ground backed by tanks for the first time pushed into one of the districts, Inshaat, activists said.

The Observatory said troops were going house to house detaining people. Inshaat is next to Baba Amr, a neighborhood that has been under rebel control for months.

“They are punishing the residents,” said the Observatory’s chief Rami Abdul-Rahman, who added that food supplies were dwindling in the area.

Mohammed Saleh, a Syria-based activist, said the regime appears to be trying to take over rebel-held areas in Homs and Idlib before Feb. 17, when Assad’s ruling Baath party is scheduled to hold its first general conference since 2005.

The conference is expected to move on reforms that Assad has promised in a bid to calm the uprising. During the conference, Baath party leaders are expected to call for national dialogue and announce they will open the way for other political parties to play a bigger role in Syria’s politics.

The opposition has rejected such promises as insincere and said it will not accept anything less than Assad’s departure.

Breaking.Twin explosions hit Syria’s Aleppo leaves 30 dead, 195 wounded.

Twin explosions rocked security installations in the Syria city of Aleppo, Syrian TV reported on Friday leaving many people dead and wounded on the scene.

According to press reports the blasts targeted the regime’s security forces. The Syrian news agency Sana reported that “terrorist attacks” hit a building of the military intelligence and a police brigade headquarters. Unofficial reports spoke about 30 dead and 195 wounded . According to reports, among the casualties are civilians and military personnel.

The background of the recent explosions is unclear. In the past similar cases, the regime accused “terrorists” of being behind the blasts. Opponents of President Bashar al-Assad claim the regime is responsible for the attacks. Some sources said residents have witnessed “suspicious behavior” ahead of one of the blasts. They added that government troops after the detonations fired several shots in order to give the impression that there had been a skirmish between them and the terrorists.

The northern Syrian city of Aleppo is considered the commercial center of the country. So far, it remained relatively quiet.

Meanwhile, more than 135 civilians were killed Thursday by the regime forces, most of them in the city of Homs. Syrian troops pounded Homs on Thursday, the sixth day of a massive assault intended to bend the rebellious city. From Saturday to Wednesday evening, more than 400 civilians were killed, according to opposition sources. In addition, seven members of the security forces were killed and 12 wounded in an ambush by deserters on the road between Deraa (south) and Damascus.

Elsewhere, troops have been conducting operations in other towns such as in Deir ez-Zor, Zabadani, Madaya (40 kilometers north of Damascus) and Idleb (northwest).

According to opposition activists, several hundred people were killed in the past week in Homs, a city located in the center of the country. The Syrian authorities claim security forces are fighting “armed terrorist groups” in the city.

Moreover, Germany has ordered the expulsion of four Syrian diplomats from its territory. The German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle said the four members of the Syrian embassy now have three days to leave Germany. The case is related to the Syrian regime’s activities against opposition activists who live in Germany.

The four diplomats are three men and one woman who were employed at the Syrian embassy. Westerwelle mentioned that earlier this week, two Syrian spies were detained in Germany.

At the same time, Libya has given Syria’s top envoy and embassy staff 72 hours to leave the country.

UPDATE

SANA: Syrian Ministry of Health said bodies of 30 martyrs and more than 200 injured people were admitted to the national hospital of Aleppo.

DEBKAfile, Political Analysis, Espionage, Terrorism, Security.

DEBKAfile Exclusive Report February 10, 2012, 7:29 PM (GMT+02:00)

Israel’s new Super Green Pine radar

A successful joint exercise carried out Friday, Feb. 10, demonstrated the interoperability of the US Aegis and Israel’s Arrow 4 ballistic missile defense systems and, most importantly, of their two radars, the US AN/TPY-2 X-band and Israel’s EL/M-2080 Super Green Pine, debkafile‘s military sources report.

It was a key milestone in the development of the US missile shield’s Middle East capabilities ahead of a potential war with Iran and the fourth significant preparatory step taken in the last ten days.

On the East Coast of the United States, the large-scale Bold Alligator 2012 exercise is drilling amphibian landings on a fictitious Iranian shore; in the Middle East, an American airlift this week ferried reinforcements to the Persian Gulf over Sinai; the Iranian army is in the middle of a major war game “under war conditions” opposite the Strait of Hormuz; and Israel is putting the finishing touches to its new Depth Command set up for operations behind enemy lines.

The joint US-Israel radar exercise Friday was a target-only tracking test over the Mediterranean. An attack on Israel was simulated by a Rafael Blue Sparrow 2 target missile launched from an F-15 fighter jet coming in from the east – the presumed direction of Iranian and Syrian missile strikes. The incoming missile was detected and tracked by two US AN/TPY-2 X-band stations and Israel’s Super Green Pine radar.

One of the American stations is located on Mount Keren opposite the Egyptian border in southern Israel; the other at a Turkish air base in the southeastern town of Kurecik.

US and Israeli officials said the joint test was successful but offered no further information about the order in which the three stations sighted the attacking “missile” or how they shared the data.

The successful collaboration of these systems has elevated the US missile shield to its operational phase.

debkafile‘s military and Washington sources report that the test went ahead after Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu arrived in Washington Thursday, Feb. 9 to discuss urgent international action for Syria and at the same time notified US officials that his government had withdrawn its objections to the Israel-based US x-band radar station taking part in a joint exercise against a potential Iranian or Syrian missile attack.

This notification was awaited before the test went ahead. It gave the Turkish foreign minister a handle for promoting his mission to gain Obama administration assent to his government’s initiative on Syria.

Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan is pushing for joint Turkish-Arab military intervention to be launched against Bashar Assad’s brutal crackdown under cover of a humanitarian operation. He offered to meet the Americans halfway on the radar station issue to win support for this anti-Assad intervention.

Monday, Jan. 30, debkafile disclosed that a high-ranking US official had arrived in Israel to refute the Turkish claims that the US X-band radar station at Kurecik was Turkish-operated, not aimed against Iranian missiles and committed to withholding data from Israel.

Before he left Israel, the US official put the record straight by stating: “The radar is exclusively operated by US personnel, exactly as it is here. We will control the data and fuse it with data from other radars in the region to generate the most comprehensive and effective missile defense picture.”

This assurance was effectively demonstrated by the joint US-Israel detection and tracking test carried out Friday.

Israel Likely to Bomb Iran This Year: Political Analyst – Business News – CNBC.

Israel will bomb Iran and it’s increasingly likely to happen this year, according to Alastair Newton, Senior Political Analyst at Nomura.

Ammar Awad / REUTERS Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu

Though observers as prominent as President Barack Obama have emphasized that Israel has no firm plans to attack Iran, Newton said the political pieces were aligning in Israel that would make it easier for its leaders to attack a country they believe is trying to build nuclear weapons. He said the markets should be watching events on the ground in Israel “very, very closely indeed.”

“I’ve long taken a view that sooner or later, if push comes to shove, Israel will bomb Iran,” said Newton. “I’m getting a little bit more concerned this year, not because of the rhetoric but because of facts on the ground.”

Newton said Israel’s political leaders were gearing up for an early general election that would likely see the incumbent, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, comfortably re-elected.

“We don’t need to have a general election in Israel until the early fall of 2013 but it clearly is looking like he’s going to make his move this year,” he said.

Newton said that would give Israel a window of opportunity ahead of the US presidential elections in November, to launch an attack.

“A lot of people who watch these things very carefully are very concerned that the hawks in Israel will be seeing that as a potential window, especially if it looks like Barack Obama, who does not have a good relationship with Netanyahu, is going to win a second term,” he said. “The risks this year are greater than at any time for a very, very long period.”

World News – Report: Saudi Arabia to buy nukes if Iran tests A-bomb.

Saudi special forces take part in a military parade in the holy city of Mecca on November 10, 2010.

By msnbc.com staff, NBC News and news services

Saudia Arabia would move quickly to acquire nuclear weapons if Iran successfully tests an atomic bomb, according to a report.

Citing an unidentified Saudi Arabian source, the Times newspaper in the U.K. (which operates behind a paywall) said that the kingdom would seek to buy ready-made warheads and also begin its own program to enrich weapons-grade uranium.

The paper suggested that Pakistan was the country most likely to supply Saudi Arabia with weapons, saying Western officials were convinced there was an understanding between the countries to do so if the security situation in the Persian Gulf gets worse. Pakistan and Saudi Arabia have denied such an arrangement exists.

Iran, which follows the Shiite branch of Islam, and Sunni Saudi Arabia are major regional rivals.

The Times described its source for the story as a “senior Saudi,” but gave no other details.

Israel uses MEK terror group to kill Iran’s nuclear scientists, US officials say

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

“There is no intention currently to pursue a unilateral military nuclear program, but the dynamics will change immediately if the Iranians develop their own nuclear capability,” the source told the newspaper. “Politically, it would be completely unacceptable to have Iran with a nuclear capability and not the kingdom.”

It also cited an unnamed Western official as saying that Saudi Arabia would ask Pakistan to honor the alleged agreement “the next day” after any Iranian nuclear bomb test.

The U.S. and other nations suspect that Iran is using its civilian nuclear work as a cover for a weapons program, but Iran insists that its nuclear ambitions are strictly peaceful. The U.S. has used sanctions and diplomacy to pressure Iran on the issue, but has long refused to rule out military action saying that all options are on the table. Israel is also believed to be contemplating a military strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities.

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta now believes there’s a strong possibility that Israel will attack Iran in an attempt to thwart Tehran’s nuclear ambitions, according to U.S. officials. NBC’s Richard Engel reports.

In a statement issued Friday by the Pakistan Embassy in Saudi Arabia, Ambassador Mohammed Naeem Khan was quoted as saying that “each Pakistani considers (the) security of Saudi Arabia as his personal matter.” Naeem also said that the Saudi leadership considered Pakistan and Saudi Arabia to be one country.In January this year, Saudi Arabia’s former ambassador to the U.S., Prince Turki al-Faisal, said in an interview with The Associated Press that unless a zone free of weapons of mass destruction was created in the Mideast there would “inevitably” be a nuclear arms race, and “that’s not going to be in the favor of anybody.”

He stressed that the Gulf states were committed not to acquire WMD.

“But we’re not the only players in town. You have Turkey. You have Iraq which has a track record of wanting to go nuclear. You have Egypt. They had a very vibrant nuclear energy program from the 1960s. You have Syria. You have other players in the area that could open Pandora’s box,” the Saudi prince told The AP.

Iran envoy: We could hit US forces anywhere in world if attacked

Asked whether Saudi Arabia would maintain its commitment against acquiring WMD, Turki said: “What I suggest for Saudi Arabia and for the other Gulf states … is that we must study carefully all the options, including the option of acquiring weapons of mass destruction. We can’t simply leave it for somebody else to decide for us.”

Turki is also a former Saudi intelligence chief and remains an influential member of the Saudi royal family.

Turki said the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council should guarantee a nuclear security umbrella for Mideast countries that join a nuclear-free zone — and impose “military sanctions” against countries seen to be developing nuclear weapons.

“I think that’s a better way of going at this issue of nuclear enrichment of uranium, or preventing Iran from acquiring weapons of mass destruction,” he said in the AP interview.

In October, the U.S. claimed that agents linked to Iran’s Qud’s Force, an elite wing of the Revolutionary Guard, were involved in a plot to kill Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to the U.S., Adel Al-Jubeir. Iran said the claims were “baseless.”

‘Meddling’
Turki said in November that there was “ample and heinous” evidence that Iran was behind the alleged plot. He added that the evidence “indicates the depths of depravity and unreason to which the (Mahmoud) Ahmadinejad regime has sunk.”

Turki called the plot “the tip of the iceberg,” saying Iran was “meddling” in the affairs of many other countries, including Lebanon, Turkey, Pakistan and especially Iraq.

The Saudi government has also accused a terror cell linked to Iran of plotting to blow up its embassy in Bahrain, as well as the causeway linking the island kingdom to Saudi Arabia.

In a secret diplomatic cable made public by WikiLeaks, Saudi King Abdullah allegedly urged Washington to strike at Iran and “cut off the head of the snake.”

Turki dismissed the cable in November, telling reporters that Saudi Arabia supported sanctions and diplomatic pressure against Iran but not a military strike.

He said military action would only stiffen Iran’s resolve, rally support for the regime and at best delay, but not halt, the nuclear program. “Such an act I think would be foolish, and to undertake it I think would be tragic,” he said.

 

The Associated Press, NBC News and msnbc.com staff contributed to this report.

Israel or Iran – who will strike first? | Adelaide Now.

A view of Iran’s heavy water nuclear facilities, near the central city of Arak / AP

Israel believes Iran is close to completing a nuclear warhead with its name of it.

The US, which despite some differences under President Barack Obama’s watch remains an unflinching ally of Israel, believes the world has much more breathing space before Iran builds a bomb.

Strange things are happening that sometimes look more like a George Clooney political thriller than real life. Iran’s nuclear scientists go missing or are assassinated. Purported nuclear sites in Iran disappear off the map in explosions visible around Tehran.

Yet not Iran, Israel or the US seems to know anything about them.

There is a steady sense of inevitability to an Israeli strike, with The Washington Post newspaper last week quoting US Defence Secretary Leon Panetta as saying he believes there is a “strong likelihood” Israel will go to war with Iran as early as April.

If Israel does launch strikes, it would presumably attempt to contain the war to a short series of intense raids using the 500 bunker-busting bombs Mr Obama secretly sold it in 2009.

It is hard to imagine Israel taking unilateral action on its main regional enemy against the wishes of the US, but the sale of the bunker-busters – which are designed to penetrate 5m-thick concrete – suggest the Obama administration has sympathy for Israel striking first to defend itself.

The US has a “very good estimate” of when Iran might produce a weapon, Mr Obama said this week.

“We are prepared to exercise these options should they arise,” he said during an interview with NBC.

In recent weeks, hectares of US newsprint have been dedicated to this issue of Israel going to war against Iran.

The question only seems to be if it goes with the blessing of the US, or without it. Delegations reportedly are moving back and forth between Washington and Tel Aviv, arguing the points.

Reports typically depict Israel as demanding that the US politically support its unilateral action, while the US urges Israel to keep its powder dry because there is no imminent nuclear threat from Iran.

The Republican presidential election campaign is also becoming a staging ground for support for Israel.

THIS week presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich outlined a scenario designed to terrify voters into supporting him as a much stronger pro-Israel ally than Mr Obama.

“You think about an Iranian nuclear weapon,” Mr Gingrich said. “You think about the dangers to Cleveland or to Columbus or to Cincinnati or to New York. Remember what it felt like on 9/11 when 3000 Americans were killed.

“Now imagine an attack where you add two zeros. And it’s 300,000 dead. Maybe half a million wounded.

“This is a real danger. This is not science fiction. That’s why I think it’s very important we have the strongest possible national security.”

Iran has been accused of attempting to stage terror plots in the US, notably a foiled alleged plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador by blowing up a Washington restaurant. And there is a long-standing assumption that Iran would happily lay waste an American or Israeli city with a nuclear bomb.

Iran has denied it is trying to blow up diplomats, and insists it is developing nuclear technology for peaceful purposes.

Late in January, US intelligence chiefs gave testimony to the Senate Intelligence Committee on where they believed the Iranians were headed.

The director of National Intelligence, James Clapper, said he thought Iran was willing to stage limited terror attacks but said he did believe Iran had yet decided if it would turn its nuclear program to menacing purposes.

The CIA director David Petraeus appeared to take a different position, saying Iran already had more than enough enriched uranium to pursue peaceful needs.

Reports out of Israel this week had Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu quoting to his cabinet the words of Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who recently said Israel was “a cancerous tumour that must be cut off”.

International sanctions do not appear to be dimming Iran’s aggression to Israel, which refuses to rule out attacking Iran.

The consequences of a unilateral Israeli strike on Iran are almost unreadable.

There seems little question Israel would prevail in a pre-emptive series of strikes, which would set back Iran’s nuclear ambitions at least 24 months.

Some believe strikes would provoke Iran’s Lebanon-based little brother, Hezbollah, to strike at neighbouring Israel.

Others argue that any plans by Israel to hit Iran must simultaneously involve it taking out Hezbollah’s sizeable missile array.

That would mean Israel was singlehandedly fighting a war on two fronts, and there are doubts if it has the resources.

WHILE most Arab states have little affection for Iran, they will react angrily if Lebanese citizens become victims of Israeli strikes.

Gershon Baskin, co-chairman of the Israel Palestine Centre for Research and Information, writing in the Jerusalem Post this week, said he believed plans to strike Iran were in advanced stages of planning.

He suggested there was “no chance” the US would join Israel, which meant Europe would stay out of it as well.

He outlined a scenario of Washington expressing “concern” about Israel’s unilateral actions, but secretly approving.

Widespread chatter that an Israel strike would lead to terror groups targeting Israel and its silent partner, the US, seems flawed.

They already are targets.

With China and Russia this                   week vetoing a             UN Security Council resolution that called for regime change in Syria, the situation in that country drags on murderously.

It is inevitable, however, that the oppressed Sunni majority will claim power at some point.

Syrian ruler Bashar al-Assad counts on his friendship with Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who reportedly has placed one of his senior military leaders in Mr Assad’s war room.

It is argued, by some, a strike against Iran by Israel would give Syrians the impetus to push hard against Mr Assad and topple him.

That also would benefit Israel, because a new Sunni regime in Syria would stop the flow of weapons from Shi’ite-controlled Iran to Hezbollah fighters in Lebanon.

Mr Baskin also claims that to offer some pacification for its pre-emptive aggression, Washington could, after strikes, pressure Israel to make a positive international statement on Palestine.

That could be offering it full statehood and joining other world players in the nuclear non-proliferation treaty from which it has so far has stayed away.

If the commentators and urgers are right, Israel will hit Iran in the northern spring.