WarSclerotic

DEBKA.

Vladimir Putin

“Russia is prepared to use military power to defend Iran and Syria. An attack on Syria or Iran is an indirect attack on Russia.”
This assertion by Col.-Gen. Leonid Ivashov, a former member of Russia’s Joint Chiefs of Staff, in an interview on Russia Today TV on Feb. 1, fairly represented the Kremlin line on the conflict in Syria and its opposition to Western policies for Iran’s nuclear weapon program.
In taking a hard line on the two most combustible issues of the day, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin seeks much more than to fan Cold War fires with nationalist hot air, for the sake of winning his third term as president on March 4; he is laying the foundations of a comprehensive policy of confrontation with the United States to restore Russia’s superpower status. To this end, he is gladly extending a helping hand to any Middle East or Muslim factor willing to defy America.
This ambition transcends the Russian historic drive for warm water ports. Some Western and Israeli analysts assert that all Moscow wants is to maintain its presence in Syria’s Mediterranean ports of Tartus and Latakia and its lucrative arms market in Damascus. They argue that If Washington allows this – and refrains from sidelining Moscow as it did over the anti-Qaddafi operation in Libya – US and Russian interests in Iran would overlap and so prepare the way for Syrian President Bashar Assad’s fall.
This proposition was put forward by former Israeli Mossad chief and national security adviser Efraim Halevy, in the The New York Times of February 8.
But this thesis is not borne out in the information leaking out of the long conversation Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Russian SVR intelligence chief Mikhail Fradkov held in Damascus with the Syrian president Tuesday, Feb. 7, say DEBKA-Net-Weekly’s intelligence and Moscow sources.
According to those sources, Russia’s support for Assad rule is guided by a quite different set of motives. Those motives impelled Russia to join China in vetoing the Security Council resolution demanding that the Syrian ruler step down and halt his brutal crackdown.
Moscow sees a US-Islamist world conspiracy

1. One such motive is the conviction that the US is conspiring with Islamist movements to bring them to power in Middle East, Persian Gulf and Central Asian countries by helping them displace the incumbent regimes. This belief dominates the thinking in top political, military and intelligence leadership circles in Moscow.
They regard this putative conspiracy as a direct threat to Russia’s national security given the country’s demography.
Muslim minorities make up 20 percent of the Russian population. Muslim Adyghe, Balkars, Chechens, Circassians, Ingush, Kabardin, Karachay and numerous Dagestani peoples are the majority in the North Caucasus and the regions between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea. The Tatar and Bashkir peoples inhabiting the central Volga Basin are also predominantly Muslim.
The Russian fear of Muslim uprisings runs deep, harking back even before the Chechen revolt to the days of the Cold War.
Contemporary heads of the Kremlin believe that Washington has not fundamentally changed in the 33 years since a former Democratic administration headed by President Jimmy Carter was persuaded by National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski to let the Khomeinist Shiite revolution overthrow the Shah of Iran.
Carter and Brzezinski are also accused to this day of counting the moments to the Russian Communist Empire’s breakup based on the high Muslim birthrate which they predicted would make 70 percent of the Red Army Muslim – a prediction that was never fulfilled.
Therefore, an interview with Brzezinski on NBC News’ Morning Joe on Tuesday, Feb. 7 was enough to raise hackles in Moscow, especially when he downplayed Russian fears as “exaggerated” because Western powers were unlikely to antagonize China and Russia by meddling in their internal conflicts. But the former security adviser admitted that this fear might be “understandable” given past military interventions in Libya and former Yugoslavia.
Assad is Moscow’s favorite to win the civil war

2. Russian officials see Syria sliding into civil war. After weighing the domestic balance of power, they are betting on Assad as favorite to win the contest.
3. Moscow sees any Western-Arab intervention for toppling Assad as the prelude to an assault on the ayatollahs’ regime in Tehran.
While Russia’s strategic assets in Syria are often mentioned, its heavy stake in Iran, mostly in Tehran’s nuclear industry and program, receives much less prominence in the West. Russia designed and built Iran’s first nuclear reactor at Bushehr, is responsible for its maintenance and is Tehran’s largest supplier of nuclear fuel rods.
Western and Israeli campaigns against Iran’s nuclear program are seen in Moscow as calculated to spoil Arab and Muslim markets for Russian nuclear technology sales and investment.
4. The Russians dismiss Western arguments for urging Assad’s removal as specious.
Former Russian Prime Minister and KGB head Yevgeny Primakov, a prominent Middle East expert and diplomatic veteran, explained the Russian veto to the Saudi newspaper Asharq al-Awsat in an interview on Wednesday, Feb. 8: One reason, he said, was because the West-backed Arab League draft was one-sided, assigning all the blame for the crisis on the Assad government.
Moscow will give no quarter on Syria

“We [Russia] find that all the accusations are directed against the government troops and Assad personally, whilst his departure was framed as being inevitable.”
Primakov then referred to the Libyan operation: “They [the West] assured us that this [Security Council] resolution aimed at nothing more than to provide air cover to prevent Qaddafi using his air force against civilians. They deceived us, for this resolution aimed primarily to overthrow him.”
Turning back to Syria, the Russian diplomat asked: “If there are Western officials who are saying it is necessary that Assad leaves power, then I would ask them: Will this guarantee stability in Syria?”
These are the arguments put forward by Moscow for justifying their backing for Bashar Assad. And that is why the main purpose of the visit to Damascus by Sergei Lavrov and Mikhail Fradkov was to discuss ways of helping to strengthen Assad’s hand for fighting his opponents.

DEBKA.

Hillary Clinton and Ahmet Davutoglu

Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu traveled to Washington Wednesday, Feb. 8, to market Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan‘s latest Syria initiative to the Obama administration when he meets US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
The scheme aims at bypassing what he calls the “fiasco” of the Russo-Chinese defeat of the Western-Arab Security Council motion for terminating Syrian violence and Bashar Assad’s rule by embarking on an initiative with those countries “that stand by the people, not the Syrian government,” Erdogan explained to the Turkish parliament Tuesday night, Feb. 7.
DEBKA-Net-Weekly’s military and intelligence sources report exclusively that the Turkish leader hopes his plan will pit Western and Arab air and naval might against the Russian naval strength on hand for the Assad regime. It would establish a combined Turkish-Arab paramilitary monitoring force to occupy the principal flashpoint cities, declaring them “humanitarian zones” or “humanitarian cities.”
They would be placed off-limits to Syrian military and security forces and outside the regime’s jurisdiction.
Erdogan timed his initiative to steal the thunder of the Russian move in sending Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and intelligence chief Mikhail Fradkov to Damascus for talks with Syrian President Bashar Assad that day.
No regional air force is up to enforcing a no-fly zone without the US

The Turkish Prime Minister hoped to capture the lead of the Muslim-Arab front championing the beleaguered Syrian people. By showing Russia up as backing the villain of the Syrian drama, he sought to fuel Arab and Sunni Muslim mainstream resentment of Moscow.
The war-torn cities of Homs, Hama, Idlib, Zabadani, Deir al-Zour and Daraa are first in line for the project which is still a work in progress.
Our sources say Turkish military planners have not yet determined which Arab and Muslim governments will contribute to the force, or how it will gain admittance to Syria, attain control of the embattled cities and defend them against further Syrian attacks.
Erdogan claims he has commitments from Qatar, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates-UAE to jump aboard. He is now trying to bring Saudi Arabia into the operation.
To take off and operate in the Syria’s “humanitarian cities,” the force would require a substantial air umbrella for enforcing no-fly zones overhead.
The Turkish air force, though available, lacks the military and logistical technology for continuous around-the-clock surveillance with sophisticated intelligence support. The only power with the required capabilities is the United States, as NATO forces discovered last year in Libya. Without US command centers and spy satellites, NATO alone would not have been able to enforce the no-fly zone and carry out its offensive against Muammar Qaddafi’s army.
Could America get away with “leading from behind?”

US President Barack Obama therefore found himself Tuesday, Feb. 7, saddled by the Erdogan master plan with tough dilemmas. Before a decision, he has to consider four cardinal points:
1. Is he willing to circumvent the UN Security Council as Erdogan proposes and so give Moscow and Beijing powerful ammunition against America? They would maintain that in Libya the Obama administration and NATO at least tried to cover up their breaches of Security Council resolutions, whereas in Syria their interference blatantly defies and downgrades the Security Council.
2. Is the US ready to intervene militarily in Syria as it did in Libya – i.e., leading from behind – this time behind Muslim-Arab forces instead of NATO?
3. Would Turkish-Arab ground and air forces engage in battle with Syrian military forces trying to retake the cities and hit back against heavy bombardments? None of them is up to grappling with Syrian military might – less so if it is backed by Iran.
DEBKA-Net-Weekly‘s military sources add that Syria commands one of the most sophisticated and densely deployed anti-air missile forces in the world, as well as an air force fully able to take on intruding aircraft in dogfights or bomb the bases from which the no-fly zone aircraft are launched. Those bases are also within range of Iranian missiles.
Without the United States, the Erdogan initiative has nowhere to go. But if the Obama administrations goes along and agrees to lead it, major US naval strength including an US aircraft carrier might have to be called on to contend with Syrian air and missile capabilities. American warships would find themselves sharing the same water as the Russian naval carrier strike force docked in the Syrian port of Tartus.
Obama is in no hurry to plunge into a military adventure in Syria

In short, the scale of military intervention required in Syria would substantially top the NATO operation in Libya.
Leaving it to Turkish-Arab coalition carried the risk of extending the Syrian conflict beyond its borders and triggering inter-Arab and inter-Muslim warfare in other parts of the Middle East.
4. How far is Washington willing to stretch its relations with Moscow (see a separate item in this issue about Russia’s Syrian policy) in the tussle over the regime in Damascus?
What if the US backed the Erdogan scheme for a no-fly zone over Syria and Russian fighter jets and warships knocked the coalition planes out of the sky?
In consideration of these perplexities, the Obama administration was extremely cautious in its initial response to Prime Minister Erdogan’s new initiative. Tuesday, White House spokesman Jay Carney stated that the US is not considering arming opposition groups in Syria – giving him due notice that a broad US military involvement in Syria was out of the question for now.
Our sources in Washington and Ankara report that the White House was wary of receiving Davutoglu during his Washington trip. The Turkish prime minister pressed hard for a meeting, arguing that if the Arab and Muslim governments he had approached to join his coalition for Syria saw Obama receiving his foreign minister, they would view this as US support for the plan and join it.
When we wrote this, the White House has not scheduled a meeting with Davutoglu.
At the same time, the Pentagon and US Central Command have leaked reports that a preliminary review of American military capabilities has begun – just in case the president decides to call for them.

Bashar al-Assad’s Syria offers Iran a springboard into the Arab Middle East | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk.

If Iran cannot save Assad, its aim is to ensure his successor remains closely allied and does not defect to the western camp.

Bashar al-Assad, left, Syria president, greets his Iranian counterpart, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in Tehran. Photograph: Atta Kenare/AFP/Getty Images

The prospect of direct western military or “humanitarian” intervention, overt and covert, to speed regime change in Syria appears to be strengthening after last week’s UN debacle and the regime’s ensuing violent efforts to finish off its opponents. But appearances are deceptive. The foreign power most actively involved inside Syria is not the US or Britain, France or Turkey. Neither is it Russia, Saudi Arabia nor its Gulf allies. It is Iran – and it is fighting fiercely to maintain the status quo.

President Bashar al-Assad regularly conjures up the spectre of hostile foreign plots and meddling, accusing the US, in particular, of backing “terrorist” forces. Hillary Clinton was scornful last month, saying Assad was “only making excuses, blaming foreign countries [for] vast conspiracies”. Sadly, her ridicule was fully justified. For Assad’s much slaughtered and abused subjects, there is no decisive western – or other – help at hand.

While there is much loose talk about secret American and British special forces operations inside Syria, about notional Turkish-controlled havens and Nato-patrolled no-fly zones. The Saudis and Qataris are rumoured to be financing rebel forces. Maybe the Free Syrian Army will one day field squadrons of new battle tanks. But that day is a long way off.

The reality is that from Barack Obama down, nobody in the western camp, with honest diplomacy at a standstill, has a clue what to do. They know only what they cannot do – which, primarily, is not get in the middle of another Middle East war.

Not so the rulers of Iran. Closely allied with Damascus since the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s, Tehran remains Assad’s main political and diplomatic backer, cheap oil provider, and, maybe, his key nuclear weapons collaborator. According to Clinton, the British foreign secretary, William Hague, the French foreign ministry and anonymous Israeli security sources, Iran is the regime’s main arms supplier and financier. And, they say, the flow of weapons, along routes previously used to supply Iranian-funded Hezbollah in Lebanon, has continued unabated in violation of UN sanctions.

Syrian opposition spokesmen point to visits to Damascus since the uprising of General Qassem Suleimani, commander of the elite Quds Force, part of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard. The Israeli newspaper Haaretz quoted Syrian sources saying Suleimani was, in effect, acting as chief regime adviser and strategist. During his most recent visit, within the past two weeks, Suleimani “has taken up a spot in the war room, which manages army manoeuvres against opposition forces … The war room is also reportedly populated by Assad himself as well as his brother, Maher, brother-in-law Assaf Shaukat, and cousin Rami Makhlouf“.

Iranian Revolutionary Guards are said to be present in Syria in numbers ranging into the hundreds, though exact figures cannot be confirmed. They act as trainers, advisers and intelligence-gatherers to regime forces, in much the same way as Iranian agents assisted extremist Shia and Sunni groups fighting US forces during the occupation of Iraq.

A spate of kidnaps of Iranian nationals in Syria, officially described as Shia pilgrims, has been attributed to growing popular hostility to this Iranian presence. Last month, Al-Jazeera television reported claims that Iranians detained by Syrian rebel forces were soldiers operating as snipers in and around Homs.

Iran’s intimate involvement in Syrian affairs does not quite match its influence in Iraq, where the US military pullout is being followed by a startlingly rapid diplomatic drawdown – but it is getting close. Nor is it surprising. The close bilateral relationship reflects a strategic reality in which Assad’s Syria is Iran’s springboard into the Arab Middle East, its partner in the ongoing ideological and physical confrontation with Israel and the US, and its buffer against the pro-western Sunni monarchies of the Gulf. For Assad, Iran is a source of protection, security and funds.

The prospect, some say the inevitability, of Assad’s fall is thus deeply alarming to Iran. For the time being, its leadership is pulling out all the stops to help him hang on. In this struggle, Vladimir Putin’s viscerally anti-American, nationalistic Russian government has become Tehran’s useful idiot, doing its dirty work at the UN and perpetuating a diplomatic masquerade.

But Iran is playing a longer game, too – hence its recent, public support for political reform in Syria. If Assad cannot be saved, Tehran’s aim is to ensure his successor remains closely allied and does not defect to the western camp. Israel and the US want to ensure the exact opposite.

“Syria is becoming Iran’s Achilles heel,” said Efraim Halevy, a former Israeli national security adviser and Mossad chief. “Iran has poured a vast array of resources into the country. There are Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps encampments and Iranian weapons and advisers throughout Syria. And Iranian-controlled Hezbollah forces from Lebanon have joined in butchering the Syrians.”

But realpolitik calculations were also at work, Halevy said. “Iran is intent on assuring its hold over the country regardless of what happens to Assad … For Israel the crucial question is not whether he [Assad] falls but whether the Iranian presence in Syria will outlive his government. Getting Iran booted out of Syria is essential… If Assad goes, Iranian hegemony over Syria must go with him.”

In short the Syrian opposition, wittingly or not, are fighting not only Assad but the Iranians, too. For some in Israel, this presents a golden opportunity. But contemplating the possibly uncontainable ramifications, western governments, while vociferously condemning the Damascus regime and dreaming of SAS coups, prefer in practice, wisely or cravenly, to sit on their hands. Bottom-line: the price of externally enforced regime change in Syria is just too high.

Media Making Emergency Preparations To Cover War With Iran.

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Major western news outlets, including FOX, CBS, NBC and Reuters, rent rooftops, prepare emergency broadcast infrastructure, and deploy senior producers to Israel to cover war with Iran.

Israel news agencies are reporting the western media outlets are obtaining assets and gearing up infrastructure to provide live coverage of war with between Iran and Israel.

News outlets, including FOX, CBS, NBC and Reuters have started renting rooftops in Tel-Aviv and Helena to pprovide live video broadcast of a war that that those familiar with the situation say will start within the next few months.

CEO of JCS , a the television and video production contractor for the majority of foreign networks in Israel, also confirm that has firm received several calls in the last few days to build emergency means of continued broadcast communications and video production from their media centers in Tel-Aviv and Jerusalem.

Richard Silverstein points us to an article in the Hebrew newspaper Globes, translated into English below, which informs us of the latest developments on the situation.

Foreign Press Rents Tel Aviv Rooftops to Cover Iran War

Richard Silverstein
Wednesday, February 8, 2012

You remember the descriptions of the First Battle of Bull Run when all of Washington’s high society rode out in their fine carriages and horses to picnic under the shady trees and watch their Union boys send the Yankees packing?

Did they get the shock of their lives when the Rebel musket balls whizzed over their heads and the Union soldiers ran for their lives from the field? Or similarly, the Israelis in southern Israel who took lawn chairs out to watch the IDF smash Gaza to smithereens in 2009? Here’s a picture of another group of expectant, thrilled Israelis watching the action.

That’s what the foreign press corps appears to be doing now in Tel Aviv in preparation for an attack on Iran. They’re renting the right to put film crews and reporters on the city’s rooftops (Hebrew) during the upcoming war in order to cover the anticipated Iranian counterattack. That way they can get great photo ops and pictures of missiles wreaking havoc on the city. What a story! What a feast for the eyes! Other news organizations like CBS, Fox News, and NBC are sending their senior producers to Israel to scope out the place in case they have to send in the big boys–the news anchors and senior correspondents (especially since no one can report from Teheran!).

We can’t wait! I don’t know why I should have to point out that this is irony. But there are some right-wingers who have neither a sense of irony nor humor. So it’s for them I guess.

Here’s a report translated from Hebrew to English from the Israeli newspaper the Globe.

The foreign media is preparing for an Israeli war with Iran

Various agencies, including Reuters, have rented the roofs of houses in Tel Aviv hired to prepare to broadcast an attack on the town ■ In addition, television networks in have sent their senior producers to Israel

Foreign Media Makes Preperations For A War With Iran To Topple Regime Of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

Although there non-ongoing uncertainty in Israel around the nuclear confrontation with Iran , Globes “has learned that the foreign media feel that the great event is coming” – meaning the war is going to happen.

Globes has learned that recently various agencies, including Reuters ,have rented several roofs of houses in Tel – Aviv, to prepare for the shooting attack on the city. Also, the world’s television networks have sent a variety of senior producers to Israel to examine communications infrastructure and protective measures, in Helena as well as Tel-Aviv, in preparation of big teams will come to Israel to cover the events.

The FOX , NBC and CBS networks are making preparations to deploy their teams from their American and European and Asian agencies.

One senior source of foreign broadcasters told Globes “It would be illogical not to prepare for war, when we constantly hear your defense minister openly talking about. This assessment is similar to the days immediately before the start of days of the Gulf War, the early ’90s. ”

Hanani Rapoport, CEO of JCS , a the television and video production contractor for the majority of foreign networks in Israel, told Globes “We receiving inquiries in recent days due to the increased flow of reports regarding a possible conflict in the Middle East in the coming months. We are receiving calls from our clients who to be sure we are preparing for the possibility of war, including making emergency preparations at our centers in Jerusalem and Tel – Aviv  for provide continued transmission and production capabilities during the war. We also continue to hear references to Turkish links to the situation. I hope that the plans remain on paper. ”

Knowing I am a member of the media, the foreign news outlets refused to comment.

Source: Globes

West offers words, only, as Syria killing … JPost – Middle East.

Hitler announced to the world that he would destroy the Jews.  He then proceeded to do so with 20th century efficiency.

The world called him all kinds of names but did nothing to stop him.

It’s happening again, right before our eyes.  The world is allowing Assad to butcher his own people with no opposition.  Why?  Because no country has a “vital interest” in opposing it.

The morals, ethics, international law of a situation, always take a second seat to other countries’ interests.

This is a simple statement of fact.  Bemoaning it may be justified, but is not the issue at the moment.

The Jewish people’s experience of being abandoned by the whole world is brought to life fresh witnessing the horrors in Syria.  Lot’s of angry epithets hurled at Assad and his UN “enforcers.” But nobody actually does anything.

The butchery continues and grows day by day.  The world community shifts its eyes away and nervously whistles. 

How bad does it have to get before any country will do any thing to help?

Ben Gurion understood this reality about international relations.  That was why he insisted that Israel should always have the ability to defend itself on it’s own.

Netanyahu is a spiritual descendant of Ben Gurion.  He will not wait till it’s too late for Israel to stop the Iranian bomb. 

It is to the Israelis and the Jews all over this world that I address this warning:

What makes you think that the world cares any more about Jews than they do about Syrians?

Bottom line, it’s up to us to protect ourselves.  Like every other country we need to put our interests above any others.  That’s how the game of international relations is played.

I’m hoping and believe that Bibi’s holding an “ace in the hole.”

Joseph Wouk

February 9, 2012

Amb. Marc Ginsberg: The Obama Administration’s Syrian Double Standard.

Former U.S. Ambassador to Morocco

We do not want further militarization of the situation in Syria.” So sheepishly declared an Obama Administration spokesman today when pressed why isn’t the U.S. prepared to help defend defenseless Syrian protestors by providing humanitarian and perhaps financial and logistical support to the Free Syrian Army.

My how the tides have changed in the hallways of the Eisenhower Executive Office building.

When Col. Gaddafi’s forces were on the outskirts of Benghazi, White House staffers were falling all over themselves in a mad dash to declare to any and all that a humanitarian catastrophe demanded urgent international action to prevent an assault on innocent civilians. Nightmares of Rwanda and Bosnia compelled the burning of midnight oil at the State Department.

Abetted by a cavalry of outraged academics in Washington think tanks demanding action from the Administration, President Obama publicly signaled events demanded action and marshaled his top officials to explore every conceivable avenue to thwart Gaddafi’s forces. Secret arms deliveries were smuggled in to Libya courtesy of Qatar and Egypt. CIA operatives were parachuted in to help the nascent Libyan opposition forces. A NATO led no-fly zone was declared and enforced. No stone was left unturned to keep Gaddafi’s forces from killing civilians. Everyone was on red alert.

Fortunately, because of that example of presidential leadership a humanitarian catastrophe in Benghazi was averted and the Administration has been patting itself on the back ever since… never mind that Libya today is suffering a destabilizing outbreak of post-revolutionary violence threatening the very victory Administration officials crowed about. But, hey that’s no longer necessarily our business… right?

While the appalling massacre of innocent civilians escalates daily across Syria, and images from Homs and other Syrian cities are far worse than anything witnessed in Libya, the cacophony of outrage from Washington’s hallowed think tanks is strangely subdued. True, the U.S. led an effort to pass a Security Council resolution urging a political solution to the Syrian crisis. And yesterday, the U.S. decided to close our embassy in Damascus and is “exploring additional new economic sanctions” against Assad.

Meanwhile, while Administration officials “explore” those sanctions options, Russian ships and cargo aircraft pour tanks, artillery, aircraft and ammunition into Syria to replenish Assad’s killing machine. Russia defends its conduct by charging that the West is acting like a “bull in a china shop.” The Kremlin’s propagandists are masters of the “big lie” in Syria…it is Moscow which is thwarting international will by militarily intervening under cover of their own Security Council veto — testament to the newly branded thuggish “Putinization” of Moscow’s diplomacy.

Although time is of the essence, the White House seems too satisfied with itself talking the talk of outrage and frustration. True, senior officials have used uncharacteristically harsh rhetoric as daily toll throughout Syria escalates. But sadly, President Obama has so far not evidenced much in the way of Libya-style resolve to challenge Russia’s ploy reserving to itself the sole right to militarily intervene in Syria.

If the Administration continues on its present, relatively passive course and shirks America’s duty and responsibility to confront the Russian Syrian arms transfers with tougher resolve, it won’t be merely “leading from behind;” it will be turning its back on the growing humanitarian catastrophe in Syria.

So what can the U.S. realistically do without landing marines on the beaches of Syria:

1. Call Russia’s bluff. Force a UN Security Council resolution vote demanding an arms embargo on Syria and dare the Russians veto it.

2. Expel Russia from the G-8 until it ceases arms transfer to Syria. Freeze Russia out of some other international gatherings and forums for good measure.

3. Straightjacket the Central Bank of Syria by completely cutting off its access to U.S. and European banking facilities.

4. Develop support for an international indictment in the International Criminal Court against the Assad regime’s leadership for crimes against humanity.

5. Encourage Arab League efforts to organize a military supply airlift through southern Turkey to provide additional support to the Free Syrian Army.

6. Officially delegitimize the Assad regime by recognizing the Syrian National Council as the new, legitimate government of Syria, and galvanize European Union and Arab League nations to follow suit.

7. Provide additional financial and diplomatic support to the Syrian National Council to form a Syrian government in exile and have its leadership publicly embraced in western and Arab capitals.

8. Work with Turkey to declare and enforce a humanitarian zone in northern Syria to provide shelter for Syrians fleeing the fighting.

The Syrian people have paid heavily for defying their regime, and the outcry for international help from Syria’s beleaguered cities compels more imaginative action by this White House. Declaring that the U.S. wishes to avoid further “militarization” of the situation in Syria ignores the reality that the country is already in a civil war. It is one of those nice diplomatic phrases that, in reality, is an inadequate alibi for inexcusable inaction. The world is watching to see if the Obama Administration can free itself from its own self-imposed rhetorical straight jacket on Syria. The Syrian people have earned the right to more midnight oil out of this Administration.

Israpundit » Blog Archive » Obama not leading even from behind.

Assad forces mull use of chemical weapons in Homs, opposition says – Haaretz Daily Newspaper | Israel News.

Opposition figures claim government stockpiling chemical weapons and distributing gas masks to soldiers near Homs; 130 people reportedly killed on Thursday as government intensifies crackdown.

By Zvi Bar’el and DPA

Syria’s military has begun stockpiling chemical weapons and equipping its soldiers with gas masks near the city of Homs, opposition sources reported on Thursday.

Opposition activists said they had received reports that the Syrian army had transferred a significant quantity of grenades and mortars containing chemical agents to a school building in Homs.

	Syrian rebels in Idlib, Feb. 9, 2012.
	Photo by: AP

The opposition also reported that gas masks were being distributed to soldiers at roadblocks.

Homs has become the focal point of violent confrontations between insurgents and the country’s military in recent days, and opposition figures are concerned that the moves could signal the regime’s intention to use chemical weapons against its citizens.

News agencies reported over 130 killed in Syria on Thursday, as Bashar Assad’s government intensified its crackdown on an expanding uprising against his regime.

Demonstrations were reported on Thursday in Aleppo, Syria’s second largest city, which had previously not seen large-scale protests against the government.

Meanwhile, an opposition website reported that an armored brigade of the Syrian military was headed toward the city of Zabadani, which has been held for the past ten days by the Free Syrian Army, the opposition’s armed wing. The site speculated that the brigade would attempt to retake the city over the next two days.

Opposition sources said the ferocity of attacks by government forces against the cities of Homs, Idlib and Daraa had reached unprecedented levels of intensity over the past two days, with hospitals and clinics bombed and doctors arrested.

British Prime Minister David Cameron on Thursday said there was a need to continue to maintain pressure on Syria’s government over its bloody crackdown on the country’s opposition.

“Clearly what we are seeing on our television screens is completely unacceptable,” Cameron told a news conference in Stockholm. “It really is appalling to see the destruction of Homs… It is quite clear that this is a regime that is hell-bent on killing, murdering and maiming its own citizens.”

Cameron added that there was a need to “take the toughest response we can” against Syria.

Arab League foreign ministers are scheduled to meet in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia on Saturday to discuss the organization’s next steps on the crisis. The Arab League suspended its monitoring mission to Syria in late January due to the rising violence.

Approximately 6,000-7,000 people have died thus far in the 11-month uprising, which has become increasingly militarized in recent months.

FM: If Iran sanctions don’t work,… JPost – Diplomacy & Politics.