WarSclerotic

Nasrallah: Tehran won’t order Hezbollah strikes if Israel attacks – latimes.com.

REPORTING FROM BEIRUT — Iran will not ask Hezbollah to intervene in the event of an Israeli strike on Iranian nuclear facilities, the leader of the militant group has told his followers. The Hezbollah chief also made the unusual acknowledgement that his group receives both material and financial aid from the Islamic Republic — no secret to regional and world governments.

In a speech delivered Tuesday evening by video link to throngs of supporters, a black-turbaned Sheik Hassan Nasrallah said Tehran will not ask Hezbollah for anything if Israel strikes Iran. He said, however, that Hezbollah would consider its options if such an attack occurs, ruling nothing out.

The U.S. government labels Hezbollah a terrorist group.

Recent reports about a potential Israeli military strike at Iran’s nuclear facilities have spurred speculation that Lebanon-based Hezbollah could launch retaliatory attacks into Israeli territory.

While acknowledging that his group receives aid and support from the Islamic Republic, something that Hezbollah has generally left opaque, Nasrallah denied that Hezbollah takes its marching orders from Tehran.

“Yes, we have been receiving moral and political support and financial aid in all its possible ways and available forms from the Islamic Republic of Iran since 1982,” Nasrallah said, according to Lebanese media accounts, in a speech marking the birthday of the prophet Muhammad.

Nasrallah was essentially confirming recent comments by Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The Iranian leader affirmed that Iran has assisted Lebanon’s Hezbollah and the Palestinian group Hamas.

In his address, Nasrallah also denied allegations of Hezbollah involvement in money-laundering and drug- smuggling to finance its activities.

“We have sufficient money, weapons, ammunition and financial ability to carry out our duty,” said Nasrallah.

In December, the Obama administration slapped sanctions on two Lebanese Colombian men and related companies for allegedly laundering money on behalf of Colombian and Mexican drug cartels. Media reports, quoting U.S. officials, say one of the firms was linked to an alleged drug boss who stood accused of operating a money-laundering scheme for Hezbollah.

The powerful Hezbollah cleric has hailed the popular revolts sweeping the Arab world. But Nasrallah has been less enthusiastic about the almost yearlong uprising against Syrian President Bashar Assad, a longtime ally of both Hezbollah and Iran.

In his speech, Nasrallah again proclaimed support for the embattled Syrian leader and his planned reform agenda, which many in the Syrian opposition dismiss as a sham designed to buy time for a doomed regime.

“They are saying that it’s too late to make reforms,” Nasrallah said, “but how is it too late and there is a war in Syria?”

The Associated Press: Syrian forces renew bombardment in Homs.

BEIRUT (AP) — Activists say Syrian forces have renewed their deadly, weeklong assault on Homs in the heaviest bombardment the city has seen since the country’s uprising began in March.

Hundreds of people have been reported killed since last Friday in a steady rain of rockets, mortars and machine-gun fire.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights says at least 12 people were killed Thursday morning but an exact death toll couldn’t immediately be determined because of the chaos in the city.

President Bashar Assad’s regime is trying to crush pockets of dissent in the city of 1 million people. Many areas have been under the control of army defectors who want to bring down the regime by force.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP’s earlier story is below.

BEIRUT (AP) — The European Union will impose harsher sanctions on Syria, a senior EU official has said, as Russia tried to broker talks between the vice president and the opposition to calm violence. Activists reported at least 50 killed in the regime’s siege of the restive city of Homs.

Russia, a close ally of Syria, and the West are pushing down starkly different paths in trying to deal with Syria’s nearly 11 months of bloodshed. After blocking a Western and Arab attempt to bring U.N. pressure on President Bashar Assad to step down, Russia has launched a bid to show it can resolve the turmoil.

Moscow is calling for a combination of reforms by the regime and negotiations, without calling for Assad to go. Its provisions are so far finding no traction with the opposition, which dismisses promises of reform as empty gestures, refuses any negotiations while violence continues and says Assad’s removal is the only option in the crisis.

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said outside forces should let Syrians settle their conflict “independently.”

“We should not act like a bull in a china shop,” Putin said Wednesday, according to the ITAR-TASS news agency. “We have to give people a chance to make decisions about their destiny independently, to help, to give advice, to put limits somewhere so that the opposing sides would not have a chance to use arms, but not to interfere.”

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, who met with Assad Tuesday in Damascus, told reporters in Moscow that the Syrian president delegated to his vice president, Farouk al-Sharaa, responsibility for holding a dialogue with the opposition.

Lavrov blamed both Assad’s regime and opposition forces for instigating the violence, which the U.N. says has killed well over 5,400 people.

“On both sides, there are people that aim at an armed confrontation, not a dialogue,” Lavrov said.

Rebel soldiers are playing a bigger role in Syria’s Arab-Spring inspired uprising, turning it into a more militarized conflict and hurtling the country ever more quickly toward a civil war.

In their meeting Tuesday, Assad said the government was ready to talk to the opposition and would cooperate with “any effort that boosts stability in Syria.”

The regime’s crackdown on dissent has left it almost completely isolated internationally and facing growing sanctions. The U.S. closed its embassy in Damascus on Monday and five European countries and six Arab Gulf nations have pulled their ambassadors out of Damascus over the past two days. Germany, whose envoy left Syria this month, said he would not be replaced.

In Brussels, a senior EU official said the 27-nation bloc will soon impose harsher sanctions against Syria as it seeks to weaken Assad’s regime.

The official said the new measures may include bans on the import of Syrian phosphates, on commercial flights between Syria and Europe, and on financial transactions with the country’s central bank. The European Union imports 40 percent of Syria’s phosphate exports.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity in keeping with EU rules, said some measures would be adopted at the EU foreign ministers meeting on Feb. 27. But he stressed the nature of the measures to be adopted remained unclear since the ministers are concerned over the impact on the Syrian public.

The U.N.’s top human rights official Navi Pillay called on nations to immediately act to stop the bloodshed, saying she was “appalled” by the Syrian regime’s offensive against the central city of Homs, where activists say hundreds have been killed since Saturday.

She said the killings show an “extreme urgency for the international community to cut through the politics and take effective action to protect the Syrian population.”

In New York, U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon told reporters that the Arab League planned to send observers back to Syria and had asked the U.N. to consider a joint mission.

The U.N. chief provided no specifics, but the idea appears aimed at giving the regional group a boost after the league’s earlier mission was pulled out of the country because of security concerns.

Ban called the continuing violence “unacceptable” and added: “I fear that the appalling brutality we are witnessing in Homs, with heavy weapons firing into civilian neighborhoods, is a grim harbinger of worse to come.”

On the ground, Syrian forces persisted with their assault on Homs, the country’s third largest city, trying to put down what has been an epicenter of the uprising.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said at least 53 people were killed in Wednesday’s shelling of the Homs neighborhoods of Bayadah, Baba Amr, Khaldiyeh and Karm el-Zeytoun. The group also said that 23 homes were heavily damaged in Baba Amr alone.

Omar Shaker, an activist in Baba Amr, said his neighborhood was under “very intense shelling” by tanks, mortars, artillery and heavy machine guns. Shaker added that he counted five bodies Wednesday in his district. The death tolls, which the groups say they gather from activists on the ground, could not be independently confirmed. Syrian authorities keep tight control on the media.

“The situation is dire. We are short of food, water and medical aid. Doctors have collapsed after treating the wounded without rest for five days,” Shaker said. “We want Lavrov to come and spend a night in Homs to see what we have been passing through.”

The activist urged the international community to set up a safe passage so that women and children can leave volatile areas of Homs.

The head of the Observatory, Rami Abdul-Rahman, said the regime was trying “exhaust rebels in preparation for storming neighborhoods.”

The Observatory reported at least another eight civilians killed around the country.

The Assad regime says terrorists acting out a foreign conspiracy to destabilize the country are behind the uprising, not people seeking to transform the authoritarian regime.

Syria’s state-run TV said gunmen fired mortar rounds at the oil refinery in Homs, one of two in Syria, setting two fuel tankers on fire. It also said attackers denoted a car bomb in the Homs neighborhood of Bayadah, killing and wounding a number of civilians and troops.

Regime forces launched assaults on the village of Tseel in southern Daraa province on the Jordanian border, and the rebel-controlled mountain resort town of Zabadani, north of Damascus, the Observatory and another activist group, the Local Coordination Committees, reported.

Troops loyal to Assad also clashed with army defectors in the northwestern province of Idlib, bordering Turkey, the two groups said.

Haggai Carmon: It’s Saudi Arabia, Stupid!.

Huffington Post

With the winds of Israel-Iran war looming, albeit thus far primarily in the media, many observers speculate whether Israel will launch an attack on Iranian nuclear installations. With the Holocaust as a fresh memory, Israelis do not take lightly the Iranian leadership’s repeated threats to wipe Israel off the map. In 1929 Adolph Hitler used the same rhetoric when he called for the annihilation of all European Jews, but his ideas were brushed off as “just talk.”

Are 2012 threats similar to Hitler’s message in 1929? Outside the files of the US top secret files, there could be no safe and sober assessment regarding Iranian intentions and capabilities. The intentions are manifested loud by their leaders. But do they have the capability to produce a nuclear bomb, mount it on a jet or missile to accurately hit Israel? Intelligence sources say, not yet, but soon.

A close review of the geo political situation in the region shows that we have been exposed to a first rate propaganda campaign that fools many with respect to the Iranian intentions. Iranian leaders may be zealots, but they are far from being stupid. They know that if attacked, Israel will deliver Iran a retaliatory strike that would send Iran to the stone age or earlier. Many Israelis are convinced that their government, although sounding thick hints while it rattles the saber, Israel will not attack Iran. There are multiple reasons for that belief: among them is the understanding that nuclear Iran is more an American and European problem than Israeli. Israel’s small size, its mixed Jewish and Arab population, and the location of sites holy to all Muslims make an Iranian nuclear strike on Israel less likely. Apparently, many in Iran do not share the thought that Israel will not attack first. That explains why Israelis enjoy life on the beach and in the cafés, while Iranians are readying themselves for a strike.
There’s little doubt that Iran is developing nuclear weapons. Then, if Israel is not the target, who is?

Think of the 1992 U.S. presidential elections when James Carville, Bill Clinton’s strategist created the phrase, “It’s the economy, stupid.” Perhaps it’s time we describe the current crisis as, “It’s Saudi Arabia stupid!” Sunni Saudi Arabia is Shiite Iran’s decades old nemesis over the leadership of Islam. It’s Iran major contender for the leadership of Islam. Saudi Arabia is home of the sacred city Mecca and the Kaaba, the most sacred site in Islam and the Saudi King is regarded as the patron of the sites holy to Muslims.

Saudi Arabia has the largest oil reserves in the world. It is the world’s top oil exporter and producer. The Saudi Ghawar oil field is the largest in the world and accounts for about half of Saudi’s oil production. Ghawar is estimated to produce 6.25% of global oil production. The problem is that Ghawar is located near the Persian Gulf, just opposite Iran. To hurt the world’s oil supply, Iranians need not block the Strait of Hormuz and face the huge flotilla the U.S., the UK and France are assembling near the Strait. Why engage in a maritime war with no chances of winning when the Iranians can torch the worlds’ largest oil field in a matter of hours with short range missiles? Obviously, such an attack would not be taken lightly by the US 5Th fleet docked close by. However, the immediate damage to world’s economy would be significant. With that attack, the Iranians could send a double message: To the U.S. – if you continue to hurt us with the sanctions, we will hurt your economy by sending oil price to the stratosphere. And to Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf States the message would be: the Americans can’t protect you. Therefore, you’d better come under our wings, recognizing that Iran is the leader of the Ummah el Islam, the Islamic Nation. That term was coined by Ayatollah Khomeini when he aspired to crown Iran as the leader of the Islamic world. And the Iranian nuclear bomb? That would be a shield rather than a dagger. Iran will use it as a deterrent against the West from attacking it for subjugating the major oil producers of the world. With the Ayatollah’s hands on the world’s major oil spigots, the Iranians could doom Western economies unless their new conditions are met. Among them, a coveted seat as a permanent member in the UN Security Council with veto powers.

Joseph Goebbels, the Nazi Propaganda Minister was quoted as saying that he prefers an end of horror rather than endless horror. Which part of his phrase will become a reality in the region? Weeks away we will find out.

Follow Haggai Carmon on Twitter: www.twitter.com/haggaicarmon

Daniel Pipes: Public Receiving “Disinformation” – Middle East – News – Israel National News.

Daniel Pipes

Israel news photo: danielpipes.org

Daniel Pipes, president of the Middle East Forum, gave an interview with conservative political activist, Ezra Levant, as was reported by Israel Matzav, the popular blogspot for issues regarding Israel and the Middle East.

Regarding the continually deteriorating situation in Syria, Daniel Pipes stated that it is only a matter of weeks or months until the Syrian “tyranny” topples.  He noted, as others have written,  that the most important aspect, from a strategic point of view, is that a regime change in Syria will almost certainly result in the breaking of the Syrian alliance with Iran, which will cause “a real blow” to the Iranian regime. As of now, Iran uses their relationship with Syria as a means of transferring arms and money to Hizbullah and Hamas, and gaining influence in “the heart of the Middle East.”

Pipes said that while the Iranian military is, largely, out of date, Israeli officials have indicated that it has dispersed functions and continues putting facilities underground, some as far as 100 meters.  As Iran continues putting nuclear facilities underground at an increasing rate, the option of staging a pre-emptive attack will no longer be viable.

At this point, Pipes notes, Israel lacks the support of the United States and is, therefore, left with two feasible options to attack Iran. Either they can use fighter planes, striking key targets, although that option may not be viable in the near future.  The second option is to use tactical nuclear weapons based in submarines, which will, undoubtedly escalate the situation even further, but remains plausible.

The American administration, he said, does not put sufficient pressure on Iran and is not willing to exert the necessary force needed to curtail its nuclear ambitions.

He goes on to state that if the United States was, in fact, ready and willing to attack Iran, more options would be available. The United States has a larger military force, more planes, more ordinance, better intelligence and troops may be deployed on the ground, but says that it is highly unlikely that Israel would decide to take such a route.

Pipes said that while Iran has been on the international radar for quite a while, there is a newfound urgency to the situation. While there was always some sort of timetable with regards to Iran, it no longer remains in the distant future, and is taking on a heightened degree of urgency, with “July looming,” as a time at which a non-nuclear pre-emptive strike would no longer be feasible.

There has been a lot of media coverage and “chit chat by Israelis” as well as visits to Israel by top international officials, seeking to “cool down the Israelis.”

Pipes said that the public is being fed a great deal of “disinformation.” The man in the street cannot possibly discern the truth and everything the public thinks is true is mere speculation. Pipes said that it will probably be ten years before we learn the truth behind what is going on now.

THE DAILY STAR :: News :: Middle East :: 50 pct of Americans support strike against Iran.

At the Pentagon and in Israel, plans show the difficulties of an Iran strike – The Washington Post.

By Walter Pincus, Thursday, February 9, 3:43 AM

If you are not prepared to go to war, you cannot threaten that “nothing is off the table” as you search for diplomatic solutions.

Thus there are completed plans, updated daily, at Israeli military headquarters in Tel Aviv and at the Pentagon for carrying out attacks on Iranian facilities in a last-ditch effort to prevent Tehran from acquiring a nuclear weapon.

Israel has a plan to go it alone. So does the United States. And there may even be a plan for the two countries to collaborate. On Dec. 20, the Joint Chiefs chairman, Gen. Martin Dempsey, told CNN: “We are examining a range of options” and “I am satisfied that the options that we are developing are evolving to a point that they would be executable if necessary.”

In any event, the plans exist, and they illustrate the difficulties in carrying out what some people think would be a simple operation.

For example, should Israel act alone, it would face the extraordinary problem of needing to refuel its bombers en route to targets about 1,000 miles away and refueling them again on the way back. That is why in the new Bipartisan Policy Center report, “Meeting the Challenge: Stopping the Clock,” former senator Charles S. Robb (D-Va.) and retired Air Force Gen. Charles F. Wald suggest that the United States provide Israel with three KC-135 refueling tankers.

Robb and Wald do not advocate that the Israelis undertake such an attack, but they say that providing the tankers would “extend the effective range of Israeli aircraft” and “improve Israeli credibility.”

Then there are questions about what targets should be hit, and how many planes would be needed, to stop Iran’s nuclear program, even temporarily. Israel’s two past successes hardly count.

When Israel knocked out Iraq’s Osirak nuclear reactor in June 1981, it was essentially one ground-level building, yet the mission required 14 Israeli aircraft — F-16 fighter-bombers with some of their fuel tanks removed to carry heavy bombs, and F-15 fighters to handle any Iraqi planes that came up to meet them. Israel’s other success, hitting a partially constructed Syrian facility in September 2007, again targeted a single, ground-level building.

Now look at the potential targets in today’s Iran.

There is the fuel-enrichment plant at Natanz, a collection of below-ground facilities used to produce enriched uranium. There is the newer Fordow fuel-enrichment plant near Qom, built into the side of a mountain and heavily fortified. This is where Iran has already moved 3.5 percent enriched uranium from Natanz and where most analysts believe it will be enriched to weapons grade, if Tehran decides to take that step.

Of course there would be other targets if a strike is to do more than set back Iran by one to three years. At Parchin, one of the nation’s leading munitions centers, Iran is suspected of testing high explosives for use in nuclear weapons, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency’s November report. There is a uranium conversion plant at Isfahan, a heavy-water facility being constructed at Arak and centrifuge factories outside Tehran.

No telling how many aircraft the Israelis would need to carry out a meaningful mission. The Robb-Wald report says Israel has enough GBU-28 bunker-busting bombs to “severely damage, though likely not completely destroy, Iran’s known underground nuclear sites in a single well-executed operation.”

How Israel would or could deal with Iran’s response to such an attack is anyone’s guess.

U.S. planning takes Iran’s reaction into consideration. As one former Pentagon official said, “Pentagon planning considers hitting targets and defending against retaliation.”

The Robb-Wald report, put together by a task force that includes former military commanders, outlines just part of “what U.S. military action would look like,” in its words. The target list, beyond Iran’s nuclear facilities, would include communications systems; air defense and missile sites; Revolutionary Guard Corps facilities; munitions storage facilities, including those for sea mines (remember the Strait of Hormuz); airfields and aircraft facilities; and ship and port facilities, including midget submarines, missile boats and minelayers.

Aircraft employed would include B-2 stealth and B-52 bombers, fighter-bombers and helicopters, along with ship-launched cruise missiles. “Special Forces and intelligence personnel already in-theater can easily move to protect key assets or perform covert operations,” according to the report.

Remember that these plans are needed to make credible the threat that “nothing is off the table” — which in turn is designed to put muscle behind the diplomatic efforts. And those new sanctions, particularly cutting off Iran’s oil sales, are being pursued with effect.

Just this week, the United States continued pressuring India to reduce its oil purchases from Iran. State Department spokesman Victoria Nuland told reporters Tuesday that talks in Washington with Indian Foreign Secretary Ranjan Mathai included “how India might find alternative sources. . . . This is a two-track policy, both to encourage countries to wean themselves from Iranian oil, but also to work with suppliers around the world to help countries find alternative sources of supply.”

In his pre-Super Bowl interview on NBC last Sunday, President Obama said, “Our preferred solution here is diplomatic; we’re going to keep on pushing on that front. But . . . I’ve been very clear that we’re going to do everything we can to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon and creating an arms race, a nuclear arms race, in a volatile region.”

He preceded that statement with the familiar “We’re not going to take any options off the table” — and now you have some idea of what that means.

ADL’s Foxman: Obama Has ‘Improved,’ But Iran Situation ‘Serious’.

By: Jim Meyers and Ashley Martella

The ADL’s National Director Abraham Foxman tells Newsmax that President Obama has shown improvement in his policies toward Israel, especially in regard to Iran.

But he warns that Israel is sending an urgent message that strong action must be taken against Iran’s nuclear program to forestall an Israeli attack. Foxman heads one of the nation’s premier civil rights organizations, with a special focus on anti-Semitism.

In an exclusive interview with Newsmax.TV, Foxman says Obama’s grade on Israel has gone from an “F” two years ago to a a solid “B” today because he has “learned from his mistakes.”

Foxman specifically praised President Obama for standing with Israel in his speech to the UN last September and for sharing “bunker busting” bombs with the Jewish state.

With speculation growing about an Israeli strike against Iran’s nuclear weapons program, Foxman was asked if Israel should hold off on such a strike to give economic sanctions against the Islamic Republic time to work.

“If there is not to be military action to stop the nuclear arming of Iran, there needs to be serious, serious, heavy sanctions,” he says. “There has been more talk about sanctions than actual implementation.

“I think the talk about an imminent Israeli attack is a message to the world that if you want to be serious about Iran, then act quickly, act seriously. That will prevent the need for possible military action.”

Foxman says he believes Obama is serious when he vows that the United States will work closely with Israel to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons.

“One needs to look at two levels of this administration’s approach to Israel,” Foxman says. “Politically there have been some issues, but in recent months and I’d say in the last year and a half, two years, the military relationship has been very close, the intelligence relationship has been very close.

“Iran is not only a threat to Israel. This is a country that says it will wipe Israel off the map. But Iran poses a threat to the free world, to Europe, to the United States.

“So I believe the president when he says they are working closely with Israel. We’ve seen more sharing between the United States and Israel on the issue of Iran than we’ve seen in many years.”

The head of the Iranian parliament’s research institute recently called for a preemptive missile strike on Israel before the end of the year to forestall an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities.

Asked if that threat concerns him, Foxman responds: “I think any threat from a country that is irrational and has the ability to arm as they have, which has not changed its tone, its rhetoric, I think we need to take seriously.

“I think too frequently democracies and the West ignore the rhetoric of dictatorships. I think we must take their word seriously.”

In a Newsmax interview two years ago, Foxman gave Obama an “F” grade for his dealing with the Israeli-Arab conflict and Iran. Asked if he still gives Obama a failing grade, Fox says: “No, I think he has improved. He has learned from some of the mistakes.

“I think the speech he gave at the United Nations puts him back in my mind to a B. He still hasn’t achieved [an A] but he has a better understanding of what is possible and what is not possible.”

In that speech in September, Obama urged a resumption of negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians, stressed support for an independent Palestinian state, and spoke against any United Nations bid to declare Palestine a state on its own.

Foxman says that after the address, “I called one of the White House officials and I said this is a wonderful speech. Had the president given that speech in Cairo three year we may have had a two-state solution.

“But there is an understanding. I think the fact that the United States is now supplying Israel with bunker-busters, that aid is being given in terms of defense missiles, I think shows an understanding that they were wrong.

Foxman addressed other issues in his Newsmax interview:

The Arab Spring: “It’s interesting that there was a meeting between the Jewish community and King Abdullah of Jordan, and one of the things he was concerned about was the speed with which the United States was cozying up to the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. It is a dilemma, but I don’t think we should rush to legitimize them, to open up relations.”

The Arab uprising “changes the neighborhood,” Foxman says. “The neighborhood was never good. Now it’s a little worse.

“There was never a warm peace but at least there was a peace. Now it is not clear. The Muslim brotherhood leadership has spoken out of three sides of their mouth, saying they will abide by the [Israeli-Egyptian peace] treaty, others saying they will not.

“We’re seeing the gas lines supplying gas to Israel and Jordan have now been blown up 12 times. Until the Egyptians, the Muslim Brotherhood, the military decide to protect Sinai against al-Qaida, against terrorism, then I’m not sure that peace will last.”

Turkey and Israel: “Turkey’s relationship with Israel has gone from the example of a Muslim country being able to relate to both sides to one where I believe [Prime Minister Recep] Erdogan is playing a role to become a leader of the Muslim world.

“That has already undermined the Turkish-Israeli relationship. It may undermine the NATO relationship. If Turkey continues to build its relationshipwith Iran, how can the United States share its codes, its secrets with a NATO ally when there is a possibility it may be handed over to our enemies?”

Anti-Semitism in the United States: After the 2008 financial crisis the ADL noted an increase in crimes against Jews. Are anti-Semitic incidents on the rise, Foxman was asked.

“They are. When you measure hate crimes in this country, when it comes to religion, Jews and Jewish institutions are still the number one targets. For every time there is an Islamophobic attack there are 10 attacks on Jewish institutions.

“Unfortunately anti-Semitism still exists. We’re not immune.It’s better here than anywhere else in the world, but it still needs antidotes — education, education, education.”

Mark Caserta: Revealing military plan for Israel is telling – The Herald Dispatch.

February 08, 2012 @ 10:10 PM

The Herald-Dispatch

Christie: ‘I Admire Israel for the Enemies it Has Made’ – Yahoo! News.

ChrisChristieOutspoken New Jersey Governor Chris Christie addressed an American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) audience in New York recently and shared his view of what America’s role in the world should be, stressing the importance of the U.S. standing by its friends and taking action against its adversaries.

“America should stand by its friends and its democratic allies, even, and sometimes especially, when it’s unpopular to do so,” Christie said. “And you know I know, that it may not be fashionable in some of the chancelleries, the foreign ministries, and salons around the world to talk about why America stands with Israel – but that’s no excuse not to be saying, and saying it loudly.”

Christie continued:

“I read a quote from President Franklin Roosevelt which I thought made this point much better than I ever could.  He says, ‘Please judge me by the enemies I have made.’ In that same spirit, I would like to say to all of you tonight: I admire Israel for the enemies it has made.”

The Weekly Standard adds that the New Jersey governor went on to explain that Israel’s enemies are America’s enemies, and that the two countries share important values. “We both believe in self-government, we both believe in democracy, and unalienable rights,” Christie said.

“From what I understand, the Knesset and Israel’s free, vibrant news media make Trenton seems like a cordial and sleepy atmosphere.  You’ll find that hard to believe, if I say so myself.”

U.S. and Israel Split Over How to Deter Iran – NYTimes.com.

By MARK LANDLER and DAVID E. SANGER

WASHINGTON — Amid mounting tensions over whether Israel will carry out a military strike against Iran’s nuclear program, the United States and Israel remain at odds over a fundamental question: whether Iran’s crucial nuclear facilities are about to become impregnable.

Israel’s defense minister, Ehud Barak, coined the phrase “zone of immunity” to define the circumstances under which Israel would judge it could no longer hold off from an attack because Iran’s effort to produce a bomb would be invulnerable to any strike. But judging when that moment will arrive has set off an intense debate with the Obama administration, whose officials counter that there are other ways to make Iran vulnerable.

Senior Israeli officials, including the foreign minister and leader of the Mossad, have traveled to Washington in recent weeks to make the case that this point is fast approaching. American officials have made reciprocal visits to Jerusalem, arguing that Israel and the West have more time and should allow sanctions and covert actions to deter Iran’s plans.

The Americans have also used the discussions to test their belief, based on a series of public statements by Israeli officials, that an Israeli strike against Iran could come as early as spring, according to an official familiar with the discussions.

President Obama tried to defuse arguments for military action in a telephone call last month with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, the substance of which was confirmed by an Obama administration official who spoke only on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to describe the conversation. While the two men have had an often contentious relationship over Middle East diplomacy, American officials emerged from that exchange persuaded that Mr. Netanyahu was willing to give economic sanctions and other steps time to work.

The difference of opinion over Iran’s nuclear “immunity” is critical because it plays into not just the timing — or bluffing — about a possible military strike, but the calculations about how deeply and quickly sanctions against Iran must bite. If the Israeli argument is right, the question of how fast the Iranians can assemble a weapon becomes less important than whether there is any way to stop them.

“ ‘Zone of immunity’ is an ill-defined term,” said a senior Obama administration official, expressing frustration that the Israelis are looking at the problem too narrowly, given the many kinds of pressure being placed on Tehran and the increasing evidence that far tougher sanctions are having an effect.

The Israelis have zeroed in on Iran’s plan to put much of its uranium enrichment near Qum in an underground facility beneath so many layers of granite that even the Pentagon acknowledges it would be out of the reach of its best bunker-busting bombs. Once enrichment activities are under way at Qum, the Israelis argue, Iran could throw out United Nations inspectors and produce bomb-grade fuel without fear the facility would be destroyed.

At its core, the official said, the argument the Israelis make is that once the Iranians get an “impregnable breakout capability” — that is, a place that is protected from a military strike — “it makes no difference whether it will take Iran six months or a year or five years” to fabricate a nuclear weapon, he said.

The Americans have a very different view, according to a second senior official who has discussed the concept with Israelis. He said “there are many other options” to slow Iran’s march to a completed weapon, like shutting off Iran’s oil revenues, taking out facilities that supply centrifuge parts or singling out installations where the Iranians would turn the fuel into a weapon.

Administration officials cite this more complex picture in pressing the Israelis to give the latest sanctions a chance to inflict enough pain on the Iranian leadership to force it back to the negotiating table, or to make the decision that the nuclear program is not worth the cost.

Iran’s currency has plunged, they note; its oil is piling up in storage tanks because it cannot find buyers, and there is growing evidence of fissures among the country’s leadership.

After a period of doubt about Israel’s intentions at the end of last year, administration officials said the two sides were now communicating better. Mr. Obama, they said, reflected that when he said in an interview on Sunday with NBC News, “I don’t think that Israel has made a decision on what they need to do.”

This is not the first time that the Israelis have invented a phrase that suggests a hard deadline before an attack. At the end of the Bush administration, they said they could not allow Iran to go past “the point of no return.” That phrase was also ill-defined, but seemed to suggest that once Iran had the know-how and the basic materials to make a bomb, it would be inevitable.

While nuclear experts believe Iran now has enough uranium to fuel four or more weapons, it would have to enrich it to bomb-grade levels, which would take months. Beyond that, Iran would have to produce a warhead that could fit atop an Iranian missile — a process that could take one to three years, most experts say.

Still, Mr. Barak’s theory of “immunity” has gained a lot of attention in recent weeks, complicating a debate charged with bellicose language — in Israel and Iran and among Republicans on the presidential campaign trail, where Mitt Romney and other candidates have pledged Israel full support in any military confrontation with Iran.

Disputes between the United States and Israel are inevitable, according to experts, given the radically different stakes of a nuclear Iran for a distant superpower and for a neighbor whose very existence the leaders in Tehran have pledged to eradicate.

“No end of consultations can remove that asymmetry,” said Martin S. Indyk, a former ambassador to Israel and director of the Foreign Policy Program at the Brookings Institution.

Next month, Mr. Netanyahu is scheduled to visit Washington to address the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, a powerful pro-Israeli lobbying group, to whom he and other Israeli leaders have regularly spoken about Iran’s “existential threat.” The White House has not yet announced whether Mr. Netanyahu will meet with Mr. Obama, though officials say it is likely.

Officials said that for all the friction between the United States and Israel over issues like Jewish settlements in the West Bank, it had not spilled over into the dialogue over Iran, in part because Mr. Obama has ordered it “walled off” from politics.

Administration officials also noted a distinction in the tone of Mr. Barak and Mr. Netanyahu, who does not publicly favor the phrase “zone of immunity.” This week, an American official noted, Mr. Netanyahu declared that on the topic of Iran, officials should just “shut up.”

“I think that’s good advice,” the American official said.