WarSclerotic

Obama: There’ll be a price to pa… JPost – Iranian Threat – News.

DEBKAfile, Political Analysis, Espionage, Terrorism, Security.

DEBKAfile Special Report March 6, 2012, 9:25 PM (GMT+02:00)

US GBU-31 bunker buster bomb

American sources disclosed Tuesday March 6, that President Barack Obama had decided to let Israel have weapons systems suitable for long-range military operations and strikes against fortified underground targets. They include four KC-35 aerial refueling aircraft, doubling the number already in the Israeli Air Force’s inventory, and GBU-31 Direct Attack Munition-JDAM bombs of the type which serve US bombers especially those based on aircraft carriers.
This news came together with the announcement that European Union’s Catherine Ashton had proposed to Iran that long-stalled nuclear negotiations be resumed with the Six World Powers.
debkafile reported earlier Tuesday, March 6:

The morning after Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu pledged before the pro-Israeli AIPAC convention that he would head off the threat of Israel’s annihilation by a nuclear Iran, and his agreement to disagree with US President Barack Obama in their White House talks, the European Union’s Catherine Ashton suddenly jumped up with a proposition to Tehran to resume the long-stalled nuclear negotiations with the world powers.  She made her offer on behalf of China, France, Germany, the Russian Federation, the United Kingdom and the United States.
Following the same script as Ashton, Tehran signaled its willingness to let international inspectors visit the military base of Parchin where nuclear explosive tests are strongly suspected of taking place.

Straight after this two-way messaging, Tehran prevaricated by announcing, “Considering the fact that it is a military site, granting access is a time-consuming process and cannot be permitted repeatedly. Nevertheless it would be allowed after the International Atomic Energy Agency submits paperwork about related issues.”
Monday, March 5, IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano declined to spell out the suspicion that the Iranians needed time to remove the nuclear evidence from Parchin. “But I can tell you that we are aware that there are some activities at Parchin and it makes us believe that going there sooner is better than later,” Amano said.
debkafile has reported in the past that this military base was used for the secret testing of nuclear explosives and warhead triggers.

Our Washington sources add that US intelligence certainly knew what was going on there. So did President Obama, when he addressed the AIPAC convention and promised to “prevent, not just contain” Iran’s acquisition of a nuclear weapon. And so did Netanyahu, when he met the president at the White House Monday

Yet Parchin did not come up on any of those occasions.

The prime minister knew there was no point because Obama was already firmly set on engaging Iran in nuclear diplomacy with the Six Powers – probably in Istanbul next month as Tehran had proposed – irrespective of any other considerations. Tehran was to be allowed to flex its military muscle so as to reach the table in the strong position of a nuclear power.

(On Feb. 18, debkafile first revealed that agreement had been reached to resume those talks.)

Netanyahu spoke from this knowledge when he declared “Israel must be master of its fate” and “The pressure (on Iran) is growing but time is growing short.”

He made it clear that he has no faith in the diplomatic option achieving anything. As in the past, Tehran would apply “bazaar tactics” to duck, weave, procrastinate and haggle, the while using the talks as a safe cover for continuing with impunity the very processes under discussion.

Yet a few hours after the Obama-Netanyahu impasse, Washington and Tehran whipped whip out the diplomacy ploy to cut short Israel’s military plans. It was assumed that Israel would not risk attacking Iran while it was locked in international negotiations.
But Netanyahu has always resisted making this promise. Israel may therefore see its chance when the diplomatic process inevitably hits bumps in the road and stalls.

US Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta echoed President Obama when he spoke before the AIPAC conference on Tuesday: He vowed that the United States would take military action to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon if diplomacy failed.

“Military action is the last alternative when all else fails,” he told the pro-Israel lobbying group. “But make no mistake, we will act if we have to.”
He carefully sidestepped any reference to a timeline. So there is no guarantee that Iran won’t already be armed with a nuclear weapon by the time Washington gets around to determining that diplomacy has failed.

My mother, Betty Sarah Wouk, passed away one year ago today. I will always love her.

Ben Cohen: Obama’s Israel Problem.

(Important to read, if not to understand, the “dream-time” of the ideological left.  Israel is hardly Obama’s problem.  Obama is the Jewish people’s problem. – JW)

Huffington Post

Barack Obama has tried and largely failed to rein in Israel’s aggression against the Palestinians while he has been in office. The right-wing Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has continued to build on Palestinian territories, allegedly allowed the execution of Palestinian leaders, and refused point-blank to engage seriously in peace talks. The Obama administration has basically had to shelve any hopes of peace in the region, betting that its energy is better spent on domestic problems and drawing down the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

But the president is finding that Israel’s belligerence toward Iran is a far more serious problem that may require a much firmer hand.

Israel has been routinely threatening Iran due to the latter’s intent to acquire nuclear energy capabilities. Israel wants unquestioning support from the United States but has stated that it will unilaterally attack Iran.

Speaking at AIPAC Sunday, March 4, Obama addressed the prospect of a nuclear Iran and outlined the United States’ support for Israel and a multilateral approach to dealing with Iran. But between the flattering rhetoric and standard placatory language was a line in the sand:

Iran’s leaders should understand that I do not have a policy of containment; I have a policy to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. And as I have made clear time and again during the course of my presidency, I will not hesitate to use force when it is necessary to defend the United States and its interests.

Moving forward, I would ask that we all remember the weightiness of these issues, the stakes involved for Israel, for America, and for the world. Already, there is too much loose talk of war. Over the last few weeks, such talk has only benefited the Iranian government, by driving up the price of oil, which they depend on to fund their nuclear program. For the sake of Israel’s security, America’s security and the peace and security of the world, now is not the time for bluster. Now is the time to let our increased pressure sink in and to sustain the broad international coalition we have built. Now is the time to heed the timeless advice from Teddy Roosevelt: speak softly; carry a big stick. And as we do, rest assured that the Iranian government will know our resolve and that our coordination with Israel will continue.

Obama’s message is simple: Israel cannot bully the United States into attacking Iran. Everyone knows that Obama has little regard for Netanyahu’s tactics, but the Israeli prime minister wields disproportionate power in the U.S. due to organizations like AIPAC that are incredibly well-funded and work nonstop to promote Israel’s interest in America. But a war with Iran would have consequences so dire that Obama knows he cannot follow Israel blindly into a conflict that there may not be a way out of.

Obama has to be careful here; he is in an election year, and the Republican Party is eagerly looking for anything it can use to paint the president as an anti-Semitic, Muslim-loving terrorist. One false move could open up a flood of attacks that could sway votes in swing states like Florida. Obama has to placate Jewish-American voters while preventing Israel from kicking off another war in the Middle East — a task easier said than done.

My bet is that Obama will play for time. If he can prevent anything too serious from kicking off before the election, he will have a far easier time in his second term telling the Israelis where to get off. This won’t be easy, as Netanyahu seems deadly serious about confronting Iran, but Obama is a masterful politician who specializes in making people play his game, not theirs. Obama knows full well what another conflict would mean in the region, and while it might be politically beneficial in the short term, it would bankrupt the economy, kill hundreds of thousands of people, and destroy his legacy permanently. Obama won’t take that risk, and I expect him to use a smart strategy to delay Netanyahu without causing him to lose too much face. Luckily, Netanyahu isn’t particularly good at thinking long-term, so he will probably fall into Obama’s trap — an outcome everyone should be praying for.

Ben Cohen is the editor of TheDailyBanter.com.

‘Hamas will not be subservient to Iran’ – JPost – Middle East.

(Watch the rats jump… – JW)

Senior Hamas official says if Israel strikes Iran, Hamas will not take part in fighting, the ‘Guardian’ reports.

By REUTERS/Morteza Nikoubazl

DEBKAfile, Political Analysis, Espionage, Terrorism, Security.

DEBKAfile Special Report March 6, 2012, 6:48 PM (GMT+02:00)

Iran’s clandestine nuclear testing site at Parchin

Tuesday, March 6, the morning after Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu pledged before the pro-Israeli AIPAC convention that he would head off the threat of Israel’s annihilation by a nuclear Iran, and his agreement to disagree with US President Barack Obama in their White House talks, the European Union’s Catherine Ashton suddenly jumped up with a proposition to Tehran to resume the long-stalled nuclear negotiations with the world powers.  She made her offer on behalf of China, France, Germany, the Russian Federation, the United Kingdom and the United States.
Following the same script as Ashton, Tehran signaled its willingness to let international inspectors visit the military base of Parchin where nuclear explosive tests are strongly suspected of taking place.

Straight after this two-way messaging, Tehran prevaricated by announcing, “Considering the fact that it is a military site, granting access is a time-consuming process and cannot be permitted repeatedly. Nevertheless it would be allowed after the International Atomic Energy Agency submits paperwork about related issues.”
Monday, March 5, IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano declined to spell out the suspicion that the Iranians needed time to remove the nuclear evidence from Parchin. “But I can tell you that we are aware that there are some activities at Parchin and it makes us believe that going there sooner is better than later,” Amano said.
debkafile has reported in the past that this military base was used for the secret testing of nuclear explosives and warhead triggers.

Our Washington sources add that US intelligence certainly knew what was going on there. So did President Obama, when he addressed the AIPAC convention and promised to “prevent, not just contain” Iran’s acquisition of a nuclear weapon. And so did Netanyahu, when he met the president at the White House Monday

Yet Parchin did not come up on any of those occasions.

The prime minister knew there was no point because Obama was already firmly set on engaging Iran in nuclear diplomacy with the Six Powers – probably in Istanbul next month as Tehran had proposed – irrespective of any other considerations. Tehran was to be allowed to flex its military muscle so as to reach the table in the strong position of a nuclear power.

(On Feb. 18, debkafile first revealed that agreement had been reached to resume those talks.)

Netanyahu spoke from this knowledge when he declared “Israel must be master of its fate” and “The pressure (on Iran) is growing but time is growing short.”

He made it clear that he has no faith in the diplomatic option achieving anything. As in the past, Tehran would apply “bazaar tactics” to duck, weave, procrastinate and haggle, the while using the talks as a safe cover for continuing with impunity the very processes under discussion.

Yet a few hours after the Obama-Netanyahu impasse, Washington and Tehran whipped whip out the diplomacy ploy to cut short Israel’s military plans. It was assumed that Israel would not risk attacking Iran while it was locked in international negotiations.
But Netanyahu has always resisted making this promise. Israel may therefore see its chance when the diplomatic process inevitably hits bumps in the road and stalls.

US Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta echoed President Obama when he spoke before the AIPAC conference on Tuesday: He vowed that the United States would take military action to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon if diplomacy failed.

“Military action is the last alternative when all else fails,” he told the pro-Israel lobbying group. “But make no mistake, we will act if we have to.”
He carefully sidestepped any reference to a timeline. So there is no guarantee that Iran won’t already be armed with a nuclear weapon by the time Washington gets around to determining that diplomacy has failed.

By conjuring the Holocaust, Netanyahu brought Israel closer to war with Iran – Haaretz Daily Newspaper | Israel News.

(Booby trap?  Netanyahu spoke as plain a truth as exists.  His speech made all of Israel sleep better tonight.  He’s no more “locked” into an attack than he was before the speech.  All that “locks” him into an attack is the Iranian continued push to develop nuclear weapons. – JW)

Haaretz’s editor-in-chief says that the Prime Minister publically booby-trapped himself to war with Iran by comparing the need to strike its nuclear program with the Jewish request to bomb Auschwitz.

By Aluf Benn

In his speech to the AIPAC conference Monday night Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu moved closer than ever to the point of no return en route to war with Iran.

Netanyahu compared Iran to Nazi Germany, its nuclear facilities to death camps, and his current trip to the White House to a desperate plea to former U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt by the U.S. Jewish community to bomb Auschwitz.

	Benjamin Netanyahu talking at AIPAC conference Monday
	Photo by: Reuters

The request, as Netanyahu told a sympathetic AIPAC crowd, was denied, using justifications similar to those used today by those who object to a military strike against Iran.

“Israel has patiently waited for the international community to resolve this issue. We’ve waited for diplomacy to work, we’ve waited for sanctions to work. None of us can afford to wait much longer,” Netanyahu warned, adding that, as Israeli premier, he would “never let Israel live under the shadow of annihilation.”

It was the same reason former Prime Minister Menachem Begin used to bomb the Iraqi nuclear reactor in 1981: preventing the possibility that Jewish children would face the peril of another Holocaust. Now it’s the turn of his successor, Netanyahu, to remove the danger hovering over the heads of Jewish children.

Netanyahu was in the habit of comparing the Iranian nuclear threat to the Holocaust back when he was opposition leader, claiming that the western powers were not doing enough to thwart it. But, since coming back to power, three years ago, he has refrained from making these kinds of statements, opting for a vaguer rhetoric and asking his ministers to keep the fervor down. That vagueness dissipated on Monday. In his speech to AIPAC, coming mere hours after his meeting with U.S. President Barack Obama in the White House, Netanyahu escalated the tone, both in his reference to a clock that was running out, and in his expressed disappointment from U.S.-led diplomatic sanctions.

The Holocaust talk has but one meaning: they force Israel to go to war and strike the Iranians. The justifications against an attack, weighty as those may be, turn to fumes when put up against the Warsaw Ghetto, Auschwitz, and Treblinka. No calculus of missiles falling on Tel Aviv, rising oil prices and economic crisis can hold water when compared to genocide. If that’s the situation, the option of sitting quietly, expecting the “world” to neutralize Iran, or of a stable balance of terror, becomes nonexistent. If Netanyahu doesn’t act and Iran achieves nuclear weapons capabilities, he’ll go down in history as a pathetic loud mouth. As a poor man’s Churchill.

But Netanyahu booby-trapped himself back when he was still making his way to Washington, when he presented Iran with a public ultimatum: dismantle the underground enrichment facility near Qom, cease all enrichment activity, and remove the medium-grade uranium from Iranian territory. He realizes that the Iranian government will never agree to those terms, which seems more like setting up a casus belli that a reasonable diplomatic demand. But Netanyahu’s Holocaust speech at the AIPAC conference went much further than that.

Obama asked Netanyahu to avoid inflammatory statements in regards to Iran, to keep gas prices down in America’s gas station. It’s an important issue when trying to rebuild the American economy as well as, of course, his reelection bid. And while Obama’s thinking may seem reasonable, he’s living in an entirely different world than that of Israel’s prime minister. From the White House, Iran looks like a strategic problem, not as a Holocaust. Thus, time isn’t of the essence, and diplomacy and sanctions should still be given a chance. Netanyahu is motivated by other things.

It’s possible to detect enough loopholes that would allow Netanyahu to escape an imminent decision to go to war. Netanyahu has a political interest to aid his Republican friends against Obama, so his statement that “there wasn’t a decision to attack” seems more like an attempt to stir things up ahead of the U.S. presidential elections than a command to Israel Air Force units. There are those who believe he’s just a second-guessing coward who would never take it upon himself to initiate a war. It could be that all those interpretations are true. Nevertheless, Netanyahu took on a public obligation on Monday that would make it very hard for him to back away from the path of war with Iran.

Israel Hayom | Netanyahu’s gift to Obama speaks volumes about Iranian threat.

Spengler » Did Iran Test a Nuclear Bomb in North Korea in 2010?.

The Sunday morning edition of Germany’s Die Welt reports that Western intelligence agencies detected two nuclear weapons tests in North Korea in 2010, and that one or both of them might have been conducted for Iran.  

Die Welt sets the reported nuclear tests in the context of new documentation showing that the Iranian regime began its drive for nuclear weapons as early as 1984, under the direct orders of the late Ayatollah Khomeini. The author is the respected German analyst Hans Rühle, whose evaluation of Israel’s capacity to cripple the Iranian nuclear program created a stir last month.

The Die Welt report reads like a line-by-line refutation of the reported U.S. intelligence evaluation that there is no “hard evidence” that Iran is building nuclear weapons. That is a noteworthy reversal: the Obama administration’s intelligence chiefs claim that Iran is not an imminent threat, while a former top German official warns of immediate danger to the Jewish state.  The fact is that there are some Germans who do not want to be responsible for a second Holocaust.

Rühle, who headed the German Defense Ministry’s policy planning staff during the peak of the Cold War in the 1980s, deplores the “credulousness of Western experts” who accept Iran’s protests that its nuclear program is peaceful.

Many Western experts still give credence to these representations. Despite numerous indications to the contrary, they give Iran the presumption of innocence, arguing that a nation’s intent to weaponize nuclear power is not proven until it has carried out a nuclear test. But what if Iran had already tested a nuclear weapon, and not on Iranian territory, but in a place where nuclear tests are conducted without regard for world opinion, and where nuclear expertise and technology have long been exported in exchange for hard currency payments–in North Korea?

Evidence of the 2010 nuclear tests in North Korea was published Feb. 3 in Nature magazine, citing the work of the Swedish nuclear physicist Lars-Erik de Geer. The Swedish scientist analyzed data showing the presence of radioisotopes that betrayed a uranium bomb explosion.  De Geer took the radioisotope data and compared them with the South Korean reports, as well as meteorological records. Nature reports, “After a year of work, he has concluded that North Korea carried out two small nuclear tests in April and May 2010 that caused explosions in the range of 50–200 tonnes of TNT equivalent. The types and ratios of isotopes detected, he says, suggest that North Korea was testing materials and techniques intended to boost the yield of its weapons.”

But why should North Korea keep the nuclear tests secret? asks Rühle. North Korea proudly advertised its previous nuclear tests. But the North Korean tests of 2006 and 2009 used bombs with a plutonium core. The 2010 tests, according to Lars-Erik de Geer’s calculation, employed enriched uranium. North Korea might have secretly enriched uranium on a sufficient scale to produce sufficient explosive material for two test bombs. But the more likely explanation is this, Rühle concludes:

The second explanation would be that North Korea conducted a nuclear test for a foreign entity, in this case, an Iranian explosive. That would be a sensation, although not quite a surprise, to be sure. Intelligence services have observed a close degree of cooperation between North Korean and Iranian experts over a period of years for the preparation of a nuclear test, although the previous assumptions centered on the prospect of an underground nuclear test in Iranian territory.

Rühle observes:

It became known a few days ago that the International Atomic Energy Agency has a document showing that it was the religious leader Ayatollah Khomeini himself who decided in 1984 to resume the nuclear weapons program suspended by the overthrow of the Shah. As his successor Ayatollah Khamenei declared, an Iranian nuclear weapon is viewed as the only way to protect the Islamic revolution and to prepare the way for the arrival of the Imam Mahdi. In Khamenei’s words, an Iranian nuclear arsenal is a deterrent in the hands of the holy warriors. With this sensational report from Tehran’s inner leadership circle it becomes clear that Khomeini’s often-cited fatwa that nuclear weapons are not compatible with Islam was a purely deceptive maneuver. Iran has been totally committed to becoming a nuclear power for decades.

Elements of Rühle’s story can be challenged by experts, to be sure. But the German analyst is making a point that has been lost in the fog of spin in Washington: It is outrageously wrong to proceed against an opponent like Iran in the presumption that intelligence agencies can accurately assess the precise degree of progress towards a nuclear device so that the U.S. government can fine-tune a response. Yet that is precisely what President Obama told Jeffrey Goldberg on March 2nd: “Our assessment, which is shared by the Israelis, is that Iran does not yet have a nuclear weapon and is not yet in a position to obtain a nuclear weapon without us having a pretty long lead time in which we will know that they are making that attempt.”

No intelligence professional could support that sweeping, and entirely indefensible, assertion from the president. American intelligence failures regarding nuclear weapons proliferation have been numerous and notorious. The CIA famously failed to give any advance warning of India’s first nuclear test, and was raked over the coals for this lapse at the time. Jeffrey Goldberg’s failure to challenge Obama’s statement turned the exchange into a public relations exercise rather than a news interview. A cub reporter for a college newspaper would have known enough to ask, “How can you be sure that we will detect an Iranian nuclear bomb before it’s ready? What’s our track record of detecting nuclear bombs elsewhere?”

When intelligence agencies use the term “evidence,” what they mean is incontrovertible proof. “Hard evidence” of Iranian nuclear intentions in intel-speak, as Rühle points out, means specifically that a nuclear test already has been conducted. When intelligence officials use this terminology, they are saying in plain English that their political masters are giving Iran the presumption of innocence, as Rühle wrote. The intelligence chiefs did not say that there was no “information” and no “reliable reports” that Iran is trying to get hold of nuclear weapons as fast as it possibly can, only that there is no “hard evidence.” By definition, one obtains this kind of “hard evidence” only when it is too late.

Update: Obama’s speech to AIPAC contained the bizarre assertion that “war talk” had pushed up the price of oil and therefore helped the government of Iran. By that logic, Obama shouldn’t mention a military option, and the United States should tell the world that use of  force is out of the question.

Netanyahu’s Iran speech strikes a chord – News – Mail & Guardian Online.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s uncompromising speech to a pro-Israel lobby in Washington has persuaded the public back home that war with Iran is increasingly possible.

Netanyahu evoked the horrors of the Holocaust, quoting a 1944 letter where the US rejected a request by Jewish leaders to bomb the Nazi death camp, Auschwitz. His message was clear: Israel cannot rely on others to defend its people.

“As prime minister of Israel, I will never let my people live in the shadow of annihilation,” he told the influential pro-Israel lobby AIPAC on Monday after meeting US President Barack Obama. “We have waited for diplomacy to work, we have waited for sanctions to work. We cannot afford to wait much longer.”

The words resonated in Israel, with analysts, commentators and former military officers seeing a distinct sharpening of tone towards Tehran, which itself has called for the destruction of the state of Israel.

“The pistol isn’t only loaded but the safety catch has been released,” Uzi Dayan, a former general and national security adviser, told Israel Radio.

Israel is adamant it will not let Iran build an atomic bomb and has been pushing Washington to pile pressure on Tehran to force it to abandon its nuclear programme. The Jewish state is believed to be the only nuclear power in the region.

Iran says its programme is for civilian purposes but few in the West believe this, with the European Union and US applying increasingly severe economic sanctions to force Tehran to halt its uranium enrichment drive and return to talks.

Just for show
Israeli experts, including Dayan, say sanctions will only work if there is a credible military threat behind them. This has led sceptics to believe that the accompanying rhetoric is just for show but the language has reached such a peak that Netanyahu will lose all credibility at home if it proves to be hot air. “Netanyahu sounds like a man whose mind is made up,” editorialist David Horovitz wrote on his TimesOfIsrael website.

The US president has appealed for sanctions to be given more time and although Washington agrees with Israel that it is unacceptable for Iran to get a nuclear weapon, the terminology used by Obama and Netanyahu this week was different.

While Obama talked of preventing Iran from “obtaining” a bomb, Netanyahu spoke about preventing it from “developing” one.

Officials say this means Israel wants to see Iran deprived of the various jigsaw pieces needed when manufacturing a bomb. Washington, by contrast, would only move if it saw Tehran actively trying to put the pieces together.

“We want Iran to be stripped of the capability, to drop the military nuclear programme altogether,” said one Israeli security official, who declined to be named.

The Israeli position flows from the so-called “Begin Doctrine”, enshrined by former prime minister Menachem Begin in 1981 after his air force destroyed an Iraqi reactor that Israel believed would produce plutonium for warheads.

The raid, he said at the time, was proof his country would “under no circumstances allow the enemy to develop weapons of mass-destruction against our people”.

Sceptical public
Monday’s speech represented Netanyahu’s clearest endorsement of this doctrine since taking office in 2009 but critics said he still had to convince a sceptical public of the need for war.

“Today’s Israel does not subscribe to this,” said Uri Dromi, a spokesperson for former Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, adding that the war of words from both Israel and Iran reminded him of the build up to World War I, when Europe stumbled into mayhem.

“He is preparing us for war but I am not sure we are ready for it. It is not a smart game. It is a gamble,” he said.

An opinion poll published last week said just 19% of Israelis thought their nation should attack Iran, even if they did not first get the support of Washington.

Many Israelis fret the country is not prepared for conflict, with analysts predicting it could be hit with a barrage of missiles from Iran and its allies, such as Hizbollah in Lebanon.

Curiously, just hours after Netanyahu spoke, Israel’s Civil Defence Minister Matan Vilnai issued a message via SMS.

“Israel has the operational capability of intercepting missiles coming at it from any place on earth … Today every citizen knows the requirement to be prepared for any emergency situation in the best possible way.” — Reuters