WarSclerotic

Chinks remain in Israel’s air defense armor, despite Iron Dome | The Times of Israel.

Analysis: Success of rocket interceptions this week should not obscure Israel’s vulnerability to other Iran-related missiles, flying at different speeds on different trajectories

By Mitch Ginsburg March 14, 2012, 8:45 pm Updated: March 16, 2012,

A successful missile interception by Iron Dome (photo credit: Ministry of Defense/Flash 90)Iron Dome, deservedly celebrated, has the capacity to defang part of the Iranian projectile threat. But Israel has too few batteries — and the defense establishment’s longstanding failure to recognize the severity of the threat from curved-trajectory weapons has left the country with wide gaps in its coverage. These are unlikely to be filled before Iran, if it so chooses, charges or clandestinely slithers across the prime minister’s red line.

An Israeli or American attack on Iranian nuclear sites would trigger some combination of mortars, rockets and missiles on Israel. These weapons travel at different speeds and on different trajectories, and therefore require different responses.

Israel has two operational systems. Iron Dome targets curved-trajectory weapons that are fired from four to 70 kilometers away. Arrow has a range of 300 to 1,700 kilometers. That leaves Israel vulnerable to close-range mortar attack; mid-range rockets, which Hezbollah possesses in abundance; and certain Iranian ballistic missiles that, allegedly, can be fired from up to 2,000 kilometers away.

Israeli leadership was late to recognize the strategic nature of the ballistic threat it faces. The first to put his finger on the severity of the danger was former Israel Air Force commander and director-general of the Defense Ministry during the Gulf War, David Ivri. According to Defense Minister Ehud Barak, Ivri analyzed the results of the Iran-Iraq War and found that Iraq’s missile attacks on Tehran, despite Iran’s horrific willingness to sacrifice human life, were what ended the war.

“At the time I was very circumspect about the need for developing the Arrow, because I felt that the Americans would invest billions in research and development and that, since we only had a few tens of millions, we would get beat around the bend. But in hindsight, David Ivri was right. We should have done it. He saw this development take shape 15 years ahead of time,” Barak said in a lengthy interview with Nir Hefez and Gadi Bloom for a 2008 book.

There are now two systems in the works to fill the gaps in Israel’s defenses, Magic Wand and Arrow 3. The former, co-developed by Rafael Advanced Weapons Systems, which produced Iron Dome, should address the mid-range threat. According to some reports, it will be operational by 2013. But that is mere conjecture because it has yet to be tested in the field. The Arrow 3, an Israel Aerospace Industry project, is due in 2014.

Unfortunately, there is also bad news regarding the now-beloved Iron Dome. Thirteen batteries are required to provide adequate protection from mid-range threats, according to a report submitted by a Knesset subcommittee headed by former defense minister Amir Peretz and Kadima MK Otniel Schneller to the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee. Thus far Israel has three, with a fourth on the way in the coming weeks. Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz announced Tuesday that the ministry would fund the development of three additional batteries, bringing the total to seven.

Worse, in a full-scale war, those batteries may not be used to protect civilians.

“No one should delude themselves [into thinking] that someone is going to open an umbrella over their heads. These systems were meant to protect air bases, naval bases and draft centers — even if it means that during the first days of a campaign it will be uncomfortable for the civilians,” said Maj. Gen. Gadi Eisenkot, the OC Northern Command at the time, during a 2010 conference on national security at the University of Haifa.

Chaim Yellin, the head of the Eshkol Regional Council in the south, strongly disputed the assertion, according to reports. “Last I checked on Google, we still live in a democracy, and the army is obliged to act according to government decision,” he said, referring to a cabinet decision to protect the towns and cities near the Gaza border.

Iron Dome provides bubbles of protection. Without providing exact figures, each bubble is roughly the size of Ashdod. The bubbles are movable — but the military’s priorities are not. According to Uzi Rubin, the former director of the Israel Missile Defense Organization within the Defense Ministry, the first priority is to allow the army the ability to wage war. The second is to protect national infrastructure and highly sensitive sites. Protecting civilians is only third on the priority list.

“It’s a cruel logic,” he said.

Israel Hayom | Netanyahu’s verbal poker.

Israeli threats of attack sparked new wave of Iran sanctions, officials say – Haaretz Daily Newspaper | Israel News.

Foreign Ministry official says recent sanctions imposed by EU, U.S., as well as China’s reduction of oil purchases from Iran, point to international community’s apprehensions about Israeli military strike.

By Barak Ravid

Senior officials in the Foreign Ministry believe that the latest sanctions imposed by the West against Iran result from the threats Israel issued about launching a unilateral attack on the Iranian nuclear facilities.

Yesterday, Swift, the global provider of financial services, announced that it is severing 25 Iranian banks from its systems, starting tomorrow. This dramatic move means that Iran’s government will effectively have to transact its international business in cash.

	Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu holds two letters, one of which he read from, as he addresses the AIPAC Policy Conference in Washington.
	Photo by: AP

A top Foreign Ministry official said that the recent rounds of sanctions imposed by the European Union and the U.S. against Iran, along with the fact that states such as Japan and South Korea have joined efforts to pressure Tehran, and also China’s reduction of oil purchases from Iran, bear witness to the international community’s apprehensions about an Israeli military strike. “These aren’t sanctions against Iran. Instead, they are sanctions imposed by the West to curb Israel’s attack plans,” a senior foreign ministry official said. “Had Israel not spoken out about its intention to attack, none of this would be happening. The Iranians are frightened. You have to understand what’s going on there in stores; citizens grab food off the shelves because they are worried about an impending attack. Inflation is soaring and the currency has lost half its value. All this attests to fear.”

Israel’s political leadership remains divided regarding how to react to the Iranian nuclear reactor issue. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak believe that international sanctions will not successfully end Iran’s drive to develop nuclear weapons, and support a unilateral Israeli attack; on the other hand, a considerable number of top officials oppose such an attack under the current circumstances, and believe there is time to see whether sanctions will work.

Members of this group of opponents of a unilateral strike includes four members of the inner cabinet of eight – Moshe Ya’alon, Dan Meridor, Benny Begin and Eli Yishai. Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz, a close associate of Netanyahu, continues to sit on the fence, and Foreign Minister Avigor Lieberman’s position on the Iranian issue remains a mystery. Many ministers believe that Lieberman has joined the Netanyahu-Barak camp, but the foreign minister has refrained from public comment and in private discussions has expressed support for the sanctions policy.

Lieberman, who arrived yesterday in China on an official trip during which he will discuss the Iranian nuclear issue along with plans to expand the volume of Israel-China trade, will serve as the swing man who casts the deciding ballot on any vote taken by the eight-man inner cabinet regarding Israel’s response to the Iranian threat.

Yet for the time being at least, the inner cabinet is not likely to hold a decisive discussion on the Iranian issue. The last time the inner cabinet discussed the issue was four months ago.

Members of the inner cabinet have indicated that Israel is not about to reach a decision regarding a military strike on Iran. The issue could become more pertinent on July 1, when the oil embargo emplaced by the EU against Iran becomes fully operational, these officials suggest.

One of the eight ministers said that Netanyahu is discussing the Iranian threat primarily with Ehud Barak. Netanyahu also confers with ministers individually on the matter, the inner cabinet member said. “As in the case of the Gilad Shalit prisoner exchange deal, or discussions about the possibility of extending the freeze on settlement construction, Netanyahu and Barak sit with ministers separately and ascertain their position,” said the minister.

A top Foreign Ministry official expressed satisfaction yesterday about the “Swift” decision. He defined it as “another mortal blow to the Iranian regime,” adding that the move will further restrict the Iranian government’s ability to trade with foreign states.

Swift is based in Brussels, and operates a huge global financial services network. It handles more than 80% of the financial transactions and electronic money transfers that occur around the globe. Some 10,000 banks and financial institutions in 210 countries subscribe to Swift’s services.

Swift’s decision comes in the aftermath of a new European Union decision to prohibit any company listed in one of its countries from carrying out electronic transactions with any of the 25 Iranian banks boycotted under the sanctions policy.

Swift announced that starting Saturday March 17, it will sever all connections with the 25 Iranian banks. This is an unprecedented move, and it means that Iran’s government will have to physically relay cash or gold bars to pay for its transactions overseas.

During his recent talks with U.S. President Barack Obama in Washington, Netanyahu brought up the issue of severing the Iranian banks from Swift.

A top Israeli official said yesterday that during his talks in Washington and Ottawa, Netanayhu insisted that we need “Swift sanctions swiftly.”

The Prime Minister’s Office yesterday released a response to the Swift decision, saying “Prime Minister Netanyahu welcomes Swift’s decision to sever the Iranian banks from its system.”

When the chips are down, Israel s… JPost – Opinion – Columnists.

By JAY BUSHINSKY

03/15/2012 22:54

Today’s Israel and its leaders cannot rely on the sublime or idealized prospect of divine intervention if the Tehran regime unleashes nuclear-armed missiles.

By REUTERS/Joshua Roberts

On his return from the US last week, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu made a serious effort to bring home – literally and figuratively – one of the most tragic phases of the Nazi Holocaust: The World War II Allies’ rejection of the World Jewish Congress’s plea that their warplanes bomb Auschwitz.

Unfortunately, obtuse or disinterested Israeli TV producers and news directors prevented him from achieving this goal.

When he held up two crucial messages on that issue for all to see, the cameras did not provide the requisite close-ups and the letters disappeared from view in less than 30 seconds.

One of them from was from A. Leon Kubowitzki, who headed the Congress’s rescue department during WWII. It was addressed to John J. McCloy, the American assistant secretary of war. McCloy was asked to authorize the bombing of Auschwitz, the infamous death camp.

In an explicit reply dated August 9, 1944, McCloy wrote: “Such an operation could be executed only by diverting considerable air support essential to the success of our forces elsewhere… and in any case could be of such doubtful efficacy that it would not warrant use of our resources…. Such an effort might provoke even more vindictive action by the Germans.”

Actually, only the text’s first sentence was composed by McCloy, according to Hebrew University Professor Emeritus Shlomo Aronson, who interviewed McCloy on this subject in the then-former official’s Wall Street office in the 1970s. By then, McCloy’s memory was somewhat fuzzy on this subject.

The original idea came from Ernest Frischer of the wartime Czechoslovak National Council and evidently was relayed to the War Refugee Board which president Theodore Roosevelt had created to help Europe’s endangered Jews.

Surprisingly, there was a great deal of controversy about it mainly because some analysts feared that the bombing would kill many of Auschwitz’s innocent inmates and because it might prompt the Nazis to speed up their ruthless genocide there.

In the end, no outside force intervened on behalf of the doomed Jews.

This was in keeping with the pattern that had been set by the Western Allies and their Soviet comrades in arms.

The valiant Warsaw Ghetto fighters whose heroic revolt against the Nazis that broke out on April 19, 1943, fought alone, without any outside assistance from any quarter. Even their counterparts in the Polish underground who were based just outside the ghetto’s walls failed to help.

Ironically, when the non-Jewish Poles revolted, August 1, 1944, they too were bereft of armed allies. The Red Army, which was advancing toward Warsaw at the time, did not commit any of its combat units to the Polish insurrection.

Among the other death camps and ghettoes in which there was well-organized and partly successful Jewish resistance were Treblinka, Sobibor and Bialystok, but there too the Allies and the Soviets failed to intervene.

This perhaps is the most relevant reason for Netanyahu’s attempt to present the Israeli public with the Auschwitz letters insofar as Israel’s contemporary predicament vis-a-vis Iran is concerned.

No one knows better than the prime minister how diabolical the Islamic Republic of Iran would become if it tried to implement the threats against Israel made by its leaders, especially those of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Netanyahu’s undeclared conclusion was that Israel will have to face its arch-enemy alone. Today’s Israel and its leaders cannot rely on the sublime or idealized prospect of divine intervention if the Tehran regime unleashes nuclear-armed missiles in a possible if not probable showdown over Israel’s right to exist.

And like the situation that existed during the bleakest days of the Nazi genocide, there is no friendly, sympathetic or diplomatically-committed foreign power that can be expected to pull Israel’s chestnuts out of the fire. Bibi evidently understands this very well, but he was unable to amplify it properly this time around.

Incidentally, Kubowitzki changed his surname to Kubovy and used his Hebrew first name, Arieh, when he settled in Jerusalem after WWII. He was appointed chairman of Yad Vashem, the Heroes’ and Martyrs’ Remembrance Authority, and served in that capacity during the 1950s and 1960s.

The writer is a veteran foreign correspondent.

DEBKA.

Zuheir al-Qaisi

In many ways, the four-day Israeli clash of arms (from Friday March 9 through early Tuesday March 13) with the Palestinians of Gaza – Jihad Islami this time – was a dress rehearsal for its expected military confrontation with Iran and its allies later this year. All the fighting elements – diplomatic, military, intelligence and cyber warfare – came into play in miniature.
DEBKA-Net-Weekly’s military and intelligence sources divide their conclusions from this episode between its tactical and diplomatic aspects and its military side, in order to assess the respective performances of Israel, the US and Iran.
Israel’s diplomatic and strategic showing was below par compared with its military and intelligence performance, which too was problematic.
As for the Americans, for the first time in 60 years, they opted to stay out of an Israeli-Palestinian conflict of this type, apparently nursing their contretemps in Syria, where Bashar Assad looked liked becoming unassailable.
Iran profited from the weaknesses of its adversaries and caught Israel napping.
Friday night, March 9, its Palestinian proxy, the Jihad Islami, took everyone by surprise by assuming responsibility for avenging the targeted killing by an Israel air strike of the secretary general of the tiny Popular Resistance Committees, Zuheir al-Qaisi, and the passenger in his car, another terrorist called Ahmed al-Hanani.
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu personally ordered the assassination while still in Washington last week. It turned out to be a grave miscalculation. Neither he nor Defense Minister Ehud Barak or the top IDF command had foreseen that the Jihad Islami would for the first time take the lead of an anti-Israel Palestinian operation.
It happened because Tehran, which keeps a close eye on the goings-on in and around the Gaza Strip, sensed a chance for creating havoc and told Jihad Islami to start shooting dozens of missiles, including Grads, against Israel.
As the missiles hailed down on the towns and villages of the southwest, the IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz tried belatedly Tuesday, March 13 to defend the decision to kill al-Qaisi by explaining that his death had prevented a major, strategic terrorist attack from Sinai. He did not elaborate.

Jihad Islami is a special ops brigade of Iran’s Al Qods

Our counterterrorism sources say that this claim hardly fit the case since the threat had been current from late August 2011, when the Jihad and Committees first started posting terrorist cells in Egyptian Sinai ready for cross-border raids into Israel. The first one left eight Israelis dead.
That menace had kept a major Israeli highway to the southern town of Eilat closed for eight months and tied down an entire combat brigade on the Israeli-Egyptian border.
Defense Minister Barak and Gen. Gantz admitted later that the terror alert was still in effect even after Al-Qaisi was gone.
Jihad Islami was first created in the 1970s by certain radical Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood factions dissatisfied with the organization’s operations against Israel and up in arms against the peace accord their government had signed with Israel.
Then, inspired by Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution, Jihad Islami turned itself into a militia to fight for a sovereign Palestine to displace the Jewish state. Over the years, its ideological character blurred until, in 2005, it evolved from a fundamentalist organization into a highly trained and organized military force.
After the war between Israel and Hizballah in 2006, Islamic Jihad underwent another change, fully militarized now as the Palestinian special forces segment of Iran’s Al Qods Brigades. It came under the direct command of the Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) Lebanese chief, customarily Iran’s ambassador to Beirut, who answers to the supreme commander Gen. Qasem Soleimani.
Today, this arcane, dedicated force is thought to number some 3,500 fighting men.

Jihad missiles also targeted IDF bases

Israel’s leaders were so taken aback by seeing Jihad Islami spearheading a Palestinian attack at Tehran’s behest, that it took them 24 hours to recover. During that time, droves of rockets cut through the air over southern Israeli towns and villages without pause. This taught Iran that Israel was not prepared for a sudden preemptive attack and would need a day or more to pull its act together.
The heavy barrage upset the lives of a million Israelis overnight, although they were disciplined enough to stay in shelters and avoid fatalities. It was presented as targeting civilians alone. But unbeknownst to the public, the rockets also sped toward Israeli military and air bases in central Israel with a view to disrupting military action. Some connected.
The prime minister and his ministers were in for more than one surprise: Their customary application to Washington to intercede with Middle East contacts, especially in Cairo, to stop the aggression, was greeted with a blank refusal. Manage on your own, they were told, or go to Cairo yourselves to try and work something out together.
This rejection was found all the more surprising when Washington knew the trouble had emanated from Tehran.

An ephemeral ceasefire – at best

In the event, Israel turned to the military rulers in Cairo with a request to use their influence for getting the missile offensive stopped. The Egyptian generals responded by cobbling together a ramshackle ceasefire. It was accomplished by telling each of the interested parties a different version of the terms agreed.
DEBKA-Net-Weekly’s military sources say that each version contained elements which the addressee wanted to hear: Israel chose to believe Egypt’s assurance that the missile fire would stop; Jihad Islami was told Israel had guaranteed to halt the targeted assassinations of its high-profile terrorists; Hamas, the go-between with Jihad Islami, sought an Egyptian promise to restore the Gaza Strip’s electricity supply.
In fact, the Cairo had pulled off an exercise in multiple deceit so obviously full of holes, that the three parties would have known, had they wanted to, that the ceasefire was ephemeral.
Tuesday night, March 13, after the “ceasefire” was to have been in force for 24 hours, Jihad Islami leader Ramadan Shalah said there would be no truce unless Israel halted the targeted killings.
The missiles kept on coming from the Gaza Strip Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. When asked directly what had been agreed about the targeted killings, Israeli spokesmen were evasive.

Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood secretly resolves to mend its fences with Iran

Why did the Israeli prime minister, defense minister and chief of staff go along with Egypt’s sale of the same dodgy article to three different clients for different currencies, knowing it would fall apart as soon as it was used? And even more perplexing, what induced them to accept a deal which gave Tehran the advantage of claiming credit for an inconclusive conflict with Israel and a free license to violate the truce at any time?
Flawed evaluations appear to have led them astray.
Israeli official spokesmen insisted throughout the missile episode that Hamas, which governs the Gaza Strip, had stayed out of it and was indeed keen on keeping things quiet.
Hindsight, say DEBKA-Net-Weekly’s intelligence and military sources, showed a different picture.
From a second look at regional events in the past two weeks, Washington and Jerusalem are beginning to realize that Tehran played both Jihad and Hamas. The former was tasked with launching a missile offensive against Israel – and if possible also a major terrorist attack. Hamas would then play its part by using the turmoil to return to the Iranian fold.
The missing piece in the puzzle which kept US and Israeli intelligence looking in the wrong direction was the Muslim Brotherhood’s hole-in-the corner maneuvering.
DEBKA-Net-Weekly’s Egyptian sources reveal here that the Sunni Brotherhood, the dominant political force in post-Mubarak Egypt, secretly decided two weeks ago to mend its fences with Shiite Iran, causing a major upset for the United States and Israel.
The Palestinian Hamas, which has long enjoyed Tehran’s support, was chosen as their facilitator.

Hizballah, Hamas, Jihad resolve on a sequel to the Gaza clash

And so while the US, Europe and Israel were misled by the misapprehension that Hamas rulers of Gaza had turned away from Tehran and were heading for the pro-Western Arab camp, they were in fact in fast motion in the opposite direction.
March 5, five days before the first missiles were fired from Gaza, a Hamas delegation headed by Deputy Politburo Chief Mousa Abu Marzouk (who was portrayed by Western media as pro-Western) sat around a table with Hizballah’s secretary general Hassan Nasrallah, the most extreme of Iran’s terrorist leaders, to formulate what they called euphemistically “a plan to resolve the developments in Syria” and “cooperate to find the right channels to improve Iran’s ties with the Arab countries, especially the Muslim Brotherhood, which would be based on trust.”
By week’s end, US and Israeli intelligence had learned about two decisions reached at the Beirut encounter:
1. They had settled on Hizballah opening a second front against Israel from Lebanon if the Gaza clashes persisted beyond a certain point. This would ease Israeli military pressure on the Palestinians.
2. Hizballah, Hamas and Jihad Islami would jointly launch a sequel to the Gaza confrontation.
As the rocket fire continued, a leading Hamas member from Gaza, Mahmoud A-Zahar, arrived in Tehran at the head of a delegation. The makeup of the delegation was revealed by our sources as including more leading lights of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood than members of Hamas.
The Brotherhood has clearly embarked on its initial steps for mending its ties with the ayatollahs under the secret guise of a Hamas mission.
In four months time, a Brotherhood candidate can expect to win election as Egypt’s president.
Using the sound and fury of the Syrian crisis and the Gaza showdown, Tehran has managed to cement its alliance with Damascus and Hizballah and move on toward its expansion by tagging on Egypt and the Gaza Strip.

DEBKA.

Hillary Clinton

On Wednesday, March 14, Russia’s Kommersant daily ran an exclusive report purporting that US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had on Monday, March 12 asked Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov to convey to Tehran a warning that the coming talks with the big powers was its “last chance” for a diplomatic resolution of the controversy over its nuclear program. After that, the way was clear to a military strike.
She is said by the paper to have approached Lavrov for this service in the absence of US diplomatic ties with Iran.
DEBKA-Net-Weekly’s sources in Washington say that whatever passed between the American and Russian officials it was not quite as presented by Kommersant – or its Russian sources. They were clearly intent on underlining for Tehran that Moscow remains its only viable bridge to Washington as well as the conservative Arab world, and they should build on their fruitful cooperation for saving Bashar Assad, for more shared successes in the region at America’s expense.
The message going out to Washington from this report was that backing the winning horse in Damascus had substantially empowered the Russian-Tehran partnership as well as the pro-Iranian bloc embracing Assad’s Syria, the Lebanese Hizballah and the radical Palestinians of the Gaza Strip.
Not too long ago, Western officials, media and think tanks were eulogizing Assad as well as the Syrian-Iranian strategic bond, predicting Tehran would soon find itself fatally cut off from direct access to its surrogates in Lebanon and the Gaza Strip, especially the Palestinian Jihad Islami. (See the next article on the consequences of this week’s Gaza showdown.)
Assad’s survival now calls for some radical rethinking.

Russian-Iranian military, intelligence, weapons, financial aid poured in

It was accomplished thanks to massive Russian and Iranian backing. In the diplomatic arena, Russia grappled successfully with the US, Europe and the conservative Arab world to fend off military intervention that might have tipped the scales against the Syria ruler.
Both Russia and Iran were deeply involved in fieldwork for helping Assad win his bloody, no-holds-barred battle to suppress civilian and armed resistance.
Iran sent him thousands of military, intelligence and security strategists and riot dispersal experts for guidance in cracking down on the restive cities; cyber warfare whiz kids enhanced the work of Syrian security and intelligence services.
Equally important, Tehran infused more than two billion dollars into the Syrian treasury emptied by Western sanctions, and a steady supply of weapons, ammunition and crowd dispersal gear.
DEBKA-Net-Weekly’s intelligence and Iranian sources add that the Islamic Republic took upon itself the management of Syria’s military as well as its economy. Although enduring hard times itself, Tehran never once in the year-long conflict failed to respond at once to a financial Mayday call from Damascus.
Iranian financial and banking agents acted for Syria in overseas transactions. Tehran arranged for Syrian oil to reach buyers, putting to work the sanctions-busting measures it had developed to overcome the sanctions imposed on Iran itself by the US, Europe and Arab countries.

High-level Iranian-Russian coordination

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei put two top officials in charge of the Save Assad mission and the cementing of Iranian-Syrian ties: Intelligence Minister Heidar Moslehi and Al-Qods Brigades’ commander Gen. Qassem Soleimani.
The pair operated in close sync both with the Syrian leadership and their Russian colleagues, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, Foreign Intelligence Service chief Mikhail Fradkov and Mikhail Margelov, the Kremlin’s ambassador-at-large in Arabia, whose formal title is Chairman of the Committee on Foreign Affairs of the Federation Council of the Russian Federation.
The Russian-Iranian rescue plan for Assad and its success produced five strategic consequences:
1. Syria was saved from US and European intervention. While the Russians handled the diplomatic and intelligence side of the project, the Iranians were on the front line in Syria against US, French and British covert operations.
Iranian agents and special operations units disabled the Western logistical intelligence network in beleaguered Homs and helped Syrian intelligence block Syrian rebel arms smuggling routes incoming from Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey.
So while the Obama administration was working through Moscow to bring Iran to the negotiating table with the Six Powers on its nuclear program, Russian and Iranian clandestine agencies were busy working together in Syria to undercut US and Western positions.

A stronger hand at the nuclear negotiating table

2. After proving its mettle in Syria, Iran comes to the negotiating table much strengthened, a far cry from the enfeebled and dysfunctional state which the Obama administration had hoped to achieve by the pressures of stiff economic sanctions.
3. Not only has the West been driven out of positions of influence in Syria, but Assad’s foes in the region, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar, in particular, have taken a knock. Iran pulled off its tit-for-tat for last year’s Saudi-GCC military operation stemming Iranian influence in Bahrain by thwarting their anti-Assad operations in Damascus – except that Syria’s importance and centrality to the next Middle East developments far outweigh Bahrain’s.
4. Iran has massively boosted its leverage in Baghdad. If anyone in Washington or Riyadh had counted on Assad’s downfall counter-balancing Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s pro-Iranian policy and persuading him to lean more on Turkey, this hope is now buried.
5. The Assad regime’s assured survival for the near future lifts Hassan Nasrallah and his Hizballah out of the uncertainty bedeviling him in the past year.
Far from abandoning the Iranian and Syrian ships and going over to pro-Western Arab patrons and bankrollers as reported prematurely in the West and Israel, the Palestinian Hamas was in no hurry to change horses. Its leaders’ decision to stick with Tehran was clinched by the success of Iran’s allies in their clashes with Israeli forces this week. (More about this in a separate article.)

DEBKA.

Bashar Assad

The conquest of the northern Syrian rebel stronghold of Idlib by pro-Assad loyalist forces Sunday, March 11, was, on the face of it, not much different from the subjugation of other restive towns, such as Rasstan near Damascus or Homs and Hama.
Five columns of shabiha militiamen drove into Idlib, after the town of 300,000 was subjected to five days of relentless artillery shelling by an outer ring formed by the Syrian 14^th Infantry Division.
The rebels, described by the Western and Arab press as elements of the Free Syrian Army, were thin on the ground. It took the regime’s forces just a few hours to assert control of Idlib and drive out the FSA’s Bakr al-Siddiq, Deir al-Azouheir and Ma’awamiya battalions – each no more than a few small companies of 120-150 men, who fled to Turkey.
All the same, Idlib was different because it was the last important stronghold still holding out against Assad’s bloody juggernaut.
And so, as the popular uprising against his rule reached its first anniversary, Thursday, March 15, Bashar Assad was able to assure his clan, his loyal generals and his security chiefs of success in stamping out the armed revolt to his regime; not even a small armed force remains in control of a city, town or village and able to fight him.
Sporadic guerrilla operations and demonstrations are to be expected here and there. But the towns, big and small, have been beaten into submission and the FSA (estimated to have numbered 40,000-50,000 officers and men) left a broken reed.

The main props of the Assad regime remained steadfast

The ruling elite retained the loyalty of the main body of the army and branches of the administration. Notwithstanding opposition claims to the contrary, military defections and desertions were marginal in scope and never encompassed a major unit or important general. Since most of Syria’s top officers belong to the Assad clan or its minority Alawite sect, they know that if the regime falls, they too, unlike in Egypt, are goners.
There were no deserters among the hundreds of Syrian diplomats serving in embassies world wide – in contrast to Libya, where most of Muammar Qaddafi’s envoys joined the opposition days into the revolt against his rule.
And the middle and merchant classes of Damascus and Aleppo – even though many belonged to the persecuted Sunni community – opted for sitting on the fence and waiting out the uprising’s outcome. The Druze and Christian minorities also stayed out of the conflict.
So long as these backbones of Syrian society and its two main cities shun the anti-regime movement, the inherently divided opposition has little hope of raising enough strength or support for toppling Assad.

Assad will now restructure the Syrian army

The pockets of resistance in the street, remaining after the armed resistance was crushed, do not bother the Syrian ruler too much now that he is rid of most of the armed rebels, most having fled to Turkey or Lebanon. After slaughtering an estimated 11,000 of his countrymen in every home and neighborhood of protest, Assad feels he can dispose of these pockets at his leisure.
DEBKA-Net-Weekly’s military and intelligence sources (who closely adhered to the realities of the Assad crackdown in the past year) report that Assad now has two immediate objectives:
1. Making sure that no group or individual in the country is ever again able to raise an armed force against his rule;
2. Reorganizing his loyal shabiha, a militia of an estimated 35,000 Alawites who have pledged loyalty to Assad and are his regime’s key prop.
He will also restructure the Syrian Army and rebuild its chain of command to prevent the recurrence of the situation throughout the uprising in which most of the units – excepting only the 4^th Mechanized Division and Republic Guard – stayed out of the operations for suppressing the uprising and defending the regime.
The Syrian ruler will hand out promotions and perks to the officers who kept faith with his regime through thick and thin and their families.

Russia: Prime helper and prime beneficiary of Assad’s success

Russia like Iran is strongly at the receiving end of the Syrian dictator’s success.
Our Moscow sources report that the newly-elected President Vladimir Putin is claiming as his personal victory the policy of holding the line against American and Western intervention in the Syrian uprising and their attempts to make Assad’s overthrow part of the Arab Spring against autocratic rulers. It was his idea to threaten to deploy Russian troops to Syria to stand in for local units transferred from their regular duties to suppressing dissidence.
Tuesday, March 13, government sources in Moscow admitted for the first time that Russian military advisors were attached to the Syrian Army.
Moscow also fed the Syrian ruler intelligence from areas within his own country as well as from Israel and neighboring Arab countries, while also updating him on American and European military movements in the Middle East, especially in Turkey. Russia also equipped pro-government militias security units engaged in crushing the revolt with arms, topping up fast-depleting ammo stores.
Not all the top men in the Kremlin subscribed to Putin’s policy, including outgoing president Dmitry Medvedev. The new president won out against the critics of his pro-Assad line on Syria by bringing Mikhail Fradkov, head of the Foreign Intelligence Service, over to his side.
Moscow knew exactly what Assad needed after Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Fradkov paid a visit to Damascus and talked to the Syrian ruler. While the visit was billed as a Russian bid to persuade him to accept political reforms, it actually focused on the ways and means in which Russia could help the Syrian ruler quickly stamp out the armed revolt against his rule.

Lavrov lords it over the Arab League foreign ministers

Assad’s victory has therefore vindicated Putin and awarded Russia a political and military achievement on a scale that has eluded Moscow for many years. Putin proved he could win over an Arab country to Russian influence, shut doors to the Obama administration’s interference and wind up calling the shots in Damascus.
The Russian Foreign Minister arrived in Caro Saturday, March 10, ready collect kudos, say DEBKA-Net-Weekly’s Middle East sources report.
It was strange to see Lavrov sitting in a place of honor at the 22-member Arab League foreign ministers’ meeting Saturday, March, 10. Stranger still, they let him talk the Arab ministers down and dictate Russia’s five-point plan for the Arab world to follow for resolving the Syrian crisis.
It called for a complete cease-fire, monitoring procedures, no foreign interference, humanitarian aid supplies and “firm support” for international envoy Kofi Annan’s mission to promote dialogue between the government and opposition.

Russia will be there for Iran at nuclear talks too

Aware of the true situation in Syria the Arab foreign ministers bowed to the Russian plan although it was clearly tilted in Assad’s favor.
And when the Qatari prime minister and foreign minister Sheikh Hamad Jassim bin Jabr al-Thani tried later to undo some of the damage by demanding military intervention to stop the bloodletting in Syria after he had despaired of a Libyan-style Western-Arab operation, he was publicly rebuked from New York by Lavrov.
Arriving there to meet US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the Russian foreign minister said: “I was amazed …that while I was in the air my colleague, with whom we agreed on these principles, the prime minister and foreign minister of Qatar, called publicly for dispatching Arab or international forces to Syria. It absolutely contradicts what we agreed on and announced publicly.”
Lavrov’s tone strikingly demonstrated Moscow’s utter confidence in its ability to dictate the course of events in the Arab world in contrast to Washington’s withdrawal from the scene.
Russia’s gain from the Syrian episode is deeply significant for its other winner, Iran, ahead of the nuclear negotiations due to take place next month in Istanbul. Whereas the Iranians will face six powers (five permanent UN Security Council members plus Germany) across the negotiating table, one of the six is Russia, which would even up the score for Iran.
For more about the strategic partnership forged by Moscow and Tehran to save Syria’s Assad and Iran’s gains from his success, read the next item in this issue.

DEBKAfile, Political Analysis, Espionage, Terrorism, Security.

DEBKAfile Exclusive Report March 16, 2012, 1:51 AM (GMT+02:00)

Mahmoud A-Zahar of Hamas welcomed in Tehran

After five days of non-stop missile fire on a dozen towns and villages, Israel Thursday night, March 15, gave Egypt and Hamas two days to halt the shooting or else the Israeli Defense Forces would go into action against Gaza. debkafile’s military sources report that neither Egypt nor Hamas can be expected to go up against the missile shooters now.  The attacks have now been taken over from Jihad Islami by a small group of Salafi Palestinians calling itself Haraka Muhaheddin, which belongs to Jalalat, the al Qaeda roof organization in the Gaza Strip.
Most of the missiles are now coming from the Salafi concentrations in the southern part of the enclave –targeting Beersheba and Netivot Thursday morning and as night fell aimed at Ashdod, Ashkelon, Shear Hanegev and the Eshkol region. The firing escalated after Israel laid down its ultimatum
Egypt and Hamas don’t know exactly who is giving Haraka the missiles, except that they are smuggled from Sinai through tunnels managed by Iranian intelligence agents in conjunction with local al Qaeda networks.
It is highly unlikely that Hamas will venture to lay hands on these Salafi terrorists at a time when one of its top officials in Gaza, Mahmoud A-Zahar, is visiting Tehran for talks with Iranian leaders who are keen to keep the missile assaults going.
His visit marks the Hamas fundamentalists’ return to the Iranian fold – that is if they ever really left it. This, Israeli strategists have chosen to ignore and are treating Hamas as a non-participant in the missile offensive and available to help Cairo bring the terrorists to accept a ceasefire.
The sequence of events leading up to this week’s violence points to the opposite conclusion and, therefore, the probable escalation of the violence rather than a truce.

Five days before the missile fire began, on March 5, a Hamas Deputy Politburo Chief Mousa Abu Marzouk and Hizballah’s Hassan Nasrallah met in Beirut and finalized tactics for building up tensions on Israel’s borders.
Monday, March 12, Mahmoud A-Zahar was in Cairo to wind up Gaza ceasefire terms with Egyptian officials when, to their astonishment, instead of returning to Gaza, he boarded a plane to Tehran. He is still there.

And so, while the Egyptians try and reach some sort of accommodation with Hamas for a truce, Hamas itself is in close communion with the Iranians, who want to see the Israeli military stuck in a messy a showdown with the Palestinian Salafis.