WarSclerotic

UN nuke chief: Access to Iran ar… JPost – Iranian Threat – News.

Photo: REUTERS

ST GALLEN, Switzerland – Gaining access to a key Iranian military facility will be the priority for the UN nuclear watchdog when it resumes talks with the Islamic state in mid-May, agency head Yukiya Amano said on Friday.

Amano, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), said the Vienna-based UN body did not yet have a “positive response” from Iran regarding the request for nuclear inspectors to be allowed to visit the Parchin site.

But he told journalists on the sidelines of a conference in the Swiss town of St Gallen, “we would like to pursue this” issue of Parchin, where the IAEA believes nuclear-related military research may have taken place. Iran denies this.

“We need to look at all the outstanding issues, but Parchin is the priority and we should start with that,” Amano said.

Western diplomats say Iran appears to be stonewalling the IAEA’s request to go to Parchin and they suspect it may be “sanitizing” the site southeast of Tehran of any incriminating evidence before any visit, a suspicion Tehran dismisses.

Amano has said the agency has noticed some “activities” at Parchin – a choice of words that Western diplomats interpret as suggesting the IAEA also harbors suspicions of possible clean-up work, on the basis of satellite images at its disposal.

Asked what he meant by “activities”, Amano said on Friday: “We do not have people there so we cannot tell what these activities are.”

Iran and the IAEA will meet for two days of talks in Vienna on May 14-15, just over a week before the Islamic Republic and world powers are to hold a second round of broader political negotiations in Baghdad on May 23.

“In my reading the desire to resolve this Iranian issue through dialogue is stronger now than before,” Amano told the conference, referring to the resumption of diplomacy between Iran and the powers in Istanbul last month after a gap of more than a year of escalating tension.

“Recently we have witnessed a positive atmosphere but we need to have concrete results,” he later told reporters.

DEBKA.

Mahmoud-Reza Sajjadi

Even the most evasive Iranian diplomats found it hard not to betray gratification over the results thus far of their clandestine nuclear negotiations with the Obama administration.
When Foreign Ministry spokesman Ramin Mehman-Parast was asked at a Tehran press conference on Tuesday, May 1, what Iran would put before the Six Powers at their next meeting on May 23 in Baghdad, he declined to answer, referring questions to Said Jalili, senior negotiator and head of the National Security Council.
But before clamming up, he quoted Iran’s ambassador to Moscow, Mahmoud-Reza Sajjadi as conceding last week that Iran is taking a positive look at the Russian compromise “step by step” plan, which proposes that Iran match its nuclear concessions to the tempo at which the West revokes sanctions.
In Tehran as in Washington, there is high expectation that the Baghdad meeting may even occasion a breakthrough toward resolving the controversy over Iran’s nuclear program.

Iran’s qui pro quo: Help in resolving Afghan and Iraq crises

According to DEBKA-Net-Weekly‘s Iranian sources, Tehran feels it has drawn ahead of the game thanks to the Obama administration coming around to their step-by-step formula suggested by Moscow, which is simply this: The more Washington eases up on its demands for Iran to forego its nuclear aspirations, the more help Tehran will render the Obama administration for solving its military, security and political predicaments in Iraq and Afghanistan and stemming terrorist threats from those countries.
More specifically, Tehran would help bring about quiet understandings between Washington and the Taliban -and even al Qaeda elements – as well as guaranteeing to oversee their implementation.
Our sources in Tehran find further confirmation for the exclusive reports appearing in debkafile on April 18, and DEBKA-Net-Weekly 537 April 20 (Iran Plays the American Game to Win, Obama’s Proposals Are Primed to Pre-empt War – Not a Nuclear-Armed Iran).
We reported then: President Obama has decided to quietly give up on his demand that Iran “come clean” on its nuclear activities and open up to international inspection. As one Washington source put it, this is a gesture Tehran can hardly resist. It would … make it worth Iran’s while to accept the US framework package in toto. Without International Atomic Energy Agency or any other oversight, Iran’s nuclear weaponization would no longer be hampered from achieving its end within 36 months.

Tehran is satisfied, but wants more

Tehran concludes, our Iranian sources report, that for the sake of a helping hand in clearing away the obstacles to settling the Iraq and Afghan predicaments, the Obama administration will come to terms with Iran continuing 5-percent uranium enrichment and allowing IAEA inspectors “free” access only to “declared” nuclear sites.
Washington can be counted on buying this formula, the Iranians believe, because President Obama’s strategic advisers consider it a double win: It offers him a chance to tout his achievements to the American voter in resolving the intractable crises in Afghanistan and Iraq; and, moreover, oil prices would start falling once the West and Iran were seen closing in on a deal with Iran and ending oil sanctions.
But the Iranians, satisfied with their gains to date, are confident they can get more out of Washington, including approval for 20 percent enrichment of uranium, confining IAEA inspections to “official” nuclear sites, and the lifting of sanctions in three phases over a maximum of six months.
According to our Iranian sources, the talks Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki held in Tehran last week addressed two issues closely related to the evolving Iranian-US give-and-take:

Iran prepares to pull Al Qods terrorist networks out of Iraq

1. The Iraqi government must ease the exit of Al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) gangs from the country by removing all obstacles, in particular, the military and security checkpoints impeding their passage into Syria.
The Shiite Maliki had no objections to this request: He is in fact glad to be rid of the Al Qaeda elements terrorizing Baghdad and Shiite centers with multiple suicide bombings and attacks. Their departure furthermore removes a key domestic Sunni weapon for undermining his rule.
2. The Iraqi prime minister’s Iranian interlocutors trod carefully on the second issue: As part of their quid pro quo for the American side, Tehran must disband the terrorist networks it is running in the Shiite regions of Iraq.
At the same time, the paranoid Maliki must not be given cause to suspect Iran was ditching him, which he would if Al Qods began pulling its agents out of Iraq without prior warning or coordination with Baghdad.
The Iranians explained to their Iraqi visitor that the removal of their clandestine networks from his country would not weaken his regime but strengthen it, because it would herald Iranian-American cooperation for propping him up.
Since this article deals with Tehran’s perception of its back-door nuclear deal with Washington, DEBKA-Net-Weekly‘s counterterrorism sources have no Iranian quotes on their readiness to sacrifice their senior Middle East ally, Syrian President Bashar Assad, by placing his regime at the mercy of al Qaeda fighters exported from Iraq. However, this deal shows how far Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is ready to go to procure US recognition of Iran’s nuclear program. That program apparently comes out on top when weighed against the fate of the Syrian ruler.

The Baghdad meeting – a formality

For two weeks, Iran’s leaders have been deep in conferences on tactics for the Baghdad talks, including three private meetings between Khamenei and nuclear negotiator Jalili.
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was not invited to any policy-making sessions.
After two years of boycotting the Expediency Discernment Council, headed by his bitter foe Hashemi Rafsanjani, he suddenly turned up for a discussion on Iran’s nuclear policy. Not only did he take part in the discussion, he smilingly shook Rafsanjani’s hand.
Jalili was instructed by Khamenei to follow a simple strategy in Baghdad: give very little away while projecting an air of flexibility, goodwill and optimism. Major decisions must continue to be avoided – as they were in the first round of talks with the six world powers in Istanbul. The session must be directed to focus on procedural matters, modalities and a timetable for the next meeting.
The delegations participating in the talks will most likely go along with this since they are perfectly aware that the real decisions and bargaining are taking place directly between Washington and Tehran.
Tehran is keen on spinning the formal dialogue out – if possible, for more than a year – during which Iran will lend all its might to getting rid of sanctions in phased steps.
Khameini and Jalili considered exploring the option of “suspending” 20 percent enrichment in return for a pledge to lift all sanctions, the most painful of which disrupt Iran’s banking industry and insurance cover for its oil exports. The ayatollah finally vetoed this option.

Another forbidden facility moved to a secret site

Tehran was considerably bucked up to find Obama’s emissaries in sympathy with the Islamic regime’s reluctance to bow low under international pressure and give up their nuclear program, a source of national revolutionary pride on which tens of billions of dollars have been lavished.
Iran’s negotiators explained that by surrendering, their regime would lose face to the point of risking its survival. They would however be amenable to showing the world that they accepted close supervision and were not taking the path of North Korea.
The American demand that Iran sign the additional protocol of the Non-Proliferation Treaty granting nuclear watchdog inspectors the right to spot inspections without prior notice is not taken too seriously.
DEBKA-Net-Weekly‘s US and Israeli military and intelligence sources see it as no more than a fig leaf to cover substantial concessions. In addition to the underground enrichment facility at Fordow near Qom, Iran is known to be running several more clandestine nuclear development sites to which international monitors can only dream of access, even if they discover their existence.
Iranian crews are frantically scrubbing the Parchin military base and suspected site of experiments on explosives in a Tehran suburb, after removing its contents to a secret site. All traces of forbidden weapons testing are being erased ready for international inspection.
Our sources report exclusively that the new site is secretly located in the vast wastes of the Dasht e-Kavir or the Great Salt Desert south of Tehran, which is 800 kilometers long, 320 kilometers broad and 77,600 square kilometers in area, covering one-third of Iranian territory.

DEBKA.

Vladimir Putin

Vladimir Putin will be re-anointed President of Russia at a ceremonial handover of office in the Kremlin Monday, May 7, He will take over from Dmitry Medvedev who moves down to the post of prime minister.
As president, Medvedev enjoyed a measure of freedom from the restraints of the powerful Putin and during his tenure there was an easing in the climate of Russian relations with the United States. This contrasted sharply with the frictions with Washington and enhanced Russo-Iranian dialogue in 2007-2008 which marked Putin’s two stints as president.
Still, although Prime Minister Putin insisted that foreign policy was the province of the president, there was always the sense that the former and future president lurked powerfully behind the Medvedev presidency.
Another view on the arcane power structure in the Kremlin holds that neither Putin nor Medvedev are omnipotent, certainly not on loaded issues like Iran’s nuclear program and the turbulence in Syria, for which decision-making is attended by a team of diplomats and intelligence figures.
Prominent in this team are the influential presidential aide Sergei Prikhodko, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, Foreign Intelligence Chief Mikhail Fradkov, and others.
But while the West is trying to second guess Russia’s future policy for Iran and Syria, Moscow and the Russian military appear to be collecting themselves for a clash of arms in the Persian Gulf in aniticipation of the US and Israel launching an offensive on Iran with GCC ground, naval and air forces and air forces taking part.

Russia upgrades military alerts for US-Israel strike on Iran

Moscow fears this eruption of hostilities will have a knock-on effect on Russia’s national security. And so its military units in the Caucasus have been upgraded and the Caspian Sea fleet of missile cruisers anchored off the coast of Dagestan placed on the ready. The Russian base in Armenia, its only facility in the South Caucasus, is also on alert.
In a commentary published in April, Gen. Leonid Ivashov, President of the Academy of Geopolitical Science, wrote, “A war against Iran would be a war against Russia.” He called for a “political-diplomatic alliance” to be forged with China and India. Operations were underway throughout the Middle East to destabilize the region and “proceed against China, Russia and Europe.”
The war against Iran, Ivashov wrote, would “end up at our borders, destabilize the situation in the North Caucasus and weaken our position in the Caspian region.”
DEBKA-Net-Weekly’s military sources report that, opposite US military concentrations on the Yemeni island of Socotra and Masirah Island off Oman, the Russians are engaged in their own military buildup for war at their 102^nd Military Base in Gyumri, Armenia, where two divisions of the Russian Special Forces-Spetsnaz are stationed. This base is a component of the Russian Transcaucasian Group of Forces.

Russian forces geared for intervention

Gyumri is the capital and largest city of the Shirak Province in northwest Armenia. It is located about 120 km from Yerevan. Of critical concern for Moscow is the effect on the South Caucasus of a war against Iran. Armenia, the Kremlin’s only ally in this region, has close economic links with Iran, whereas neighboring Georgia and Azerbaijan maintain military and economic ties with the United States and Israel.
Most of all, Moscow fears Azerbaijan, which shares borders with Iran, Russia, Armenia and the Caspian Sea, may line up with Israel and the United States for the war against Iran. Since the mid-1990s, this republic has been an important American military and economic ally in the South Caucasus, hosting several US military bases.
Putin is therefore assuming the presidency with a Russian military already geared up for possible military intervention in the Caspian Sea, Black Sea and Caucasus regions – just in case he decides that a US-Israeli attack on Iran imperils Moscow’s interests in the area.

DEBKA.

Real US military preparations for a strike on Iran are proceeding apace. DEBKA-Net-Weekly’s military sources report a second F-22 Raptor squadron will be heading to the Gulf in the coming days. If not for logistical delays, such as getting hangars ready for the incoming planes and crews, they would have landed in the third or fourth week of April.
Those preparations broke surface with the Aviation Week disclosure of the USAF’s deployment of the first batch of its premier penetrating strike fighter, the F-22 Raptor, to a United Arab Emirates base across the Gulf from Iran.
debkafile’s military sources added that the Raptors from the 302^nd Fighter Squadron’s Joint Elmendorf-Richardson Base in Alaska were destined for the Al Dhafra Air Base (click on the attached map).
Israel has complained to Washington that its war preparations are impaired by US officials drumming up aspersions on Israel’s operational competence for attacking Iran’s nuclear facilities. The Obama administration has denied any part in this campaign. It turned out this week that the denials were correct and the campaign was being run by US army and intelligence elements who oppose a war on Iran. This time they hit America’s own preparations by planting a prominent report in the Los Angeles Times claiming that “some of the nation’s top aviators are refusing to fly the radar-evading F-22 Raptor, a fighter jet with ongoing problems with the oxygen systems that have plagued the fleet for four years.”
The USAF’s reply was that, without revealing how many of its 200 F-22 pilots stationed at seven military bases across the country declined their assignment orders, current and former Air Force officials called it “an extremely rare occurrence.”

Much more than a cautionary military demonstration of might

Someone in the military intelligence community was evidently signaling Iran that the F-22s poised opposite the Strait of Hormuz and Revolutionary Guards facilities were not all that threatening because oxygen system problems occurred at top radar-evading altitudes and the pilots were refusing to fly them.
All the same, our military sources report, the second batch of F-22 Raptors will soon be arriving in the Gulf.
It is clear that Obama administration is not just engaged in a demonstration of military might for the purpose of cowing Iran into giving up its nuclear weapons ambitions. For this, a far smaller exhibition of military might would have served. There was no need to shove two squadrons of premier strike fighters plus two aircraft carriers, the USS Enterprise and Abraham Lincoln and their strike groups under Iran’s nose.
The present scale of the US military buildup is well beyond a cautionary demonstration. It means that behind the hype about an approaching breakthrough in the nuclear negotiations with Tehran, Washington is not at all sure the Iranians will reach the finishing line in good faith and not come up with a last-minute pretext for going back on its assurances. If that happened, the Obama administration would be left with no recourse other than military action for making good on its pledge to prevent Iran acquiring a nuclear weapon.
Therefore, as one source put it, while back-channel US-Iran diplomacy is the carrot, the stick is held ready to strike if Iran fails to come up to scratch.

US strength massed on two strategic islands

The Raptors and the carriers are just part of the concentration of US strength around the Islamic Republic, DEBKA-Net-Weekly’s military sources report. The bulk of its military manpower is massed ready for an offensive on two islands, Masirah in the Gulf of Oman at the southern exit of the Strait of Hormuz and Yemeni Socotra in the Gulf of Aden, near where it connects to the Indian Ocean. (See special maps attached to this article.)
Masirah off the east coast of Oman, runs 95 km long from north to south and between 12 and 14 km broad, with an area of about 649 km², and an estimated population of 12,000 in 12 villages concentrated mainly in the north of the island. Most of the island’s interior is uninhabited. It is accessible only by a small ferry for cars and Omani Air Force Hercules (RAFO) flights.
Socotra is a small archipelago of four islands in the Indian Ocean which is named for the largest. The chain lies some 240 kilometers (150 mi) east of the Horn of Africa and 380 kilometers (240 mi) south of the Arabian Peninsula.
Our sources learn that, five months ago, President Barack Obama secretly ordered the US Air Force, Navy and Marines to pile up strength on the two strategic islands of Masirah and Socotra.

Tehran and Moscow are worried

On Socotra they occupied the facilities the US has been constructing there since 2010: giant air and naval bases with facilities for submarines, intelligence command centers and take-off pads for stealth drones. Their existence is so secret that they do not appear in any catalogue of US military strongholds in the region.
On Masirah, American forces are accommodated in Camp Justice, a huge air and ground facility.
The islands are links in a chain of strategic US military bases in the Indian Ocean and Persian Gulf, also to be found at Jebel Ali and Al Dhafra Air Base in the United Arab Emirates; Arifjan in Kuwait; and Al Udeid in Qatar. They are all within easy flying distances from Iran.
As we shall see in the next item, the US military preparations for attacking Iran are being taken very seriously not just in Tehran but also in Moscow.

German FM: World won’t let Iran get nuke… JPost – International.

By YONAH BOB

05/04/2012 12:18

“We will continue to stand by Israel’s side,” and “we will not remain silent when Israel is threatened,” Westerwelle tells audience.

Photo: Reuters

German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle said Thursday that the global community will prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. Westerwelle was speaking to the Global Forum of the American Jewish Committee in Washington.

“The current Iranian nuclear program represents an enormous danger not only to Israel but to the region as a whole,” Westerwelle told the group.

“We cannot and will not accept an Iranian nuclear weapon… We need substantive and verifiable guarantees that Iran is not pursuing a nuclear weapon,” he said.

Most western countries believe Iran is seeking to produce a nuclear weapon, using a peaceful civilian energy program as cover.

In contrast to Israeli concerns that talks with Iran will go nowhere and only serve to buy Iran more time to develop its weapons program, the German foreign minister emphasized that “our unity and our resolve are showing results.”

Directly speaking to Israeli concerns, he made clear that “our patience is limited. We will not accept playing for time. We will not accept talks for the sake of talks.”

Notably, Westerwelle remarked that “the Iranian regime continues to threaten Israel with annihilation,” a point which many international leaders, even those against Iran pursuing nuclear weapons, avoid not wanting to encourage the message of an immediate crisis or need for military action.

“I want you to know that we will continue to stand by Israel’s side,” he told the audience at the American Jewish Committee’s Global Forum. “We will not remain silent when Israel is threatened or its legitimacy called into question. We will stand up whenever Israel is unfairly singled out in multilateral fora. And we will denounce any incitement against the State of Israel and its right to exist.”

Israel has refused to rule out a preemptive strike to set back or disable Iran’s nuclear facilities. The last week showed an unusually public debate between current government officials and former heads of the various arms of Israel’s security establishment over the advisability of such a preemptive strike.

The “P5+1 group,” the five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany, met with Iran in Istanbul last month after over a year of a stalemate in negotiations. A further meeting is scheduled for Baghdad on May 23.

Westerwelle also addressed Israel’s relations with many of its Arab neighbors and the currently stalled peace process.

He stated that Germany’s vision was of two states for two peoples “based on the 1967 lines with agreed swaps.” Westerwelle continued that the “two-state-solution is in Israel’s own best interest to protect and strengthen the Jewish and democratic character” of the state.

The German foreign minister said he agreed with President Shimon Peres who recently called Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas a “partner for peace.”

He also hailed the continued stability of the peace treaties with Egypt and Jordan, which is how Israel has enjoyed “peace and security with both of them for the past decades.” He added that everything possible must be done to preserve these treaties.

Two weeks ago, Westerwelle cautioned Egypt not to blow the recent gas crisis between Israel and Egypt out of proportion and to ensure that the dispute is contained.

Israel’s deep-sea dominance – Israel Opinion, Ynetnews.

Op-ed: Our foes have no answer for Israel’s submarines, which guarantee regional stability

Guy Bechor

Quietly, underwater, Israelis turning into a maritime power like the United States and Russia, with an armada of advanced submarines. Germany recently agreed to provide Israel with a sixth Dolphin submarine; the Jewish state already has three. Two more will be arriving this and next year, and then the sixth one will come.

Germany also agreed to subsidize the sixth submarine, as it did with the previous ones. The first two were given to Israel for free; the Germans paid for half of the third one, and will pay for one third of the next three. In an era where the Germans are cutting back their own military because of economic hardship, this is not a trivial matter.

Germany may later sell Israel more advanced submarines of this type, and Israel is indeed interested in building a fleet of 10 submarines, which will secure its power for dozens of years to come.

The cost of every submarine is some $500M dollars, but the price may rise to $850M. Israel presented special demands for its subs and installed advanced, secret systems in them. The sixth submarine will be the most advanced and capable of staying underwater the longest.

IDF submarine in Haifa (Photo: IDF Spokesman’s Office)

The IDF’s Navy is undergoing a significant conceptual change: From serving as a border guard (which is also an important duty,) it’s shifting into Israel’s and the IDF’s strategic arm, no less so than the Air Force. Our submarines can reach any area of the world, and most certainly in this region, and our enemies do not have a reasonable response for the time being.

Best investment in peace

No regional state can afford to purchase such weapons. A few years ago it was reported that the Egyptians were also interested in acquiring Dolphin submarines from Germany. Egypt’s subs are outdated, and Cairo became anxious because of Israel’s dominance in deep water, which the Egyptians have no response for. However, negotiations did not advance, and today Cairo’s military regime has no money for such subs.

Meanwhile, the Iranians are monitoring with concern the German reports about the provision of three more subs to Israel, knowing Tehran has no response for this either. In order to show they possess an alternative, Iran’s outdated subs have been recently traveling to the Red Sea as provocation vis-à-vis the long-range Israeli presence. This is also the reason why an Iranian vessel recently crossed through the Suez Cannel en route to the Mediterranean: In order to show that Iranis a superpower after all.

Sun Tzu, who wrote The Art of War, already taught us how to produce deterrence: If the enemy estimates that it will suffer grave damage should it attack you, it will curb itself. And this is the significance of the submarines: Iran could theoretically strike Israel with missiles, yet it knows, according to foreign reports, that Tehran may pay an existential price. Even if Israel’s offensive and defensive capabilities are destroyed, the blow against Iran shall arrive from the sea – and it will most certainly arrive.

If Iran realizes that it will have to pay a terrible price, it won’t attack. And indeed, global media outlets are reporting that an Israeli submarine constantly sails near Iran’s shores. This is deterrence. Once Israel will possess six submarines, and possible more, it will signify Israeli control over a huge area.

While submarines are a powerful weapon of war, Israel’s subs are in fact the surest guarantee for maintaining Mideastern stability and order. The subs guarantee that the risk of war will decline, rather than grow. With such power, Israel is the guardian of the sea and of stability in our region, and this is the best investment in regional peace.