WarSclerotic

TV report: Netanyahu holding elections so he is free to deal with Iran in September-October | The Times of Israel.

Channel 2 commentator says PM is going to polls early so he can handle Iran threat when safely re-elected and with Obama paralyzed in presidential campaign

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (L) meets with US President Barack Obama at the United Nations headquarters in New York on September 21, 2011. (Photo credit: Avi Ohayon/GPO/FLASH90

Netanyahu is set on Sunday to announce that he is dissolving parliament and calling elections for September 4 — a year ahead of schedule. In the weeks immediately after that vote, said well-connected commentator Amnon Abramovich on the top-rated Channel 2 news, Netanyahu will head a transition government at home and have no need to worry about voter sentiment, and he knows that President Barack Obama will be paralyzed by the US presidential campaign.

Netanyahu has shocked the nation in the past few days by indicating that he will be calling elections a year ahead of their scheduled date in October 2013, leaving analysts baffled as to his reasoning. Speculation has focused on differences among the various coalition parties over legislation on national service for ultra-Orthodox Israelis, and over elements of the national budget.

But Abramovich said that the dramatic decision to bring the elections forward relates to Iran. After the September elections, which all polls show Netanyahu winning easily, he will head a transition government for several weeks while a new coalition is formed. During that period, Netanyahu “will not be beholden to the voters,” and will be free to take decisions on Iran that many Israelis might not support, Abramovich said.

Furthermore, he will still have his trusted Defense Minister, Ehud Barak, at his side. Barak is seen as unlikely to fare well in the elections, and may not even retain his Knesset seat, but would retain the defense portfolio until a new coalition is formed.

And finally, said Abramovich, the September-October period would see Obama, who has publicly urged more patience in allowing diplomacy and sanctions to have their impact on Iran, in the final stages of the presidential election campaign, with a consequent reduced capacity to try to pressure Israel into holding off military intervention.

Obama, “on the eve of elections, won’t dare criticize Israel,” said Abramovich. From Netanyahu’s point of view, “the conditions would be fantastic.”

He noted that a transition government is prevented by law from taking dramatic policy decisions — except in critical circumstances, and drew attention to comments from Barak in a newspaper interview Friday in this regard.

“The political-security system will make decisions as needed, even under challenging circumstances,” said Barak about the impact of elections. “We must separate the issue of Iran from the subject of elections.”

Barak also said of the Iranian nuclear drive: “The moment of truth is approaching.”

Netanyahu has been repeatedly drawing parallels in recent weeks between the Iranian nuclear threat to Israel and the Holocaust, has said sanctions are not working, and warned that he will not allow Israel to have to live in the shadow of “annihilation.”

He has also indicated that a decision on military intervention in Iran will have to be taken within months.

Barak, for his part, has stated repeatedly that confronting Iran before it achieves a nuclear weapons capability, however complex, will be far less challenging a prospect than confronting a nuclear Iran.

In the interview Friday with the Israel Hayom daily, Barak recalled a speech given in 2003 by the then-Iranian president Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, who, said Barak, spoke of Israel as being “so small and vulnerable that it is a ‘one-bomb’ nation.

“If one bomb were dropped on it, this nation would not return to its former glory,” Barak quoted Rafsanjani as saying. “After the exchange of blows, Rafsanjani said, Islam would remain and Israel would not remain as it was. He also noted that there need not be any clear markers on the bomb as to where it came from. It could be transported in a shipping container that arrives at some port and simply explodes.”

Added Barak: “I do not delude myself. The moment of truth is approaching. We have to decide what to do about this if the sanctions and diplomacy fail…

“Some say let’s trust the world… I say that in the end we can deal with Iran now or deal with a nuclear Iran that poses a far greater danger… If it obtains a nuclear weapon, it will be very hard to bring it down. Now they are trying to seek immunity for their nuclear program. If they achieve military nuclear capability, for arms, or a threshold in which they can assemble a bomb within 60 days, they will acquire another form of immunity – for the regime.”

Barak recalled Israel being caught off guard in 1973, when it was attacked in the Yom Kippur War and sustained heavy losses. “What happened in 1973? The entire cabinet was blinded and we were forced to pay the price on the battlefield.”

The defense minister also used the interview to castigate several ex-intelligence chiefs and former prime minister Ehud Olmert, who have criticized what they argue is the government’s misguided handling of the Iranian threat, and who have warned that the Netanyahu-Barak duo may be leading Israel into a regional war with dire potential consequences.

Said Barak: “You can trust me when I say this: In the history of the state, there has never been such as orderly decision-making process.”

Bibi prepares to strike Iran? – Israel Opinion, Ynetnews.

Op-ed: Early elections will produce more convenient conditions for Israeli strike on Iran’s nuke sites

Bringing the Israeli elections forward to September 4th of this year not only won’t avert an Iran strike, but rather, in some ways may in fact advance the fight against Tehran’s nuclear program. Those who think that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is heading to these elections due to weakness are wrong. The PM has a stable coalition, yet its makeup won’t allow it to cope with the challenges it would have faced in the near future.

Hence, Israel would have at least two months of freedom to act, before winter clouds hinder the Air Force and while assuming that the US, with clenched teeth, would help Israel defend against missile retaliation by Iran and its clients (Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Hezbollah) and help us on the diplomatic front. Some observers argue that this is the main consideration that prompted Netanyahu to bring the elections forward.

The PM is in fact going to the polls in order to reinforce his political survival at a time when he needs to make tough decisions in all areas. A skilled politician, Netanyahu identified the peaking support he enjoys at this time and is quick to ride this wave before losing momentum. At this time he enjoys a backwind not only within Israel’s domestic theater – conditions in the regional and global arena are also convenient.

Early elections will assist the West in its diplomatic negotiations with Iran. Netanyahu does not hide his intention to strike Tehran’s nuclear sites before they become immune to attack. Hence, his decision to call early elections when his position on this issue is so clear and consistent shows confidence that Israel’s public is behind him, thereby granting more credibility to the Israeli threat.

This threat is one of the most powerful ways to press Washington and Europe not to “go easy” on the Iranians during the talks; it appears that even Iran is starting to fear it. Thus far, Iranian officials tended to show contempt for the Israeli threat. Yet now they realize that an Israeli operation, regardless of its success or failure, would force them and their clients to respond. This would entangle Iran in an unwanted confrontation with the US, as Washington, especially during a presidential election campaign, would not be able to remain idle when its soldiers and regional allies are being attacked.

Diplomatic immunity

Early elections have another important effect: They produce “diplomatic immunity” for Netanyahu and the Israeli government from negative US reaction should Israel decide to strike Iran.

By early September, the elections will be behind Netanyahu, and as a prime minister he won’t have trouble to form a stable coalition and government that would endorse his position on an Iran strike. Meanwhile, US President Barack Obama would still be in the midst of his own election campaign. During this period, until November of this year at least, he would have trouble taking punitive measures against Israel or endorsing such steps at the UN should such proposals be made in the wake of an Israeli strike.

DEBKAfile, Political Analysis, Espionage, Terrorism, Security.

DEBKAfile Exclusive Report May 5, 2012, 1:16 PM (GMT+02:00)

North Korean nuclear-capable BM-25 missiles sold to Iran

When International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) director Yukiya Amano declared Friday, May 4, that “Parchin (the suspected site of nuclear-related explosion tests) is the priority and we start with that,” he may have missed the boat. As he spoke, Israel’s Defense Minister Ehud Barak said it was possible that Iran was already putting in place the infrastructure for building a nuclear bomb in 60 days.
In this regard, debkafile’s military sources disclose that Iran had by the end of 2009 early 2012 completed the construction of a new chain of underground facilities deep inside the Dasht e-Kavir (Great Salt Desert) – all linked together by huge tunnels.

Nevertheless, Tehran keeps on putting off nuclear watchdog inspections at Parchin for three reasons:

1. To carry on squeezing concessions from the US in private talks between the Obama administration and Iranian leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, as well as from the Six Powers at their formal negotiations. Iran has won permission to enriching uranium up to 5 percent purity and is after approval for the 20 percent which is close to weapon grade.
2.  The Iranians can’t be sure they have scrubbed out every last trace of the nuclear explosives and detonators tested at the Parchin military base – even after clearing away the evidence and relocating the facility in the salt desert wastelands.

Asked to define the activities he wanted inspected in Parchin, Amano said: “We do not have people there so we cannot tell what these activities are.”  According to debkafile’s intelligence sources, while the IAEA may want hard physical evidence collected by its inspectors, US and Israeli intelligence have long possessed solid information on the illicit activities in Parchin collected by the nuclear-sensitive instruments carried by their military satellites.
3.  To guarantee that the IAEA inspection at Parchin will be the last and there will no further demands for visits to any more suspect sites.
Tehran cannot tell exactly what data on additional facilities has reached US or Israeli intelligence and at what moment they may pull their discoveries out of their sleeves with fresh demands. Iran is therefore bargaining for a line to be drawn at Parchin to close any future road for good so that it can carry on nuclear work at the new Great Salt Desert locations safe from discovery.
debkafile’s Iranian sources report that American negotiators in their private exchanges have thrown out hints about limiting IAEA inspections. But Tehran is holding out for a more solid commitment from the US and Europe to halt all demands for IAEA visits and for the Six Powers to veto inspections at any new nuclear locations Israel may expose.

This was what Ali Asqar Soltaniyeh, Iranian ambassador to the IAEA Vienna headquarters, was driving at when he stipulated Friday that that  talks with the six powers must be limited to negotiations on “a modality and framework to resolve outstanding issues and remove ambiguities.”
To arrest the perilous slide toward letting Iran off the hook, Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu sent his National Security Advisers Yaacov Amidror to the capitals of four of the six powers, Moscow, Berlin, London and Paris last week. His mission was to persuade their governments not to allow international inspections to stop at Parchin but to keep Iran’s nuclear activities under tight supervision.
Netanyahu has used his own contacts in Washington for warnings of what was afoot.

This week, the House Armed Services Committee’s Strategic Forces passed a resolution requiring the Pentagon Missile Defense Agency to have an operational plan ready by 2015 for posting a missile shield on America’s east coast to protect New York, Washington and Boston against Iranian missile attack. $100 million was earmarked for this purpose.
Our Washington sources note that this step opened the way for a drive by the Obama administration to have any deal the Six Powers may reach with Iran cover Iran’s clandestine underground Salt Desert nuclear locations.
One of the biggest, our sources disclose, is managed by the Shahid Hemmat Industrial Group, manufacturers of the ballistic missiles designed to carry nuclear warheads. US intelligence discovered in November 2010 that North Korea had transferred to Iran 19 nuclear-capable BM-25 ballistic missiles with a range of 2,500 kilometers.
On April 13, a dozen Shahid Hemmat missile experts attended the test fire of the North Korean long-range, three-stage Unha-2 missile. That test failed but the North Koreans and Iranians are pressing on together with work to extend the range of those missiles to America.
However, like the Netanyahu government, Washington is under constant assault by vocal lobbies opposed to a preemptive attack on Iran. They open fire on any suggestion that such an attack is on the cards, and pounced on the congressional resolution as a scheme for torpedoing US-Iranian diplomacy.

Israeli leaders battling Iran’s acquisition of a nuclear weapon therefore find themselves fighting to keep their military option from being snatched off the table by antagonists at home.
Tehran is cannily exploiting the diplomatic track to get rid of international inspections after Parchin and so gain the freedom to proceed with building a nuclear arsenal in the Salt Desert far from the world’s sight.

The Israeli ex-security chiefs and former politicians are focusing on preventing an Israeli attack to pre-empt a nuclear Iran. They know exactly what is at stake but are so eager to topple Netanyahu and Barak that they are more than ready to pay the price of letting Iran get away with acquiring a nuclear bomb.