WarSclerotic

Security and Defense: A plan… JPost – Features – Week in review.

By YAAKOV KATZ

05/24/2012 23:01

The challenge for the IDF in bracing for the next five years is that it’s not sure what’s going to happen tomorrow.

Photo: REUTERS

Searching for a sense of certainty amid the ongoing upheaval in the Middle East, Israel was convinced until a few months ago that Syrian President Bashar Assad was about to fall. Up until three months ago, Defense Minister Ehud Barak was predicting during his travels across the globe that Assad would be toppled “within weeks,” a conclusion he first mentioned last June on the sidelines of the Paris Air Show.

But with the Syrian uprising entering its 14th month, Israel’s intelligence and defense leadership is changing its tone. Barak, in his most recent interview with CNN last week, abandoned timeline-based predictions and instead declared that Assad is “doomed.”

In a rare moment of candor, Barak – who had predicted for almost a year that Assad would fall within weeks – pretty much admitted that his predictions were mostly based on wishful thinking and not on intelligence.

“I’m quite frustrated with the slowness of its collapse. I believe that he [Assad] is doomed anyhow,” Israel’s defense minister said.

Senior IDF officers and members of the intelligence community admit that Assad will likely remain in power for longer than they had initially assessed.

For that reason, Israel’s primary concern with regard to Syria has shifted away from fears that, due to the upheaval in the country, terrorists would get their hands on Assad’s advanced military capabilities. Instead, the concern is back to the traditional one – that the Syrian leader will simply transfer the weapons on his own to Hezbollah.

Deputy Chief of Staff Maj.-Gen. Yair Naveh revealed this week that Assad was doing a remarkable job at retaining control over Syria’s chemical weapons arsenal and was continuing – despite the protracted civil uprising – to bolster his country’s borders with advanced Russian air defense systems.

Syria is known to have acquired SA-17 medium-range and SA-22 short-range air defense systems with ranges of between 12 and 45 kilometers. Israel’s concern, Naveh said, was that these systems would be transferred to Hezbollah.

And that is just on the Syrian front. Looking at Israel’s other points of interest today – Egypt and Iran – the best word to characterize the sentiment within the defense establishment is “uncertainty.” There is uncertainty regarding who will win the presidential elections in Egypt – the first round of which was held on Wednesday – and how the results will impact the already-strained peace treaty with Israel. There is uncertainty about what will emerge from the talks the P5+1 is holding with Iran, how long the talks will continue, what type of resolution might be in the works and how it will impact Israel.

Within this uncertainty, the IDF is getting ready to hold marathon deliberations in June to finalize its multi-year plan, which sets procurement, training and operational development for the next five years. The challenge, though, is how the military can be expected to do this when it is not sure what is going to happen tomorrow, let alone in two or three years time.

The new plan, called “Oz” – Hebrew for “strength” – is supposed to go into effect at the end of the year once it is approved by the IDF General Staff, Defense Minister Ehud Barak and the cabinet. It is supposed to be a revision of Halamish, the plan Chief of Staff Lt.- Gen. Benny Gantz drafted last year but had to nix due to government-imposed budget cuts.

Almost halfway into his term, Gantz will end up only enjoying the fruits of his labor for a little over a year, until he steps down in February 2014. Therefore he will need to draft a plan that will remain relevant under the next chief of staff and within an everchanging Middle East.

Brig.-Gen. Haig Topolansky, deputy commander of the Israel Air Force, shared some insight into how the changing landscape has affected the IAF in recent decades. In the 1980s and ’90s, he said, the IAF was focused on Iraq. “In the 2000s, the focus turned to Iran,” he continued, adding that in the end it was the same basic need – to carry out long-range operations, far from Israel, with limited support and intelligence.

Ultimately though, the IAF – like the rest of the IDF – hopes that it will not need to one day attack Iran’s nuclear facilities. This is not because of the concern that its military option will not be effective, but rather with the consequence such a strike will have on the region, on Israel and on the country’s international standing.

That is why the Israeli approach to the West’s talks with Iran are a mix of frustration and hope. On the one hand, Israel is concerned and frustrated by what it fears might be Western capitulation if an agreement is reached without a complete cessation of all enrichment activities.

On the other hand, there is some hope that the talks will succeed in stopping Iran from developing a nuclear weapon and removing the Iranian threat – at least for some time – from over Israel.

The problem is that in either scenario, instead of the dismantlement of Iran’s nuclear program, Israel will be looking at a situation more like the one in Iraq following the IAF’s strike of the Osirak reactor in 1981. The airstrike set back Saddam Hussein’s attempt to obtain a nuclear capability, but it wasn’t until the First Gulf War a decade later that he was stopped for good. If we apply this history lesson to Iran, this might mean that the nuclear threat could potentially continue to loom over Israel for years to come, albeit at varying degrees.

The question on everyone’s mind in Baghdad this week is how long they really have to pursue a diplomatic agreement before Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu decides to give the IAF attack orders.

Israel is naturally not revealing its complete hand and is instead abiding by a policy of ambiguity while expressing skepticism regarding the possibility of a deal with Iran. This is a convenient position for Israel, although also slightly risky.

Netanyahu is basically allowing the West to use him and Israel as a sword to wave around the room and threaten the Iranians with. But he also runs the risk of missing the boat on potentially successful diplomacy and leading Israel to an even more isolated position within a stormy sea of uncertainty.

U.S. and Iran buy each other time | Power Line.

Six world powers – the U.S., Britain, France, German, Russia, and China – have been talking with Iran this week about Iran’s nuclear program. The six powers presented Iran with a detailed proposal including a freeze on its enrichment of uranium that could be converted to bomb-grade fuel. Iran balked at the proposal due to what it characterized as an insufficient easing of sanctions in exchange.

Iran has agreed in principle to allow U.N. inspectors to restart probes into a military site suspected of being used in its nuclear weapons program. However, it is believed that Iran has already largely cleaned up the site. Even Western diplomats reportedly are unimpressed by Iran’s gesture.

Meanwhile, Iran held military maneuvers this week as a response to “global arrogance.”

But this doesn’t mean the talks have been a failure. The parties kept talking and will meet again in mid-June. This counts as success, as a matter of general principle, in the world of modern diplomacy. Moreover, it constitutes concrete success given that the objective of the key parties is simply to buy time. Iran wants to time to develop nuclear weapons without being attacked. The Obama administration wants time so the president can get through the November elections without what he fears will be a foreign policy crisis.

The only threat to the attainment of these objectives is Israel. It has both the motive and the means to launch an attack on Iran, and to do so before our elections. Prime Minister Netanyahu’s recent decision to build a coalition government, rather than crushing his rivals in an election as was expected, has increased fear by the Obama administration that Israel will soon strike.

The real purpose of ongoing negotiations with Iran is to dissuade such a strike. The hope is not that Israel will take the talks seriously as a matter of substance. Rather, the hope is that Israel will fear the international repercussions of launching an attack while negotiations involving the U.S. and other major powers are ongoing.

A better way for the U.S. to dissuade Israel from attacking Iran would have been to persuade Israel that we have its back. But Israel has figured out that, under Obama, the U.S. almost certainly will never attack Iran. In doing so, Israel needed no heightened powers of perception.

The fact is that Obama has become an object of derision in Israel across a broad swath of the political spectrum. Consider a recent op-ed in Ha’aretz, a left of center publication, by Ari Shavit, a respected member of the paper’s editorial board. As reported by the Jerusalem Post, Shavit wrote:

[T]he man sitting in the Oval Office is ignoring the possibility that his inaction will make the Middle East go nuclear and undermine the world order. He doesn’t care that he might be responsible for losing the United States’ superpower status and turning the 21st century into a century of nuclear chaos.

The dispassionate man from Chicago is proving every day what rare stuff he’s made of. The president sees how the Iranians mock him – and does nothing. He sees radical Islam approaching the nuclear brink – and does not budge. With amazing courage Barack Obama watches the tsunami rolling toward America’s shores – and smiles. . . .

He is staging a deceptive show of a deal with the Iranians, which will seem to dull the . . . threat. He is trying to make a fool of Jerusalem as Tehran is making a fool of him. The president is pushing Israel into a corner, but is hoping that Israel will accept its fate submissively. He is counting on Benjamin Netanyahu not to surprise him and ruin his election season. Never has the United States had such a gambler for a president. . . .

The international community and international public opinion are preoccupied with King Netanyahu these days – will he or won’t he attack? But instead of focusing on a statesman who isn’t supposed to save the world from Iran’s nuclear program, it would be better to focus on the leader whose historic role is just that. In the past 40 months Barack Obama has been betraying his office. Will he wake up in the next four months, come to his senses and change his ways?

Will Israel attack Iran in the coming months? I don’t know and won’t hazard a guess. The smart move might be to wait until November in the hope that Romney will defeat Obama. After that, Israel may not have to act alone.

But I doubt that Israel would even be contemplating an attack if it considered the U.S., under Obama, a reliable ally.

Israel Likely to Strike Iran Reactor If Plutonium Risk Rises.

Published: May 24, 2012

Iran continues to stall at the nuclear negotiation tables in Iraq after initial signs there might be a deal with the six major powers. While Iran complains about sanctions, one key aspect of a possible conflict with Iran has been little discussed. Michael Adler, an expert on Iran’s nuclear capabilities at the Woodrow Wilson Center here in Washington, discusses the “zone of immunity.”

With all the talk of whether Israel will attack Iran, it is important to understand when Israel might feel it has no other choice but to act. Amos Yadlin, a former Israeli military intelligence chief, wrote in the New York Times that “an Israeli strike against Iran would be a last resort, if all else failed to persuade Iran to abandon its nuclear weapons program. That moment of decision will occur when Iran is on the verge of shielding its nuclear facilities from a successful attack – what Israel’s leaders have called the ‘zone of immunity’.

The zone of immunity is most often discussed in relation to Iran’s enrichment of uranium, which can be a civilian power reactor or bomb fuel, at the Fordow site. The enrichment plant there is still under construction although some centrifuges are installed. The danger for Israel is that it is under a mountain and so well protected from air strikes.

But there is a little mentioned plutonium dimension to the zone of immunity. This concerns a heavy-water reactor under construction in Arak, in northwest Iran, expected to come online in 2014. It would be able to produce significant amounts of plutonium. Like uranium, plutonium can be used as the explosive center of an atomic weapon. Bombing an on-line reactor could create a radioactive cloud and a Chernobyl-like phenomenon of spreading, deadly contamination from radiation. Says nuclear expert David Albright: “If any running reactor is attacked, there would be a major release in the radioactive core … If Israel does attack Arak, it will definitely be before it’s running, and it’s quite possible it will happen within the next two years.”

A reactor coming online presents a different dilemma than an impregnable enrichment site. The reactor is above-ground and very easy to spot. It would remains vulnerable to an attack. But striking a reactor carries the risk of unacceptable collateral damage, namely radioactive contamination which could threaten civilian populations. Such considerations have led Israel to carry out preventive strikes twice in the past – against the Osirik reactor in Iraq in 1981 and against a reactor at Dair Alzour in Syria in 2007.

Arak is a heavy-water reactor. It is Iranian-built, unlike the Russian-built Bushehr power reactor which came online last year. Arak is designed to be a research reactor, one that will produce isotopes used for medical diagnosis. Its uses natural uranium, which is not monitored by the UN watchdog International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). This means that its fuel cycle is harder to monitor for proliferation concerns and, in addition, it produces plutonium, which can be extracted to make nuclear weapons. It is definitely a proliferation concern. The Arak reactor could be attacked, or the heavy water plant near it, which makes the heavy water used in the reactor to moderate the chain reaction, could be attacked. The heavy water plant is already up and running, according to the IAEA.

Plutonium, while little discussed in the international press covering Iran, is still of great concern for countries monitoring the Islamic Republic. One intelligence source reported on a possible channel for Iran to buy plutonium. In a highly detailed account, the source said that an Iranian broker, Seyd Saleh Sadr Addini, had been contacted in 2011 by “criminal elements from CIS (Commonwealth of Independent States, former Soviet republics) countries … with a proposal to secretly sell him plutonium 239,” said to be weapon-grade.

The source said Addini was general manager of the Faraz Armaghan Sanat (FASCO) company at Tabriz in Iran, alleged to be a front for “smuggling prohibited materials to Iran from various countries.”

“It is not clear whether the Iranian broker has already raised the subject with the relevant parties in Iran, but it is known that Iran invests great effort in finding alternative approaches for acquiring plutonium, such as through covert procurement, in addition to producing plutonium itself. This is in order to significantly shorten the timetable for acquiring fissile material for a bomb,” the source said. He said the amount offered for sale was “not known but it is known that the suppliers proposed a number of kilograms at a price of two million dollars per kilogram of plutonium.” About six kilograms of weapon-grade plutonium are needed for a bomb.

The information could not be independently confirmed but is a clear indication of the extent to which a possible plutonium route to the bomb is on the radar of nations which closely watch Iran. Since the fall of communism, there has been concern about smuggling of fissile material from the former Soviet bloc. Iran does not yet have the same mastery of producing plutonium as it does of manufacturing enriched uranium. Arak coming online could change this, however.

The zone of immunity is thus built around two types of fissile material, not just uranium alone.

Michael Adler is a scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, writing a book on diplomacy in the Iranian nuclear crisis. Michael covered this extensively for five years while in Vienna, where he reported on the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Media Hypes Manufactured Iran Optimism « Commentary Magazine.

Last Monday Geneive Abdo — who is the director of the Iran program at the Middle East Institute in Washington, and who will never be mistaken for a neocon — described optimism emerging from the P5+1 talks as a “pretense” designed to “buy time to avert a unilateral attack by Israel” and buttress “Obama’s wish to get through the November election.”

Abdo specifically cited statements made by Saeed Jalili, head of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council and Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator, to the effect that Iran’s “national resistance” had put the country on an “irreversible” nuclear path. A few days later Reuters passed along IAEA information indicating Iran has installed 350 new centrifuges at its underground Fordow facility (in February the IAEA reported that Iran already tripled its output of 20 percent uranium at Fordow, but apparently the Iranians concluded that wasn’t enough). Perhaps as a kind of exclamation point, Iran also held military maneuvers this week ostensibly aimed at “global arrogance.”

And then as if to prove Abdo’s point about pretenses, the New York Times headlined its article yesterday as “Iran Talks Are Extended as Signs of Common Ground Are Seen.” But even the Times, which has been doing yeoman’s work helping the Obama administration minimize Iran’s drive for a nuclear weapon, had to open with the observation that there was no actual evidence of common ground. Luckily the paper managed to track down an anonymous administration source to assert it exists. Very convenient, and good enough for a headline:

Iran appeared to balk Wednesday at a detailed proposal presented by six world powers to address urgent concerns about its nuclear program, including a freeze on its enrichment of uranium that could be converted to bomb-grade fuel, because of what the Iranian side suggested was an insufficient easing of sanctions in exchange.

But after a long day of diplomatic negotiations, both sides agreed to keep talking into Thursday. A senior American official said that despite disagreements some common ground had been reached, suggesting that diplomats had extended the constructive atmosphere that has prevailed since the talks on Iran’s disputed nuclear program were resumed last month.

“We’re getting to things that matter,” said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the delicacy of the talks. “Even if we disagree on the shape, we think there is the beginning of a negotiation.”

That’s really what passes for a “constructive atmosphere” these days, isn’t it? Iran’s lead negotiator preemptively closing the door on compromise, Iran’s military holding war games aimed at P5+1 members, and the West pretending that none of that is true. “Despite little progress,” by the by, the next round of negotiations have been set for mid-June in Geneva. It’s almost difficult to understand why the Israelis have no confidence in the talks.

A lull in the drift toward war with Iran? – CNN.com.

Editor’s note: Aaron David Miller is a public policy scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and served as a Middle East negotiator in Democratic and Republican administrations. He is the author of the forthcoming book “Can America Have Another Great President?” Follow him on Twitter.

(CNN) — Iran reportedly agrees to U.N. inspections of its secret military sites; the Baghdad talks look potentially promising; there’s talk of confidence-building measures and easing of sanctions. What’s happening here? Can diplomacy actually work? Have the mullahs and Revolutionary Guard given up their pursuit of a nuclear weapon?

Let me make a prediction. Whatever the outcome of this week’s talks in Baghdad, there will be no war with Iran in 2012 and no comprehensive deal on the nuclear issue either. Sanctions have forced the Iranians to alter the pace of its nuclear program but not to abandon it.

Right now it’s in everyone’s interest to defuse tensions, and to paraphrase Winston Churchill, to jaw-jaw rather than wah-wah. Unless Iran is prepared to give up its quest for nukes (and it isn’t), we’ve averted war but not eliminated the threat. Think 2013.

For the past six months, the relationship between Iran and the West has been defined by covert war and much talk of an overt one. For the next six, the trope will be “let’s make a deal.”

The reasons aren’t hard to divine. First, sanctions are taking their toll and are on the verge of getting tougher. In early July, the Europeans will impose additional oil sanctions. Second, the position of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has been strengthened as a result of parliamentary elections and mullah maneuvering. If he were inclined to show flexibility, the decider-in-chief is in a better position to do it now. And third, let’s face it, nobody — not the Iranians, the Europeans, the Obama administration, not even the Israelis, particularly if they have to do it alone — wants a war.

All of these factors have combined to create an opening for that almighty and much-revered diplomatic deus ex machina: the process. To be kind, that’s just another word for describing how to manage a problem you can’t resolve today. The desire to shift from talk of war to actual talk and negotiations is both logical and understandable. In fact, given the limited options right now, a process is much better than the alternative.

The hope is that negotiations can create an opening for a small deal on the nuclear issue in which Iran would agree to enrich uranium at much reduced levels, agree to inspections and perhaps even export its stockpile of weapons-grade material out of the country in return for an easing of some of the less onerous sanctions.

This incremental approach, tiny steps for tiny feet, would buy time and space to enhance confidence and create trust. It might even pave the way for broader discussions on other key issues that divide Iran and the West. Maybe even a grander bargain might follow.

The only problem with this approach is that its chances of success are dubious. In coming weeks and months, the negotiating process may well produce limited understandings. But it’s hard to see how these will turn into a sustainable deal that can convince the West, let alone the Israelis, that Iran has given up its quest for nukes. Three major realities will make it all the harder:

Iran wants a nuclear capacity. Outside of the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council, four nations possess nukes: Israel, India, Pakistan and North Korea. All are fundamentally insecure and perceive nukes as a core advantage in their security and foreign policy theology.

Iran is insecure, but it believes it is profoundly entitled. This mix of vulnerability and grandiosity is a bad combination. The Iranian regime wants the bomb, not primarily to have the option of attacking Israel, a possible fringe benefit, but as a hedge against regime change and as a prestige weapon in its quest for regional power and influence. Had the Shah not been turned out by the 1979 revolution, Iran would already have nukes.

Iran fashions itself a great power, and great powers believe they need the ultimate weapon. Iran’s nuclear program is too advanced, too entrenched, too redundant and too secretive to be stopped permanently, even by military attack. To do so, you’d need to change the regime.

The U.S.-Iranian Cold War. The nuclear issue needs to be seen in the context of the broader dysfunction in the relationship between Washington and Tehran.

Truth is, the regime is right. America wants an end to its repression and brutality, freedom for the Iranian people and Iran’s regional ambitions curtailed.

There’s almost no issue on which Washington and Tehran agree, from support for Hamas and Hezbollah, to backing the Assads, to Iranian terrorism, to support for Shia insurgents, to Iraq and to Israel and the Palestinians. Given the level of suspicion and mistrust, the odds of finding a sustainable modus vivendi soon, particularly against the backdrop of the regime change issue, are slim to none.

As long as the regime is convinced that America wants it replaced and Iran’s regional ambitions muzzled, Iran will continue its quest for nukes. Indeed, the nuclear issue can’t be separated from the issue of regime insecurity. It’s emblematic of Iran’s hopes and fears.

Israeli hopes and fears factor centrally into the equation too. We wouldn’t have the tough sanctions we do if it weren’t for President Obama’s and the Europeans’ fear of an Israeli strike. Paradoxically, Obama fears an Israeli strike more than the mullahs do. On one hand, you might argue that the Israeli threats have increased the chances of a diplomatic resolution. That would be true, but only if Iran actually feared an Israeli attack or if it weren’t determined to continue its quest for nukes.

But the Iranian regime won’t stop, and will inch closer to a breakout capacity to produce a weapon. And the Israelis will then have to decide whether to launch a military strike or bring enough pressure on the Obama administration to do so, even if it only means a setback of a year or two. Only one country can stop Iran from acquiring a military nuclear capacity — that’s Iran, should it judge the costs of acquisition too high.

Now process, diplomacy and negotiations are king. But without some fundamental breakthrough in the talks or some other unpredictable event that changes Iranian calculations, we’ll be drifting again toward war and the prospective disasters and calamities it will bring.

Diplomats: Iran installed more enrichment centrifuges at underground site – Israel News, Ynetnews.

Western sources say UN watchdog report to show Islamic Republic placed another 350 centrifuges at Fordow facility

Reuters

A UN watchdog report is expected to show that Iran has installed more uranium enrichment centrifuges at an underground site, potentially boosting output capacity of nuclear work major powers want it to stop, Western diplomatic sources say.

Two sources said the Islamic state may have placed in position nearly 350 machines since February – in addition to the almost 700 centrifuges already operating at the Fordowfacility – but that they were not yet being used to refine uranium.

If confirmed in the next quarterly report on Iran’s nuclear program by the UN International Atomic Energy Agency, tentatively expected on Friday, it is likely to be seen as a sign of continued defiance by the Islamic state of international demands to suspend such activity.

Getting Tehran to halt its enrichment of uranium to a fissile concentration of 20% – which it started in 2010 and has since sharply expanded – was a key priority for world powers in their talks with Iran in Baghdad on Wednesday.

Progress in Iran’s nuclear program is closely watched by the West and Israelas it could determine how much time it would need to build nuclear bombs, should it decide to do so.

Fordow, estimated to be buried beneath 80 meters (265 feet) of rock and soil, gives Iran better protection against any Israeli or US military strikes and the shift of nuclear work to the site is of particular concern for the West.

Centrifuges at Iranian nuclear plant (archives)

The last IAEA report, published in February, said Iran had trebled output of 20 % uranium since late 2011 after starting up production at Fordow near the Shiite Muslim holy city of Qom and later increasing it.

The new report is not expected to show Iran is increasing production. But the installation of possibly hundreds more centrifuges could set the stage for that ahead. Such machines spin at supersonic speed to raise the concentration of the fissile isotope of uranium.

Typically 174 centrifuges are needed for one production unit, but Iran has for its 20% enrichment work been using sets of two interconnected cascades, with each set containing 348 such machines, to increase efficiency.

It is operating two of those units at Fordow, as well as one at an above-ground site at Natanz in central Iran, and one more may now be nearing completion at Fordow, the sources said.

“Unless the Iranians feed it (with low-enriched uranium) at the last minute, it is installed but not yet fed, so maybe not quite ready yet,” one diplomat said about the new unit.

Iran has earlier suggested it would close down the production of 20% at Natanz– where the work started in 2010 – once Fordow was up and running. But it has yet to do so, Western diplomats say.

Iran’s mission to the IAEA, the Vienna-based UN agency, was not immediately available for comment.

Nuclear bombs require uranium enriched to 90%, but much of the effort required to get there is already achieved once it reaches 20% concentration, shortening the time needed for any nuclear weapons “break-out”.

Iran has steadily increased uranium enrichment since 2007 and now has enough of the 3.5 and 20% material for some four bombs if refined further, experts say.

The lower-grade uranium is the usual level required for nuclear power plants. Iran says it is producing 20% uranium to make fuel for a medical research reactor.

Tehran denies Western accusations of a nuclear weapons agenda and says it has a sovereign right to peaceful nuclear technology, repeatedly rejecting UN resolutions calling for a suspension of all uranium enrichment.

But it has at times appeared more flexible when it comes to the refinement of uranium to 20% and experts say that initially getting Iran to stop this work could open a way to ease the deadlock

Israel Hayom | What Iran’s rulers want.

Report: Ten members of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard die mysteriously – Haaretz Daily Newspaper | Israel News.

According to report by Intelligence Online, the lack of reporting on the deaths has led observers to question whether the deaths were result of internal struggle over Iran’s underground economy,

Iranian basij paramilitary volunteers, affiliated to the elite Revolutionary Guard, attending a parade ceremony, marking the 28th anniversary of the onset of the Iran-Iraq war. Photo by AP

Ten officers in Iran’s Revolutionary Guard have died mysteriously over the past two months, although only two of the deaths have been publicly reported, according to a report by Intelligence Online, a monthly French online journal.

According to the report, the two reported deaths were of Gholan Reza Qasemi, a former commander of the 92nd armored division, and General Mohamed Ali Moussavi, head of a commando regiment in the town of Ahvaz.

Moreover, the report describes the recent death of General Ahmed Mansouri, allegedly due to a heart attack. Mansouri was one of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s representatives in the Revolutionary Guard command structure. Two colonels, Nadjaf Ali Khirahalli and Nassif Pour, were recently killed in car accidents. Unlike previous instances, Khamenei did not issue any public report on the deaths of the officers.

According to the journal, the lack of reporting on the deaths has led observers to speculate over whether the deaths were a result of an internal struggle over Iran’s underground economy, which has traditionally been run by the Revolutionary Guard.

Diplomania- – Haaretz Daily Newspaper | Israel News.

Despite little progress in talks, the Islamic Republic and the six world powers agree to hold another round of discussions in Geneva next month.

European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton (L) chats with Iran’s chief negotiator Saeed Jalili as they pose for the media before their meeting in Baghdad May 23, 2012. Photo by Reuters

By Barak Ravid | May.24,2012 | 3:56 PM | 2

Despite the dead end reached in the talks between Iran and the six world powers in Baghdad on Thursday, the sides agreed to hold another round of talks in Geneva in mid-June, according to the Iranian news agency Mehr.

Talks continued early Thursday morning between Iran and representatives of the U.S., Russia, China, the U.K., France and Germany. After a short lunch break, the talks resumed in the afternoon, and are expected to conclude in the late afternoon.

During Thursday’s morning’s discussions, the Iranian delegation began to create the impression of a crisis in the talks in their briefings to Iranian media and foreign news agencies. The Iranians claimed that the six world powers had reneged on earlier promise of gestures toward Iran in exchange for moves on its part.

“Representatives of the world powers, and especially the American representatives, used language and expressions in the discussions that were very similar to those of senior Israeli government officials, which presented an obstacle to the progress of the discussions,” an Iranian diplomat told Mehr.

At this point, despite the crisis atmosphere created by the Iranians, no side seems to have an interest in putting an end to the talks. Thus, the sides agreed to hold another round of talks in three weeks.

Obama, Israel, and Iran | Jerusalem Post – Blogs.

“. . . the man sitting in the Oval Office is ignoring the possibility that his inaction will make the Middle East go nuclear and undermine the world order. He doesn’t care that he might be responsible for losing the United States’ superpower status and turning the 21st century into a century of nuclear chaos.

The dispassionate man from Chicago is proving every day what rare stuff he’s made of. The president sees how the Iranians mock him – and does nothing. He sees radical Islam approaching the nuclear brink – and does not budge. With amazing courage Barack Obama watches the tsunami rolling toward America’s shores – and smiles. . . .

He is staging a deceptive show of a deal with the Iranians, which will seem to dull the . . . threat. He is trying to make a fool of Jerusalem as Tehran is making a fool of him. The president is pushing Israel into a corner, but is hoping that Israel will accept its fate submissively. He is counting on Benjamin Netanyahu not to surprise him and ruin his election season. Never has the United States had such a gambler for a president. . . .

The international community and international public opinion are preoccupied with King Netanyahu these days – will he or won’t he attack? But instead of focusing on a statesman who isn’t supposed to save the world from Iran’s nuclear program, it would be better to focus on the leader whose historic role is just that. In the past 40 months Barack Obama has been betraying his office. Will he wake up in the next four months, come to his senses and change his ways?”