WarSclerotic

Aviation Week: Obama may use Assad’s fall to disguise Iran strike.

DEBKAfile Special Report June 30, 2012, 10:30 AM (GMT+02:00)

US B-2 heavy stealth bomber – key aircraft for Iran strike

The new Aviation Week reports: “Evidence is mounting that the US defense community and the Obama administration view 2013 as the likely window for a bombing attack on Iran’s nuclear and missile facilities. It could be earlier, timed to use the chaos of the Syrian government’s fall to disguise such an attack…”
According to the journal, “Iran’s intransigence over shutting down its uranium-enrichment program will not buy it much more time… The tools for such an attack are all operational” and the US is coming around to suspect that Iran has already conducted its first nuclear test in North Korea.
Aviation Week’s report appeared after a failed attempt Friday, June 29, to bridge US-Russian differences on Syria was made by US Secretary of State and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in St. Petersburg. Moscow refuses to accept any solution that would entail Bashar Assad’s removal or foreign intervention in Damascus.

UN-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan is to present a proposal for a transitional unity government to the new Action Group on Syria meeting in Geneva Saturday. According to his plan, the government would include opposition representation but (without mentioning Assad) exclude figures complicit in the 15-month bloody suppression of dissent.
He had hoped that the presence at the meeting of all five UN Security Council veto-wielders, Arab League members and Turkey would make it possible to gain international endorsement of an agreed road map for the transition of power in Damascus without resorting to the Security Council again. However, after the failed St. Petersburg encounter, its chances of taking off are slim. Asked about this, a senior US official commented: “We may get there, we may not.”
In the Middle East, the military alert declared by Saudi King Abdullah Thursday was still in effect Saturday. Saudi forces continue to stream to the Jordanian and Iraqi borders and Jordanian, Turkish and Syrian army units are on the move, as debkafile reported Friday:

The Syrian crisis was Friday, June 29, on a knife edge between a Western-Arab-Turkish military offensive in the next 48 hours and a big power accord to ward it off.

debkafile’s military sources report heavy Saudi troop movements toward the Jordanian and Iraqi borders Thursday overnight and up until Friday morning, June 29, after King Abdullah put the Saudi military on high alert for joining an anti-Assad offensive in Syria. The Saudi units are poised with tanks, missiles, special forces and anti-air batteries to enter Jordan in two heads:
One will safeguard Jordan’s King Abdullah against potential Syrian or Iranian reprisals from Syria or Iraq.

The second will cut north through Jordan to enter southeastern Syriam, where a security zone will be established around the towns of Deraa, Deir al-Zour and Abu Kemal – all centers of the anti-Assad rebellion. The region is also the home terrain of the Shammar tribe, brethren of the Shammars of the Saudi Nejd province.
The Saudi units deployed on the Iraqi border are there to defend the kingdom against potential incursions by Iraqi Shiite militias crossing into the kingdom for reprisals. The Iraqi militias are well trained and armed and serve under officers of the Iranian Al-Qods Brigades, the Revolutionary Guards’ external arm.
Western Gulf sources report that Jordan too is on war alert.
Following the downing of a Turkish plane by Syria a week ago, Turkey continues to build up its Syrian border units with anti-aircraft guns, tanks and missiles towed by long convoys of trucks.

A Free Syria Army officer, Gen. Mustafa al-Sheikh, reported Friday that 170 Syrian army tanks of the 17th Mechanized Division were massed near the village of Musalmieh northeast of Aleppo, 30 km from the Turkish border.  He said they stood ready to attack any Turkish forces crossing into Syria.
As these war preparations advanced, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton arrived in St. Petersburg Friday for crucial talks with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.  They meet the day before the new UN-sponsored Action Group convenes in Geneva to discuss UN-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan’s latest transition proposal for Syria. He hopes for a political settlement that will ward off military intervention.
Invited to the meeting are the five veto-wielding UN Security Council members plus Turkey and Arab League envoys from Qatar, Kuwait and Iraq.

Annan proposes forming a transitional national unity government in Damascus that includes the opposition and excludes unacceptable regime members.
It was widely reported Thursday that Russia had agreed to this formula, even though it entailed evicting Bashar Assad from power. However, Lavrov stepped in to correct the record, stressing in reference to the Annan proposal that Moscow would not lend its support to “any outside interference or imposition of recipes in Syria.”
This position is doubly aimed at the intensive military movements afoot around Syria.
Clinton and Lavrov are therefore expected to go at the Syrian issue hammer and tongs. The outcome of their meeting will not only determine the course of the Action Group’s discussions but, more importantly, whether the Western-Arab-Turkish alliance goes forward with its military operation against Syria.

US-Russian concurrence on a plan for Assad’s removal could avert the operation. The failure of their talks would spell a worsening of the Syrian crisis and precipitate Western-Arab military intervention, which according to military sources in the Gulf is scheduled for launch Saturday, June 30.

Iran: Sanctions could lead to standoff at ‘critical point’ of nuke talks | The Times of Israel.

Ambassador to UN says some nations ‘are not serious enough’ to find solutions, says penalties won’t have much impact

Iran’s Chief Nuclear Negotiator Saeed Jalili, pictured at the day-long talks with six world powers in Istanbul, on April 14, 2012. (photo credit: AP/Burhan Ozbilici)

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — Iran’s ambassador to the U.N. said Friday some of the parties to talks on his country’s nuclear program are not serious enough to find a solution to the impasse.

Ambassador Mohammad Khazaee said recent sanctions against Iran by the U.S. and some European countries indicate that they are not willing to engage in meaningful dialogue for political reasons, which could lead to another standoff in talks.

“It is clear to us that some members of the 5+1 for whatever reasons, obviously political reasons are not forthcoming and serious enough for finding a solution. If the talks do not proceed as it should be, we are going to have another standoff in the talks,” he said referring to the five permanent members of the Security Council plus Germany.

“Therefore, we can say we are at a critical point in our talks,” he said.

The West suspects that Iran intends to produce nuclear weapons. Iran insists its nuclear development program is peaceful.

The United States recently required international banks to stop processing petroleum transaction with Tehran or face U.S. penalties — although the U.S. did grant a waiver to several countries on this point.

European penalties coming into effect next week will further raise the economic pressure.

Iran’s oil exports are down about 40 percent, while its currency has fallen sharply as a result of sanctions.

Saying the talks were “at a critical point,” Khazaee denied the sanctions would have much impact on Iran and said that the West merely was isolating an important player in the region.

“Iranians have learned how to deal with pressure in the past, in our history, everybody knows that the Iranian nation do(es) not accept any pressure or sanctions. Sanctions may be intended to harm the Iranian nation but they will not bring Iranian to their knees to accept illegitimate, I should say, expectations from the other side,” Khazaee said.

He said the main sticking point was the issue of Iran’s right to enrich uranium, which he said was permitted under the Non-Proliferation Treaty.

On Thursday Iran’s state TV said that Iran has warned that “illegitimate measures” could damage prospects of nuclear talks between Tehran and the west.

The report said Iran’s top nuclear negotiator, Saeed Jalili, made the warning in a letter to Catherine Ashton, the European Union’s foreign policy chief.

The letter is seen a reflection of Iran’s concern about an EU ban on buying Iranian oil, set to go into effect July 1.

In the letter, Jalili said the West should work on confidence-building steps instead of “illegitimate measures” that could harm the talks.

World powers meet in desperate bid to halt Syria’s crisis.

Saturday, 30 June 2012

A boy holds a sign that reads, “I am a child from Syria, the taste of gunpowder made me forget the taste of ice cream. Stop killing” during a protest against Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad after Friday prayers in Habeet, near Idlib. (Reuters)

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UN publishes report on Iran arms trade with Syria – Israel News, Ynetnews.

Security Council report says Tehran continues to defy international community through illegal arms shipments; claims sanctions slowing Iran’s nuclear program

Reuters

A UN Security Council committee has published a report on Iranian sanctions violations, including shipments of weapons to Syria in breach of a UN ban on weapons exports by the Islamic Republic.

The Security Council has imposed four rounds of sanctions on Iran for refusing to halt its nuclear enrichment program, which the United States, European Union and their allies suspect is at the heart of a weapons program. Iranrejects the allegation and refuses to halt what it says is a peaceful energy program.

Related articles:

• Iran, Syria, Russia, China plan naval drill in Mediterranean

• Iran: Military intervention in Syria will ‘engulf’ Israel
• Iran confirms sending troops to Syria

The report appeared on the committee website on Thursday, diplomats told Reuters on Friday. The report, which Reuters reported on last month, said that Syria remains the top destination for Iranian arms shipments.

Iran, like Russia, is one of Syria’s few allies as it presses ahead with a 16-month-old assault on opposition forces determined to oust Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Western diplomats said they were pleased the report was made public. Initially they said they feared Russia would block it as it did last year’s report on Iran, which has yet to be made public due to Russian objections.

Syrian rebels in Idlib (Photo: AP)

Publication of the report, the diplomats said, will likely add to the pressure on Iran to comply with UN demands about curbing sensitive nuclear activities as major powers press ahead with negotiations with the Islamic Republic aimed at convincing it that defiance of international sanctions will be too costly.

The new report, submitted by a panel of sanctions-monitoring experts to the Security Council’s Iran sanctions committee, said the group investigated three large illegal shipments of Iranian weapons over the past year.

“Iran has continued to defy the international community through illegal arms shipments,” it stated.

“Two of these cases involved (Syria), as were the majority of cases inspected by the Panel during its previous mandate, underscoring that Syria continues to be the central party to illicit Iranian arms transfers,” the report said.

The third shipment involved rockets that Britainsaid last year were headed for Taliban fighters in Afghanistan.

The kinds of arms that Iran was attempting to send to Syria before the shipments were seized by Turkish authorities included assault rifles, machineguns, explosives, detonators, 60mm and 120mm mortal shells and other items, the panel said.

The most recent incident described in the report was an arms shipment discovered in a truck that Turkey seized on its border with Syria in February. Turkeyannounced last year that it was imposing an arms embargo on Syria.

The expert panel recommended adding three firms to a UN blacklist of companies that have aided Iran’s nuclear or missile programs, or have helped it evade UN sanctions.

The three firms recommended for blacklisting are airline Yas Air, SAD Import Export Company, and Chemical Industries and Development of Materials group. The report said Yas Air has been involved in illicit arms shipments to Syria.

It was not clear when the Iran sanctions committee would make a decision on whether or not to add the three Iranian companies to the list of entities facing an international asset freeze and banishment from doing business worldwide.

Earlier this year the US Treasury Department imposed US sanctions on Yas Air, which is an Iranian cargo airline, along with three Iranian military officials and a Nigerian shipping agent for supporting illegal arms shipments to the Middle East and Africa.

The 67-page report also discusses Iran’s attempts to circumvent sanctions on its nuclear program but notes that the four rounds of punitive measures the 15-nation council imposed on Iran between 2006 and 2010 are having an impact.

“Sanctions are slowing Iran’s procurement of some critical items required for its prohibited nuclear program,” it said. “At the same time prohibited activities continue, including uranium enrichment.”

A similar UN report on North Korean sanctions violations was also made public on Friday.

David Ignatius: For Israel, military showdown with Iran remains an option – The Washington Post.

U.S. sends message to Israel, Iran, schedules joint military exercise with IDF – Israel News | Haaretz Daily Newspaper.

Senate votes for greater military support of Israel including what could be seen as direct support for an Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear program.

The Associated Press: US, Russia fail to bridge gaps on Syria.

By MATTHEW LEE, Associated Press – 3 hours ago

GENEVA (AP) — The United States and Russia failed on Friday to bridge differences over a plan to ease Syrian President Bashar Assad out of power, end violence and create a new government. That set the stage for the potential collapse of a key multinational conference that was to have endorsed the proposal.

On the eve of Saturday’s conference, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov met one-on-one for about an hour in St. Petersburg, Russia, but could not reach agreement on key elements of U.N. envoy Kofi Annan’s proposed plan for a Syrian political transition, officials said.

A senior U.S. official traveling with Clinton said areas of “difference and difficulty” remain and was not optimistic that the gathering in Geneva would produce agreement. “We may get there tomorrow, we may not,” the official told reporters as Clinton left Russia for Switzerland, where she arrived early Saturday morning.

The official said Clinton and Lavrov would try to resolve differences in Geneva out of respect for Annan, the former U.N. chief whose efforts to end the Syrian crisis have thus far fallen short.

The inconclusive results of the Clinton-Lavrov meeting may presage the unraveling of Annan’s plan to end 16 months of brutal violence in Syria by creating a national unity government to oversee the drafting of a new constitution and elections.

The United States and its allies attending the conference are adamant that the plan will not allow Assad to remain in power as part of the transitional government, but Russia insists that outsiders cannot dictate the composition of the interim administration or the ultimate solution to the crisis.

“(We) agreed to look for an agreement that will bring us closer based on a clear understanding of what’s written in the Annan plan that (all) sides in Syria need an incentive for a national dialogue,” Lavrov said after meeting Clinton, according to the Interfax news agency.

“But it’s only up to the Syrians to make agreements on what the Syrian state will be like, who will hold (government) jobs and positions,” he said. Lavrov predicted the meeting had a “good chance” of finding a way forward. “But I am not saying that we will agree on every dot.”

But failing to agree on every dot may well be the plan’s undoing, particularly if Russia refuses to except the implicit demand that Assad leave power.

Annan on Friday laid out his expectations for the conference in an op-ed in The Washington Post that tracked very closely to the draft of his proposed plan, according to diplomats familiar with it.

.The future government in Syria, he said, “must include a government of national unity that would exercise full executive powers.”

This government could include members of the present government and the opposition and other groups, but those whose continued presence and participation would undermine the credibility of the transition and jeopardize stability and reconciliation would be excluded,” Annan said.

Such a proposal does not explicitly bar Assad, but the U.S. and other Western powers that will participate in the conference said that is obvious and that the Syrian opposition will not sign on to the plan unless it excludes Assad.

The senior official said Clinton and Lavrov also discussed the real danger for the region if the uprising in Syria that has killed some 14,000 people doesn’t end peacefully. Already, Syria has shot down a Turkish warplane and Turkey has responded by setting up anti-aircraft guns on its border with Syria. They also discussed the “serious risk” of destabilizing Jordan and the potential impact on Israel.

On Friday, Syrian troops shelled a suburb of Damascus, killing an estimated 125 civilians and 60 soldiers..

Russia is Syria’s most important ally, protector and supplier of arms. Diplomatic hopes have rested on persuading Russia to agree to a plan that would end the Assad family dynasty, which has ruled Syria for more than four decades.

Associated Press writer Mansur Mirovalev in Moscow contributed to this report.

Annan optimistic on Syria crisis talks, despite Assad’s dismissal.

Friday, 29 June 2012

International mediator Kofi Annan hopes for an acceptable result to the Syria crisis talks in Geneva on Saturday. (Reuters)

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Clinton arrives in Russia for Syria showdown | The Times of Israel.

US secretary of state to meet with her Russian counterpart ahead of weekend’s crucial talks in Geneva

June 29, 2012, 10:56 am 1

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton waves before boarding a plane in Riga, Latvia on Thursday. (photo credit: AP/Haraz N. Ghanbari)

ST. PETERSBURG, Russia (AP) — US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov were heading for a face-to-face showdown over Syria on Friday as major powers prepared for a weekend conference to hash out a political transition plan for the country.

On the eve of Saturday’s conference aimed at ending 16 months of brutal violence in Syria, Clinton and Lavrov were to meet in St. Petersburg in a bid to iron out deep differences over the transition plan being pushed by UN envoy Kofi Annan that calls for the formation of a national unity government that would oversee the drafting of a new constitution and elections.

US officials are adamant that the plan will not allow Syrian President Bashar Assad to remain in power at the top of the transitional government, but Russia insists that outsiders cannot dictate the ultimate solution or the composition of the interim administration.

Annan’s plan would allow some members of the current regime to stay in place but would exclude those deemed to be counterproductive or destructive to the transition process, which would be Syrian led, according to diplomats familiar with the proposal. It does not explicitly bar Assad, but the US and other western powers who will participate in the conference in Geneva say that is implicit.

The difference in interpretation could prove its unraveling and Clinton hopes to press Lavrov on the point at their meeting and over dinner following a gathering of Asia-Pacific foreign ministers that Lavrov is hosting in St. Petersburg.

On Thursday, Lavrov acknowledged that a transition period is necessary to end the violence in Syria, but said Russia had not agreed to all elements of Annan’s plan, in particular any suggestion that Assad would be required to leave.

“We are not supporting and will not support any external meddling,” Lavrov said. “External players must not dictate … to Syrians, but, first of all, must commit to influencing all the sides in Syria to stop the violence.”

He also said the Annan plan was still a work in progress.

But, Clinton, speaking Thursday in Riga, Latvia, said it was “very clear” that all participants in the Geneva meeting — including Russia — were on board with the transition plan. She told reporters that the invitations said made clear that representatives “were coming on the basis of (Annan’s) transition plan.”

She said she expects the meeting “to provide an opportunity to make real progress” on that plan.

Diplomatic hopes have rested on Russia — Syria’s most important ally, protector and supplier of arms — to agree to a plan that would end the Assad family dynasty, which has ruled Syria for more than four decades.

Israel Hayom | Turkey will not hesitate to avenge Assad’s aggression.