WarSclerotic

Dershowitz: Lobbyist Group Undercuts Obama Policy on Iran.

Alan M. Dershowitz’s Perspective: President Obama recently invited me to the Oval Office for a discussion about Iran.

The president reiterated to me in private what he had previously said in public: namely, that he would not allow Iran to develop nuclear weapons; that containment of a nuclear Iran was not an option; that sanctions and diplomatic pressures would be applied and increased first; but that, as a last recourse, the military option would not be taken off the table.

President Obama discusses the Iranian situation with Dershowitz.

What the president said is now the official American policy with regard to the threat of a nuclear Iran. It is clear that sanctions and diplomacy alone will not convince the Iranian mullahs to halt their progress toward their goal of an Iran with nuclear weapons.

The only realistic possibility of persuading the Iranians to give up their nuclear ambitions is for them to believe that there is a credible threat of an American military attack on their nuclear facilities.

Unless this threat is credible, the Iranians will persist. And if the Iranians persist, and the Israelis do not believe that the American threat is credible, the Israelis will undertake a military strike against Iranian nuclear facilities. It is crucial, therefore, for America’s military threat to be credible and to be perceived as credible by both the Israelis and the Iranians.

Enter J Street. J Street is a lobby in Washington that advertises itself as “pro-Israel and pro-peace.” But its policy with regard to Iran is neither pro-Israel nor pro-peace. It is categorically opposed to any “military strike against Iran.”

It is also opposed to maintaining any credible military threat against Iran, through “legislation, authorizing, encouraging or in other ways laying the ground work for the use of military force against Iran.” This is according to their official policy statement.

They favor sanctions and they recognize that “Iran obtaining nuclear weapons would pose a very serious threat to America and Israeli interests.” But they believe that diplomacy and sanctions alone can deter Iran from developing nuclear weapons.

By advocating this path, they are totally undercutting the policy of the Obama Administration. They are sending a message both to Iran and to Israel that there is no credible military threat, and that if Iran is prepared to withstand sanctions and diplomacy, they will have nothing further to worry about if they move forward with their nuclear weapons program.

The Obama Administration has tried very hard to persuade Israel that there is no space between the American position and the Israeli position on Iran. Whether or not this is true, there is a hole the size of a nuclear crater between Israel’s position, reflecting a widespread consensus within that country, and J Street’s position.

Virtually every Israeli wants the United States to keep the military option on the table. This includes “doves” such as Israeli President Shimon Peres. Former U.S. President Bill Clinton also believes that the military option must be maintained.

Virtually everyone, Israelis and Americans alike, hope that the military option will never have to be exercised. But the best way to make sure that it will not have to be exercised is to keep it credible.

As George Washington put in his second inaugural speech: “To be prepared for war is one of the most effective means of preserving peace.”

J Street, in addition to undercutting both mainstream Israeli and American policy toward Iran, has also mischaracterized the views of those it cites in support of its benighted position. It cites Former Mossad Chiefs, Meir Dagan and Efraim Halevy as opposing any “military strike against Iran.”

It cites these two Israeli security experts in the context of opposing an American strike and an American threat to strike. Yet Dagan has explicitly stated that he would favor keeping the American military option on the table.

This is what he has said: “The military option must always be on the table, with regards to Iran, but it must always be a last option.”

This is quite different from the misleading manner in which J Street has characterized his views. The same is true of Efraim Halevy. When I read the J Street reference to Halevy, I immediately called him and told him how J Street had characterized his views and asked him if that was a correct characterization.

His response: “That’s absolutely false.” He told me that he had repeatedly stated that the United States must keep the military option on the table as a last resort, though he hoped that it would never have to be used.

J Street can no longer pretend to be pro-Israel, since it is actively seeking to undercut a joint Israeli and American policy designed to protect Israel and the world from a nuclear armed Iran. Nor can J Street claim to be pro-peace, since its policy will likely encourage Iran to take actions that will inevitably result in an attack either by Israel, the United States or both.

Finally, it cannot be trusted to tell the truth, as evidenced by its deliberate misattribution of its views to security experts that don’t share them.

Some people have accused J Street of carrying President Obama’s water with regard to Israel and of having been “invented” to give the Obama Administration cover for taking tough policies with regard to Israeli settlement activity.

But in this instance, J Street is completely undercutting the Obama policy. That would not be so bad except for the fact that the Obama White House sometimes seems to be embracing J Street and its followers.

This public embrace sends a message to Iran that the Obama Administration may not mean it when it says that it will use military force if necessary to prevent a nuclear armed Iran.

This may be a false message, but it is a dangerous one nevertheless.

Absolutely no good has come from J Street’s soft policy on Iran. Either J Street must change its policy, or truth in advertising requires that it no longer proclaim itself a friend of Israel, a friend of peace, a friend of truth, or a friend of the Obama Administration.

Alan M. Dershowitz is the Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law at Harvard Law School. He is a graduate of Brooklyn College and Yale Law School. Read more reports from Alan M. Dershowitz — Click Here Now.

Iran: We arrest ring of assassin… JPost – Iranian Threat – News.

By JPOST.COM STAFF

06/14/2012 16:43

Media in Iran reports 2nd wave of arrests of alleged assassins of Iran nuclear scientists; Tehran says committed to bring to justice “terrorists who martyred scientists.”

Photo: REUTERS

Iranian security forces on Thursday announced the arrest of a ring of assassins responsible for the recent killings of nuclear scientists, Iranian media reported. Police also directly tied the suspects to Israel, alleging that they were “hired by an Israeli spy network,” according to state news agency IRNA.

Tehran has in the past accused Israel of being behind the killings of several of its nuclear scientists. In January the Islamic state blamed Israel when a nuclear scientist was killed by a bomb placed on his car by a motorcyclist in Tehran.

The announcement marks the second wave of Iranian arrests of alleged assassins in recent months; in April, Iran announced that it had arrested several members of a “major terrorist group” over the killing of nuclear scientists.

The Iranian Intelligence Ministry announced that the suspects were responsible for the killing of Majid Shahriari, Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan and Reza Qashqaei – all scientists allegedly working on Tehran’s contentious nuclear program.

Iran alleged that western spy agencies responsible for carrying out the nuclear assassinations collaborated with People’s Mujahedin of Iran (MEK,) an exiled Iranian organization dedicated to overthrowing the ruling regime and replacing it with a democratic, secular government.

Following the arrests, Iran announced its commitment to continue with its efforts to bring to justice the “terrorists” who “martyred the young scientists in cold-blooded murder,” IRNA reported.

Tensions are running high between Iran and Israel, which has not ruled out a military strike on the Islamic Republic if diplomatic efforts fail to resolve a row over Tehran’s disputed nuclear program.

via Israel Hayom | Taking Obama personally.

Yaakov Ahimeir

Iran and Saudi Arabia at odds over oil | The Times of Israel.

Thursday’s meeting of OPEC ministers expected to test unity of 12 member nations

Barrels of petroleum (CC-BY-SA, by Trevor MacInnis, Wikimedia Commons)

VIENNA (AP) — OPEC ministers are coming into a meeting deeply divided over how much crude to pump, with Saudi Arabia keen to keep a lid on prices, rival Iran pushing to cut production and Iraq expected to back Iran, its longtime foe under Saddam Hussein.

The divisions will test the unity of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, which sees itself as the oil market’s prime regulator. The 12-nation group is likely to paper over differences Thursday by deciding to leave output unchanged despite the current overproduction. But the disagreements might be too deep to resolve and the meeting could break up in disarray.

The gathering comes as many of the world’s major consuming nations are struggling against a stubborn economic downturn that could be exacerbated by any decision to inflate oil prices by cutting supply.

But Thursday’s meeting has a significant geostrategic dimension as well. Sanctions levied by the U.S. over Tehran’s refusal to curb its nuclear program have already cut significantly into exports of Iranian crude — from about 2.5 million barrels a day last year to between 1.2 and 1.8 million barrels now, according to estimates by US officials. A European Union embargo on Iranian crude that starts July 1 will tighten the squeeze.

The embargo is exacerbating tensions between traditional rivals Saudi Arabia — a Sunni Muslim nation — and Shiite Muslim Iran, who are jockeying for influence in the Middle East as well as in OPEC.

Iran has warned the Saudis not to use the oil weapon against it by increasing supplies to countries that no longer get Iranian crude due to the sanctions, and Iranian oil minister Rostam Ghazemi on Wednesday warned the United States and Europe that their tactics will backfire.

“The use of instruments such as sanctions or direct military interventions in energy-producing countries will increase the price of oil and market volatility,” he told an OPEC seminar.

For his part, Saudi oil minister Ali Naimi has denied tightening the screws on Iran, telling reporters his country sells to whoever buys.

“We don’t sit and say ‘we want to sell to this country or that country (or) whatever,” he said.

But Saudi overproduction is clearly rankling the Iranians. In comments to Iran’s Mehr news agency, former Iranian oil minister Gholam Hossein Nozari noted that “political issues have overshadowed OPEC,” while analysts say the political implications of Saudi Arabia’s production policy cannot be ignored.

“You do wonder what’s tied up perhaps with the Iranian political issue,” said Neil Atkinson, director of Energy & Utilities Research and Analysis. “Of course the lower the price at the moment the more damage that does to Iran.”

Jason Schenker of Prestige Economics said the Saudis already are making up for the reduced Iranian supply, “and they will replace even more barrels after July 1st,”

“As such, there is going to be some serious tension between the members at this OPEC meeting.”

In another manifestation of their rivalries, both Iran and the Saudis are fielding candidates for the post of OPEC secretary general, to be filled in December when Abdullah Al-Badry of Libya retires. But Ecuador is also in the race, along with Iraq, and expectations are high that the ministers will opt for Wilson Pastor of Ecuador at this meeting or the next as a compromise.

Iran and fellow price hawk Venezuela see $100 as a fair price for a barrel of U.S. benchmark crude — a level substantially above the present price. Venezuelan oil minister Rafael Ramirez described that price Wednesday as “the minimum necessary” for a just return to producers.

An OPEC report released Wednesday showed that its members are already producing nearly 33 million barrels a day — close to 3 million barrels more than its overall quota and the most it has pushed out in four years.

Plentiful supply and weakening demand from the United States, China and the European Union have caused prices to sink more than 20 percent over recent months, with U.S. benchmark crude now about $83 a barrel and Brent, used to price international varieties of crude, below $100 a barrel.

“Relative to a year ago, global demand for oil is weaker … while supply is robust,” analyst Stephen Schork said in a research note Wednesday.

Iran and its backers have been usually defeated by Saudi Arabia — OPEC’s powerhouse that accounts for nearly a third of the organization’s production — and its Gulf supporters, and Naimi signaled ahead of Thursday’s meeting that his country was not prepared to cut back output .

“When customers come, what do you do?” he asked reporters. “They say we want oil — what do you do?

“You give it to them. That’s the business we are in.”

But Naimi does not always get his way.

OPEC’s ministerial meeting a year ago broke up in disarray with no agreement on production after an acrimonious session he described as one of the worst ever. This time around, Iraq could increase the pressure on the Saudis by joining those calling for output restraint. Baghdad has played little role in recent years in OPEC decision-making but has progressively shaken off decades of sanctions and war and is now exporting around 2.5 million barrels a day, giving it a significant voice.

Reflecting Baghdad’s stance ahead of the meeting, Iraq’s OPEC president, Abdul Kareem Luaibi, has noted the “tremendous surplus that has led to this severe decline in prices.”

Atkinson, the analyst, said Saudi Arabia’ push to lower prices further could backfire, resulting in free-fall that could leave the country short on its main revenue source and “very uncomfortable.”

Copyright 2012 The Associated Press.

via Israeli PM’s handling of flotilla raid raises concern over Iran strategy.

Thursday, 14 June 2012

Israeli commentators heaped scathing criticism on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu after an inquiry raised fresh questions surrounding the Gaza-bound flotilla attack in 2010, in which Turkish nationals were killed. (Reuters)

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A deafening silence – Haaretz Daily Newspaper | Israel News.

Tolerance in the face of Assad’s bloody murderousness is liable to have the same effect on Arab-Jewish radicalism in Israel.

Remember Deir Yassin? The number of innocent people murdered in Syria over the past year is 100 times greater than the number of innocent people who were murdered in this Arab village at the edge of Jerusalem in 1948.

Remember the Qibya incident? The number of innocent people killed in Syria over the past year is 250 times the number of innocent people killed in this pastoral village in Jordan in 1953.

Remember Sabra and Shatila? The number of innocent people butchered during the past year in Syria is 20 times the number of innocent people who were butchered in those Palestinian refugee camps in western Beirut in 1982.

Remember the bloody rioting in October 2000? The number of innocent people who were shot to death in Syria during the past year is 1,000 times the number of innocent people who were shot to death by the Israel Police in the Galilee and the Triangle area in central Israel.

Remember Operation Cast Lead? The number of innocent people who were felled in Syria during this past year is dozens of times the number of innocent people who fell in the Gaza Strip during that widely condemned Israeli military operation in the winter of 2008-09.

The picture is clear: During one year, the secular Arab nationalism of Bashar Assad has spilled more innocent blood than the Zionists have in decades. This Arab tyrant, who in the past was the darling of Arab Knesset members, is massacring his fellow Arabs in a way that Israel never did. Arab cities are being bombed, Arab women are murdered, Arab children are slaughtered. An Arab society is being shredded, and an Arab state shattered into fragments.

Despite all this, the The High Follow-Up Committee for Arab Citizens of Israel is not demanding that the United Nations intervene to stop the bloodshed. Adalah, the Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel, is not petitioning the International Criminal Court in the Hague to put the war criminals on trial. Large Land Day type demonstrations have not been called. Protesters who take part in mass marches every October aren’t marching. Arab students who mark the Palestinian Nakba of 1948 aren’t coming out against the Syrian Nakba of 2012. Israel’s Arab minority and its anti-Zionist left are watching as thousands of Arab are massacred – and are standing idly by.

It’s crystal clear that the Syrian tragedy unfolding before our eyes has serious international ramifications. It is taking all meaning out concepts such as international community, international law and the idea of moral validity in international relations.

It’s crystal clear that the Syrian tragedy has serious pan-Arab ramifications. It is taking all meaning out of concepts such as Arab unity, Arab solidarity and the idea that the contemporary Arab world accords any real meaning to human rights.

But the Syrian tragedy has serious ramifications for Israel’s anti-Zionist community as well. The inability of this community to directly confront Arab evil undermines the moral basis for its battle against Israeli evil. Its unwillingness to demand that universal values be upheld in Hama and in Homs pulls the rug out from under its demands that universal values be upheld in Ramallah and Nazareth. Its silence when faced with the butcher of Damascus makes its condemnations of the State of Israel sound hollow.

The Syrian challenge is a moral challenge. There are some Israeli Arabs who are passing this test honorably. For example, Azmi Bishara, the former MK who fled Israel after being questioned on suspicion of aiding the enemy, who in the past was close to Assad, is today waging a brave and intensive campaign against him on Al Jazeera tv. Unfortunately, few of Bishara’s colleagues in Israel are following suit.

Israeli Arab artists in Israel and Jewish radicals in Israel are silent about what’s going on just over the border. This troublesome silence makes one wonder if their declared humanitarianism is authentic. When they spoke up – against Israel – about human dignity and freedom, perhaps they were simply fooling us?

Communism in the West was destroyed in the 1950s because it tolerated Stalin’s bloody dictatorship. Tolerance in the face of Assad’s bloody murderousness is liable to have the same effect on Arab-Jewish radicalism in Israel.

Russia defends arms sales to Syria – FT.com.

Moscow forcefully rejected on Wednesday Hillary Clinton’s accusation that Russia was supplying Syria with helicopter gunships that could be used against civilians, as Syria announced it had “cleansed” the rebel town of Haffa of armed fighters.

Speaking in Tehran, Sergei Lavrov, Russia’s foreign minister, said Moscow was instead “completing contracts that were signed and paid for a long time ago. All of them are contracts for what are solely air defence systems.”

He said: “We do not supply Syria or anyone else with resources that are used in fighting peaceful demonstrators” – and, seeking to turn the tables on Mrs Clinton, added, “unlike the United States, which regularly supplies that region with such special equipment, including one such shipment [that] went to one of the Gulf countries recently, but for some reason the Americans consider this to be in order”.

Mr Lavrov also drew attention to comments made by Pentagon spokesman John Kirby on Tuesday, in which the spokesman said that although the Pentagon knew Mr Assad was turning to helicopter gunships, it could not confirm they were being supplied by Russia.

However, Mrs Clinton returned to the theme of Russian military sales on Wednesday, saying the US had “repeatedly urged the Russian government to cut these ties immediately” and suspend further deliveries of weapons and other military hardware.

She added that Russia was putting its “vital interests in the region and relationships” at risk by blocking international action on a transition plan, in remarks reported by the Associated Press.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based monitoring group affiliated to the opposition, said rebels had retreated from Haffa on Tuesday night and Wednesday morning after more than a week of clashes that killed 68 soldiers and 56 civilians and rebels.

Haffa is the only majority Sunni town in the coastal province of Latakia where many people belong to the Alawite sect from which top regime members are drawn. It is one of several places where the regime has carried out intensive assaults on opposition areas in recent days amid reports that rebels are becoming better organised and better equipped.

Activists have also reported bombardments in the central provinces of Homs and Hama, the northern province of Aleppo and the eastern province of Deir Ezzour.

The violence had sent about 2,000 refugees across the Turkish border in the last 48 hours alone, the Turkish foreign ministry said on Wednesday.

In spite of the mounting violence, the government dismissed UN peacekeeping chief Hervé Ladsous’s characterisation of the conflict as a civil war, claiming it was “not consistent with reality”.

“What is happening in Syria is a war against armed groups that choose terrorism,” state news quoted a foreign ministry statement as saying on Wednesday.

Russia’s state arms export monopoly Rosoboroneksport also released a statement on Wednesday saying that it “does not supply arms and military equipment that violate UN sanctions and other international agreements”. Russian Helicopters, Russia’s state-controlled helicopter manufacturer, declined to comment on Wednesday, although a spokesman said all international sales were the responsibility of Rosoboroneksport.

Fyodor Lukyanov, chief editor of the Moscow-based journal Russia in Global Affairs, said the exchange between Moscow and Washington appeared to be a “psychological propaganda war”. He added that Mrs Clinton’s comments seemed intended to put “psychological pressure on Russia by creating the [international] impression that the only thing Russia cares about is money”.

A Reuters report on Wednesday citing four Damascus-based bankers said that Russia was involved in helping the Syrians print new banknotes. The banknotes had been printed in Russia and were being circulated as a trial run there, the report claimed.

Natalia Nikiforova, assistant to the general director of Gosznak, Russia’s state money printing agency, said Russian-printed money was not in circulation in Syria. She said she did not know if they had received an order, however, adding that “we cannot comment on this until there is an announcement by the client country’s central bank”.

Horrific deaths, grave torture: Amnesty accuses Syria of war crimes.

Thursday, 14 June 2012

Amnesty International has called for an immediate international response to the violent attacks in Syria carried out by regime forces. (Reuters)

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Lord West: The Likelihood Of Israel Attacking Iran Is Increasing, Britain May Be Drawn In.

Former head of the Royal Navy and Labour security minister Lord West has told The Huffington Post the likelihood of Israel launching an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities was increasing, and that he worried the US and subsequently Britain would be drawn into a wider conflict with Tehran.

As part of a wide-ranging interview on both cyber-warfare and security issues in the Middle East, Lord West, who served as security minister under Gordon Brown, told us he was “worried” about a potential Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities, the likelihood of which “has become somewhat greater.”

Lord West served as security minister in Gordon Brown’s government“I’m not convinced in my own mind that they would get clearance from the US before they did it,” he said. ” I think there are some very interesting dynamics there, and should the Israelis do something like an attack, the Iranians would react on the assumption that the Americans were involved.

“So the Americans might have to throw themselves into this, they will still reap the whirlwind. It’s better to reap the whirlwind having knocked out all the capabilities. Do the Israelis know where all the nuclear sites are? I doubt that very much, but I’m sure the Americans do.”

West expressed concerns – privately held by many senior MPs – that Britain could easily find itself drawn into a conflict with Iran because of its naval assets in the Straits of Hormuz, through which around 40% of the world’s oil leaves the Middle East.

“We are very tied to the Americans in terms of responses towards the Iranians, we have a lot of assets, commercial assets, in that region, which of course become vulnerable. If for example, Israelis did attack, and the Americans decided they had to go in on it, I think it’s quite difficult to see us not getting involved,” he says.

“In the Straits of Hormuz we have the best and most capable mine countering assets. And in the same way that the Americans would feel they had to reap the whirlwind, we would be vulnerable as well, even if we didn’t want to do it.

“I think it would be a terrible, terrible error to attack Iran, one cannot predict what would happen. We ought to try not to be involved, but we might have no choice. Realpolitik means sometimes you sometimes have to get involved.”

However West believes Britain ought to rule out any intervention in Syria, saying defence cuts and the likely strength of the Syrian regime’s defences would make it impossible.

“Because we are still involved with Afghanistan and because we have cut the military to the bone, I can’t see how it would be possible,” he says.

Speaking to the Commons on Monday afternoon foreign secretary William Hague refused to rule out military action in Syria, which he said had parallels with the Bosnian conflict of the 1990s.

“You always want to keep everything on the table, I can understand that,” Lord West tells us, “But I cannot see any option that would make sense for us to be involved militarily that would not be foolhardy. Basically I find it hard to see any situation where British forces would be involved.

“I don’t think a single aircraft of ours was shot at in Libya,” he went on. “But Syria’s army is basically untouched at the moment. They have surface to air missiles, it’s a very different kettle of fish.”

Foriegn Secretary William Hague with his Russian counterpart Sergei LavrovRussia has indicated it would veto any resolution at the UN Security Council for greater sanctions or military action. Moscow has suggested an alternative set of talks to resolve the crisis, but William Hague told MPs on Monday that Britian would only support those talks if it was clear they would be working towards implementing the plan by Kofi Annan to restart peace talks between the Syrian regime and the government.

The former UN Secretary General admitted last week that his plan was “not working”.

The only way I can see this being resolved without a lengthy civil war is through Russia and the Arabs, and for Russia to suddenly change their view on this,” West told us.

“What’s interesting is the Sunni-Shia split that’s becoming evident in Syria and becoming evident elsewhere. It’s interesting to see the support from Saudi Arabia and Qatar for the rebels, but it means Iran is more likely to support the Syrian regime and it all adds to the mix.

“The Qataris are slightly miffed that their huge efforts in Libya, where they were a key player, has not been recognised. It’s made them keener to get involved in Syria, primarily backstage. And so the Iranians see this as being a threat to their status within the region.”

The source code for the Flame Virus, considered the most significant so-called “malware” ever seenSince leaving government Lord West has focused on cyber-security, and spoke to HuffPost about the recent outbreak of the Flame virus, which the UN has described as an “espionage tool”. The virus is thought to have targeted high-level government infrastructure in Iran.

“I think there is an interesting debate to be had about this,” says West. “There has been an acknowledgement by the Americans that they have used cyber as an offensive weapon. This means we’re in a new world now, people say. I don’t believe that, there were people doing these things before, anyone who thought that highly capable nations weren’t going to do that sort of thing if they wanted to, they were living in a dream world.”

Lord West says that while he applauds steps taken by the coalition to beef-up safeguards against a cyber attack on Britain, he told us: “Even though we’re probably ahead of most countries in the world, we are still behind the power curve.”

“More money has to go into information assurance,” he says. “We’re on the right track, the Cabinet Office is coordinating it, it’s better coordinated than it was. But we have to put more and more effort into this. Some nations are living with their heads in the sand. You can’t do these things in isolation.”

“These things are really, really high risk and could cause uneblievable damage. If you take all the grids down, we go back to the stone age, in a way. Those are the risks you can start dreaming about with cyber, and it doesn’t take many more steps before you’re starting to talk about those things.

“The budget is still too small, but given the fact we’re broke shows how impotant they now think this is, that they put any money in at all.”

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