WarSclerotic

Jerusalem Post – Breaking News.

International – Jeffrey Goldberg – On Iranian Intransigence – The Atlantic.

Ray Takeyh of the Council on Foreign Relations suggests that unrealistic demands made by Iranian negotiators may be sinking any hope of a compromise on the nuclear issue:

It is traditional Iranian statecraft to give little and hope to get a lot. So Iranians came into these negotiations with some rather extraordinary demands, particularly [that] their right to uranium enrichment be officially recognized–which is impossible, given the fact that the enrichment stands in violation of Security Council resolutions and the International Atomic Energy Agency’s ( IAEA) board of governor’s injunctions. The United States and the other powers just could not get the Iranians to abandon that demand and their demand for substantial sanctions relief in exchange for discussing the disposition of their uranium enriched to 20 percent.

And Takeyh provides a useful reminder that Iran’s intransigence on this issue dates back to 2006:

The United Nations’ six Security Council resolutions have asked Iran to suspend all enrichment and reprocessing activities, have asked Iran to come to terms with the IAEA regarding previous or ongoing weaponization activities, and to clarify all ambiguities regarding its nuclear program. At this point, Iran has not discharged those obligations, [which] go back to 2006. So for some six years, Iran has rebuffed those demands from the international community. In these particular talks that have just taken place, the talks focused more specifically on this 20 percent enrichment. The world powers asked Iran to stop producing 20 percent enriched uranium [which can more easily be converted to weapons grade uranium], to ship out the existing supplies of 20 percent enriched uranium, and to shut down the Fordow underground facility, which is being used to enrich uranium to the 20 percent level. Iran rejected those requests.

So far, the negotiations seems to be going according to a certain plan: Call it “Delay and Enrich.” The Iranians haven’t stopped enriching uranium during these months of negotiations. It would be fair to say, in fact, that the negotiations represent a crucial component of their enrichment strategy.

Netanyahu: We look forward to working with new Egyptian government | The Times of Israel.

( What the &%^ are they supposed to do ? ! – JW )

Foreign Ministry remains tight-lipped over Brotherhood win in Cairo

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (photo credit: Uri Lenz/Flash90)

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said Sunday night that Israel would respect the democratic process and the results of the vote in Egypt.

Muslim Brotherhood candidate Mohammed Morsi was declared a winner of a run-off vote for president of the country Sunday, the first civilian and democratically elected person to hold the title.

Israel had expressed fears that an Egypt ruled by the hard-line Islamist Brotherhood would undo the peace treaty between the countries and lead to frostier relations with Cairo.

Netanyahu’s statement seemed designed to iterate the importance of keeping to the three-decade old peace agreement.

“Israel looks forward to continuing cooperation with the Egyptian government on the basis of the peace treaty between the two countries, which is a joint interest of both peoples and contributes to regional stability,” the statement read.

Sources told Ynet that the Prime Minister’s Office is prepared to send a congratulatory message to Morsi, although exactly if and when a missive will be released has yet to be decided. Netanyahu’s office had ordered Israel’s ministers to remain tight-lipped about the situation in Egypt, the website reported.

Foreign ministry officials said that although the outcome of the election was expected, they intend to wait and see how things develop, and what steps the new leadership takes under president-elect Mohammed Morsi, Ynet news reported..

Kadima MK Otniel Schneller called on Israelis to refrain from premature expressions of condemnation and instead congratulate the Egyptian people for completing the democratic process, ”even if the results are not to the liking of some of us.”

“The first reactions should take into consideration the future relations with Israel’s southern neighbor,” Schneller said. “The Egyptian people made their choice, now honor it.

Opposition head Shelly Yachimovich (Labor) said that Israel must have dialogue with Egypt’s chosen leader, Maariv reported on Sunday.

“Despite the complexities involved we must have a dialogue with whoever is chosen to lead Egypt,” Yachimovich said, adding that since the peace treaty is of the highest strategic importance Israel must do everything it can to maintain normal ties with Egypt.

The Israel Defense Forces said the changing of the guard in Egypt to a more hard-line government would not lead to any operational shifts.

Muslim Brotherhood’s Muhammed Morsi is president of Egypt.

DEBKAfile Special Report June 24, 2012, 6:28 PM (GMT+02:00)

Egypt’s new president Muhammed Morsi

Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood has achieved the goal set at its foundation 84 years ago. Its candidate Mohammed Morsi was declared Sunday afternoon, June 24, victor of last week’s presidential election runoff with 51.73 percent, beating his rival, Ahmed Shafiq, former prime minister under the ousted Hosni Mubarak. Brotherhood supporters massed in tens of thousands at Tahrir Square set up a great cheer. Before the results were announced, they called for the Supreme Military Council ruling Egypt in the interim to step down and are now preparing to fight the generals to win for their president the sweeping powers assumed by the generals ahead of the election.
Although elected more or less democratically, Morsi and his party are expected to turn the Egyptian revolution into the cornerstone of an Islamic state more closely akin to the Islamic Republic of Iran than the democratic, secular state envisioned by the revolutionaries when they fought for Mubarak’s overthrow.
In time, Israeli will discover its three-decade old peace pact with Egypt is also destined to go by the board as the Islamist majority in parliament gives Egypt a new constitution broadly based on the Sharia.
The military council, though widely charged with usurping power, proved helpless against the Islamic tide which polarized rather than sweeping the country. The close election results showed Egypt to be deeply split into at least two large camps and this bodes ill for its future stability.
The generals will have no choice but to come to terms with the Muslim Brotherhood. But any deal they reach will be short-lived because the Islamists have the legislative power to enact laws for stripping the military elite of its privileges. Some of the generals may choose to retire rather than support the Brotherhood.
The first to read the writing on the wall was Mubarak’s former intelligence chief, Gen. Omar Suleiman, who dropped out of the presidential race at an early stage. The last DEBKA-Net-Weekly’s sources disclosed that Suleiman had boarded a flight to Munich, Germany last Wednesday, June 20. He was quick to foresee that the Muslim Brotherhood, backed by the Obama administration, was heading for rule over Egypt.
Having devoted much of his career to putting Muslim Brotherhood activists behind bars, Suleiman knew that he could expect nothing more under the new regime than the fate of his old boss, Hosni Mubarak, namely, a slow, cruel death in prison.

In another part of Cairo, supporters of Ahmed Shafiq demonstrated waited out the results by protesting against “foreign intervention” in Egypt’s democratic process. They accused the US of tilting the election against their candidate. Disgruntled pro-democracy secular activists stood quietly in Cairo’s emblematic square in mourning for the revolution they lost.

Mohammed Morsi declared Egypt’s first democratic president | The Times of Israel.

(First and last… Iran is the model. – JW )

Muslim Brotherhood candidate takes 51.7 percent of votes to become country’s first leader in post-Mubarak era

Muslim Brotherhood candidate Mohammed Morsi was declared the first democratically elected president of Egypt Sunday afternoon, ending months of speculation as to who would replace deposed leader Hosni Mubarak.

The carrying out of free elections in Egypt was a stunning development in a country that had been governed by autocracy until a popular revolution ousted Mubarak in January 2011.

Morsi, who won an earlier round of presidential voting, was declared the winner with 51.7 percent of the vote, compared to 48.3 percent for his opponent Ahmed Shafiq.

Officials said 843,250 votes were declared void.

Some 51% of Egypt’s voting-eligible public cast ballots in the runoff election.

The announcement by election official Farouk Sultan came after a 45-minute delay and a long prologue.

Tahrir Square erupted into loud cheers and mass celebrations as the winner was announced, with thousands of people waving flags, shouting and dancing.

“As Egyptians celebrate their freedom, we pay special tribute to the martyrs of the great Egyptian revolution, their blood didn’t go in vain,” the Brotherhood tweeted shortly after the announcement.

Morsi’s spokesman Ahmed Abdel-Attie said words cannot describe the “joy” in this “historic moment.”

“We got to this moment because of the blood of the martyrs of the revolution,” he said. “Egypt will start a new phase in its history.”

The announcement was the culmination of a tumultuous, 16-month transition that was supposed to bring democratic rule, but was tightly controlled and curtailed by the military rulers who took power from Mubarak.

Field Marshall Hussein Tantawi, who headed the country’s caretaker military junta, congratulated Morsi after the win, according to Egyptian state television.

Throughout the campaign, the Islamist Brotherhood attempted to paint Shafiq, a former prime minister, as the continuation of Mubarak’s regime, which ruled Egypt for 30 years.

Results were originally scheduled to be released on Thursday, but were pushed back as officials said they needed more time to tally the votes.

Both Shafiq and Morsi had previously announced that they had won.

Israel has expressed worries over the future of ties with Egypt should the hard-line Brotherhood take power.

The announcement was preceded by heavy police presence in Cairo and other places to counter possible protests, adding to tension in the country. The crossing between Gaza and Egypt was ordered closed just before the announcement, according to Egyptian daily Al-Ahram.

The announcement of the president was supposed to be the end of Egypt’s post-uprising transition to democracy. However, the military made a series of last minute-moves that stripped the office of president of most of its major powers and kept those powers concentrated in the hands of the military. A court ruling a few days before that dissolved the freely elected parliament that was dominated by the Muslim Brotherhood.

In Cairo’s Tahrir Square, the birthplace of the pro-democracy uprising, a swelling crowd of thousands gathered in sweltering midday heat awaiting the announcement. They were a mix of supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood and ultraconservative Islamists known as Salafis along with some of the revolutionary youth groups that drove last year’s uprising. A separate pro-Shafiq rally of some 2,000 protesters gathered in the northern Cairo district of Nasr City.

After nearly an hour of stupefying details of the commission’s work, Mohammad Morsy was announced to be the winner of the presidential election.

Wild celebration/pandemonium has broken out in Tahrir square.

We all were afraid of this happening.  Poor Egypt.  Hello, Arab winter…..

JW

Massive Paris protest calls for toppling of Iranian regime.

Several prominent international figures joined a rally of 100,000 people protesting the policies of the Iranian regime. (Al Arabiya)

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Thousands of Iranian protestors gathered in the French capital Paris to demand the toppling of the regime while waving the flags of Arab Spring countries.

Key public figures from all over the world joined the massive rally that saw 100,000 protestors coming together to declare solidarity with the Iranian opposition in the northern Paris suburb of Villepinte.

This is the right to step in and try to save Iran, said former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani who took part in the protest.

“We have to support the Iranian opposition and stop the regime’s nuclear program to help the people gain their freedom,” he told Al Arabiya.

Former French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy said he joined the protests to tell the Iranian people that they have support.

“We are supporting the Iranian people until they get their freedom and liberate all Iranians from a corrupt regime that is not fit for ruling in the 21st century,” he told Al Arabiya.

Ambassador of European Union to Combat Poverty and Social Exclusion Tasha de Vasconcelos said she sides with the Iranian people in their demands for freedom.

“I am with the change that Iranian youth want to effect,” she told Al Arabiya.

Maryam Rajavi, leader of the Paris-based National Council of Resistance of Iran and which organized the rally, gave a 90-minute speech in which she talked about the tyranny of the Iranian regime and the necessity of liberating prisoners of conscience.

“I can hear the proud vices of prisoners who are resisting in the cells of Khamenei as they look forward to eliminating this regime,” she addressed protestors.

Rajavi criticized all the parties that underestimate the danger of Iran’s nuclear program and said that toppling the regime is the only way to end this danger.

“Iranian people who want their country to be free of nuclear weapons have to get rid of the regime to achieve this goal.”

The rally was supervised by former president of the Belgian Senate Anne-Marie Lizin, former Congressman Patrick Kennedy, and president of the Norwegian Friends of Free Iran Committee Larsh Receh.

Among the speakers were former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, former Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell, and former U.S. ambassadors at the United Nations Bill Richardson and John Bolton in addition to several members of the European Parliament as well as the German and Italian parliaments.

Two Arab female politicians also spoke at the rally: Nagat Bou Baker, member of the Palestinian parliament and Nariman al-Rouasan, member of the Jordanian Parliament.

Israel Hayom | The way to stop Iran is through Putin, Israeli official says.

( Through Putin?  What does that say about Obama’s USA? – JW )

“The way to stopping Iran passes through [Russian President Vladimir] Putin,” a senior official in Jerusalem said on Saturday. “The Russians are a game changer … As soon as Putin wants there to be change, it will happen. However, for now it seems they have no reason to change their conduct.”

Although Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his ministers have remained silent ahead of Putin’s visit to Israel on Monday, officials believe they plan to ask Putin to drop opposition to heavier sanctions against Iran and Syria.

Sources in the political echelon said Netanyahu was staying quiet before Putin’s arrival to avoid upsetting the Russian president.

Putin’s visit falls at a time when officials in the Prime Minister’s Office and the Foreign Ministry have been critical of Russia’s support for both Syria and Iran. Putin has stood in the way of tougher Western sanctions against Iran and has prevented U.N. military intervention in Syria, amid reports of Russia providing weapons for the “axis of evil” as well.

However, both the Prime Minister’s Office and Foreign Ministry have chosen not to publicize explicit criticism of Russia’s policies in the region to avoid tension with Putin. Political sources doubt that Putin’s position can be changed. The Russian president opposes weakening the Iranian regime through sanctions and supports Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, whose forces are engaged in the massacre of Syrian citizens.

In Jerusalem, the commonly held view is that after years of dithering, the West has woken up to the Iranian threat — but Russian and Chinese reluctance to support a crippling regimen of sanctions and pressure is emboldening the Iranians, decreasing the chances that they will back down and increasing the chances for an attack of last resort.

“The message [the Russians] will receive is that Israel can’t tolerate a nuclear Iran. Of course we prefer a diplomatic solution, but we will use all means to protect Israel’s survival,” said Yacov Livne, head of the Russia desk at the Foreign Ministry, on Thursday.

“We expect Russia, as a member of the Security Council, to demonstrate responsibility and help to prevent the Iranian nuclear race,” he said. “I think that will be the most important subject, the central subject here next week.”

Upon his arrival in Israel on Monday, the Russian president is slated to go straight to Netanya, where he will attend an unveiling of a monument to commemorate the Red Army’s victory over Nazi Germany.

He is then scheduled to hold a press conference with Netanyahu at the Prime Minister’s Office in Jerusalem.

Meanwhile, in Netanya, home to a large Russian population, residents have expressed excitement for the prospect of meeting Putin.

“I’m very excited,” said one eager waiter at the Winery Restaurant in the city, following rumors that Putin intended to have lunch there. “To see Putin face to face, and here in Israel, who would have dreamed it? It sounds crazy. But I’m certain that both my mother and grandmother will come to work with me during this shift.”

Israel Hayom | Gulf states hope for US action on Iran.

BBC News – Turkey: Jet ‘downed by Syria in international airspace’.

Turkey’s foreign minister has said the fighter jet shot down by Syrian air defence forces on Friday was in international airspace when it was hit.

Ahmet Davutoglu said the unarmed plane was not on a secret mission related to Syria, but had mistakenly entered Syrian airspace before the incident.

Syria maintains that it engaged the aircraft in its airspace “according to the laws that govern such situations”.

The Turkish and Syrian navies are still searching for the two crew members.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan is meeting the leaders of the three other parties in parliament to discuss how to respond.

Turkey had also called a meeting of Nato member states on Tuesday.

“Turkey has requested consultations under article 4 of Nato’s founding Washington Treaty. Under article 4, any ally can request consultations whenever, in the opinion of any of them, their territorial integrity, political independence or security is threatened,” Nato spokeswoman Oana Lungescu told the Reuters news agency.

UK Foreign Secretary William Hague said Syria’s actions were “outrageous” and underlined “how far beyond accepted behaviour the Syrian regime has put itself”.

“It will be held to account for its behaviour. The UK stands ready to pursue robust action at the United Nations Security Council.”

‘Training flight’

In an interview with TRT television on Sunday, Mr Davutoglu asserted that the unarmed F-4 Phantom had “momentarily” entered Syrian airspace by mistake on Friday but had left when it was shot down 15 minutes later.

“According to our conclusions, our plane was shot down in international airspace, 13 nautical miles (24km) from Syria,” he said.

According to international law, a country’s airspace extends 12 nautical miles (22.2km) from its coastline, corresponding with its territorial waters.

Mr Davutoglu also insisted that the jet had not been on a “covert mission related to Syria” but had instead been carrying out a training flight to test Turkey’s radar capabilities.

He said the plane had not “shown any hostility”, been clearly marked as Turkish, and that he did not agree with the Syrian military’s statement that it had not known to whom it belonged.

Privately, senior members of the governing AK Party have accused Syria of violating international law, says the BBC’s Jonathan Head in Istanbul.

Earlier, Mr Davutoglu spoke by telephone to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, who has urged restraint by both sides, and the foreign ministers of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council.

Turkey wants to be sure of the strongest backing once it decides its official response, our correspondent adds.

The government has promised that it will be strong, decisive and legitimate, and that it will share all the information it has with the public.

‘Unidentified target’

The Turkish military said it lost radio contact with the F-4 Phantom at 11:58 (08:58 GMT) on Friday while it was flying over Hatay province, about 90 minutes after it took off from Erhac airbase in the province of Malatya, to the north-west.

Later, the Syrian military said an “unidentified air target” had penetrated Syrian airspace from the west at 11:40 local time (08:40 GMT), travelling at very low altitude and at high speed.

It said that in line with the laws prevailing in such cases, Syrian air defences engaged the craft, and scored a direct hit about 1km (0.5 nautical miles) from its coastline.

It burst into flames, and crashed into the sea at a point 10km (5 nautical miles) from the village of Om al-Tuyour, off the coast of Latakia province, well within Syrian territorial waters, the statement added.

Syrian television showed a map charting the aircraft’s movements, coming in from over the sea near northern Cyprus.

The Syrian military statement said that after it “became clear the target was a Turkish military plane which had entered our airspace”, the naval commands of the two countries were in touch, and a joint operation was going on to find the missing crew members.

Relations between Nato-member Turkey and Syria, once close allies, have deteriorated sharply since the uprising against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad began in March 2011. More than 30,000 Syrian refugees have fled the violence across the border into Turkey.

After a cross-border shooting by Syrian security forces in April that left two refugees dead at a camp near the town of Kilis, Turkey said it would not tolerate any action that it deemed violating its security.

Alleged flightpath of downed Turkish F-4 Phantom

1. F-4 Phantom takes off from Erhac airbase, Turkey, at approximately 10:28 local time (07:28 GMT), on 22 June

2. Syria says the jet enters its airspace at 11:40 (08:40 GMT)

3. Turkish military loses contact with the plane at 11:58 (08:58 GMT), while it is over Hatay province

4. Syria says its air defences engaged aircraft about 1km (0.5 nautical miles) from the coast and that it crashed into the sea 10km (5 nautical miles) west of Om al-Tuyour. Turkey says the plane was 24km (13 nautical miles) from Syria, which under international law is considered international airspace