WarSclerotic

Heavy fighting rages around Syrian capital – JPost – Middle East.

Photo: REUTERS

Iran says it seeks EU engagement, not stand-off | Reuters.

(Reuters) – Iran on Tuesday urged the European Union to reconsider an embargo on Iranian oil that comes into effect on July 1, saying it wanted engagement and not confrontation with the bloc.

EU governments on Monday formally approved the embargo, dismissing calls by debt-ridden Greece for exemptions to help ease its economic crisis.

“We hope that the European Union looks into the matter with more rationality and wisdom because I think nobody benefits from confrontation,” Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi told journalists in Cyprus.

“The benefit lies in engagement, and I think they are on the wrong track.”

Salehi said he hoped that Cyprus, which takes over the rotating EU presidency on July 1, could help “mitigate and alleviate” obstacles in the relationship between Iran and the bloc.

There was no immediate comment from Cypriot authorities.

EU governments warned Iran on Monday that more pressure could be applied if it continued to defy demands for limits on its nuclear programme, which they say is geared to developing weapons. The Islamic Republic says its nuclear activity is for electricity production and other peaceful ends only.

At their meeting in Luxembourg, the EU foreign ministers said they would review the the embargo once implemented to ensure European governments retain sufficient access to crude.

In the short term, the six world powers that are negotiating with Iran want it to stop enriching uranium to a fissile purity close to that needed to produce material for nuclear bombs.

“We have this fabricated nuclear file, I call it fabricated because it is a politicised file,” Salehi said.

Diplomatic efforts to solve the decade-long standoff faltered at a round of talks between Iran and the powers – United States, Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany – in Moscow this month, and Israel has renewed threats to attack Iran if it fails to rein in its nuclear work.

“It may stall sometimes, the process may not go as easy as everybody would like to see, but since they are in the right direction and both sides would like to see a resolution I see light at the end of the tunnel,” Salehi said.

(Reporting by Michele Kambas; Editing by Kevin Liffey

Iran’s main tanker firm delays expansion on weak market, sanctions.

Tuesday, 26 June 2012

Western sanctions against Iran have delayed the delivery of 12 tankers to the country’s main oil tanker fleet, NITC. (File Photo)

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Turkey’s role and position put to the test.

By Eyad Abu Shakra

Monday, 25 June 2012

“Patriots always talk of dying for their country but never of killing for their country.” (Bertrand Russell )

Any Arab should be proud when an Arab regime defends its borders in the way Syria did when a Turkish warplane went astray across the Syrian air space.

The circumstances under which the Turkish aircraft incident took place are mysterious till this very moment and I don’t think that the hollow threats Ankara has been hurling at the Syrian regime since it started its violent repression of protests 15 months ago will serve to make the picture any clearer.

I remember well when in the late 1990s Ankara issued a strong warning to late Syrian president Hafez al-Assad for his support of the Kurdish Workers Party both inside Syria and in east Lebanon, occupied by Syria at the time. The Syrian regime gave in immediately and made Kurdish leader Abdullah Ocalan leave all Syrian and the Lebanese territories it controlled.

I also remember the Syrian regime’s “peaceful” response to the Israeli air raid on the Ain al-Saheb camp near Damascus and the al-Kibar facility near Deir al-Zour not to mention Israeli air shows over the presidential headquarters in Latakia, the last location being the exact same one Syria decided is to be prohibited for a Turkish aircraft that had to be gunned down instead of just warned for coming near it even though at that moment it was already hovering over international waters. It is noteworthy that the 13 kilometers the aircraft might have crossed remain a lot shorter than the distance between the borders of the occupied Golan Heights and al-Kibar which is closer to the borders with Iraq.

In all cases, this is more than just a misunderstanding and this is something both Ankara and Damascus understand very well. Realistically speaking, what we’re up against now is a war with dangerous international, regional, and sectarian implications. This could have been avoided had Bashar al-Assad benefited from his father’s shrewdness 15 months ago and his ability to nip nascent revolutions in the bud. Instead he used the surgical abilities he has been used to as a doctor and he did not mind to kill the patient in order for the operation to prove a success.

Assad was not satisfied with this kind of amputation that necessitated creating streams of blood, destroying entire towns and villages, and rendering countless people homeless, but insisted on living in this state of denial and moving forward while counting on domestic and international factors that managed to help his regime survive till the moment.

The domestic factor is the constant state of fear in which citizens live. This resulted in a general lack of trust among people and the inability to unite against the regime. The outcome of this culture of fear is not only seen in sectarian tension, but also in the fact that Syrians cannot even trust members of their families because any of them could turn out to be working for the regime. This explains the obstacles facing the formation on one unified opposition front.

The international factor can be summarized in two points: One, apprehensions about the rise of political Islam. Two, ongoing attempts to tip the balance of power that has since the end of the Cold War been in favor of the United States. Apparently, there are various forms of political Islam. There is the Erdogan-Erbakan model in Turkey, the Khomeini-Khamenei model in Iran, the Salafi Jihadist model, the Tunisian-Moroccan model, which can also be grouped with the Egyptian one as of yesterday when Mohamed Mursi was declared winner of the presidential elections. The last model is one that offers a loose political framework with a vague range of powers.

Till this moment, Bashar al-Assad is counting on the fact that neither the West nor Israel would want to topple a regime as harmless as the Syrian one, one that is actually cooperative on the strategic level even if every now and then it pretends to be a trouble maker. The alternative for foreign powers would be political Islam with all the influence it is expected to wield. Assad made sure from the very beginning to hold fundamentalist groups accountable for the violence even though the opposition encompasses diverse echelons of the Syrian society like George Sabra, Aref Dalila, and Jabr al-Shoufi. Then he used his confrontational strategy outside the borders of Syria in a manner that portends grave regional consequences. He also involved minorities in Syria in battles they did not choose to take part under the pretext that their interests are under threat.

Then he accused Turkey of arming the Syrian opposition and intensified his bloody repression in predominantly Turkmen areas like al-Houla where the most brutal of the regime’s massacres were committed as well as the town of Zara in Homs, al-Hajar al-Aswad neighborhood near Damascus, and the city of Azaz in Aleppo. Reports also said that Syrian forces have been targeting Turkish firefighting planes across the borders as well as civilians who try to flee to Turkey. All this was before downing the Phantom F-4 over the sea.

How can Damascus play this cat and mouse game with Turkey now while it was previously very careful not to upset it? What has changed in the balance of power between the two countries since the 1998 Ocalan crisis? Is Syria more embolden with the Russian-Chinese veto and the deterrence it might constitute for Ankara? Or is Syria counting on the support of Israel which is becoming increasingly alarmed by the rise of political Islam in the region?

Now, we have to go back to Ankara’s threats that it will not remain hand-tied while it watches the Syrian regime butchering its people. But none of those threats materialized and that is why the Syrian regime might have reached the conclusion that Ankara is incapable of taking any action because it simply wants to take no risks with Russia and China as well as Iran. That is why the regime kept killing the Syrian people then had the nerve to attack the Turkish plane.

The ball is now in Ankara’s court, but its options are dwindling by the minute!

(First published in Asharq al-Awsat on June 25 and translated from Arabic by Sonia Farid)

Saudi Arabia says Iran talks waste of time; EU to enforce oil embargo on July 1st.

Tuesday, 26 June 2012

Israel Hayom | IDF tests different sounding sirens for chemical weapon attack.

( I have only one word to say about this.  YIKES ! – JW )

Israel Hayom | Morsi denies report he seeks to strengthen ties with Iran.

( We’re left to ponder, “Who is more likely or motivated to lie about this, Iran or the Muslim brotherhood?”  Iran clearly wants in on the new Islamic action in Egypt.  Morsi clearly doesn’t want to lose American support two days into his term.  I concluded that they are both lying.  We just don’t know about what yet.  –  JW )

Israel Hayom | Putin — neither an ally nor an enemy.

There is nowhere in the world where the memory of World War II is more indelibly burned into the collective contemporary experience than in Israel and in Russia.

Generations of Israelis read Russian author Alexander Fadeyev’s “The Young Guard” as though it were about the Jewish underground, and sang in Hebrew: “Vanya take me to war, you will be the red commissar and I’ll be the nurse.” The strong connection between the two countries never faltered, even when Russia dove deep into the filth of anti-Semitism with Joseph Stalin’s “doctor’s plot” and even when Russia aided Arab aggression to the point of jeopardizing Israel’s existence.

The mention of the Red Army’s role in the liberation of the Jews following World War II will always be the basis of any move aimed at initiating dialogue and cooperation, or any other Russian gesture toward Israel. Israel already planted a Red Army Forest in 1950 to honor what the Russians call the Great Patriotic War, but when Russian President Vladimir Putin wanted to renew dialogue with Israel, an additional memorial was built in Netanya. The memorial site was a very efficient, and traditional, starting point for Putin’s visit to Israel this week.

Above all, this visit was important because it happened. In a time when the Arab-Left-anti-Semitic axis is doing its utmost to delegitimize and marginalize Israel, Putin’s visit has the power to counter dozens of evil-hearted artists and musicians who boycott Israel. If such visits were the norm, Israel would have laid the red carpet at Ben-Gurion International Airport and welcomed U.S. President Barack Obama by now.

The prestige of Putin’s visit is intensified by the fact that Israel is only the fourth country the Russian president has visited since the start of his latest term in office. Reviled Israel finds itself on Putin’s itinerary alongside China, Germany and France — much to the chagrin of Russian communist anti-Semitic circles and Arab nations that play a central role in Russian policy.

Putin’s short visit also had practical goals, obviously. It is fair to assume that he has a vested interest in Israel’s defense industry. In another area, President Shimon Peres and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu voiced their disappointment with Russia over its stance on Iran’s nuclear program and its support for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Russia’s position on Iran is the polar opposite of Israel’s. But there are shades of gray — Russia wants to enrich Iran’s uranium instead of allowing the ayatollah regime to do it, which isn’t good enough for Israel, but better than the existing arrangement. This represents somewhat of an overlap that allows Israel and Russia to jointly demand permission for U.N. inspectors to enter Iran’s secret nuclear facilities. Israel is also disappointed with Putin’s support for Assad — but the Meretz party’s call to boycott the Russian president over the ongoing massacre in Syria went much too far.

It is not clear why Putin decided to push up his visit to Israel. Perhaps, being at constant odds with the U.S., he wanted Israel to send a signal to the largest concentration of Jews outside of Israel, which has influence on the White House. The Russian president is not our ally, but he is also not our enemy, and he is always a welcome guest. Not only because of The Young Guard.

Israel Hayom | United front against Iran.

The three parleys between the P5+1 nations and Iran on the nuclear issue have so far been fruitless.

The talks, which have been going on for two months, have taken place in Istanbul, Baghdad, and Moscow. In this sense it seems the stalling tactics which Iran has employed for nearly a decade are continuing to succeed. The international community continues to take a naive stance on the issue, and demonstrates its helplessness before Iran’s continuing nuclearization.

However there have been some interesting developments in the past few months, some which have the potential to yield significant results in the ongoing negotiations. First, the current dynamic has taken the form a sort of arm wrestle, two opponents both eager to pin the other down, and is a different picture than before. Back then the international community’s resolve was in question, and Iran enjoyed a clear advantage over the West in its determined and unwavering stance; the nations opposed it were not united and not willing to adopt harsh sanctions at the expense of their own economies.

Things changed at the onset of 2012. The critical decision to embargo Iranian oil and level “crippling” sanctions against Iran’s central bank have caused the regime a great deal of pain and have even damaged it. While the decision to use the sanction was not made in the U.N. Security Council, the talks between the five permanent members of the council and Germany yielded a united front: Western nations refused Iran’s pleas to lessen the sanctions. The aforementioned nations then demanded concrete steps to be taken by Iran regarding its nuclear program. There were no reports of divisions among the six countries, which had happened before and served to weaken their position while emboldening Iran’s.

One should note that the tendency for many Israelis to think the newfound vigor against Iran is due to Israeli pressure and a will to prevent an Israeli airstrike is a bit exaggerated. The international push is part of its own dynamic, and from a historical perspective one can see that the U.S.’s determination grew as Iran continued down its path and refused to take negotiations seriously. The stinging International Atomic Energy Agency report in November 2011 brought about almost an immediate wave of sanctions from the U.S. and Europe, without any connection to Israel’s threats.

Further, despite the obsession with the question whether Israel will attack or not, one should pay attention to the level of communication and coordination between Israel and the U.S. It is a message to Iran — Israel and the U.S. are very close in their stances. Perhaps this is nothing new for Iran, which in any case pairs the two together, but when coordination extends to Russia as well things become a little less clear and definitely less convenient for Iran. Russian President Vladimir Putin’s visit to Israel is sure to raise more alarming questions in Iran.

Let us not be confused however, Iran has not changed course with regards to becoming a nuclear power, but it would be a mistake to say that the sanctions have not done anything only because we haven’t reached the desired outcome.

The intensification of the sanctions have brought Iran to the negotiating table in a different manner than before. The new dynamic will pit to the two sides head to head to see who blinks first. The pressure must be kept on Iran and even increased; the international community cannot blink first.

The writer of this op-ed is a Senior Research Fellow and Director, Arms Control and Regional Security Program at the Institute for National Security Studies.

Israel Hayom | It does not remain to be seen.

Russian President Vladimir Putin arrived in Israel this week, just as Egypt announced the victory of Mohammed Morsi in its first “civilian” presidential election.

The fuss made over the former — bordering on fawning — temporarily drowned out “concerned reactions” in relation to the latter. But the bottom line regarding both is that Israel is screwed, no matter what pomp, circumstance, or spin it engages in to buy time before genuinely grasping how alone it really is in the world right now. It is facing a nuclear Iran bent on its destruction; it is watching as each country in its immediate neighborhood is becoming Islamized (even its former buddy, Turkey); it is hearing a self-imploding Europe accuse it of being at the root of all problems in the Middle East; and last but certainly not least, it is prey to all of the above without America’s embrace.

This is not new. Since the minute that Barack Obama became president of the United States nearly four years ago, it was clear that the Jewish state was being tossed aside like an unappreciated, loyal, long-time wife for a far more alluring, utterly inappropriate, and dangerous lover. Indeed, Obama has not hidden the hots he has always had for the Islamic world; nor has he been the least bit discreet about his attraction to its more anti-Western elements.

Well, his seduction tactics could not have worked out better. The regime in Iran is not only still in place, but its nuclear weapons program is sailing along smoothly (other than occasional glitches, due to computer viruses allegedly cooked up by Israel). Meanwhile, the rest of the Muslim world used the “Arab Spring” uprisings to move from autocracy to theocracy — with democracy nowhere to be found, other than in the mouths of wishful thinkers in the West.

Indeed, that the Muslim Brotherhood candidate just became the leader of Egypt means that a former ally of the United States — one that has had a decades-long treaty with Israel — has just officially become a medieval society.

The White House was encouraged by this turn of events. Its response was to say that it “intends to work with all parties within Egypt to sustain our long-standing partnership as it consolidates its democracy. We commend the Presidential Election Commission and the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) for their role in supporting a free and fair election, and look forward to the completion of a transition to a democratically-elected government. We believe it is essential for the Egyptian government to continue to fulfill Egypt’s role as a pillar of regional peace, security and stability. And we will stand with the Egyptian people as they pursue their aspirations for democracy, dignity, and opportunity, and fulfill the promise of their revolution.”

It is the height of tragic irony that, in the absence of its previous protection by its adulterous spouse, America, the Israeli government felt it had nowhere to turn but to Russia. Putin was undoubtedly as amused by this as I am. In spite of tensions between Washington and Moscow these days, there is one thing Obama and Putin have in common. When unable to or unwilling to alter their foreign policies, they repeat the same mantra to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu: that he should stop planning a military strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities and start focusing on the “urgent issue” of establishing a Palestinian state.

For the past 18 months, pundits across the globe have been saying that the outcome of the Arab revolutions “remains to be seen.” (Far be it from me to boast, but some of us could tell from the outset that these were not cries on the part of Muslim masses to be free to enjoy democracy.)

When Egypt held its parliamentary elections, and the Muslim Brotherhood and Salafists won a majority of the seats, these same pundits continued to say that the outcome “remains to be seen.”

When the Egyptian military said it would not abdicate its power to the Muslim Brotherhood, again we heard that the outcome “remains to be seen.”

Even today, with Morsi’s victory, analysts in Israel and abroad are suggesting that the outcome “remains to be seen.”

At what point will everyone finally acknowledge that the outcome has been apparent all along?

Ruthie Blum, a former senior editor at The Jerusalem Post, is the author of “To Hell in a Handbasket: Carter, Obama, and the ‘Arab Spring,’” soon to be released by RVP Press