WarSclerotic

Iran: If threatened, we’ll close… JPost – Iranian Threat – News.

Photo: REUTERS

DUBAI – Iran could prevent even “a single drop of oil” passing through the Strait of Hormuz if its security is threatened, a naval chief said on Saturday, as tensions simmer over Tehran’s nuclear program.

Tehran will increase its military presence in international waters, said Ali Fadavi, naval commander in Iran’s elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).

“If they [the US] do not obey international laws and the IRGC’s warnings, it will have very bad consequences for them,” Fadavi said, according to Iran’s Fars News Agency.

“The IRGC’s naval forces have had the ability since the [Iran-Iraq] war to completely control the Strait of Hormuz and not allow even a single drop of oil to pass through.”

Fadavi added: “IRGC special naval forces are present on all of the Islamic Republic of Iran’s ships in the Indian Ocean and to its east and west, to prevent any movement.”

“This IRGC naval force presence in international waters will increase,” he added.

Iran has repeatedly threatened to close the Strait of Hormuz shipping channel, through which 40 percent of the world’s sea-borne oil exports passes, in retaliation for sanctions placed on its crude exports by Western powers.

The sanctions were imposed over Iran’s nuclear program, which the West suspects is aimed at creating an atomic weapon. Iran says the program is for peaceful energy purposes.

The United States has beefed up its presence in the Gulf, adding a navy ship last week to help mine-clearing operations if Iran were to act on threats to block the strait.

Tehran said last month it was building more warships, in part to guard Iranian cargo ships from pirates, and Iranian military leaders often assert Iran’s strength in the region and dominance in the Strait of Hormuz.

Military analysts have cast doubt on Iran’s willingness to block the slender waterway, given the massive US-led retaliation it would likely incur.

UN blames regime forces for Syria massacre; opposition says death toll in Tremseh up to 300 | The Times of Israel.

(“Assad and Iran…” I like the ring of that. – JW )

As international community singles out government forces for blame, activists protest under the banner ‘Remove Kofi Annan, the servant of Assad and Iran’

This image, taken from an amateur video, shows the bodies of dozens of victims killed in Tremseh, Syria (some nine miles from Hama) on Thursday. Rebels said the government rained shells on farmers in what they called one of the worst days of bloodshed since the uprising against President Bashar Assad’s regime began. (photo credit: Hama Revolution 2011 via AP video)

The UN singled out government forces Friday for blame in the latest massacre in Syria, a frenzy of killing that raises new questions about whether diplomacy has any chance to end the crisis more than 16 months into the bloodiest revolt of the Arab Spring.

As the violence turns ever more chaotic, analysts warn the effort by special envoy Kofi Annan has become nothing more than a pretense, with government forces, rebels, jihadists and others fighting for power.

“Violence and escalation have outpaced political and international diplomacy,” said Fawaz A. Gerges, director of the Middle East Center at the London School of Economics.

“I don’t see a light at the end of the tunnel. … All I see is more violence and more escalation, and this horrible massacre is another sign that Syria is spiraling out of control.”

At least 118 people were killed Friday, among them 11 children, local Syrian human rights groups reported.

Scores of people were killed Thursday when Syrian gunners bombarded the impoverished village of Tremseh with tanks and helicopters in what rebels claim was among the worst single days of bloodshed in the uprising against Syrian President Bashar Assad.

The accounts of the killings and death tolls varied widely. Late Friday, local activists backed away from early reports that more than 200 people were killed. One said he had confirmed 74, but had only 20 names. Another provided a list of 103 names.

By Saturday, the Syrian opposition said the death toll in Tremseh was closer to 300 people.

For its part, the Syrian government said more than 50 people were killed when Syrian forces clashed with “armed gangs” that were terrorizing village residents. The regime refers to its opponents as terrorists and gangsters.

Much remains unclear about what happened in Tremseh, an isolated hamlet in Hama province, including why it was targeted and whether all of the dead were civilians. One activist group said dozens of victims were rebel fighters.

An amateur video posted online showed a young man wailing over the body of an elderly, gray-haired man wrapped in a blanket.

“Come on, Dad. For the sake of God, get up,” the man sobbed as a boom was heard in the background.

Another video showed a mass grave that was three bodies wide and about 10 bodies long. The video’s narrator called it “the first group of martyrs from the Tremseh massacre.”

Neither activists’ claims nor the videos could be independently verified.

The killings fueled debate about what to try next to stop the violence, which activists say has killed more than 17,000 people despite several rounds of sanctions and increasingly frantic condemnation by the UN, the US and its Western and Arab allies.

Reflecting the deep frustration, activists held anti-regime protests across Syria on Friday under the banner “Remove Kofi Annan, the servant of Assad and Iran.”

“Down with Annan, the agent of Iran!” protesters chanted in the town of Maaret al-Numan. Iran is one of the Syrian regime’s strongest backers.

In a statement Friday, Annan said he was “shocked and appalled” by the reports of the attack on Tremseh, and condemned the government for using heavy weaponry in populated areas, something it was supposed to have stopped three months ago.

Maj. Gen. Robert Mood, head of the UN monitoring mission, told reporters in Damascus that a group of observers deployed about three miles (five kilometers) from Tremseh confirmed the use of heavy weaponry and attack helicopters, implicating the government.

The violence has grown increasingly chaotic over the course of the uprising, which began in March 2011 with mostly peaceful protests. Government forces launched a ferocious crackdown on the demonstrations, leading many people to take up arms.

Besides the government crackdown, rebel fighters are launching increasingly deadly attacks on regime targets, and several massive suicide attacks this year suggest al-Qaida or other extremists are joining the fray.

Against this backdrop diplomacy appears all but doomed to fail.

The government and the opposition — which is fractious and largely leaderless — have agreed in theory to Annan’s plan, which calls for a cease-fire by both sides and for the government to pull its tanks out of population centers.

But both sides have largely ignored their promises to Annan, and the presence of other forces, such as violent extremists who are not party to any such agreement, only complicates efforts to stop the bloodshed.

Threats at the U.N. Security Council have no heft because veto-wielding member Russia stands staunchly on the side of the regime in Syria, its longtime ally.

On Friday, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton expressed outrage over the killings in Tremseh and demanded that the Security Council take action to stop the violence.

“History will judge this council,” she said. “Its members must ask themselves whether continuing to allow the Assad regime to commit unspeakable violence against its own people is the legacy they want to leave.”

Russia, for its part, condemned the Tremseh killings, but blamed them on “terrorists” opposed to Assad.

The Syrian government claims the uprising is a foreign plot to weaken Syria, casting all its opponents — from pro-democracy demonstrators to armed rebels — as terrorists.

NATO and the UN have all but ruled out foreign military intervention. Syria is intertwined in alliances with Iran, Hezbollah and Palestinian militant groups, and borders Israel — making the fallout from military action unpredictable.

“The Western powers have no appetite or political will to intervene militarily,” Gerges said. “So once they say there is no more diplomatic initiative, then they have to say ‘What is Plan B?’ There is no Plan B.”

There is virtually no way to perform an independent investigation in Syria, one of the most authoritarian states in the Middle East. Assad has largely sealed off the country and prevented reporters from moving freely. A team of 300 UN monitors sent to Syria to provide an unbiased look at the violence has been confined to their hotels since June 15 because of the worsening violence.

In Istanbul, the head of the Syrian National Council, an exile opposition group, called on the Security Council to meet urgently to discuss ways to protect the Syrian people, saying the latest killings raise doubts about Annan’s plan.

“Kofi Annan is very much drifting away from the mission that he was entrusted with, which will make us reconsider everything he proposes,” Abdelbaset Sieda told reporters.

Two activists reached Friday via Skype said they were in villages near Tremseh and gave a chilling account of the violence.

Bassel Darwish said the army surrounded the village early Thursday to prevent people from fleeing and pounded it with artillery, tank shells and missiles from a combat helicopter.

“Lots of people tried to get the families out but they weren’t able to,” he said. After the shelling, the army entered with pro-government thugs, who gunned down and stabbed residents in the streets, he said.

Initially, Darwish said activists had determined 200 people died. However, later via Skype, he sent a list of 103 names of people he said were confirmed dead.

Another activist, Abu Ghazi al-Hamwi, said local rebels tried to fight off the army but couldn’t.

“They kept shelling the city and the weapons that the (rebel) Free Army had were not enough to keep them out,” he said, adding that he had been able to confirm 74 dead.

Iran: We have plans to make sanctions ineffective | The Times of Israel.

Oil minister Rostam Qasemi says his office is at the forefront of an economic war with the West

Iranian Oil Minister Rostam Qasemi (photo credit: AP/Vahid Salemi)

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Iran’s Oil Minister says his office has drawn up plans to make newly tightened sanctions against the Islamic Republic ineffective.

Rostam Qasemi says his ministry is at the forefront of an economic battle with the West. His remarks carried by ministry website shana.ir on Saturday did not elaborate on the plans.

Qasemi’s comments come two weeks after an EU oil embargo went into effect against Iran for its refusal to halt its uranium enrichment program.

The West says the enrichment is aimed at developing weapons technology. Iran denies those allegations.

Iranian officials have earlier said they are organizing a consortium of private companies to bypass the embargo, without specifying exactly how this will work. Iran says it can always find buyers for oil.

Copyright 2012 The Associated Press.

British Intelligence Joins the Pro-Israel Lobby – Jeffrey Goldberg – The Atlantic.

Sir John Sawers, the chief of the British intelligence agency MI6, says that Iran will be a nuclear weapons state by 2014, and that an Iran with nuclear weapons would present “huge dangers” to Israel and to the United States. “The Iranians are determinedly going down a path to master all aspects of nuclear weapons; all the technologies they need,” he said. “It’s equally clear that Israel and the United States would face huge dangers if Iran were to become a nuclear weapon state.” He also said that his agency was working to “delay that awful moment when the politicians may have to take a decision between accepting a nuclear-armed Iran or launching a military strike against Iran,” and he added: “I think it will be very tough for any prime minister of Israel or president of the United States to accept a nuclear-armed Iran.”

These statements suggest one of two things:

1) British intelligence is taking orders from AIPAC and the Likud Party;

2) The chief of British intelligence might be right on the merits; Iran is pursuing nuclear-weapons status, and that this is something that should worry Israel and the entire West.

I’m reasonably sure there are people reading this who believe the answer to be 1).

Ex-IDF general: U.S. missed chance for diplomatic solution to Iran nuclear issue – Israel News | Haaretz Daily Newspaper.

Former head of IDF Planning Directorate Giora Eiland says that Israel faces impossible choice regarding Iran’s nuclear program.

Giora Eiland is one of the most misleading people I know. With his gray hair and sleepy expression, he looks like a drab civil servant who toils away deep inside the box. But as soon as Eiland opens his mouth, the things he says are always surprisingly original. There is no area in which his thinking is square or conventional. There is no matter on which his insights are bland and routine. The general who once served as head of the Israel Defense Forces Planning Directorate (2001-2003‏) and head of the National Security Council (2003-2006‏) is one of the most ingenious and prolific thinkers the IDF has ever produced. Eiland will always place four or five options on the table and thoroughly plumb the meaning of each one. Although a former military man, this computer engineer from Kfar Hess thinks in creative and multidimensional diplomatic terms. Speaking with him at his modernist office in Ra’anana, I can’t help but enjoy the razor-sharp precision with which he analyzes Israel’s predicament with Iran.

“The choice between a bomb and bombing is a choice between the plague and cholera,” says Eiland. “An Iranian nuclear bomb holds four main risks. The first risk is the most dramatic: Under certain circumstances Iran could launch a nuclear missile at Israel. If a nuclear bomb were to fall in Gush Dan, Israel would not be directly destroyed, but the implications would be intolerable. The likelihood that such an event will happen is low, but not nonexistent. The combination of the low likelihood and the grave implications is one that will be difficult for Israel to withstand.

“The second risk,” says Eiland coolly, “is a lot less dramatic, but the likelihood of it happening is much higher − a nuclear arms race in the Middle East. The same goes for the third risk − a worsening of Israel’s strategic position in regard to conventional warfare. Once Iran goes nuclear, any confrontation on our borders will take place under an Iranian nuclear umbrella. If, during a war with Syria or Hezbollah, the Iranians threaten us and simultaneously raise the alert level of their nuclear missile system, we will be deterred and be compelled to consent to terrible compromises. As a result, Israel’s regional deterrent capability will be weakened and it will be forced to contend with more and more conventional clashes that will spill its blood.

And complicating the situation even further will be the fourth risk: that an Iranian nuclear bomb will spur a radical tidal wave in the Muslim world. The message that will reverberate from Indonesia, Malaysia and India all the way to Egypt, Algeria and Morocco will be that Islamic determination has triumphed. That victory over the West is possible. The militant atmosphere that will arise in the Islamic countries as a result will have serious implications for the West as well as for Israel.”

That’s all very well, I say to the thinking officer, but what about the dangers inherent in an Israeli bombardment of the Iranian nuclear facilities? Wouldn’t such a bombing be even more dangerous than the Iranian bomb?

The former National Security Council head doesn’t hesitate for a moment, and goes straight from a detailed description of the plague to a detailed description of the cholera: “An Israeli strike in Iran also holds four risks. The first is that the operation will fail. The fear is that even if we hit the target we won’t penetrate it, and even if we do we’ll cause only minor physical damage; and even if we cause major physical damage the ultimate result will not be successful. If we lose 10 planes and we have 10 pilots in captivity and our whole big threat culminates in a whimper, our situation will not be good. If this is the result, we will immediately find ourselves facing the second danger: a terrible erosion of our regional deterrent capability, which will encourage all sorts of sharks to attack the Israel that issued a threat and failed to carry through and is now bleeding in the water. A third danger: Whether or not the strike succeeds, it will give the Iranians the best pretext for openly striving to obtain nuclear weapons and assemble atomic bombs within a short time. The Iranians will say that this was not their intention at all. That they only wanted nuclear power for peaceful purposes. But after Israel attacked them, they have no choice, and they also have full justification and they are going to immediately manufacture nuclear weapons. The fourth danger is that in response to the Israeli attack, Iran will attack in the Gulf, and will attack American targets and thereby raise the price of oil to $200 a barrel. If that happens, the world will be furious at Israel and the international community will take firm action against Israel. The implications could be far-reaching − from close inspection of Dimona to UN economic sanctions against us.”

At this point I need a little break, and Eiland obliges. He teaches me that Israel wasn’t supposed to arrive at a choice between the plague and cholera. The right way to contend with the Iranian challenge was through diplomacy, he says. The only serious diplomatic solution was the Russian solution. Only U.S.-Russian cooperation could have encircled Iran in a ring of sanctions that would have vanquished it. But U.S.-Russian cooperation requires that Washington pay Moscow in a number of vital areas. Neither Republican Washington nor Democratic Washington was prepared to pay such a price. And thus it happened that for the past seven years, the United States has not ceased to provoke Russia. George Bush’s administration and Barack Obama’s administration both criticized Vladimir Putin again and again, as if there were no Iran. This major American miscalculation meant that the diplomatic option versus Tehran was never seriously put to the test. A lot of useless moves were made just for show, but the one real move was never made. And so we’ve come to the place where we stand today. Thus Israel has ended up in a corner where it may have to choose between bombing and the bomb.

So how does one make that choice, I ask the man who was Ariel Sharon’s national security adviser. If and when the matter is brought before the Forum of Eight and put before the cabinet, what should the ministers do?

“On decision day,” says Eiland, “the political echelon must demand that the military echelon offer a firm and clear yes to each of the following four questions: 1. Is the intelligence we have good enough? Do we know exactly what is to be found where? 2. Can we bring a critical mass of an attack to the locations that intelligence is giving us? 3. Do we know for certain that the explosive materials the attack brings to the correct locations will indeed penetrate what they need to penetrate and cause significant damage? 4. Will the overall outcome of the attack cause the Iranian nuclear program to be halted? Will it buy us a window of time of at least a number of years?

“The optimal timing for a military strike was in 2007-2008,” says the former Planning Directorate head. “But even today, in my estimation, the answers to the first questions are good. But the answer to the fourth and decisive question is much less so. This is because the question is not solely military, but military and diplomatic combined. If there is international support for an Israeli attack, Iran will find it very hard to rebuild its nuclear capability afterward. But if the Israel attack is perceived as rash and illegitimate, Iran will actually get a boost and will quickly attain military nuclear capability. If that happens, then the Israeli strike will end up hastening the assembly of the Iranian nuclear bomb. Israel will come out the loser on both ends.”

Giora Eiland gives Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak very high marks for the way they have handled the campaign against Iran in the past three years. He thinks it was right to get equipped for, train and prepare a serious military option. It was also right to give the international community the impression that Israel is about to employ the military option at any moment. These two objectives could not have been achieved without pressuring the heads of the military and the Mossad and instilling in them a sense of urgency. Eiland also does not rule out the possibility that in certain circumstances it would be right to actually use the military option, but he does not sound very keen on it. He attaches the utmost importance to the diplomatic circumstances and to international legitimacy. He asserts unequivocally that if the president of the United States orders Israel not to attack, Israel must not attack.

Let’s make some order here, I say to Eiland. You’re saying that the odds of stopping Iran by diplomatic means are quite low. Right?

“Right.”

And you’re saying that the odds of President Obama attacking Iran are also quite low. Right?

“Right.”

And you’re saying that in order for a successful Israeli attack on Iran to be carried out, a diplomatic situation that does not exist at the moment is required. Right?

“Right.”

So, then − it would appear that Iran is soon about to become a nuclear power.

Eiland is quiet. He understands full well the implications of my question, as well as the significance of his answer. Now he takes his time, weighs his words carefully and finally says, “If a surprising diplomatic solution is not found, and if a military strike is not carried out during the coming year, this amounts to de facto acceptance of a nuclear Iran. In order for Israel to attack, the political echelon must receive from the military echelon very good answers to the questions I listed before, and it must make certain that the political conditions are ripe for an attack. The likelihood that all of these conditions will be fulfilled is not zero but it is much less than 50 percent. And so the likelihood that Iran will become a nuclear power is quite high. It is over 50 percent.”

Israel advised to brace for Syrian missile attack – conventional or chemical.

DEBKAfile Special Report July 14, 2012, 2:36 PM (GMT+02:00)

Syrian missiles capable of carrying chemical weapons

As the already unthinkable pace of slaughter in Syria accelerates further, Western military sources warned Saturday, July 14, that not only Israel, but additional strategic targets in Middle East lands deemed enemies by Bashar Assad should prepare for him to launch surface-to-surface missile attacks. The assaults would start out with conventional warheads, but as the regime continued to be hammered, the beleaguered ruler might well arm the next round of missiles from his huge stockpile of mustard gas – not to mention sarin nerve poison and cyanide.
Western intelligence sources say Assad has a list of targets ready to go. Analyzing the Syrian war game taking place last week, they calculated that Wednesday and Thursday, July 11 and 12, the Syrian army practiced shooting missiles at strategic centers in Israel, Turkey and Jordan.
But while most Western officials now confirm that Assad has moved his WMD warheads and shells out of storage, they are already divided on what it means. Some US officials are soft-pedaling the menace, offering the theory that the Syrian ruler is only safeguarding his unconventional weapons from falling into rebel – or what he calls “terrorist” – hands.

Other Western intelligence watchers, especially in Britain, believe he is preparing a campaign of ethnic cleansing at centers of revolt and report that chemical weapons have already been transferred to Homs, Latakia and Aleppo for operational use.
That is one game-changing predicament facing the West. It would quickly assume a regional dimension if Turkey, Israel and Jordan were to come under Syrian missile assault.  Air and missile reprisals against Syrian military or regime centers would carry the danger of Hizballah retaliation from Lebanon leading to direct attacks from Iran. Before going down that road, Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan – who are not on speaking terms – would certainly confer with US President Barack Obama.

Even then, their consultations would not necessarily lead to action.
For example, three weeks have gone by since Syria shot down a Turkish Air Force reconnaissance jet and yet after, close consultation with Washington, the Erdogan government was persuaded to leave the incident without response. Administration officials explained to the Turks that covert warfare carried a price in failure and casualties.
This US attitude might well embolden the Syrian ruler to risk his arm with limited missile strikes against Turkey and Israel and bank on the Obama administration twisting their leaders’ arms behind their backs to prevent them making any serious response.

Is Assad threatening Israel? – Israel Opinion, Ynetnews.

Ron Ben-Yishai analyzes recent reports on movement of Syria’s chemical and biological weapons

Had the reports that Syria’s regime is taking chemical weapons out of storehouses reflected reality, they should have raised concerns around here. Defense Minister Ehud Barak and Army Chief Benny Gantz have already declared that Israel is closely monitoring Syria’s chemical and biological arsenals for fear that President Bashar Assad will order their transfer to Hezbollah in a desperate move before he falls – or worse, use these arms himself against Israel in a suicidal gesture.

However, for the time being it appears that Syria’s regime is not significantly changing the location and deployment of its chemical and biological weapons. At most, they are being moved to safer bases and storage areas, far away from regions controlled by the rebels or sites of battles.

The Syrian regime and its security forces lost control over wide swaths of land in northwestern Syria, in the country’s southeast, and in the Damascus area. The regime is particularly concerned about the infiltration of al-Qaeda cells and the growing rate of attacks carried out by the group near the capital, where the Syrian army’s most sensitive and important bases, as well as non-conventional weapons, are located.

The Syrian regime apparently fears that the chemical weapons will fall into the hands of al-Qaeda men, who as noted infiltrated the capital’s vicinity and are carrying out attacks on a daily basis. The reports by Wall Street Journal, based on American intelligence sources, reflect anxiety more than a reality that has already taken shape.

However, these reports should not be disparaged. The Americans, Turks and Jordanians are also very concerned by the quantities of chemical and biological weapons held by the Syrian regime and fear that these arms may end up in the hands of radical Islamist elements.

Assad’s end nearing?

The indications which the Wall Street Journal report was based on apparently show that something may be happening, but it appears that we are seeing anxiety on the part of the Syrian regime and Assad’s fear that these weapons could end up in al-Qaeda’s hands. In any case, Western intelligence officials have not seen developments pertaining to Syria’s non-conventional weapons that should concern Israel or Syria’s other neighbors.

The state of the Syrian regime keeps deteriorating, among other things because the army has not managed to suppress armed rebel groups operating in broad areas of the country. This is the case because Assad’s forces cannot curb the infiltration of Global Jihad elements into the Damascus area. On top of this come the destabilized economy, isolation and sanctions adopted by the Arab world, Europe, the US and Turkey. Hence, officials estimate that President Assad is at the end of the road, yet it is difficult to determine how long the regime’s decline would last.

We should keep in mind that Assad is not only fighting for his life and his own survival, but also for the life of his family and members of the Alawite sect, whose members constitute the regime’s elite. Another factor that extends the regime’s death throes is the fact that the political opposition and armed rebels operating from Turkey or Lebanon are not united and have failed to come up with the critical military mass and an alternate regime that would prompt Syria’s middle class to shift to the rebels’ side.