WarSclerotic

Netanyahu – Unlike Olmert – Refuses Explicit Iran Attack Threat | Dissident Voice.

by Gareth Porter / July 18th, 2012

IPS — The perception that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is threatening to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities unless sanctions and diplomacy succeed in shutting them down has been the driving force in the Iran crisis.

But although Netanyahu and Defence Minister Ehud Barak have made some tough statements, especially over the past several months, there is still one gaping hole in the record of their rhetoric on Iran: neither Netanyahu nor Barak has ever made an explicit public statement threatening to attack Iran.

And in recent months, both have refused to make anything like such a threat when invited to do so by interviewers.

The absence of any such explicit threat of force by Netanyahu and Barack does not in itself rule out the possibility that he is prepared to attack Iran under some circumstances. A review of the history of Israeli declaratory policy toward Iran, however, reveals that the government of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert twice actually did issue explicit threats to attack Iran if it did not end its nuclear programme.

In February 2006, then Defence Minister Shaul Mofaz declared that, if diplomacy failed to “delay or curb” the Iranian nuclear programme, Israel couldn’t “sit idly by” while Iran was on the threshold of achieving nuclear capabilities.

That language suggested a serious threat, because it is well known that the People’s Republic of China warned the U.S. Army early in the Korean War that it could not “sit idly by” if the U.S. forces crossed the 38th parallel, before making good on its threat by sending massive ground forces to fight them in North Korea.

On June 8, 2008, Mofaz, then deputy prime minister in the Olmert government, was even more explicit, declaring, “If Iran continues with its programme for developing nuclear weapons, we will attack it.”

In contrast to those straightforward conditional threats to use military force against Iran, Netanyahu and Barak have either refused to address the issue in speeches and interviews or have limited themselves to much broader statements about “all options” being “on the table” and Israel’s “right to self-defence”.

When asked by CNN’s Fareed Zakaria on November 20 whether Israel was going to attack Iran, Barak would not answer, saying it was not a “subject for public discussion”. Instead Barak talked about the vague notion of an Iranian “zone of immunity”, in which a sufficient proportion of Iran’s nuclear capabilities would be in sites protected from a potential Israeli attack so that such an attack would be futile.

In Ottawa before his visit to Washington in March, Netanyahu said only, “(L)ike any sovereign country, we reserve the right to defend ourselves against a country that calls and works for our destruction.”

In his speech to the influential lobby group American-Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) March 5, Netanyahu sought to refute the argument that “stopping Iran from getting the bomb is more dangerous than letting Iran have the bomb” and likened it to arguments made by the United States against bombing Auschwitz in 1944.

But that appeared to be an argument against the Barack Obama administration’s policy of refusing to attack Iran in the absence of evidence of moves to enrich uranium at weapons grade. Netanyahu refused to say under what circumstances his government would resort to force against Iran.

“I read about what Israel has supposedly decided to do or what Israel might do,” he said. “Well, I’m not going to talk to about what Israel will do or will not do. I never talk about that.”

In an interview with Greta Van Susteren on Fox News March7, Netanyahu repeated that generic idea: “If it’s necessary we’ll act in our own defence.” But when she asked if Israel could act alone, he said, “You know I never talk about that.”

The closest Netanyahu has come to a direct threat of war was on March 10, when he said he hoped “there won’t be a war at all, and that the pressure on Iran will succeed,” but added that the “eleventh hour” is approaching for Iran to “halt its nuclear programme or suffer the consequences”.

Netanyahu and Barak apparently went much further in off-the-record meetings with a small number of Israeli reporters. The message, wrote Ari Shavit of Haaretz in a March 26 report, was, “If the international community doesn’t stop Iran by summer, Israel will soon strike.”

But Shavit and other reporters were forbidden from quoting from those briefings or identifying the officials giving them.

The public reticence of Netanyahu and Barak may reflect the fact that the two leaders are not in a position to commit the Israeli government publicly to an attack on Iran. Press reports have portrayed Netanyahu and Barak as representing a distinct minority on the issue in Israel’s nine-member “security cabinet”.

Even Deputy Prime Minister Moshe Ya’alon, who argued publicly last month in an interview with Haaretz that the only alternatives in regard to Iran are “bomb or bombing”, was said by his interviewer, Ari Shavit, to express “deep concern” in private conversations about Netanyahu being dragged by Barak into a “wanton Iranian adventure”.

In late October 2011 it was leaked to the Israeli Hebrew language newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth that Netanyahu and Barak were seeking to convince the Israeli cabinet to support an attack on Iran. Barak then told Israel Radio that no decision had been made and that it would not be taken by two people.

Raviv Drucker, political commentator for Israel’s channel 10, noted that such press speculation “works rather well for Netanyahu, as he can be portrayed as keen to deal with Iran but being ‘held back’ by others in the Israeli establishment.”

Netanyahu and Barak may also be constrained by the consensus of the Israeli national security establishment in opposition to an attack on Iran under present circumstances. IDF and Mossad officials have told Netanyahu that Israeli intelligence agrees with the U.S. intelligence community that Iran has not yet decided to take the critical steps that would be required to have nuclear weapons.

Barak even alluded to that fact himself in an interview with Israel Radio March 22. He said Iran “wants to achieve a military nuclear capability” but was “not breaking out”. One of the reasons, Barak said, was its “fear of what will happen, if, God forbid, the United States or maybe someone else acts against them.”

That statement implied that Iran was already being deterred from advancing to nuclear weapons – a position at odds with the Netanyahu government’s posture.

Netanyahu’s refusal to make a public threat to attack Iran is also consistent with his well-established reputation as an extremely “risk averse” political figure.

“Netanyahu is known for his caution,” said David Makovsky of the Washington Institute for Near Policy in an interview with The Tablet in May.

The unambiguous Mofaz threats of 2006 and 2008 did not signal an actual readiness to strike at Iranian nuclear facilities, because at that point, the Israeli Air Force did not have the capability to carry out an effective attack.

Retired U.S. Air Force Lt. Col. Rick Francona, who visited Israel in November 2006 and met with Israeli Air Force officials, concluded that they did not have the capability to destroy Iranian nuclear sites. In an interview with this writer in 2007, Francona said the Israeli officers “recognised they have a shortfall in aerial refueling”.

But Olmert and Mofaz may been emboldened to issue explicit threats by the knowledge that Iran would not be close to a breakout capability for a few more years.

Gareth Porter is an investigative historian and journalist specialising in U.S. national security policy. The paperback edition of his latest book, Perils of Dominance: Imbalance of Power and the Road to War in Vietnam, was published in 2006. Read other articles by Gareth.

Peres: Israel will hit terror nes… JPost – Diplomacy & Politics.

Photo: Marc Israel Sellem

In unusually tough remarks, President Shimon Peres responded Thursday to the Burgas terror attack saying that Israel will hit terror nests around world.

The attack targeting Israelis killed at least seven people in the city of Burgas, soon after a charter plane, Air Bulgaria flight 392 arrived from Ben-Gurion Airport. The seven included five Israelis, the driver, and the suicide bomber, the Foreign Ministry said.

“We were witnesses to a deadly terror attack coming out of Iran … we know there were other attempts, and this time they succeeded,” the president stated.

“It [Israel] has the means and the will to silence and paralyze terror organizations,” Peres asserted.

Earlier Thursday Defense Minister Ehud Barak stated that Hezbollah was responsible for the terror attack in Burgas under the auspices of Iran.

Echoing his comments from Wednesday evening, Barak told Israel Radio that Israel would do everything in its power to to find the perpetrators, and bring them to justice.

In response to Bulgarian President Rosen Plevneliev’s statement that Mossad did not warn Bulgaria of an expected attack, Barak said that Israeli intelligence services transfer all information of this nature that it receives. However, he said he did not think that intelligence services had accurate information such as the information it obtained in order to thwart the terror attacks in Cyprus and Thailand earlier in the year.

Reinforcing Barak’s comments, Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman told Israel Radio on Thursday that Israel has solid information that Hezbollah, in close cooperation with the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) carried out the terror attack in Burgas.

According to Liberman, Israel’s information identifies with certainty and beyond all doubt the Iranian fingerprint on the attack, but did not specify further. Iran and Hezbollah have not stopped operating against Israel for a moment, he added.

On Wednesday, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said Iran was likely behind the attack on Israeli civilians in Bulgaria, and vowed a powerful Israeli response.

“All the signs lead to Iran. Only in the past few months we have seen Iranian attempts to attack Israelis in Thailand, India, Georgia, Kenya, Cyprus and other places,” Netanyahu said in a statement.

“This is an Iranian terror campaign that is spreading throughout the world,” Netanyahu said. “Israel will react powerfully against Iranian terror,”

“Eighteen years exactly after the blast at the Jewish community center in Argentina, murderous Iranian terror continues to hit innocent people. This is an Iranian terror attack that is spreading throughout the entire world.”

Opposition leader Shelly Yechimovich responded to the “murderous terror attack” in Bulgaria on Wednesday, saying “there is no doubt that the instability in the region is spawned by Iran aiming especially for Israelis and Jews throughout the world.”

“Israeli security forces have succeeded to prevent several attempted attacks targeted at traveling Israelis in recent months,” Yechimovich added. “Unfortunately, today in Bulgaria we were forced again to cope with terror operations.”

Reuters contributed to this report.

Suicide Bomber Kills 6 Israelis on Tourist Bus in Bulgaria – NYTimes.com.

By NICHOLAS KULISH and MATTHEW BRUNWASSER

BURGAS, Bulgaria — The attack on a tour bus carrying Israeli vacationers outside the airport here was carried out by a suicide bomber carrying fake American identification, officials said on Thursday.

Seven people, including six Israelis, were killed along with the bomber when the bus exploded in a fireball on Wednesday and dozens more were injured in what Bulgaria, Israel and the United States called a terrorist attack. Israel quickly blamed Iran and promised a firm response.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility but Israeli officials blamed Hezbollah, the Lebanese militant group, and Iran.

Speaking to reporters at the airport at this Black Sea resort on Thursday morning, Interior Minister Tsvetan Tsvetanov said the bomber was carrying a fake Michigan driver’s license at the time of the blast. One of the six Israeli victims died overnight, along with the 36-year-old Bulgarian bus driver.

Mr. Tsvetanov described the bomber as a man with long hair wearing a backpack. The man looked like a tourist and blended in with the travelers from Israel as he placed the backpack in the bus’s baggage compartment before it exploded, security footage showed.

“In no way did this person distinguish himself from the arriving tourists who were in the area,” Mr. Tsvetanov said. “The person who did this act directed it specifically against Israeli tourists.”

The identity of the bomber had not been determined, Mr. Tsvetanov said, but the police were checking his fingerprints against international databases. Authorities were also analyzing the attacker’s DNA.

“Our priority now is to determine the identity of the attacker,” Mr. Tsvetanov said.

Bulgarian authorities said they were working together with the F.B.I., the C.I.A., Israeli intelligence services and Interpol. Mr. Tsvetanov said that the F.B.I. determined that the driver’s license was a fake and that the person described on the card did not exist. He said that Bulgarian government had spoken with John O. Brennan, President Obama’s top counterterrorism adviser, overnight.

An Israeli Defense Force plane carrying 33 of the wounded took off from Burgas for Israel Thursday morning is expected to land at Ben Gurion Airport, then disperse passengers to hospitals around the country, an military spokesman in Jerusalem said. The dead were to be flown back later in the day.

Israel’s foreign minister said Thursday morning that there was clear evidence that Hezbollah, the Lebanese militant group with close ties to Iran, was responsible for the attack, “with the close cooperation of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard.”

“I cannot get into all the operational details, but the identification is certain,” the minister, Avigdor Lieberman, said in an interview on Israel Radio. “From immediately after the attack, we worked hard and now the puzzle is put together, the identity and the responsibility are completely clear.”

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who on Wednesday night promised a “forceful response” to the attack, spent much of the morning in security briefings. Danny Ayalon, Israel’s deputy foreign minister, said the response would be diplomatic as well as operational, including a complaint to the United National Security Council and an effort to have Hezbollah added to the list of international terror groups.

Meanwhile, Defense Minister Ehud Barak found himself on the defensive for failing to thwart the attack, as Bulgarian and Israeli intelligence officers managed to do with a similar attempt in January.

“The world is big and full of places where these people act,” Mr. Barak said. “We try to find every crack. The success of our intelligence and of others has been great, but there are days that are painful, and yesterday was one such day. This is a mishap, mishaps happen, this is not negligence.”

Iran had no immediate official comment on Israel’s accusations but news agencies quoted state television as rejecting the accusation.

No group claimed responsibility for the blast but if the Israeli accusations are confirmed, the blast would be the first successful attempt by Iranian operatives to kill Israelis in attacks abroad after a string of failed bomb plots targeting Israeli diplomats in Georgia, India and Thailand this year.

Even without such confirmation, the Bulgarian explosion escalated the tensions between Israel and Iran that are already high because of the Iranian nuclear energy program, which Israel has called a guise for Iran to develop nuclear weapons despite Tehran’s repeated denials.

The explosion came only a few days after a suspected operative of Hezbollah was arrested in Cyprus on suspicion of plotting to kill Israeli tourists there.

In the capital, Sofia, home to most of the 5,000 Bulgarian Jews in the overwhelmingly Christian country of more than seven million, the mayor ordered police deployments in all public places linked to the Jewish community, The Associated Press reported.

In Washington, President Obama said in a statement that he strongly condemned “today’s barbaric terrorist attack on Israelis in Bulgaria,” but he did not specifically accuse Iran.

In what appeared to be an Obama administration effort to reinforce his support for Israel, which Mr. Obama’s Republican adversary, Mitt Romney, has called into question, the White House also said in a separate statement that Mr. Obama had called Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to offer his condolences, and had “pledged to stand with Israel in this difficult time, and provide whatever assistance is necessary to identify and bring to justice the perpetrators.”

“All signs point to Iran,” Mr. Netanyahu said in a statement Wednesday. He and other Israeli officials noted that the explosion came on the 18th anniversary of a bombing of an Argentine Jewish center in Buenos Aires that killed 85 people and wounded hundreds, an attack for which Argentine prosecutors have blamed Iran.

Bellicose adversaries, Israel and Iran have a long history of accusing each other of terrorist attacks. Iran, which does not recognize Israel’s right to exist and has sometimes referred to Israel as a Zionist plague on the Middle East, has blamed Israeli agents for a string of assassinations of Iranian nuclear scientists over the past five years, for which Iran has vowed revenge.

Israel has never confirmed or denied responsibility for those assassinations.

Mr. Netanyahu’s statement recalled what Israel has described as Iranian plots to target Israelis in Thailand, India, Georgia, Kenya, Cyprus and other countries. He called such a pattern a “global Iranian terror onslaught, and Israel will react firmly to it.”

Burgas is a popular destination for Israelis. The explosion occurred outside the terminal shortly after the victims arrived via a charter flight from Tel Aviv with 154 people, including eight children.

“We were just getting on the bus when suddenly someone came near the bus’s front door and exploded,” Gal Malka told an Israeli television station. “We heard a boom and next thing we saw were body parts scattered on the ground. There were wounded people also on the ground. I could see a burned hole in the side of the bus.”

Oren Katz described tamping down the flames of a woman who had caught fire. “It was strange that there were so many security people around but none of them seemed to be focused on actually helping the wounded people, and couldn’t believe that I of all people was the one taking care of this burning woman and stopping her from burning up.”

Burgas is 250 miles east of Sofia. In recent years Burgas has become popular as an inexpensive destination for groups of Israeli teenagers taking trips after finishing high school and before their military service.

Some Iran analysts in Israel counseled caution about assigning responsibility for the Bulgaria blast until more evidence was presented. “It’s far too early to conclude who was behind the bombing in Bulgaria today,” said Meir Javedanfar, an Iran expert at the Interdisciplinary Center in Herzliya, Israel. “For now all we have to go on are assumptions, and a list of credible suspects.”

He did not rule out Al Qaeda, recalling the deadly attack on Israeli tourists at a hotel in Mombasa, Kenya, in 2002.

Diplomania-Israel News – Haaretz Israeli News source..

In wake of terror attack, Israel launches diplomatic campaign to demand Hezbollah and the Quds Force of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard be added to EU’s list of terror organizations.

After the terror attack comes the diplomatic campaign. Israel and Bulgaria are working with the U.S. and other countries to draft a condemnation of the Burgas terror attack for the UN Security Council, say sources in the Foreign Ministry. At the same time, Israeli ambassadors worldwide have been instructed to appeal to the heads of state of their respective countries to issue official condemnations of the attack.

“Expressions of condemnation by leaders of foreign countries are critical and send a clear message from the international community to terrorists and Iran,” said a telegram sent by acting Foreign Ministry spokesman Lior Ben-Dor early this morning to the heads of Israeli delegations around the world.

“It is crucial for us that you act diligently in the media, in interviews, briefings, articles, etc,” Ben-Dor wrote. “A concerted effort is needed to make the public fully aware of the murderous terror threat spearheaded by Iran and Hezbollah.”

In the telegram to Israeli ambassadors, Ben-Dor stressed that in all of the recent terror attacks in Cyprus, Kenya, New Delhi and Thailand, “Iran and Hezbollah’s fingerprints are visible.” The telegram also directed ambassadors to emphasize that “it is obvious Teheran is directing the terror attacks through the Quds Force of the Revolutionary Guard and Hezbollah.”

“It should be noted that these two organizations have not been placed on the terror lists of the EU or of other organizations,” the telegram states, “which until now has prevented any decisive action to restrain them.”

The Foreign Ministry asked Israeli ambassadors to emphasize that the terror attack may have been directed against Israelis but American, Italian, Slovakian and Bulgarian citizens were among the casualties as well.

“This shows that Iran does not discriminate amongst its victims,” stated the telegram. “Iran continues to use the tool of terror as a means of deterrence against the West, even at the cost of harming the interests of states with which it has no quarrel.”

Since yesterday’s attack, several condemnations have been issued, including one from U.S. President Barack Obama.

“I strongly condemn today’s barbaric terrorist attack on Israelis in Bulgaria,” Obama said. “The United States will stand with our allies and provide whatever assistance is necessary to identify and bring to justice the perpetrators of this attack.”

Aside from issuing the condemnation, Obama telephoned Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and expressed his condolences over the deaths of the Israelis in the terror attack. The Prime Minister’s Office stated that the two leaders agreed during the conversation that Israel and the U.S. would cooperate in investigating the attack.

Netanyahu thanked Obama for the call, and told him that Iran and Hezbollah were waging a worldwide terror campaign. “Iran is a global terror state. It should be made to bear the consequences,” Netanyahu said.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon also condemned the terror attack in Bulgaria, as did the EU foreign minister and the French foreign ministry.

No rush to war in Israel over Bulgaria bombing: Thomson Reuters Business News – MSN Money.

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israel signaled on Thursday it would not hasten into any open conflict with Iran or its Lebanese guerrilla ally Hezbollah despite blaming them for a deadly attack on its citizens in Bulgaria.

A suicide bomber killed eight people on a bus carrying Israeli tourists in Burgas airport, drawing a pledge by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to “react powerfully” to what he called “Iranian terror”.

Sofia officials have not publicly assigned blame for the bombing, nor has there been comment from Iran or Hezbollah.

Netanyahu’s assertion, based on Israel’s long-running suspicions that Iranian and Hezbollah agents are waging a covert campaign against its interests abroad, prompted speculation in local media that the Netanyahu government might strike now.

Israel has long threatened to resort to military force to curb Tehran’s disputed nuclear programme, but Defense Minister Ehud Barak sounded more nuanced on Thursday about a response to the Bulgaria attack.

Speaking on Israel Radio he said the country would “do everything possible in order to find those responsible, and those who dispatched them, and punish them” – language that appeared to suggest covert action against individuals.

Israel may be reluctant to cross Western partners by rushing into a long-range war which would stretch its military capabilities and possibly draw Iranian reprisals against U.S. interests and disruptions of the global oil supply.

A clash with Hezbollah, which the Israeli military says has stockpiled as many as 80,000 rockets in neighboring Lebanon, carries the risk of igniting Israel’s northern border while it watches with concern the turmoil in neighboring Syria.

“RISK MANAGEMENT”

Giora Eiland, a retired Israeli army general who served as national security adviser from 2003 to 2006, played down the possibility that the Bulgaria bombing would push Netanyahu into another war.

“I think that any response, whatever it may be, will not be an immediate response,” Eiland told Israel Radio separately.

“Any response, whatever it may be, will not be in the form of an air force operation, or strike – certainly not in Iran over this matter, nor in Lebanon.”

Barak, who focused on Hezbollah’s alleged role in the Bulgaria bombing, described it as the bloodiest of a series of recent plots against Israelis, including diplomats, abroad.

Iran denied involvement in previous attacks but some analysts believe it is trying to avenge the assassination of scientists from its nuclear programme, which it blamed on Israel and Western allies. Iran says its atomic ambitions are peaceful, denying foreign allegations of secret military designs.

Hezbollah has its own scores to settle with Israel. Two years after their 2006 border war, the Lebanese Shi’ite militia lost its commander, Imad Moughniyeh, to a Damascus car bomb it said was the work of Israeli spies, and vowed revenge.

Netanyahu’s national security adviser from 2009 to 2011, Uzi Arad, confirmed in a separate interview that Israel killed Moughniyeh – though the country has never formally claimed responsibility.

Arad described the Bulgaria bombing as part of a “dynamic of escalation” but counseled Israel to invest in better intelligence and security.

He said “risk management” was required and that Wednesday’s bloodshed may be an “unavoidable price” of internal and international pressure building on Iran and its allies.

(Writing by Dan Williams, Editing by Jeffrey Heller and Jon Boyle)

Bibi Blames Iran for Terror Attack While U.S. Navy Waits Offshore | Danger Room | Wired.com.

For at least a year, the U.S. has tried to keep Israel from attacking Iran, usually by arguing that sanctions on Tehran are working and that American can hit harder if it comes to a fight. It’s a delicate balance, especially since President Obama and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanhayu trust each other only slightly more than they trust Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Now Iran might have upset the balance — even though Iran has an entire arsenal of U.S. guns floating just off its shores.

On Wednesday, a terrorist attack killed at least seven Israeli civilians vacationing in Bulgaria. Netanyahu immediately blamed Iran, and promised a “strong response against Iranian terror.”

Maybe Iran pulled the trigger. Maybe it didn’t. Netanyahu’s defense minister, Ehud Barak, was far less categorical. He said the attack was saying “initiated probably by Hezbollah, Hamas, Islamic Jihad or another group under the terror auspices of either Iran or other radical Islamic groups.” Regardless, he promised to “settle the account” with whoever was responsible for the strike.

If Iran actually was behind the attack, it did so in spite of having a massive amount of U.S. naval power aimed at it. The U.S. has quietly but persistently built up a massive naval presence around Iran that outclasses most of the world’s navies. It’s about to launch a huge exercise with over 20 nations that will demonstrate how to defeat an anticipated Iranian tactic. And this doesn’t even get into anything the U.S. does with Israel.

Even before word of the Bulgaria attack reached the Pentagon, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta gave Iran his best come-at-me-bro. Should Iran decide to close the Strait of Hormuz, a chokepoint for global oil shipping, he said, “We’ve invested in capabilities to ensure that the Iranian attempt to close down shipping in the Gulf is something that we are going to be able to defeat.”

And how. On Monday, the Navy and U.S. Central Command announced that they’re going to call the aircraft carrier USS John C. Stennis back to the Mideast four months ahead of schedule, so the Navy can maintain two aircraft carrier strike groups near Iran for the foreseeable future. No other nation on earth has two full-sized aircraft carriers; the Navy is parking two of them near Iran as an unsubtle threat.

It’s not just the carriers. Over the past several months, the Navy has sent a lot of hardware to the Persian Gulf. Extra patrol craft retrofitted with Gatling guns and missiles. Littoral Combat Ships. Minesweepers. MH-53 Sea Stallion helicopters. Advanced torpedos. A new kind of underwater drone. A new kind of floating base. A new special-operations task force.

Beyond that, two months from now, 20 nations will come together for a ten-day naval drill practicing how to defeat mines placed in Mideast waterways. The Pentagon swears that the exercise has nothing to do with Iran, but that’s nonsense. Mining the Strait of Hormuz is a recent theme of Iranian rhetoric, and nothing will spur nearly two dozen countries into concerted action faster than the disruption of 20 percent of the world’s oil. For ten days in September, Iran will watch lots of militaries practice how to defeat it.

On the other hand, Iran might have good reasons for thinking an attack on Israel made sense. Its nuclear scientists — who are civilians, remember — keep getting killed. The Stuxnet worm targeting its nuclear infrastructure was all-but-officially outed as U.S.-Israeli collaboration, as was the complex piece of spyware known as Flame. Elements within the regime might think the U.S. doesn’t respond forcefully to Iranian provocations.

All of these things can be true. Nations miscalculate their interests all the time. But none of that changes the objective fact that the stronger party is floating off the coast of Iran, and it’s building strength in the region by the day.

Don’t hold back – it’s now or never | Jerusalem Post – Blogs.

Don’t hold back. Now’s the time. There will never be a better one (with all due condolences and comfort to those who have already been wounded, maimed, or sacrificed).

It’s now or never. Hezbullah in Lebanon, the Syrian Air Force and its stock of WMD’s now being taken out according to reports – putting an end to that threat forever, while at the same time making the crucial contribution to ending in its tracks the horrific slaughter going on in the towns and villages among brave and innocent people there.

And finally Iran –  three in one (the opportunity presented by the uprising on the streets of Teheran three years ago was missed and further slaughter then proceeded there).

The planes should already be off and need no send-off from me, an outsider and non-combatant; but those who know are ready. We all know that.

Nor should anyone’s permission be asked or need to be asked. The opposite. It’s completely clear and any person with any sanity will completely understand. As for the others, what can or need one say?

This is the time – everyone knows that and neither you, nor your government need any advice or to hear it from the likes of or from anyone like me.

Therefore, I shall shut my mouth and have nothing more to say on this subject in this blog (which many will no doubt applaud) – originally I was going to leave the whole blog blank and rest my case on just the title. It’s all completely obvious anyhow.

Unfortunately, the Sarajevo moment has arrived – and the sooner the better. Don’t wait for Shabat – the Lord will understand the work that needs to be done. It has always been understood that saving a life (in this case a nation) outweighs the Shabat.

In closing, once more my condolences to all who are bereaved, in mourning, or in pain – not that that would make the slightest bit of difference or help anyone in their position a single jot.

One realizes that. But still, may they be comforted if they can be.

As for the rest, don’t hold back; it’s now or never – the time is now.

Analysis: Syrian civil war enters new phas… JPost – Middle East.

Will Israel respond now? – Israel Opinion, Ynetnews.

Op-ed: Given sensitive Mideast situation, Israel may put off response to Bulgaria attack

The terror attack at the Bulgaria airport is an almost exact repeat of the attack thwarted by Bulgarian security forces in January of this year. Back then, a bus full of Israeli tourists was supposed to be blown up using explosives snuck into it. Yet this time around there was no warning, and the murderous terror attack was not curbed. The flight in question was a Bulgarian charter, and such flights – as well as the buses that carry their passengers – are not secured.

By looking into the hallmarks of the bomb, it would be possible to determine who stands behind it. Apparently, it’s Hezbollah’s terror apparatus in conjunction with the al-Quds force of Iran’s Revolutionary guards. These elements tend to make use of local infrastructure, that is, collaborators who help people arriving from the outside or who carry out the attack.

The bombing thwarted in January of this year was the work of Hezbollah members planning to avenge the 2008 assassination of Imad Mugniyah, the group’s operational chief. Mugniyah murdered dozens of Israelis and hundreds of Americans, and his assassination constituted a grave blow for both Hezbollah and Iran. He was also one of Syrian President Bashar Assad’s loyalists.

Yet this time around, there was clearly an intelligence gap that must be looked into. This is not necessarily a failure, because in the field of counter-terrorism, as the case in other areas, some intentions and plans occasionally slip by spy agencies, including the most advanced ones.

We can also assume that Hezbollah’s international terror apparatus drew lessons from the failures it and Iran sustained in the past year, when they attempted to operate in Thailand, Tbilisi and in other sites in Asia in order to avenge the killings of Iranian nuclear scientists.

Unanswered questions

About two months ago, a terror warning was issued regarding a possible attack in Bulgaria, but it was withdrawn. It is also unclear whether Bulgarian police merely thwarted the January attack, or also detained and questioned the perpetrators – and if so, were they also questioned by other spy agencies. All of this must be examined in order to draw lessons.

The more burning question at this time is how Israel will respond to the attack. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu promised to do it “in force,” and Jerusalem officials previously declared that they will hold Hezbollah responsible for any attack on Israelis overseas, which will be treated as if it targeted Israelis in Israeli territory.

However, given the current situation in the Middle East, which is both uncertain and sensitive, much thought should be invested here.

The elements that require reconsideration are the Iranian nuke issue currently on the agenda, including the possibility of a military operation; a possible collapse of the Syrian regime, which greatly concerns Hezbollah and Iran and may prompt both to act in an unpredictable manner; and, of course, the still unstable regime in Egypt and the sensitive situation in Jordan.

All of the above require Israel to carefully consider whether to respond now, or wait for an opportune time and then settle the score with the perpetrators via a surgical strike.

Anti-Israel attacks to mount in sync with Syrian war, looming strike on Iran.

DEBKAfile Special Report July 19, 2012, 9:54 AM (GMT+02:00)

Israeli victims of Bulgarian bus blast

The tactics Iran, Syria and Hizballah have set out for escalating their terrorist attacks on Israel differentiate between “local” and high-value “strategic” targets.

They have now decided to up the assaults on the latter to keep pace with the worsening war situation in Syria and the approach of an attack on Iran’s nuclear program. This is reported by debkafile’s intelligence and counter-terror sources.
Iranian terror planners classify the blowing up of the Bulgarian bus Wednesday, July 18 as “local” notwithstanding its “success” in killing at least seven Israelis and wounding more than thirty.
Destroying an Israeli passenger plane in Limassol, Cyprus, or assassinating an Israeli ambassador, in which they have failed so far, would have been “strategic” as would key Israeli security figures, politicians, business executives and Israel’s Mediterranean oil and gas fields.

Just by coincidence, two major episodes occurred on the same day only hours apart – a large hole was struck in Bashar Assad’s inner circle with the deaths in Damascus of half the management of his killing machine against the Syrian opposition and, soon after, the Israeli tour bus was blown up by means still under investigation.
This chance synchronicity heralds a new period of horrific Middle East violence which will reach not only Israel, but the United States and the West as well.
This realization was uppermost in the conversation between US President Barack Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu Thursday morning, July 19. Neither doubted that Tehran and Damascus were hatching retribution for the assassination of top Syrian ministers.

They had information missing from media reports on the two events, including the news that straight after the deadly attack on Assad’s henchmen, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei called an Iranian leadership conference which lasted most of Wednesday and was punctuated with frequent phone calls by Iranian officials to the Syrian President.
The content of those phone calls reaching reached Obama and Netanyahu showed clearly which way the wind was blowing in Damascus and Tehran: Neither intended pulling their punches.
The US and Israeli leaders agreed to work together in the investigation of the bus explosion in Bulgaria.
Our sources stress that this is just diplomaticspeak for holding off on action. Despite Netanyahu’s pledge of a “strong response” to the attack, it was decided that a proactive response to the attack by striking an Iranian or Hizballah target would exacerbate a situation which US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta described as “spinning out of control.”
Israelis have learned in the three years of Netanyahu’s tenure as prime minister that expressions like “strong,” “forceful,” “determined” “we cannot tolerate” etc. mean just the opposite. Israel’s enemies also understand him to mean that he will sit tight and do nothing.
However, an escalation of attacks on Israeli “strategic targets” predicted by intelligence experts in the coming days may make this do-nothing policy untenable. After all, talking to Obama won’t deflect Iran, Syria and Hizballah from their resolve to vent their urge for revenge on Israel.
Hizballah leader Hassan Nasrallah has often managed to stay a step or two ahead of US and Israeli thinking – especially in his propaganda campaigns – ever since he surprised Israel by launching the Second Lebanon War in the summer of 2006.
A few hours after the attacks in Bulgaria and Damascus, Nasrallah had found his tongue and was crowing:
“We know what your [Israel’s] first strike will be and we promise you a big surprise.”

His words were a warning to Israel and a message to Washington that anyone trying to reach the bunker in which he has been hiding since 2006 was in for a big surprise.

Israel was painfully reminded of the Iranian C-802 shore-to-ship missile fired from the Lebanese coast which surprised and crippled the unready INS Hanit missile ship exactly six years ago.