WarSclerotic

It won’t work without the Americans – Israel Opinion, Ynetnews.

Op-ed: Only US military can launch ongoing operation capable of halting Iran’s nuclear program

Eitan Ben-Eliyahu

It is becoming increasingly clear that the sanctions won’t be enough to cause the Iranian government to halt its nuclear program. No one can predict exactly when or how Iran will wave the white flag and stop its pursuit of nuclear weapons.

While the sanctions are stifling the Iranian economy, they are simply not enough the defeat the Iranians. The western countries that are imposing the sanctions are in dire economic straits and are focusing on their domestic problems. The Iranian nuclear program is regarded as a major threat, but the West considers it a future threat, and for now these countries’ internal problems are taking precedence over Iran’s nuclear ambitions.

The UShas the means to launch an efficient military strike. They have intelligence, stealth bombers that cannot be detected by radars, ballistic and cruise missiles, bunker buster bombs, as well as electronic warfare and aerial refueling capabilities. The Americans can surround Iran with army forces, they have airfields and aircraft carriers from which reinforcements can be scrambled at a moment’s notice, and, in general, their level of preparedness is very high.

US Navy Aircraft Carrier in the Strait of Hormuz. (Photo: EPA)

In the attack on the Iraqi nuclear reactor in 1981, it was determined in advance that the destruction will be achieved with a short, pinpoint surprise attack. The expectation was that the strike would set the Iraqi nuclear program several years back – or even stop it entirely. In Iran’s case, there are no plans for a surprise, pinpoint attack, but for an ongoing type of operation in which the damage will be inflicted gradually. The US possesses the necessary military staying power to carry out such an operation over the course of several days, and even weeks, assuming the political echelon would support it.

Ground forces will not be required. The mission is simple: Mounting destruction and attrition until the nuclear program is halted. The US has the diplomatic standing and the means to accompany such an operation with direct or indirect negotiations. This was Kennedy’s modus operandi during the Cuban Missile Crisis, which began on October 15, 1962 and ended just 13 days later. The overt preparations for a military operation and the deployment of forces, which accompanied the naval blockade of Cuba, deterred the Soviets and drew the attention of the entire world, which feared the worst.

Prime Minister Netanyahu declared that a nuclear Iran would pose an existential threat to Israel. Curbing this threat requires a combination of harsh sanctions, an ongoing military campaign and diplomacy. Iran’s response will surely include Israel, meaning that the Jewish state will be a part of this campaign in any case. Therefore, the solution calls for cooperation between Israel and the US. Otherwise, we will be forced to live under the threat of a nuclear Iran.

Major General (res.) Eitan Ben-Eliyahu is a former commander of the Israeli Air Force

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Nasrallah Relocating to Iran? – Middle East – News – Israel National News.

IDF soldier looks at portrait of Nasrallah

Flash 90

Iran’s top leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has instructed the head of Iranian proxy Hizbullah to leave Lebanon and move to Iran if Syria’s Bashar Assad falls from power, a Kuwaiti newspaper reports.

The paper, A Siasa, explains that the Iranian leadership has been weighing two possible courses of action, in case Iran’s protégé and partner Assad is toppled.

The first option includes supplying Hizbullah with state-of-the-art heavy weapons and enlarging the number of Iranian soldiers in Lebanon. This option would have strengthened the Iranian presence in Lebanon as compensation for the loss of Iran’s Syrian ally.

The second option is to evacuate all Iranian Revolutionary Guard soldiers from southern Lebanon and Beirut, and to relocate Nasrallah and other senior commanders from Beirut to Tehran, for fear they would be assassinated if Assad’s regime falls.

A Siasa says Iran has apparently chosen the second option.

The newspaper also says all Iranian military barracks in Syria have been moved to Lebanon. It says that Iranian soldiers who carry out operations in Syria pass into Syria from Lebanon’s Bak’a valley, and then return to Lebanon when the assignments are over. The area they use for rest and regrouping is known as Hizbullah Land, and the Lebanon Army cannot enter it without coordinating a visit with Hizbullah.

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Elliott Abrams is a senior fellow for Middle East Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. This piece is reprinted with permission and can be found on Abrams’ blog “Pressure Points.”

Last May, U.S. Vice President Joe Biden took an extremely hard line on Iran. ”We will prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon by whatever means we need,” he said.

This week Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said the same thing. “We will not allow Iran to develop a nuclear weapon,” he said on Sunday. He followed that up in Jerusalem with something even tougher: “I want to reassert again the position of the United States that with regard to Iran, we will not allow Iran to develop a nuclear weapon, period. We will not allow them to develop a nuclear weapon, and we will exert all options in the effort to ensure that that does not happen.”

What’s missing is anything like these words from President Barack Obama. He has been far less specific. “As president of the United States, I don’t bluff,” he said in March. “I also don’t, as a matter of sound policy, go around advertising exactly what our intentions are. But I think both the Iranian and the Israeli governments recognize that, when the United States says it is unacceptable for Iran to have a nuclear weapon, we mean what we say.”

Speaking to AIPAC that month, he said: “I have said that when it comes to preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon, I will take no options off the table, and I mean what I say. That includes all elements of American power: a political effort aimed at isolating Iran, a diplomatic effort to sustain our coalition and ensure that the Iranian program is monitored, an economic effort that imposes crippling sanctions and, yes, a military effort to be prepared for any contingency. Iran’s leaders should understand that I do not have a policy of containment; I have a policy to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. And as I have made clear time and again during the course of my presidency, I will not hesitate to use force when it is necessary to defend the United States and its interests.”

But saying “I do not bluff” or “I have a policy” is not the same as saying what Panetta said. That the president has never said words as tough as those of his subordinates must alarm the Israelis, for they know that the only view that counts is Obama’s. It is sometimes argued in his defense that he wants to leave options open and avoid specificity, but that’s just the problem. He should “advertise what our intentions are.” Why could he not say what Panetta just did? If the goal is to confront the ayatollahs with a stark choice, why not make it starker?

That Obama fails to do so may produce in both Jerusalem and Tehran uncertainty as to whether, in the end, he will use force to prevent an Iranian nuclear weapon. If his diplomatic and economic efforts against Tehran are to have the slightest chance of success, and if his efforts to persuade Israel not to strike Iran are to succeed, that uncertainty must be eliminated. Only if Obama can fully persuade the Ayatollah Khamenei that Iran will never get a nuclear weapon, that all the effort and isolation and expense have been wasted, and that the goal will never be achieved because the American military will block it, is there any chance that Iran will change course. The very clear statements by the secretary of defense only underline the absence of equal clarity from the commander in chief.

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WRAPUP 1-Rebels turn captured tank on Syrian airbase | Reuters.

By Hadeel Al Shalchi

ALEPPO, Syria, Aug 2 (Reuters) – Syrian rebels turned a captured tank against government forces on Thursday and bombarded a military airbase, a welcome boost to their firepower in the week-long battle for the country’s commercial capital Aleppo.

President Bashar al-Assad’s troops meanwhile pounded the strategic Salaheddine district in Aleppo itself with tank and artillery fire while rebels tried to consolidate their hold on areas they have seized.

In the capital Damascus, troops overran a suburb on Wednesday and killed at least 35 people, mostly unarmed civilians, residents and activist organisations said.

The fighting for Syria’s two biggest cities highlights the country’s rapid slide into full-scale civil war 17 months on from the peaceful street protests that marked the start of the anti-Assad uprising.

World powers have watched with mounting concern as diplomtic efforts to find a negotiated solution have faltered and violence that has already claimed an estimated 18,000 lives worsens.

The rebels’ moral was boosted when they turned a government tank’s gun on the Menakh airbase 35 km (25 miles) north of Aleppo, a possible staging post for reinforcements for the army’s attack on Aleppo.

“We hit the airport using a tank that we captured from the Assad army. We attacked the airport a few times but we have decided to retreat at this time,” a rebel fighter named Abu Ali told Reuters.

The pro-opposition Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said government forces at the airbase had used artillery and rocket launchers to bombard the town of Tel Rifaat, which lies between the airbase and Aleppo.

Reuters correspondents heard heavy weapons fire on Thursday morning from Salaheddine in southwest Aleppo, a gateway to the city of 2.5 million people that has been fought over for the past week.

Heavily armed government troops are trying to drive a force of a few thousand rebel fighters from the city in battle whose outcome could be a turning point in the conflict.

Although government forces have made concerted efforts to take Salaheddine, a full-out assault on the city as a whole has yet to take place.

Mobile phone connections have been cut since Wednesday evening, leading to speculation among residents that an increase in military action might be imminent.

Facing tanks and artillery in Salaheddine, a shattered neighbourhood that straddles a highway into the south, rebels said they planned an offensive elsewhere in the region but did not disclose their objective.

The rebels are consolidating areas they control in Aleppo, attacking police posts and minor military installations with some success. They claim to have seized three police stations this week.

NEW ATROCITIES ALLEGED

In Damascus, still a government stronghold but a scene of combat in the past two weeks, government troops faced new accusations of atrocities after they overran a suburb on Wednesday.

“When the streets were clear we found the bodies of at least 35 men,” a resident, who gave his name as Fares, said by phone from Jdeidet Artouz, southwest of Damascus.

“Almost all of them were executed with bullets to their face, head and neck in homes, gardens and basements.”

Syrian state television said “dozens of terrorists and mercenaries surrendered or were killed” when the army raided Jdeidet Artouz and its surrounding farmlands.

In a rallying cry to his troops on Wednesday, Assad said their battle against rebels would decide Syria’s fate.

But his call-to-arms, in a written statement, gave no clues to his whereabouts two weeks after a bomb attack on his inner circle.

Assad, who succeeded his late father Hafez 11 years ago to perpetuate the family’s rule of Syria, has not spoken in public since the bombing in Damascus killed four of his close security aides, although he has appeared in recorded clips on television.

His low public profile suggests acute concern about his safety since the attack in which his brother-in-law died.

FOOD RUNNING SHORT

Amid growing signs that the humanitarian crisis in Aleppo is getting worse, the World Food Programme said it was sending emergency food supplies for up 28,000 people.

The fighting in Salaheddine district, part of a rebel-held arc stretching to the northeast of Aleppo, has left neither side in full control.

On Al-Sharqeya Street, residents and shop owners looked in awe at the damage. Some searched through what was left of their buildings – huge piles of concrete and twisted metal.

“I saw death before my eyes,” said Abu Ahmed as he abandoned his home. “I was hiding in the alleyway of my building when I heard the whiz of the artillery. Look at my street now.”

They said the damage was caused by helicopter fire targeting a rebel brigade based in a school. It missed the school and hit the residential buildings instead.

“This dog Assad and his men are so blind they can’t even target a brigade properly,” said Abu Ahmed, waving a plastic bag with his meagre belongings inside.

State television said on Wednesday the army was pursuing remaining “terrorists” in one Aleppo district and had killed several, including foreign Arab fighters.

Some foreign fighters, including militant Islamists, have joined the battle against Assad, who accuses outside powers of financing and arming the insurgents.

Aleppo, a commercial hub with a historic Old City, had long stayed aloof from the uprising, but many of its 2.5 million residents are now caught up in battle zones, facing shortages of food, fuel, water and cooking gas. Thousands have fled and hospitals and makeshift clinics can barely cope with casualties after more than a week of combat.

“The humanitarian situation is deteriorating in Aleppo and food needs are growing rapidly,” the World Food Programme said.

U.S. SUPPORT

In a shift toward increased foreign involvement in the war, U.S. President Barack Obama signed a secret order authorizing American support for the rebels, according to U.S. sources familiar with the matter.

The order, approved earlier this year, broadly permits the CIA and other U.S. agencies to provide support that could help the rebels oust Assad.

The lightly armed insurgents are battling a well-equipped army that has overwhelming superiority on paper. But the rebels have managed to capture some tanks and heavy weapons and their ranks are swelled by army defectors.

The rebels, however, are united mostly by loathing of Assad, and have failed to come together despite pressure from the West, Turkey and Sunni-ruled Arab states who back their cause.