WarSclerotic

The US and Iran: Calling Netanyahu’s bluff – Opinion – Al Jazeera English.

As the US presidential election on November 6 approaches, the pressure in Israel is rising.

Stations have been set up to distribute gas masks, underground bomb shelters are being prepared, and a social-media early-warning system is being tested to alert the public of incoming missiles from Iran or south Lebanon. Such missiles, it is supposed, would form part of the response from Iran and its allies to an Israeli first strike on Iranian nuclear facilities.

Strident warnings from the government of Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu have been unrelenting. In a recent, widely noticed interview in Haaretz, a “senior Israeli official” – assumed by many to be Defence Minister Ehud Barak – has claimed that Israel is confronted with an unprecedented threat to its existence, and that time is quickly running out: “If we do not act, it’s almost certain that Iran will go nuclear. If we do act, there’s a good chance that Iran will not go nuclear for a long while.”

Options short of war, according to Netanyahu, will almost surely be unavailing: “Sanctions and diplomacy,” he said last month, “have so far not set back the Iranian programme by one iota”. Much is made of the “zone of immunity” which, it is claimed, Iran will have shortly established for itself, when military means at Israel’s disposal will no longer be sufficient to strike key hardened Iranian nuclear facilities.

Few in Israel doubt Netanyahu’s seriousness, and fear of a nuclear Iran is surely widespread, but many are strongly opposed to launching a precipitate attack without the clear support, if not the active involvement, of the United States. In a recent, typical poll, 61 per cent of Israelis opposed an attack on Iran conducted without the consent of the Americans.  Shaul Mofaz, former Chief of Staff of the Israeli Defense Forces, head of Kadima, and leader of the opposition in the Knesset, has lashed out against what he describes as Netanyahu’s “dangerous and irresponsible” policy towards Iran.

And Israeli President Shimon Peres, reflecting the concerns of many, said a few days ago that “It is clear to us now that we cannot do this alone. It is clear to us we need to work together with America.” That view, we are told, is widely shared within the Israeli defense and intelligence establishments. The military people charged with conducting a preemptive strike on Iran are the most likely to resist starting something that they know they cannot finish on their own. They are the ones who realise, despite the uninformed and wishful thinking of some civilians, that long-range air attacks on Iran are unlikely to have more than a marginal impact on its nuclear programme unless they are sustained. Israel cannot sustain these attacks. Only the US can.

But the Americans have made clear that they want to wait. It is at least part of Netanyahu’s calculation that credible threats of an Israeli strike during the US presidential campaign season and the Obama administration’s desperate desire to avoid it will motivate the US to trade Israeli assurances of near-term forbearance for a more credible and irrevocable US commitment to employ military force if and when evidences of the failure of economic sanctions and the imminence of a hardened Iranian nuclear weapons capability converge.

A spate of competitive political pandering between the Obama administration and Republican candidate Mitt Romney during the latter’s end-of-July visit to Israel may have raised Israeli hopes in this regard. Romney attempted to create political space by essentially restating current administration policy with a visceral vehemence that the current American president clearly lacks. Israeli leaders, who have seen much American political pandering in their time, are better equipped than most to interpret its meaning. When viewed in the cold light of day, assertions by both Democratic and Republican standard-bearers, replete with pledges of support for Israeli security and generous in their understanding of Israel’s need to take responsibility for its own survival, have a clear meaning in the context of an Israeli strike on Iran: “I’ll hold your coat.”

The fact is that no one in Washington has any enthusiasm for a conflict with Iran, and will certainly not seek hostilities so long as a credible alternative exists to halt Iranian nuclear development – nor, most likely, even after the alternatives have expired. A Washington establishment that currently has many tactical reasons to assert that “containment is not an option” is likely in the end to embrace containment when it is clear that there is no other option. Many Israelis fear this; some, perhaps including Netanyahu, already understand it.

As passions in Israel over this issue rise to a fever pitch, the reaction in Washington is strangely muted and detached. Washington has ceded all initiative on the Iran issue to Israel, and an air of fatalism has set in. This is more than strange, as Washington has a great deal more to lose than Israel should hostilities break out. Israel, having limited exposure, will be able to weather Tehran’s response, both direct and indirect, far more easily than the Americans. For the US, the question as to whether an Israeli strike will draw them into a protracted conflict in the Gulf will essentially be out of their hands, and will depend upon the Iranians. The dangers to their naval assets in the Gulf, the threat of skyrocketing oil prices, the undermining of domestic political support in allied Arab countries, and the near-certainty of asymmetric terrorist attacks around the globe will just be the beginning. In the event of a sustained military confrontation with Iran, the US position in Pakistan, and therefore in Afghanistan, will be thoroughly undermined.  

It would be a serious miscalculation of Netanyahu’s apocalyptic view of the Iranian threat to suppose that his posturing of these many past months has simply been an exercise in blackmail, but blackmail of the Obama administration has been an important part of his current policy. He admits publicly that he would prefer to see the US take military action against Iran, rather than Israel. That is more than understandable, because the only really effective military action to be taken would have to be taken by the US, and the main point of an Israeli attack would be to precipitate it. Netanyahu has made clear the price which would have to be paid to avoid military unpleasantness with Iran in the midst of a US presidential campaign: Clear, irrevocable US red-lines which would trigger an American attack on Iran should sanctions and diplomacy fail. Neither Obama nor Romney, bellicose words notwithstanding, will provide them.

Though it may not have been their conscious intent, the Americans have in effect called Netanyahu’s bluff. If he doesn’t realise it, he soon will. The ball is clearly in his court. Should he decide that the status quo will inevitably work against Israel’s strategic position, and perhaps even invite catastrophe, he is quite capable of making a fateful throw of the dice. The question now is: Will he do it?

Former CIA station chief Robert Grenier heads ERG Partners, a financial consultancy firm.

Report: Hezbollah exercise includes 10,000 operatives – Israel News, Ynetnews.

Egyptian paper says Shiite terror group held three-day military-style maneuvers supervised by Hezbollah Chief Nasrallah, Iranian Revolutionary Guards’ officials

Roi Kais

The Egyptian government-backed newspaper Al-Gomhuria reported Thursday that Hezbollah held an unprecedentedly large military-style exercise this week, which included over 10,000 of its operatives.

According to the report, the drill was personally supervised by Hezbollah Chief Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah.

The maneuvers spanned three days and were also supervised by “top officials” from the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, the paper reported.

According to the report, the drill “simulated actual fighting and defending of strategic villages, as well as contingencies to raiding and occupying areas in the Israeli Upper Galilee – something Nasrallah has called for in the past.”

The newspaper said that the majority of the exercise took place at the Beqaa Valley, which it hedged may be the scene for any potential battle between Israel and Hezbollah; as the area is both dominated by the Shiite organization and includes key weapon delivery routes.

Hezbollah forces in southern Lebanon (Archives: AFP)

The report also said that Hezbollah operatives have been instructed to prepare the residents of southern Lebanon for the possibility of war. The organization has also been preparing shelters for the residents of the border-adjacent villages, the report said.

The newspaper added that in a recent meeting between Nasrallah and Said Jalili, who serves as secretary-general to Iran’s National Security Council negotiator, the latter had ordered him to prepare for a possible conflict between Iran and Israel, in which Lebanon will play a key role.

The report also noted that some 2,000 Hezbollah operatives were participating in maneuvers held by the Revolutionary Guards in Iran.

Media Comment: Iran and Israel’s … JPost – Opinion – Columnists.

Indyk: US expected Israel to str… JPost – Iranian Threat – News.

US, UK, French elite units on standby for seizing Syrian chemical weapons.

DEBKAfile Exclusive Report August 23, 2012, 8:44 AM (GMT+02:00)

US special forces kitted up for Syria

US C130 transports stand ready at Middle East air bases to fly into Syria US elite units especially trained in combat against chemical and biological weapons and tactics for securing their arsenals. Western intelligence sources reported Thursday, Aug. 23 that those units are on standby at bases in Israel and Jordan. Their assignments are to engage Syrian troops attempting to move those unconventional weapons systems to battle fronts or Hizballah and to prevent them falling into the hands of radical Islamic rebel fighters, especially Al Qaeda.
Those elite units have been issued with special equipment for chemical and biological warfare including anti-contamination suits. The transports are also fitted with purification equipment for operating in polluted terrain.
These plans followed President Barack Obama’s warning Monday, Aug. 20 that “we cannot have a situation where chemical or biological weapons are falling into the hands of the wrong people.” He announced, “We have put together a range of contingency plans.”

Also on standby for stealthy raids into Syria are British special operations forces in Cyprus and French units trained in unconventional warfare in Jordan. Thursday morning, President Obama talked by phone to British Prime Minister David Cameron and French President Francois Hollande to wrap up the details of their combined operation in Syria, effectively the onset of direct Western intervention in the Syrian conflict.
The Pentagon had not by Thursday reacted to these reports, but did release photos of US special operations soldiers clad in anti-contamination suits standing by armored personnel carriers equipped for chemical and biological warfare. The American media were also briefed on US plans to land special operations teams trained in the handling of these weapons for missions to protect or destroy unguarded Syrian stockpiles before they fall into the wrong hands. They also refer to air strikes to incinerate chemicals without dispersing them in the air.
debkafile’s military sources report that alongside the US satellites and drone aircraft monitoring the chemical and biological weapons stores, small American reconnaissance teams are already on the ground, marking out landing sites and setting up bridgeheads for the incoming US, British and French special forces.
Some – though not all – of the targeted stockpiles of shells and missile warheads are located around centers of the fiercest fighting in Syria’s civil war such as Aleppo in the north.  They may be inadequately guarded since the Syrian ruler may have been forced to throw the units securing them into battle against rebel forces.
Important stress was laid by Obama in his comments Monday on the fact that he had not ordered US military engagement in Syria “at this point.”  In other words, beyond that point, he was free to change that order. debkafile’s military sources report that direct American military involvement in the Syrian conflict has to all intents and purposes begun and looks like expanding in the coming days.
This is a sharp reversal of the military situation in the Middle East. It could lead to all-out warfare exploding in Syria possibly involving Hizballah ahead of a strike against Iran’s nuclear weapons, although this strike could unfold from the Syrian campaign – during its course or at its conclusion.
Washington is hoping that its direct action in Syria, aside from grappling with the unconventional warfare menace looming over the region, may persuade Tehran to cave into American demands for halting uranium enrichment and turn it aside from its race for a nuclear weapon in order to save itself from attack.

The Obama administration is split between two factions on the Syrian question – those who are pushing hard for direct US military intervention – both to end the bloodshed and Bashar Assad’s reign in Syria and to preempt a unilateral Israeli strike against Iran. The other faction is dedicated to Obama’s anti-interventionist mindset.
This controversy is explored in the coming issue of DEBKA-Net-Weekly (for subscribers) out next Friday.

Report: US puts Syria WMD contingencies in place – Israel News, Ynetnews.

Pentagon’s concern over Assad’s unconventional weapons stockpiles growing; Washington officials say that should war escalate further, US may choose to send in troops to secure depots

Yitzhak Benhorin

WASHINGTON – The Pentagon has made contingency plans to ensure that Syria’s massive unconventional weapons stockpiles are secure, the Los Angeles Times reported Thursday.

According to the report, the United States Department of Defense plans to send small teams of special operations troops into Syria should Washington feels that the depots are no longer secure, or that Syrian President Bashar Assad plans to use them on rebel forces.

Syria’s stockpiles of sarin nerve agent, mustard gas and cyanide are considered the largest in the world.

Earlier this week, US President Barack Obama warned that any effort by Assad to move or use his arsenal of chemical munitions “would cross a red line,” implying it may prompt military intervention by the US.

Experts believe that the toxicity of some chemical agents degrades significantly over time, so it is unclear how lethal the stockpiles are.

The US and Israel are concerned that the volatile situation in Syria may see these weapons fall into the hands of terror groups like al-Qaeda and Hezbollah.

“Securing the sites would probably involve stealthy raids by special operations teams trained to handle such weapons, and precision airstrikes to incinerate the chemicals without dispersing them in the air,” a Pentagon official was quoted as saying.

According to the report, US intelligence indicated that “Syria’s chemical agents can be delivered by aerial bombs, ballistic missilesand artillery rockets.”

Although he did not make an explicit threat, Obama’s statement about a possible military campaign could be considered as a direct warning to Assad, DC officials said.

However, “You shouldn’t interpret what Obama said to mean that there would be automatic military action, but rather that we would respond as part of an international effort,” one senior official said.

The Pentagon believes that Syria’s stockpiles seem well guarded– for now. “We have done contingency planning but we’re not doing detailed planning – identifying numbers (of troops), units and platforms – until the White House tells us we need a specific plan for this,” a senior officer said.

Assad’s government stated in the past that is has no intention of deploying unconventional weapons against the Syrian people, but it did implied they could be used against invading foreign troops.

“Any chemical or bacterial weapon will never be used – and I repeat will never be used – during the crisis in Syria, regardless of the developments,” Jihad Makdissi, a Syrian government spokesman, told reporters in July.

“These weapons are stored and secured by Syrian military forces and under its direct supervision and will never be used unless Syria faces external aggression.”

Irresponsible politicians, and pr… JPost – Opinion – C

Photo: REUTERS In recent weeks, the ugly side of Israeli public life has been on display with irresponsible politicians, supported by the sensationalist media, engaging in cheap demagoguery in relation to the Iranian nuclear threat.

Yet simultaneously, in the course of one week, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad announced that “Israel is a malignant cancer” and that “the black stain of Zionism must be removed,” Ayatollah Khomeini stated that “Israel will disappear from the map” and a prominent Iranian general proclaimed that “Israel must be destroyed forever.” In the light of such incitement, to deny that a nuclear Iran represents an existential threat to Israel is to deny reality.

Mutual Assured Deterrence (MAD), which prevented a nuclear conflict between the US and the Soviet Union during the Cold War, is inapplicable today. A messianic Islamic leadership convinced that by “nuking” Israel it will expedite the coming of the Mahdi and obtain heavenly rewards for its adherents is unlikely to be deterred out of fear that its people would also be incinerated.

While it is on the front line, this is far from being an exclusively Israeli problem.

A nuclear Iran will alter the balance of power in the Middle East with potentially disastrous implications for global stability, and as US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta warned, would pose an enormous threat to the US and the rest of the world.

Netanyahu’s campaign has certainly obliged the United States and Western countries to confront the nightmare that would ensue should Iran emerge as the dominant regional nuclear power. But I do not believe that he is simply bluffing about an independent Israeli strike.

So far, although US sanctions have impacted on the Iranian economy, with China, India and Japan continuing to trade, the Iranians seem determined to press on. I avoid adopting a public position on how I believe Israel should respond because I lack access to the intelligence to enable an evaluation of Ehud Barak’s “zone of immunity” or assess the odds of a successful solo Israeli military offensive to destroy or delay the Iranian bomb.

The decision on the timing or whether or not to take military action will not be determined by Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu alone but by a majority of the security cabinet, which comprises a cross-section of responsible leaders reflecting the broad political mainstream. I have confidence in their integrity and ability to make a rational decision on what they consider will best serve the interests of the nation. It is absurd to suggest that such policies should be determined by engaging public opinion.

We all recognize that a military operation spearheaded by the US would be far more effective than Israel going it alone. Many of us wish we could rely on President Barack Obama’s vague undertakings that the US will ensure that Iran does not become a nuclear power. However, when we review the track record of third parties who pledged to stand by us in times of need, it would be a somewhat foolhardy gamble to rely exclusively on broad US undertakings in relation to such a crucial issue for our future.

Besides, the US hardly has a great success rate with regard to preventing rogue states like North Korea from developing weapons of mass destruction. That applies especially to Obama, who is not renowned for taking tough global military decisions and continues to defer to the dysfunctional Islamic- and rogue-dominated UN. Nor for that matter to Mitt Romney, who, if elected, may also hesitate to inaugurate his term with a major military confrontation which may have severe ramifications for the global economy.

While the negative statements issued by US spokesmen in recent weeks could be highly sophisticated examples of disinformation, it is more likely that they reflect the reality that nothing has yet been resolved. Of course, when Obama meets Netanyahu in the fall, he could persuade him to suspend independent action by convincing him that a US military option is credible and committed to a timeline for acting in the absence of any diplomatic breakthrough with the mullahs.

Failing any progress, our government is now preparing the Israeli public for the possibility that Israel will be obliged to act independently. Yet unlike previous occasions when there was little public debate prior to Israel taking unilateral military action, today we have a surfeit of politicians afflicted with flapping gums, babbling away, creating confusion and undermining unity and confidence on the home front.

The most recent outburst was from President Shimon Peres, who until now had appeared to have set aside his days as a politician and committed to acting as a responsible president. Now, the man who sought to undermine Begin for taking out Saddam Hussein’s nuclear reactor, who predicted a “New Middle East” after the Oslo Accords and supported the disastrous 2005 unilateral withdrawal from Gaza, is demanding that Israel not “attack Iran alone.” Such a statement contradicting government policy is totally beyond the jurisdiction of a president.

The hysterical personal attacks on Netanyahu by Opposition Leader Shaul Mofaz were simply mind-boggling. He ranted that Netanyahu was “playing a dangerous and irresponsible game with the future of the entire nation.” He accused Netanyahu of promoting war in order to influence the outcome of the US presidential elections, asking “why are you putting your hands deep in the American ballot boxes” and “endangering the future of our children.” So much for a responsible opposition!

In a similar vein, discredited former prime minister Ehud Olmert, the architect of the failed Second Lebanon War, insisted that “Iran is far from the point of no return in terms of its nuclear project” and expressed “alarm” at the “great public damage” Netanyahu’s warlike policies were inflicting on Israel, which “disgusted us.”

Aside from Yisrael Hayom, the Hebrew media also went overboard. Haaretz, and even more so Yediot Aharonot and the major TV stations assailed Netanyahu’s “irresponsibility” and even accused him of seeking to go to war with Iran in order to divert attention from social issues. The journalists are not privy to intelligence or inside information, yet they run scare stories on the home front and attempt to create panic. Haaretz even published an article headlined “Mr. Netanyahu, before you bomb Iran, say goodbye to everyone you know.”

The hysteria widened, with retired IDF chiefs of staff and former intelligence heads joining the fray, hinting that the prime minister would be accountable to a Commission of Inquiry if military operations failed.

There were bizarre demonstrations against military action. Artists Gila Almagor and Achinoam Nini promoted anti-war petitions. There was even a seditious petition from 400 academics, including a former head of Tel Aviv University’s Faculty of Law, calling on pilots to refuse to obey orders to bomb Iran.

Yet notwithstanding this hysteria, Israelis remain calm. Some update their gas masks and check their shelters, but overall life goes on and there is no panic. Because Israelis today are reasonably confident that our leaders will decide what is best for the nation and recognize that if necessary we must confront those who seek our demise.

Could an Attack on Iran Facilitate Regime Change? « Commentary Magazine.

Evelyn Gordon | @evelyng1234 08.22.2012 – 5:10 PM

An Iranian op-ed writer recently urged his country to emulate Israel. Of course the “Zionist regime” is illegitimate, wrote Seyed Ammar Kalantari, but the fact that “this small group of around seven million people who only about 60 years ago moved to this small spot from all sorts of different cultures and nationalities” has managed to survive, despite repeated attacks by Palestinians and various Arab armies, shows it must be doing something right. That something, Kalantari argued, is Israel’s willingness to criticize its leaders.

What makes this remarkable isn’t just that Israel is being touted as a shining example in the very country whose leader regularly pledges to annihilate it as “a cancerous tumor.” It’s that the article appeared on a website closely affiliated with Mohsen Rezaee, a former Revolutionary Guards commander who now serves as secretary of Iran’s Expediency Council, a key organ of the regime. It’s one of numerous recent reminders that most Iranians are vastly more open-minded than the thugs who run their country.

Just this week, a leading Iranian opposition cleric publicly urged the regime to “do everything to prevent a Zionist attack on Iran, because if that happens, Iran will be severely damaged, even if the Zionist regime is damaged even more.” The regime “must not act as warmongers,” warned Ayatollah Yousef Sanei: “The country is currently facing a unique situation, and the most important thing to do is to shut the mouth of the Zionist regime with our thoughts, our pens and an effort to take the right actions.” While Sanei didn’t specify said “right actions,” the meaning seems clear: steps to allay international, and especially Israeli, concerns about Iran’s nuclear program.

In fact, an online poll published in June found that a decisive majority of Iranians – 63 percent – favor giving up uranium enrichment in exchange for an end to sanctions. And another poll, published in May, found that Iranians are much more supportive of basic liberal values than, say, Egyptians, Jordanians and Moroccans, or even residents of some Asian and eastern European democracies. Fully 94% of respondents, for instance, deemed “freedom to choose” an important value, and 71% deemed tolerance important.

All this shows what an incredible opportunity was wasted when U.S. President Barack Obama failed to support the Green Revolution in 2009, preferring instead to pursue negotiations with the mullahs: In Iran – unlike, say, Egypt – a successful revolution might well have produced a better government rather than a worse one, because most Iranians would genuinely rather build a decent society at home than foment mayhem abroad.

Today, however, this very decency is frequently used as an argument against attacking Iran’s nuclear facilities: An attack, we are told, will cause ordinary Iranians to rally round the mullahs, thereby setting the prospect of regime change back decades.

Personally, I think the data indicates that any such effect would be short-lived. People who value freedom of choice and tolerance aren’t likely to become permanent mullah-lovers, nor will opposition leaders long laud the regime for provoking the very attack they warned against.

But Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has an additional argument: the Ugandan precedent. Yoweri Museveni, who became Uganda’s president after Idi Amin’s downfall, told him that Israel’s 1976 Entebbe raid “strengthened Amin’s rivals because it revealed how vulnerable his regime was,” Netanyahu related this month.

There’s no way to know for sure who’s right. But we do know the Green Revolution failed primarily because the regime’s brute-force tactics eventually convinced the demonstrators it was too strong to be toppled. Thus showing that the regime isn’t as powerful as it seems may actually be the very spark needed to finally send the mullahs toppling.

U.S.: There’s Still Time for Diplomacy on Iran – Middle East – News – Israel National News.

Nuclear reactor (illustration)

Flash 90

The United States made it clear on Wednesday that it believes there is still time for diplomacy on the Iranian nuclear issue.

State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland made the remarks when asked by reporters whether the State Department feels pressure from Israel on Iran.

“Our view on the situation with Iran is not changed today,” she said, adding that the view “is that we believe there is still time for diplomacy to work, but we need to see a better effort from the Iranians to answer the concerns that we’ve had. So, we are focused on trying to have this dual-track policy of diplomacy backed by pressure work, and we are still focused on that.”

She added, “As we’ve said from all of our platforms, we are focused on combining diplomacy and pressure, trying to get Iran to be serious at the negotiating table, and we are in full consultations with the Israelis about the picture that we see, and we will continue to make those points clear.”

Nuland was then asked whether the U.S. ever indicated to Israel that if it decides to strike in Iran, the U.S. would have its back.

She responded by saying, “Again, the security of our Israeli ally is of paramount concern to us. We continue to have intensive consultations about all aspects of that and to support their requirements, but we have made absolutely clear to them that our view is that there’s still time for diplomacy to work.”

The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Martin Dempsey, said this week that Israel and the United States view the Iranian nuclear threat differently.

“Israel sees the Iranian threat more seriously than the U.S. sees it, because a nuclear Iran poses a threat to Israel’s very existence,” Dempsey said, adding that he and his Israeli counterpart, IDF Chief of Staff Benny Gantz, regularly confer on the issue.

“We speak at least once every two weeks, we compare intelligence reports, we discuss the security implications of the events in the region,” said Dempsey, adding, “At the same time, we admit that our clocks ticking at different paces. We have to understand the Israelis; they live with a constant suspicion with which we do not have to deal.”

Meanwhile, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) announced Tuesday that it will renew its efforts to acquire access to the Iranian military installations in which experiments involving nuclear warheads are suspected to have taken place.

Of particular concern is the Parchin Military complex, a suspected nuclear-trigger test site, near which Iran razed two buildings several months ago.

The last round between the UN’s nuclear watchdog and Iran took place in June. The two sides failed to agree on a deal allowing greater access to Tehran’s contested nuclear program, including Parchin.

No hint of an Iran breakthrough, but ….

By David Ignatius

Thursday, 23 August 2012