WarSclerotic

Report: Iran advancing Syria power transition – Israel News, Ynetnews.

Kuweiti paper says Islamic Republic, China and Russia agree on plan that will see Syrian president step down, receive asylum elsewhere; Report claims Assad agrees to parameters

Roi Kais

Senior Arab diplomats said the governments of Iran, Russia, China and other Syrian allies have concluded that there is no solution to the Syrian crisis that will see President Bashar Assad stay in power, Kuwaiti newspaper al-Rai reported on Saturday.

The report quoted the Arab diplomats as saying that the countries are now trying to advance a proposal by which Assadwill leave Syria and receive asylum elsewhere.

According to the sources, during the transition period, Syria will set up a strong army consisting of members of the Free Syrian Army and uniformed personnel who “do no have blood on their hands.” The paper claimed that the plan also received support from the United States and Europe.  

The report, which has not been confirmed by any other source, claims that Assad has agreed to the parameters of the proposal, and told his allies that while he can no longer rule over the country, he does not want to hand it over to terrorists.

Regional alliance?

Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi on Friday said that Iran will present a proposal to end the Syrian crisis during the summit of Non-Aligned countries slated to take place in Tehran at the end of August. According to Salehi, Iran is willing to host talks between the Syrian government and Syrian opposition members after the summit.

However, Lebanese paper al-Akbar, which is affiliated with Hezbollah, quoted Salehi as saying that he staunchly supports the Syrian regime, which he claimed is “a center pillar of Iran’s foreign policy and a central element in the resistance against Israel

Meanwhile, the head of the intelligence unit of Iran’s elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps was quoted as saying on Saturday that Iran has a responsibility to support Assad’s government as it fights an armed uprising.

“We all have a responsibility to support Syria and not allow the line of resistance to be broken,” Fars news agency quoted Hossein Taeb, the intelligence unit head, as saying.

Preparing Strike On Iran May Avoid War – Courant.com.

Charles Krauthammer

2:44 PM EDT, August 24, 2012

Either Israel is engaged in the most elaborate ruse since the Trojan Horse or it is on the cusp of a pre-emptive strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities.

What’s alarming is not just Iran’s increasing store of uranium or the growing sophistication of its rocketry. It’s also the increasingly menacing annihilationist threats emanating from Iran’s leaders. Israel’s existence is “an insult to all humanity,” says President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Everyone wants to avoid military action, surely the Israelis above all. They can expect a massive counterattack from Iran, 50,000 rockets launched from Lebanon, Islamic Jihad firing from Gaza and worldwide terror against Jewish and Israeli targets, as happened last month in Bulgaria.

Yet Israel will not sit idly by in the face of the most virulent genocidal threats since Nazi Germany.

Time is short. Last-ditch negotiations in Istanbul, Baghdad and Moscow have failed abjectly. The Iranians are contemptuously playing with the process. The strategy is delay until they get the bomb.

What to do? The sagest advice comes from Anthony Cordesman, military analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, hardheaded realist and a believer that “multilateralism and soft power must still be the rule and not the exception.”

He may have found his exception. “There are times when the best way to prevent war is to clearly communicate that it is possible,” he argues. Today, the threat of a U.S. attack is not taken seriously. Not by the region. Not by Iran. Not by the Israelis, who therefore increasingly feel forced to act before Israel’s more limited munitions — far less powerful and effective than those in the U.S. arsenal — can no longer penetrate Iran’s ever-hardening facilities.

Cordesman therefore proposes threefold action.

1. “Clear U.S. redlines.”

It’s time to end the ambiguity about American intentions. Establish real limits on negotiations — to convince Iran that the only alternative to a deal is pre-emptive strikes, and to convince Israel to stay its hand.

2. “Make it clear to Iran that it has no successful options.”

Either their program must be abandoned in a negotiated deal (see No. 1 above) on generous terms from the West (see No. 3 below) or their facilities will be physically destroyed. Ostentatiously let Iran know about the range and power of our capacities — how deep and extensive a campaign we could conduct, extending beyond just nuclear facilities to military-industrial targets, refineries, power grids and other concentrations of regime power.

3. Give Iran a face-saving way out.

Offer Iran the most generous possible terms — economic, diplomatic and political. End of sanctions, assistance in economic and energy development, trade incentives and a regional security architecture. Even Russian nuclear fuel.

Tellingly, however, Cordesman does not join those who suggest yielding on nuclear enrichment.

In my view, this would be disastrous. Iran would retain the means to potentially produce fissile material, either clandestinely or in a defiant breakout at a time of its choosing.

Would Iran believe a Cordesman-like ultimatum? Given the record of the Obama administration, maybe not. Some (though not Cordesman) have therefore suggested the further step of requesting congressional authorization for the use of force if Iran does not negotiate denuclearization.

First, that’s the right way to do it. No serious military action should be taken without congressional approval (contra Libya). Second, Iran might actually respond to a threat backed by a strong bipartisan majority of the American people — thus avoiding both war and the other nightmare scenario, a nuclear Iran.

If we simply continue to drift through kabuki negotiations, however, one thing is certain. Either America, Europe, the Gulf Arabs and the Israelis will forever be condemned to live under the threat of nuclear blackmail (even nuclear war) from a regime the State Department identifies as the world’s greatest exporter of terror. Or an imperiled Israel, with its more limited capabilities, will strike Iran — with correspondingly greater probability of failure and of triggering a regional war.

All options are bad. Doing nothing is worse. “The status quo may not prevent some form of war,” concludes Cordesman, “and may even be making it more likely.”

Charles Krauthammer is a syndicated writer in Washingon. His email address is letters@charleskrauthammer.com.

Is the Israeli home front ready for war? | The Times of Israel.

Channel 2 report indicates major vulnerabilities in the event of a rocket onslaught — including a gas mask shortage, lack of bomb shelters and an unproven Iron Dome missile defense system

A man tries out a gas mask at a distribution center, July 25 , 2012. (photo credit: Noam Moskowitz/Flash90)

Is the Israeli home front prepared to handle every eventuality, including war?

An investigative report conducted by Channel 2 News suggests that despite talk of a possible strike on Iran’s nuclear sites and even all-out war, the home front is far from ready.

The Friday night report concluded that although Israel has learned some lessons from the 2006 Second Lebanon War, and is more prepared for war on many fronts, its enemies have improved their capabilities. According to current estimates, in future wars Israel could face an onslaught of up to 10,000 rockets per day – more precise, more technologically advanced and capable of causing more damage than before.

The Iron Dome system in action near Ashdod (photo credit: Flash90)

Will Israeli citizens be able to protect themselves against the torrent of rockets? Brig.-Gen. (retired) Ze’ev Zuk-Ram told Channel 2 that around 500,000-600,000 Israelis don’t have access to a bomb shelter – meaning that at best, they would be able to protect themselves in case of an attack by standing under the doorpost.

Some older neighborhoods, such as South Tel Aviv’s Hatikva neighborhood, known for its population of refugees and migrant workers coupled with low-income families, do not have bomb shelters at all. In northern Israel, more likely to bear the brunt of rocket attacks, residents have stopped relying on public shelters and have placed their trust in “residential secure spaces” – protected rooms within houses, known in Hebrew as mamadim.

Israelis sit near a bomb shelter in the southern city of Netivot during operation Cast Lead in December 2008 (photo credit: Roni Schutze/Flash 90)

In Haifa, meanwhile, Mayor Yona Yahav has decided to devise his own plan for the protection of the city without waiting for the government to do the same. “I’m not waiting for the government, these events don’t wait,” he told Channel 2.

Yahav said that if Haifa were to come under attack, four war rooms would be set up in the city; the municipality would help evacuate tens of thousands of residents to a safer area, and those who wished to stay would be able to use the Carmel Tunnels as a bomb shelter over six kilometers long.

While the Home Front Command set out several years ago to fortify stairwells and buildings, the TV report revealed that little has been done to that end; instead, the Home Front Command has devised a plan to provide citizens with sandbags with which they would be able to fortify their virtually unprotected places of residence in times of danger.

With regard to the current campaign promoting the acquisition of gas masks, the report revealed that production at the main gas mask factory in Kiryat Gat, capable of manufacturing 5,000 units per day, has virtually ceased in recent months due to a lack of government funding.

“The resources weren’t provided, the government did not allocate funds,” said Maj.-Gen. Dan Harel, the former deputy chief of the General Staff, adding that the country’s leaders would have to choose between manufacturing the necessary amount of gas masks and stopping production altogether. “You can’t do it halfway,” he said.

An Israeli child tries on a gas mask, part of a chemical protection kit, in a distribution center in 2010. Amid growing fears that terrorist groups may inherit Syria’s unconventional weapons, Israelis are flocking to distribution centers to receive new gas masks. (photo credit: Gili Yaari/Flash 90)

MK Ze’ev Bielski (Kadima) warned that when the time came, the government wouldn’t be able to provide enough gas masks for its citizens. The resulting situation would force families to split an inadequate number of gas masks among their children. “They will say, ‘figure it out on your own,’” Bielski said.

According to the TV report, while the government has invested billions in strengthening the home front, setting up ministries and authorities dedicated to that goal, and putting the Iron Dome missile defense system into operation, there remains much to be done.

Although Iron Dome proved to be effective in intercepting incoming rockets in the past months, the report warned that the statistics do not necessarily reflect how well the system could cope in the context of all-out war, with thousands of rockets raining down all at once.

Amid talk of an Iran strike, how safe is Israel’s home front? – Israel News | Haaretz Daily Newspaper.

Israel’s home front defense is in better shape than it was in the past, but chances are that in wartime, its missile-defense system will primarily secure strategic sites, not civilian populations.

Yona Yahav is worried. The veteran mayor of Haifa ran his city in an exemplary manner during the Second Lebanon War. When other local authorities in the north collapsed, six years ago, Haifa functioned. The municipality operated so-called war rooms, expropriated underground parking lots in malls and made them into play areas for children so their parents could keep going to work, and fought against major service providers that closed their offices in the city. In 2006, 85 percent of Haifa residents remained in the city despite the missile attacks.

“I realized that the time for whining was over,” said Yahav after the month-long war. “If you yourself don’t make a move, nothing will work. A big city is expected to take care of itself.”

“Everything begins with the fact that I’m a coward,” says Yahav, today. “A mayor doesn’t have to be macho, but he has to prepare for any possible scenario. I’m worried, because I’m not sure that we know how to assess the severity of the future situation. Aren’t we preparing for a scenario whose time has passed? The Home Front Command and the Home Front Defense Ministry are manned by excellent people. Our cooperation with them is good. There’s no ‘mañana’ atmosphere. They’re behaving as though it [a war] is taking place tomorrow morning. And still, when I ask how we will evacuate civilians from one place to another under fire, for example, I don’t receive sufficiently convincing answers.”

Yahav has improved emergency services in his city “because, when civilians feel city hall is in control, they’re willing to stay around. Still, I won’t condemn anyone who leaves in wartime. Even in 2006 I said that those who leave are still Haifans to me.”

The municipality has created a program for schoolchildren to learn via the Internet from home, he adds: “I gave up on protected spaces at educational institutions. I have 146 schools and there’s no chance we’ll be able to provide protection for all of them. Haifa is not a city the size of Sderot, which can be protected fully in that way. Children won’t attend school under missile fire. They’ll study from home.”

And still, to date, the mayor continues, the government has not instituted a policy according to which private firms would be compelled to provide vital services to citizens in the event of war.

Yahav: “Cell-phone companies, banks, Tnuva [dairy cooperative] – there’s nobody who will force them to provide services for residents in areas under missile fire. That’s elementary. Take the Carmel Tunnels [that run under Mt. Carmel]. They’re an ideal place of refuge for thousands of residents, 200 meters below the ground, but the government has yet to decide whether to define them as a ‘vital industry,’ whose employees will be required to operate it even during wartime, although we’ve been talking about that for several years. Nor are we prepared for mass evacuation of civilians from the city. There have not been drills for such an eventuality. And there’s the story of the ammonia tank in Haifa Bay – there’s been a decision to move it from there by 2015. I do hope that they have spoken with [Hezbollah leader] Hassan Nasrallah and that he’s willing to delay the missiles until then.”

Last month the Home Front Command conducted a large-scale drill in Haifa, with the help of the municipality. The scenario included a chemical missile launched by Hezbollah that landed in the area of the Technion Israel Institute of Technology. The results did not leave Yahav feeling especially calm.

Hezbollah, Iran’s proxy

The discussion about home-front preparedness in recent months has been taking place mainly in the context of the debate over whether Israel should attack nuclear sites in Iran. Hezbollah is Iran’s forward division, which is capable of attacking the Israeli home front with relative force, and it is hard to imagine a situation in which Hezbollah would refuse an Iranian order to respond with missiles if Iran is bombed. There is a reason why Tehran invested several billion dollars in the Lebanese Islamist organization over the past three decades.

But a conflict between Israel and Hezbollah is also liable to develop independently, as was the case after the kidnapping of the IDF reservists in 2006. In hindsight, Western intelligence sources believe that at the time Tehran considered Nasrallah’s move premature, that it unnecessarily revealed the organization’s capabilities. But the present instability in Lebanon, with the ongoing collapse of President Bashar Assad’s regime in Syria in the background, is now liable in extreme circumstances to serve as a detonator for an explosion.

Internal violence in Lebanon, as a consequence of the conflict in Syria, has been raging for several weeks. On Tuesday, for example, 12 people were killed and over 100 were injured in armed clashes between Alawites and Sunnis in Tripoli, in northern Lebanon. Most of the organizations and ethnic groups in the country are now amassing weapons in advance of a possible civil war.

Syria appears to be acting to exacerbate this tension. Michel Samaha, a Lebanese Christian and former government minister, and an ally of Bashar Assad and of Hezbollah, was arrested recently on suspicion of having planned a series of attacks against Sunni population centers. The Shi’ite organization itself has been forced to deal with increasingly urgent demands for its disarmament by politicians and journalists, who until recently refrained from talking about it in public for fear of Syria’s reaction.

Now it seems that Hezbollah has become “fair game.” The best evidence of this shift is the recent change in the viewpoint of fickle Druze leader Walid Jumblatt, who has already zigzagged several times between supporting and opposing the Syrian regime. Now, 10 months before the next elections in Lebanon, Jumblatt is once again about to abandon Assad.

We should not rule out the possibility that the Lebanese arena will flare up, even without any connection to the main issue: Iran’s nuclear capability. It could happen in the wake of a Syrian attempt to transfer chemical weapons to Hezbollah, but also due to a provocation by Nasrallah on the border, in light of his domestic problems. In July his organization demonstrated significant capability in the attack against Israeli tourists in Burgas, Bulgaria, which left six dead and 32 wounded, and only about a month ago high-quality explosives were discovered in Israel, having been smuggled in by Hezbollah via Israeli Arab drug dealers.

Outgoing minister

Matan Vilnai, the outgoing Home Front Defense minister, took off Sunday night for Beijing, where he will serve as Israel’s ambassador to China. We can assume that had Vilnai really thought that war with Iran was in the offing, he would not now have left the keys to the office in the hands of his friend Avi Dichter. Vilnai has kept to himself his opinion as to whether there is really a need to attack Iran. But when he looks back at his activity in recent years, the outgoing minister is quite pleased with the half-full glass.

Nobody denies that the handling of the home front has improved immeasurably since the trauma of 2006. The Home Front Defense Ministry and the National Emergency Authority were established, the buck-passing tendency which once characterized the various relevant government ministries has diminished, the local authorities began conducting frequent drills, and the Home Front Command also has a better understanding of its task now.

Vilnai points out additional achievements: The government has finally begun to protect strategic infrastructure sites from missiles. The IDF has assembled a list of 45 such sites, and in the coming years hundreds of millions of shekels will be invested in preparing defenses for them.

The communications networks of the various rescue services have been merged into one system over the past four years, at a cost of nearly NIS 1 billion. The police and the IDF communicate now on the same network and will soon be joined by the firefighters and Magen David Adom emergency services. Public awareness of the dangers has also increased, and one should not downplay the importance of citizens taking personal responsibility, and exhibiting cautious behavior and obedience to the instructions of the Home Front Command – all significant components of home front preparedness in an emergency.

But Vilnai, who worked tirelessly on home front defense for about five years (first as the deputy defense minister ), is also well aware of the challenges that remain. One of the main ones is legal. It is hard to believe, but over a year and a half after the establishment of the Home Front Defense Ministry, there is still no law spelling out the boundaries of authority and distribution of responsibility between it and the Defense Ministry, the Home Front Command and the National Emergency Authority. At the moment, the role of the ministry is important prior to a war, but will be negligible during the fighting itself. A home front draft bill is scheduled to reach the Knesset only during the next session.

Interceptions and perceptions

There is another significant disparity – between the public’s perception of the quality of anti-missile protection provided by the deterrence systems, and the reality that can be expected in wartime. The Iron Dome functions well opposite Gaza, but the IDF has essentially only four functioning batteries at its disposal, but if it is to provide coverage to the entire country, it will need 13. The Magic Wand, the interception system for intermediate-range missiles (launched from a distance of 75 to 400 kilometers ) will be operational only in another two years. Arrow 2, for intercepting long-range missiles, has recently undergone significant improvements, but in about three years it will be upgraded again to a system called Arrow 3.

Because there are not enough Iron Domes, it is likely that in wartime these batteries will be used to secure strategic sites and air force bases, to ensure regular attack sorties. Interception of rockets aimed at a civilian population will be only a secondary task, and coverage will necessarily be partial and insufficient.

In itself, the fear of a reciprocal attack on the home front should not be seen as the only argument against hitting the nuclear sites in Iran, for a simple reason: In the new regional reality, any significant conflict will include missiles on Israel’s home front. There is a reasonable chance that even a smaller-scale military conflict, in Lebanon and even in Gaza, will exceed the boundaries of the peripheral areas (a limitation to which we have wrongly become accustomed ) and will also affect the greater Tel Aviv area and Jerusalem.

The launching of missiles and rockets against the Israeli home front provides the Arab answer to the aerial, intelligence and technological supremacy of the IDF. The tactic first tried when missiles were fired from Iraq during the 1991 Gulf War, which was further developed in 2006, will be used even more forcefully in the next round.

In the statistical dispute between writer Yoram Kaniuk, who is afraid that there will be tens of thousands of dead, and the unnamed “decision maker” Haaretz journalist Ari Shavit interviewed recently – presumably Defense Minister Ehud Barak – the latter is probably correct. The number of pre-state Palmach commando fighters who died in 1948 will be higher, proportionately, than the losses on the home front in the event of war. But we also have to recall that war is very difficult to predict: We have to take into account unexpected mishaps and a prolonged campaign that could significantly increase the number of dead, beyond the several hundreds predicted by the defense establishment.

Uzi Rubin, the veteran missile expert who in the past was the head of the Homa administration – which coordinates the Arrow missile project – is more pessimistic with regard to casualty estimates than the defense establishment. For years he warned about the slowness of Israel’s preparations for missile interception. Now he sees progress, but not at the desirable pace.

“I admire the IDF operational research experts,” says Rubin, “but they are underestimating the element of uncertainty. The result is that people are talking with certainty about a forecast that could be right and could be wrong. It’s true that these experts were relatively correct in their low casualty assessment in the Gulf War, but many things didn’t work at the time for the Iraqis, including missiles that landed in population centers and didn’t explode.

“In the present instance, we’re talking about larger numbers. Everyone remembers that only one Israeli was killed by a missile in 1991, but who remembers the 27 U.S. Marines who were killed [during the same war] by a direct hit from a Scud missile at a base in Saudi Arabia?”

Rubin says that we started working on interception “too late and too slowly. The Iron Dome is now progressing at a hectic pace. The achievements are impressive, but it should have happened earlier. A strategic gap has been created here.” Rubin, like Vilnai, knows that the enemy too has not been idle in the years since the Second Lebanon War. Today, it has more missiles and rockets, which travel further and hit more accurately.

What none of the experts is saying out loud is that even seven years from now, the home front will not be fully covered against incoming missiles. There cannot be a huge transparent dome that will protect the entire country. The civilian home front will be a war front in any conflict scenario. The decision makers will have to decide how to minimize the risks, and will need to thoroughly examine the feasibility of any decision to take the offensive, in light of the anticipated outcome on the home front.

‘No circumstance whatsoever’ in which Israel can tolerate a nuclear Iran, says foreign minister | The Times of Israel.

We should have attacked in 2001, says Avigdor Liberman, and all the talk and inaction today are weakening Israel’s deterrent capability

Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman (photo credit: Flash90)

Israel should have attacked Iran’s nuclear facilities in 2001, Israel’s Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman said on Friday, and intimated that he continues to see an imperative for Israeli action today.

“I sounded the alarm in 2001,” he said. “We knew in 2001 that they intended to move all their nuclear facilities underground and to disperse them. But in 2001, the right decisions were not taken,” Liberman, who is also a deputy prime minister, said in an interview on Channel 2 News.

What was vital now, Liberman went on, was to stress that “the intelligence information makes it clear: Israel cannot live with a nuclear Iran.” Anyone who thinks a nuclear Iran would be remotely comparable to the current reality of a nuclear Pakistan, India, and North Korea, “doesn’t know what he’s talking about. There is no circumstance whatsoever under which Israel can tolerate a nuclear Iran.”

Asked whether that meant Israel should attack Iran’s nuclear facilities in the near future, as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak are reported to advocate, Liberman said he still felt the same today as he did in 2001 but dodged a more explicit answer. He said that this specific discussion was not one that should be held in the media, and that the ongoing public airing of the issue was enormously damaging to Israel.

“The constant chatter is destructive and undermines our deterrent capacity. We have climbed so high up a tree, that inaction now has a price,” he said.

Talk of a possible strike continues to be highlighted in the Hebrew media, with the same news program on Channel 2 on Friday night dominated by a lengthy examination of Israel’s home front readiness for a possible Iranian-orchestrated retaliation to an Israeli attack. The report said more than two million Israelis had no bomb-shelters available — almost a quarter of the national populace — and that two and a half million were without gas masks.

Liberman, in the same interview, reiterated his recent stinging criticism of the Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, calling him a “political terrorist” and saying that Netanyahu had indulged Abbas for far too long.

He said Abbas was preparing the ground for a unilateral bid for UN recognition of Palestine later this year by relentlessly delegitimizing Israel. Abbas seeks “to have Israeli solders prosecuted for crimes against humanity” at the International Criminal Court in The Hague, to have Israel “branded an apartheid state” and to encourage boycott action against Israel. “Israel has every right to ask whether he has legitimacy,” the foreign minister said.

The comments marked Liberman’s third such attack on Abbas this week. On Thursday, he had also described Abbas as a “political terrorist” who is unable and unwilling to make peace with Israel, and defended a controversial letter he wrote to world leaders earlier this week in which he called for new elections to oust Abbas.

“Abu Mazen is a man of terrorism,” Liberman told Israel Radio, using Abbas’ nom de guerre. “He engages in political terrorism and I say clearly: the political terrorism that Abu Mazen engages in is more dangerous for us than the armed terrorism that [Hamas’s Gaza Prime Minister Ismail] Haniyeh and all the other Hamas leaders are involved with. It’s much more dangerous, because everything Abbas does is legitimized by Israel.”

On Monday, Liberman sent a lengthy letter to European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, in which he attacked the Palestinian leadership and called for new elections in the Palestinian territories.

“Due to Abbas’s weak standing, and his policy of not renewing negotiations, which is an obstacle to peace, the time has come to consider a creative solution, to think ‘outside the box,’ in order to strengthen the Palestinian leadership,” he wrote. “General elections in the PA should be held, and a new, legitimate, hopefully realistic Palestinian leadership should be elected.”

‘It’s the Palestinians’ right to choose their leadership. If it will be a realistic leadership, we will engage with them in negotiations. If it’s Hamas, we know we’re dealing with an enemy’

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu distanced himself from Liberman’s letter, saying it did not reflect the government’s position on the question. Israel does not interfere in the internal affairs of its neighbors, an official in Prime Minister’s Office said, and Netanyahu did not endorse the message it conveyed.

The Palestinian Authority also condemned Liberman’s statement.

Liberman seemed unperturbed Thursday. “In every act of negotiations, there are two basic questions: Can the other side deliver the goods, and what are its intentions?” he said. “We are negotiating with Abu Mazen and we expect him to honor his commitments. The first question is whether he is able to do so — a man who doesn’t control the Gaza Strip and for years has been incapable of arranging elections in the PA? Would he be able to honor his commitments toward us, if he ever made any?”

Asked if he doesn’t fear that new Palestinian presidential elections will bring Hamas to power, as happened in parliamentary elections of January 2006, Liberman said that he did not seek to interfere in internal Palestinian issues. “It’s the Palestinians’ right to choose their leadership. If it will be a realistic leadership, we will engage with them in negotiations. If Hamas is elected, we know that we’re dealing with an enemy,” he said.

Benjamin Netanyahu and Mahmoud Abbas at a peace conference in Washington in 2010. (photo credit: Moshe Milner/GPO/Flash90)

Israel needs to face reality, however unpleasant it may be, the foreign minister and deputy prime minister said. Trying to maintain the current calm at any cost would hurt Israel in the long run, therefore Jerusalem should establish a clear, principled policy toward the Palestinians, he said. “Today we are trying to be on both sides of the fence so we can feel we’re part of the game. Abbas is a partner but also an enemy — it doesn’t work like that. In the big picture, we stand to lose from this. We can’t just sit around and do nothing. We need to initiate. We try only to maintain the status quo, and this works against us.”

Liberman further said that the fact that he and the prime minister have different views is the fault of the current government system, which is based on a coalition of different parties. He is not obligated to Netanyahu’s position, only to coalition agreements and cabinet decisions, he said. “There is no government position that contradicts what I said, that says we are committed only to Abu Mazen.”

IAEA-Iran nuclear negotiations b… JPost – Iranian Threat – News.

PM accuses Iran of accelerating … JPost – Iranian Threat – News.

Saudi Struggle vs. Iran Looks Likely to Get Worse – Energy Business News – CNBC.

Saudi Arabia has gone on the offensive against Iran to protect its interests. Its involvement in Syria is the first battle in what is going to be a long conflict that will know no frontiers nor limits.

Ongoing disorders in the island kingdom of Bahrain since February 2011 have set off alarm bells in Riyadh. The Saudis are convinced that Iran is directing the protests and fear that the problems will spill over the 25-kilometer long COSWAY into oil rich Al-Qatif, where the bulk of the Saudi Arabia’s Shia are concentrated. So far, the Saudis have not had to deal with demonstrations as serious as those in Bahrain, but success there could encourage the protestors to become more violent.

Protecting the oil is the first concern of the Saudi government. Oil is the sole source of the national wealth and is managed by state-owned Saudi Aramco. The monopoly on political power held by the members of the Saud family means that all of the wealth of the kingdom is their personal property. Saudi Arabia is a company country with 28 million citizens the responsibility of the Saud rulers.

The customary manner of dealing with a problem by the patriarchal regime is to bury it in money. King Abdullah announced at the height of the Arab Spring that he was increasing the national budget by $130 billion to be spent over the coming five years. Government salaries and the minimum wage were raised. New housing and other benefits are to be provided. At the same time, he plans to expand the security forces by 60,000 men.

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While the Saudi king seeks to soothe unrest among the general population by adding more government benefits, he will not grant any concessions to the eight percent of the population that is Shia. He takes seriously the warning by King Abdullah of Jordan back in 2004 of the danger of a Shia Crescent that would extend from the coast of Lebanon to Afghanistan. Hezbollah in Lebanon, Assad in Syria, and the Shia controlled government of Iraq form the links in the chain.

When the Arab Spring reached Syria, the leaders in Riyadh were given the weapon to break the chain. Appeals from tribal leaders under attack in Syria to kinsmen in the Gulf States for assistance could not be ignored. The various blinks between the Gulf States in several Syrian tribes means that Saudi Arabia and its close ally Qatar have connections that include at least 3 million people out of the Syrian populations of 23 million. To show how deep the bonds go, the leader of the Nijris Tribe in Syria is married to a woman from the Saud Family.

It is no wonder that Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal said in February that arming the Syrian rebels was an “excellent idea.” He was supported by Qatari Prime Minister Hamad bin Jassim al-Thani who said, “We should do whatever necessary to help [the Syrian opposition], including giving them weapons to defend themselves.” The intervention has the nature of a tribal issue, one that the prominent Saudi cleric Aidh al-Qarni has turned into a Sunni-Shia War by promoting Assad’s death.

The Saudis and their Qatar and United Arab Emirate allies have pledged one hundred million dollars to pay wages to the fighters. Many of the officers of the Free Syrian Army are from tribes connected to the Gulf. In effect, the payment of wages is paying members of associated tribes.

Here, the United States is not a welcomed partner, except as a supplier of arms. Saudi Arabia sees the role of the United States limited to being a wall of steel to protect the oil wealth of the Kingdom and the Gulf States from Iranian aggression. In February of 1945, President Roosevelt at a meeting in Egypt with Abdel Aziz bin Saud, the founder of modern Saudi Arabia, pledged to defend the kingdom in exchange for a steady flow of oil.

Since those long ago days when the U.S. was establishing Pax Americana, the Saudis have lost their trust in the wisdom or the reliability of American policy makers. The Saudis urged the U.S. not to invade Iraq in 2003 only to have them ignore Saudi interests in maintaining an Iraqi buffer zone against Iran. The Saudis had asked the U.S. not to leave a Shia dominated government in Baghdad that would threaten the Northern frontier of the Kingdom, only to have the last American soldiers depart in December 2011. With revolution sweeping across the Middle East, Washington abandoned President Mubarak of Egypt, Saudi Arabia’s favorite non-royal leader in the region.

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Worried by the possibility of Iranian-sponsored insurrections among Shia in the Gulf States, the Saudis are asserting their power in the region while they have the advantage. For 30 years, they have been engaged in a proxy war with the Islamic Republic of Iran. Syria is to be the next battlefield, but here, there is a critical difference from what were minor skirmishes in Lebanon, Yemen, and elsewhere. The Saudis, with the aid of Qatar and the UAE, are striking at the core interests of Tehran; and they have through their tribal networks anadvantage over an isolated Islamic Republic.

Tribal and kinship relations are being augmented by the infusion of the Salafi vision of Islam that is growing in the Gulf States. Money from the Gulf States has gone into the development of religious centers to spread the fundamentalist belief. A critical part of the ideology is to be anti-Shia.

Salafism in Saudi Arabia is promulgated by the Wahhabi School of Islam. The Wahhabi movement began in the eighteenth century and promoted a return to the fundamentalism of the early followers of the Faith.

The Sauds incorporated the religious movement into their leadership of the tribes. When the modern state of Saudi Arabia was formed, they were granted control of the educational system and much else in the society in exchange for the endorsement of the authoritarian rule.

When the Kingdom used its growing wealth in the 1970s to extend its interests far from the traditional territory in the battle against the atheistic Soviet Union, the Wahhabi clergy became missionaries in advancing their ideology through religious institutions to oppose the Soviets. More than two hundred thousand jihadists were sent into Afghanistan to fight the Soviet forces and succeeded in driving them out.

There is no longer a Soviet Union to confront. Today, the enemy is the Islamic Republic of Iran with what is described by the Wahhabis as a heretical form of Islam and its involvement in the Shia communities across the region. For 13 centuries, the Shia have been kept under control. With the hand of Iran in the form of the Qud Force reaching into restless communities that number as many as 106 million people in what is the heart of the Middle East, the Saudis see a desperate need to crush the foe before it has the means to pull down the privileged position of the Saud Family and the families of the other Gulf State rulers.

The war begins in Syria, where we can expect that a successor government to Assad will be declared in the Saudi-controlled tribal areas even before Assad is defeated. The territory is likely to adopt the more fundamentalist principals of the Salafists as it serves as a stepping stone to Iran Itself. It promises to be a bloody, protracted war that will recognize no frontier and will know no limits by any of the participants.

—This story originally appeared on Oilprice.com. Click here to read the orginal story.

UPDATE 4-UN atom watchdog pushes Iran to open up military site | Reuters.

* Meeting takes place amid Israeli attack speculation

* Israeli PM: Iran advancing faster towards nuclear bomb

* Both sides trying to “bridge gap” – Iranian envoy to IAEA

* Sources say Iran installs extra centrifuges at Fordow

* IAEA inspector wants access to Parchin military site

By Fredrik Dahl

VIENNA, Aug 24 (Reuters) – The U.N. nuclear watchdog pressed Iran on Friday to address suspicions about nuclear bomb research in the Islamic state, pursuing diplomatic efforts to resolve the dispute before any possible military action by Israel or the United States.

A flurry of bellicose rhetoric from some Israeli politicians this month has ignited speculation that Israel might hit Iran’s nuclear sites before the U.S. presidential election in November.

Tensions went up another notch on the eve of Friday’s talks between Iran and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) when diplomatic sources said Iran had installed many more uranium enrichment centrifuges at its Fordow underground site.

While the new machines are not yet operating, the move reaffirmed Iranian defiance of international demands on it to suspend enrichment and may strengthen the Israeli belief that toughened sanctions are failing to make Tehran change course.

“Only yesterday we received additional proof that Iran is continuing accelerated progress towards achieving nuclear weapons and is totally ignoring international demands,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Friday.

The diplomatic sources also said satellite imagery indicated Iran had used a brightly coloured – possibly pink – tent-like structure to cover a building at a military site which the IAEA wants to inspect, raising new concerns about suspected cleansing of evidence of illicit past nuclear activity there.

Iran, the Jewish state’s arch-enemy and a major oil producer, denies it is seeking nuclear weapons and has threatened wide-ranging reprisals if attacked.

Iran’s envoy to the IAEA, Ali Asghar Soltanieh, said he expected progress in Friday’s meeting. “Both sides are trying to bridge the gap,” he told reporters at Iran’s mission in Vienna.

Herman Nackaerts, the IAEA’s global chief of inspections, said the aim was to reach an agreement on how to resolve the U.N. watchdog’s questions about possible military dimensions to Iran’s nuclear programme.

Nackaerts, heading the IAEA delegation, said he would reiterate his request for access to the Parchin military facility, where he believes Iran has undertaken explosives tests relevant for developing a nuclear weapons capability.

It was the first meeting between the two sides since discussions in early June petered out in failure, dashing previous hopes that an accord might be near.

The talks are separate from Tehran’s negotiations with world powers that have made little headway since they resumed in April after a 15-month hiatus, but the focus on suspicions about Iran’s nuclear ambitions mean they are still closely linked.

Washington says there is still time for diplomatic pressure to work in making Iran curb its enrichment programme, which is the immediate priority of the six powers – the United States, Britain, Russia, China, France and Germany.

Refined uranium can fuel nuclear power plants or nuclear bombs, depending on the level of enrichment.

European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton, who leads the six powers’ nuclear talks with Iran, urged Tehran to strike a deal with the IAEA on the agency’s inquiry.

“We call on Iran to use today’s meeting to come to give its agreement … so that questions of substance could be addressed swiftly,” her spokesman said in Brussels.

IAEA CHIEF NOT OPTIMISTIC

Iran says it seeks only civilian nuclear energy.

But its refusal to limit and open up its atomic activity to unfettered IAEA inspections that could determine whether it is purely peaceful, or not, has led to harsher punitive sanctions and louder talk about possible military action.

Western diplomats expected no big breakthrough on Friday but said Iran could offer a concession to inspectors – who want access to sites, officials and documents – in hopes of blunting their upcoming quarterly report on Iran, which is due next week.

In so doing, Iran would also seek to deflect a planned Western move to have the 35-nation IAEA board of governors, meeting next month, to formally rebuke Tehran over its failure to cooperate with the agency’s inquiry.

So any Iranian concession should be treated with scepticism, one diplomat accredited to the IAEA said.

The IAEA’s immediate priority is to gain prompt access to Parchin, even though Western diplomats say it may now have been purged of any evidence of nuclear weapons research, possibly carried out a decade ago.

Citing satellite images, the diplomats say Iran has demolished some small buildings and moved earth at Parchin.

On Thursday, diplomatic sources said the building believed to be housing an explosives chamber – if it is still there – had been “wrapped” with scaffolding and tarpaulin, hiding any sanitisation or other activity there from satellite cameras.

Iran says Parchin, about 30 km (20 miles) southeast of the capital Tehran, is a conventional military facility and has dismissed allegations aired about it as “ridiculous”. It says a broad framework agreement for how the IAEA should conduct its inquiry is needed before possibly allowing access to Parchin.

Obama ‘Using Israeli Paper to Foil Iran Strike’ – Global Agenda – News – Israel National News.

Obama, Israeli media (montage)

Reuters, Flash 90

The United States is colluding with a top Israeli newspaper to stymie Israel’s efforts to strike Iran’s nuclear weapons program, and the IDF knows it, according to a leading nationalist pundit.

Writing in Friday’s edition of Makor Rishon, one of the Israel’s veteran journalists, Amnon Lord, paints a picture of intense U.S. meddling in internal Israeli political and security-oriented processes in an effort to prevent a successful Israeli strike on the weapon program meant to make it extinct.

“From a technical military point of view, Israel does not require any kind of coordination with the Americans,” writes Lord regarding the plan for a raid on Iran. “There is a concern that the Americans will learn of the date for an attack and try to prevent it in different ways. The Americans have not given the Israelis a feeling that they are true partners in the operative arena, in the past two years. On the contrary, the IDF has identified preventive American activity against an Iran operation.”

“This is particularly evident in the grave matter of the leaks regarding Azerbaijan in the past, about the Kurdish region, and recently in the publication of the flight paths to the target. All this is being produced by our ally, with the cooperation of one of the largest media platforms in Israel, which serves and assists the Obama administration against the government of Israel. The Americans are the ones who are feeding some of the arch-pundits with damaging information.”

Lord – who was formerly Makor Rishon‘s editor-in-chief and currently writes a weekly column and is a senior editor – does not name names, but most informed Israeli readers would have no doubt that he is referring to the Yediot Aharonot media empire. In essence, he is accusing the newspaper of colluding with an external force – the Obama administration – against the Israeli government and the IDF, in an existential matter of national defense.

Lord states that Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz, the IDF Chief of Staff, is hard at work preparing the IDF strike on Iran and that reports that he thinks such a strike is beyond the abilities of the Israeli military are “simply a disinformation campaign by media people who disguise the fact that it is motivated by a political view.”