WarSclerotic

IAEA shows diplomats ‘Iran nucle… JPost – Iranian Threat – News.

Photo: GeoEye-ISIS

Iran: A game gone too far | Jerusalem Post – Blogs.

The story of how Israel reached the – real or perceived – brink of war with Iran is not exactly what it appears to be.

At some point in recent years, Israeli decision-makers decided to play a game. Through a fairly innocuous and innocent lens, the game can be described as “good cop, bad cop.” At worst, it is a dangerous exercise in diplomatic and military brinksmanship that risks catapulting one of the world’s most well-armed regions into an unpredictable and open-ended war.

Either way, the game has gone too far.

Israel is terrified of a nuclear-armed Iran. Although less daunting than the prospect of a second holocaust, the danger Iranian nukes pose is real: they threaten the thus-far unchallenged regional hegemony the IDF has enjoyed for decades.

Earlier this year, the IDF’s top planning officer, Maj.-Gen. Amir Eshel, explained how an Iran with nuclear weapons would change Israel’s strategic posture:

Israel, he said, would be deterred from entering into conventional wars with its traditional adversaries, Hezbollah, Hamas and Syria, if their Iranian sponsor became a nuclear power.

Nuclear deterrence, Eshel explained, would dramatically alter Israel’s strategic military posture in the region. “If we are forced to do things in Gaza or Lebanon under an Iranian nuclear umbrella, it might be different.”

But the threat of Israel losing its military hegemony is not sufficient to force the international community into action. Although the West has long been opposed to an Iranian nuclear program, which is slightly augmented by the anti-Semitic rhetoric coming from Tehran, all official accounts still report that Iran’s nuclear program is civilian in nature. Even Israel admits that Iran has not yet decided to build nuclear weapons.

What would be enough to spur the West into action? The prospect of war.

So top officials in Jerusalem decided they should act irrationally. The world must believe that Israel is two hairs-breadths away from launching a desperate and implausible war.

As Haaretz’s Ari Shavit explains it: “Israel must not behave like an insane country. Rather, it must create the fear that if it is pushed into a corner it will behave insanely. To ensure that Israel is not forced to bomb Iran, it must maintain the impression that it is about to bomb Iran.”

While pushing Washington to engage Tehran more aggressively, Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has repeated time and again that diplomatic engagement with Iran (a 2008 campaign pledge by Barack Obama) can only succeed if it’s complemented by a “credible military threat.”

Last month, Netanyahu made his strategy clear. “The paradox is that if [the Iranians] actually believe that they are going to face the military option, then you probably will not need the military option,” he said in an interview with Fox News.

This is nothing new. For at least 20 years, Netanyahu has been making dire predictions about the urgent nature of the Iranian threat. In 1992 he was quoted saying that “Iran is three to five years from being able to produce a nuclear weapon – and that the threat had to be ‘uprooted by an international front headed by the US’.”

The problem with Netanyahu’s strategy of paradoxical brinksmanship is how it can end.

By constructing a paradigm in which one of the only possible outcomes is war, Israel’s prime minister has finally created a “credible military threat,” though it is the threat of an Israeli attack instead of US military action.

As Netanyahu explained to a joint session of Congress last year, the only time Iran halted its nuclear program was when the US, whom it regards as “the Great Satan,” invaded Iraq in 2003. Following the invasion of Afghanistan a year-and-a-half earlier, the Islamic Republic was effectively surrounded. Iran, at least in Netanyahu’s mind, was scared it was next. However, Obama pledged to end both wars and redeploy hundreds of thousands of US troops.

So without a credible, or at least perceived, military threat from the US, Netanyahu built his own. Up, down and across Israel’s political and military echelons, officials and officers helped the process along. Unnamed officials leaked an unprecedented amount of intelligence estimates and alleged military capabilities and planning to carefully selected journalists. Meanwhile, on-the-record statements escalated into a crescendo of aggressive, untrusting and apocalyptic language, leaving one logical conclusion: that Israel was planning to hit Iran, and soon.

But after two years, some of those officials who had played along with Netanyahu’s game, either actively or by remaining silent, began to question it. Former Mossad heads, IDF chiefs of staff and a large number of officials from across the security and political establishments started speaking out. One of the first was recently retired Mossad chief Meir Dagan, who called strike on Iran “the stupidest thing I have ever heard.”

Around the same time, the consensus of opinion has been that if Israel strikes Iran, it would only set its nuclear program back by a few years and likely increase its motivation to weaponize it. But none of that put even the slightest damper in Netanyahu’s game; because he knew from the beginning that war was a threat he never intended to follow through on.

The game did, however, begin to pay off as the West and even Russia and China initiated the most serious diplomatic efforts on the issue to date. Earlier this year, the European Union levied unprecedented economic and oil sanctions on Iran.

But where does the game end?

Israeli media headlines in recent days have been full of speculation that Netanyahu is seeking a way to jump off the war path he spent so much time and effort paving.

But Netanyahu has set the bar for his own satisfaction far too high. His recent demands that the US and international community set “clear red lines,” which if crossed would trigger military action, are much more stringent than any other country would ever be willing to commit to. In other words, he has no way to back down.

Nevertheless, Netanyahu’s inability to end his own game doesn’t make it real; it’s unlikely he ever planned on following through on his threats.

So how does this game end?

Israel Hayom | Limited freedom of the press.

Iron Dome battery deployed near Tel Aviv – Israel News, Ynetnews.

via Israel Hayom | Defending Obama on Israel gets tougher by the day.

Exclusive: Rivlin says Obama does… JPost – Diplomacy & Politics.

Iran Supplying Syrian Military via Iraq Airspace – NYTimes.com.

By MICHAEL R. GORDON

WASHINGTON — Iran has resumed shipping military equipment to Syria over Iraqi airspace in a new effort to bolster the embattled government of President Bashar al-Assad of Syria, according to senior American officials.

The Obama administration pressed Iraq to shut down the air corridor that Iran had been using earlier this year, raising the issue with Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki of Iraq. But as Syrian rebels gained ground and Mr. Assad’s government was rocked by a bombing that killed several high officials, Iran doubled down in supporting the Syrian leader. The flights started up again in July and, to the frustration of American officials, have continued ever since.

Military experts say that the flights have enabled Iran to provide supplies to the Syrian government despite the efforts Syrian rebels have made to seize several border crossings where Iranian aid has been trucked in.

“The Iranians have no problems in the air, and the Syrian regime still controls the airport,” said a retired Lebanese Army general, Hisham Jaber, who heads the Middle East Center for Studies and Research in Beirut.

Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., who has played the lead role on Iraq policy for the Obama administration, discussed the Syrian crisis in a phone call with Mr. Maliki on Aug. 17. The White House has declined to disclose details, but an American official who would not speak on the record said that Mr. Biden had registered his concerns over the flights.

The Iranian flights present searching questions for the United States. The Obama administration has been reluctant to provide arms to the Syrian rebels or establish a no-fly zone over Syria for fear of being drawn deeper into the Syrian conflict. But the aid provided by Iran underscores the reality that Iran has no such hesitancy in providing military supplies and advisers to keep Mr. Assad’s government in power.

And Mr. Maliki’s tolerance of Iran’s use of Iraqi airspace suggests the limits of the Obama administration’s influence in Iraq, despite the American role in toppling Saddam Hussein and ushering in a new government. The American influence also appears limited despite its assertion that it is building a strategic partnership with the Iraqis.

Mr. Maliki has sought to maintain relations with Iran, while the United States has led the international effort to impose sanctions on the Tehran government. At the same time, the Iraqi prime minister appears to look at the potential fall of Mr. Assad as a development that might strengthen his Sunni Arab and Kurdish rivals in the region. Some states that are the most eager to see Mr. Assad go, like Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey, have poor relations with Mr. Maliki and his Shiite-dominated government.

Iraq could take several steps to stop the flights, including insisting that cargo planes that depart from Iran en route to Syria land for inspection in Baghdad or declaring outright that Iraq’s airspace cannot be used for the flights.

Iraq does not have a functioning air force, and since the withdrawal of American forces last December, the United States has no planes stationed in the country. Several airlines have been involved in ferrying the arms, according to American officials, including Mahan Air, a commercial Iranian airline that the United States Treasury Department said last year had ferried men, supplies and money for Iran’s paramilitary Quds Force and Hezbollah, the militant Lebanese group backed by Iran.

One former American official said it was not entirely clear what cargo was being sent to Syria before the flights stopped in March. But because of the type of planes involved, the nature of the carriers and the Iranians’ reluctance to have the planes inspected in Iraq, it was presumed to be tactical military equipment.

At the time the flights were suspended, Iraq was preparing to host the Arab League summit meeting, which brought to Baghdad many leaders opposed to Mr. Assad. Immediately after the meeting, President Obama, in an April 3 call to Mr. Maliki, reinforced the message that the flights should not continue.

Iran has an enormous stake in Syria. It is Iran’s staunchest Arab ally, a nation that borders the Mediterranean and Lebanon, and has provided a channel for Iran’s support to Hezbollah.

As part of Iran’s assistance to the Assad government, it has provided the Syrian authorities with the training and technology to intercept communications and monitor the Internet, according to American officials. Iranian Quds Force personnel, they say, have been involved in training the heavily Alawite paramilitary forces the government has increasingly relied on, as well as Syrian forces that secure the nation’s air bases.

The Iranians have even provided a cargo plane that the Syrian military can use to ferry men and supplies around the country, according to two American officials.

In a new twist, according to one American official, there have been reliable reports that Iraqi Shiite militia fighters, long backed by Iran during its efforts to shape events inside Iraq, are now making their way to Syria to help the Assad government.

While they have not specifically discussed the assistance it is airlifting to Syria, American officials have spoken publicly about Iran’s involvement there. “Iran is playing a larger role in Syria in many ways,” Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta said last month. “There’s now an indication that they’re trying to develop, or trying to train, a militia within Syria to fight on behalf of the regime.”

David Cohen, a senior Treasury Department official on terrorism issues, said last month that Hezbollah has been training Syrian government personnel and has facilitated the training of Syrian forces by Iran’s Quds Force.

In his comments last month, Mr. Panetta insisted that the Iranian efforts would merely “bolster a regime that we think ultimately is going to come down.” But some Iranian experts believe that the Iranian leadership may be unlikely to stop its involvement in Syria even if Mr. Assad is overthrown, having calculated that a chaotic Syria is better than a new government that might be sympathetic to the West.

“Plan A is to keep Bashar al-Assad in power,” said Mohsen Sazegara, an Iranian pro-democracy activist who lives in the United States and who was one of the founding members of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards. “But Plan B is that if they can’t keep him in power anymore they will try to make another Iraq or another Afghanistan — civil war — then you can create another Hezbollah.”

As vocal as the Pentagon and the State Department have been about the Iranian role, they have been loath to publicly discuss the Iranian flights or the touchy questions it poses about American relations with the Maliki government. The State Department, when asked Tuesday about the Iranian flights over Iraq and what efforts the United States had made in Baghdad to encourage the Iraqi government to stop them, would not provide an official comment.

Iran on the verge of severe financial crisis: intelligence report.

Wednesday, 05 September 2012

Iranian protests during the country’s 2009 pro-democracy demonstrations. A purported Iranian intelligence report that has been leaked online warns of an imminent financial crisis in the country that would cause nation-wide upheaval. (Reuters)

Jerusalem Post – Breaking News.

Too soon… too soon… too late! – JPost – Opinion – Op-Eds.