WarSclerotic

Israel Hayom | Intelligence and its discontents.

Israel Hayom | The fall of the American empire.

In his book “The Clash of Civilizations,” Professor Samuel Huntington addresses the Islamic and Chinese conflicts with the West. Huntington prophesied that cultural and religious identities would be the primary source of conflict in the post-Cold War world. Recent events in the Middle East and around the Pacific Ocean attest to the accuracy of Huntington’s theory.

At the beginning of 2009, the new president who took residence at the White House believed that kind words and good intentions would turn the looming clash into a giant global hug. Huntington’s book obviously didn’t influence U.S. President Barack Obama’s foreign policy.

The riots in the Arab world (triggered by a film that insults the Prophet Muhammad) and in China (in light of a bitter dispute between China and Japan over a chain of small islands in the East China Sea) has made Huntington’s book more relevant than ever. The world’s only superpower, the U.S. has assumed a low profile during the Obama era. The consequences weren’t long in coming: In one term, Obama managed to agitate the Arab street, which hasn’t been too impressed with his wooing and his apologies, and he managed to ferment the Pacific Ocean. They weren’t exaggerating in 2008 when they attributed magical powers to the incoming president.

Obama believed that he inherited a disconnected, unpopular America from his predecessor, George W. Bush. Obama viewed the country as a train speeding through a dark tunnel, claiming that he could see the light at the end of it. He didn’t realize, however, that it wasn’t the light at the end of the tunnel that he was seeing, but an oncoming train, the one Huntington wrote about in his book.

Obama believed that his personable style of sitting down to eat hamburgers with world leaders would change the course of history. But no special sauce can resolve geopolitical crises or heal open wounds like the conflict between China and Japan. Empires have risen and fallen throughout history, but the one thing that the Persian, Roman, Mongolian and other empires had in common was their length — hundreds of years. At this rate, if the U.S. remains on its current path, it will go down in the annals of history as the world’s shortest-lived empire. And it seems that Obama is going there willingly. The American president believes that in this way the world will become more equitable, more just, more considerate, calmer. But, at the culmination of Obama’s first term, is the world really a calmer or safer place?

Let’s begin with our own neighborhood: the Middle East. In Muslim Brotherhood-era Egypt, in theory there should have been at least a short- to mid-term romance between the U.S. and the government of Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi. The Washington Post reported this weekend, however, that the U.S. has temporarily frozen aid talks with Egypt because the U.S. is angry with the Egyptian government over its response to riots in Cairo.

Maybe the White House is finally asking itself “how did this happen?” The U.S. finds itself having to increase security in Libya after its ambassador is murdered there, in Lebanon classified documents are being destroyed for fear that the angry anti-American mob will charge the American Embassy (like in Tehran in 1979 during the Carter administration), and in Iran we are seeing the same slogans that we did in 1979, disparaging the U.S. in complete disregard to Obama’s recently issued Iranian New Year greetings.

Here in Israel we are obviously concerned about Iran, but America is more concerned about events in the Pacific Ocean. U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta obviously didn’t like hearing the threats his Chinese counterpart was issuing to Japan, an American ally, during his visit to China. Chairman Mao must be jumping for joy in his grave. The deterioration of China-Japan relations could drag the Americans into an armed conflict. Fortunately for Obama, China, the world’s biggest factory, still needs a few more years of calm to keep selling and building its foundations before it is ready for a revolution.

“The Libyan fiasco reflects the American policy’s sad reality” reported the official Chinese newspaper The Global Times several days ago. The Chinese can smell the Americans’ weakness. And not just the Chinese, but North Korea, and another country here in our neighborhood called Iran, making it our problem, too.

Israel Hayom | Perpetuating Muslim myths.

On Sept. 28, 2000, Israeli opposition leader Ariel Sharon visited the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. Because of the political controversy over the holy site, Sharon’s ascent to the holy site had to be coordinated in advance.

And so it was. Then Public Security Minister Shlomo Ben-Ami gave the green light to Sharon, after receiving assurances from Palestinian Authority security chief Jibril Rajoub that this would not be cause for trouble. Rajoub gave his consent on condition that Sharon not enter Al-Aqsa mosque during his visit; but warned that if any problems were to arise, the Palestinian police would not intervene to protect Sharon. As a result, the Israeli police had to be on alert.

Sharon followed the rules. He went to the site during normal visiting hours for tourists and did not enter the mosque. He was there for half an hour.

For the remainder of the day, Palestinians came out to cause a stir, shouting and throwing rocks from the Temple Mount at security forces below. By nightfall, 28 policemen had been wounded.

The next day, the official Palestinian Authority media called on all Palestinians to “defend Al-Aqsa mosque,” and buses were organized to take Palestinian teenagers to the Temple Mount so that they could participate in the riots.

The day after that was the eve of Rosh Hashana. Palestinians gathered on the Temple Mount to throw rocks at Jews praying at the Western Wall. That Sept. 30 marked the official beginning of what the Palestinians named the “Al-Aqsa Intifada,” which began with violent rioting in Arab cities throughout Israel and the Palestinian-controlled territories, and mushroomed into a full-blown five-year suicide-bombing war against the Jewish state and its inhabitants.

The real impetus for that war was not Sharon’s visit to the Temple Mount, but rather PLO chief Yasser Arafat’s response to the breakdown of the Camp David Summit in July of that year — a breakdown that he himself orchestrated. This was not merely proven by the Mitchell Report, published in April 2001, but was subsequently — albeit indirectly — acknowledged by the Palestinian leadership through its state-run press.

None of the above stopped the Israeli Left and its amen corner in the local and foreign media from attributing the incessant blowing up of buses, shopping malls and cafes across the country to Sharon’s Temple Mount “provocation,” however. Indeed, to this day, one still hears people mentioning that event as the catalyst for what non-Arabs call the “Second Intifada.” Only those who call it by its most accurate name — the “Oslo War” — are under no illusions.

The same kind of phenomenon is unfolding before our very eyes today in the Arab world. Interestingly, it too began on the eve of the Jewish New Year. But it was not connected to Israel. Instead, it was a “gift” to the United States on the 11th anniversary of the World Trade Center and Pentagon bombings.

It began in Libya, with the brutal murder of the U.S. ambassador and three other innocent Americans. It quickly spread like wildfire to every Muslim community in the world.

The ostensible cause of this continuing carnage — including yesterday’s suicide bombing in Afghanistan that killed at least a dozen employees of an American aviation firm working for the U.S. government — was a YouTube clip portraying the Prophet Muhammad as a sexual deviant.

All evidence suggests that the Libyan attacks that spurred on the rest of the region were carefully planned in advance, without regard to the third-rate film that had been around for a long time before anyone picked up on it.

This, however, has not prevented the Obama administration and the Clinton State Department from perpetuating the myth that the mass anti-American frenzy is due to “provocation” on the part of the Los Angeles-based pornographic filmmaker. Nor has it lessened Washington’s apologetic stance in relation to the poor Muslims who were offended by the short movie — nor altered the way the media have been reporting on the daily abominations.

In this case, as in that of Sharon and the Temple Mount, the motive of Western leftists to perpetuate a similar type of falsehood is the same. As long as they can blame America and Israel for radical Islamist behavior, they can remain true to their belief in conflict resolution through goodwill gestures.

No matter how many times this idea literally and figuratively blows up in their faces, they refuse to let it go.

Luckily for the rest of us — who would rather live in the real world than be slaughtered in la-la-land — the Islamists make no bones about their hatred or intentions.

Post script: In my last column, I relied on press reports claiming that U.S. Ambassador to Egypt Anne Patterson forbid marines stationed at her embassy from having live ammunition in their rifles. The following day, other reports emerged claiming that this was not true. I apologize for the inaccuracy.

Ruthie Blum is the author of To Hell in a Handbasket: Carter, Obama, and the ‘Arab Spring,’ now available on Amazon and in bookstores in Europe and North America.

Assad plans to transfer chemical weapons to Hezbollah: Syrian defected general.

Wednesday, 19 September 2012

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad might transfer the chemical weapons to the Lebanese Shiite group Hezbollah. (Reuters) hare

Bernard-Henri Lévy: The Eternal Culprit (Israel, a Film, and the Media).

Last week’s demonstrations in the Arab Muslim world have already cost lives, many lives, beginning with that of American Ambassador Stevens, a friend of Libya and architect of its liberation.

War through weakness | Shreveporttimes | shreveporttimes.com.

Israel, Iran and the all-seeing eye of the Mossad – Telegraph Blogs.

Israeli surprise drill on Golan. Khamenei: Iran will never bend to the West.

DEBKAfile Exclusive Report September 19, 2012, 11:47 AM (GMT+02:00)

IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz

Israeli reservists drafted at no notice, Air Force, Central Command and other IDF units were flown to Israel’s northern Golan border early Wednesday, Sept. 19, for a surprise exercise called by Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz under the codename “National Asset.”
However, over the last weekend, witnesses reported heavy traffic of convoys of tank and APC carriers and military vehicles with emergency store markings heading north, just days after the IDF completed a large-scale war game on Israel’s Syrian and Lebanese borders simulating a Hizballah attack.
Since early September, therefore, the Israeli Defense Forces have been in the midst of preparations which have the appearance of readiness for a real war rather than an exercise. Those preparations peaked Wednesday under a codename which signified its goal: the defense of national assets.
Another sign of an impending conflict was provided by US diplomats who Monday began destroying classified documents and sensitive equipment at the Beirut embassy. As Islamist anti-US violence raged across Arab and Muslim countries, the State Department said this was a precautionary measure, without naming any specific threat. The trashing of embassy documents usually signifies preparations to evacuate an US embassy at short notice. It would be imperative in a war situation to keep them out of Hizballah hands.

The official IDF announcement described the exercise as focusing on fire power under the command of chief Artillery Commander, Brig. Gen. Ro’i Riftin and due to end Wednesday night. The rapid deployment of military strength on this scale for a live-fire drill is required practice for an army facing the onset of war aggression.
In the Persian Gulf, the US is leading 25 West European and Arab nations in a gigantic 12-day war game in the Straits of Hormuz which began Sunday, Sept 16. It includes a large-scale minesweeping drill to simulate the breaching of the Strait of Hormuz against Iranian efforts to block oil passage through the strategic waterway. The exercise – entirely by simulated measures – will also drill operations for destroying Iranian naval, air and missile bases in the Persian Gulf area and countering Iranian speedboats aiming to sabotage naval vessels and oil tankers.
Among the participants are the UK, France, Saudi Arabia and the UAE. The United States has deployed three aircraft carriers with aerial strike forces. Military sources estimate that when the war game ends on Sept 27, these forces will not disperse but stay on hand in the event of Israel attacking Iran’s nuclear program.
As the exhibition of colossal Western might got underway opposite Iranian shores, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was quoted on his official website as saying: Iran will never bend to Western pressure The Islamic Republic, he told a military audience, “makes its decisions solely based on the interests of its people and the country, even if all of the world’s powers get angry at its decisions.”

It “does not accept the demands of any superpower,” he added.

The Ayatollah also accused “Western and Zionist media” of fabricating reports on the biting effects of economic sanctions, hinting that the Iranian economy was not suffering.

Iranian VP equates Israeli strike to ‘mosquito bite’ – Israel News, Ynetnews.

Vice President Mohammad Reza Rahimi mocks Israel, says ‘They’ve been defeated by Hezbollah’

Dudi Cohen

Iranian Vice President Mohammad Reza Rahimi has equated an Israeli strikeon the Islamic Republic to “a mosquito biting an elephant,” the Islamic Republic News Agency reported Tuesday.

“They’ve been defeated by Hezbollah, and now they want to threaten us,” Rahimi said at a ceremony. “They should know that the lion’s tail should not be toyed with.”

Earlier, Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi made similar comments during an interview in Egypt. Salehi said that Israel is in no position to attack Iran, “a regional power.”

On Sunday, Revolutionary Guards Commander General Mohammad Ali Jafari warned that “nothing will remain” of Israel if it takes military action against Tehran over its controversial nuclear program.

Meanwhile, a new study suggests that the malware Flame could be part of a much wider “family”. According to the BBC, the study indicates that Flame dates back to 2006.

“The conclusion seems to be that there is something else out there,” said Prof Alan Woodward, a visiting professor at the University of Surrey’s department of computing.

“Those behind it did try and destroy it. They may have known that they were about to be rumbled, but they failed at the last minute by mistyping the name of the file,” he added.

Nuclear Negotiators Meet in Bid to Revive Iran Talks – NYTimes.com.

By RICK GLADSTONE

¶ The top nuclear negotiators for Iran and the big powers met face to face for the first time in nearly three months on Tuesday, part of an effort to revive the stalled talks over Iran’s disputed uranium enrichment activities as new military tensions roil the Middle East.

¶ The meeting between the negotiators, Catherine Ashton, the European Union’s top foreign policy official, and Saeed Jalili, the secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, was held privately in Istanbul and was not considered a formal negotiation. Michael Mann, Ms. Ashton’s spokesman, said in an e-mailed statement that it was “a useful and constructive meeting and an important opportunity to stress once again to Iran the urgent need to make progress.”

¶ The last time Ms. Ashton and Mr. Jalili met was June 18-20 in Moscow, where teams for Iran and the P5-plus-1 countries — the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council plus Germany — walked away in frustration.

¶ A series of lower-level contacts since then led to the Istanbul meeting, which came against a backdrop of tightening Western economic sanctions on Iran, new disclosures of sabotage at Iran’s uranium enrichment sites and shrill exchanges between Iran and Israel over the possibility that Israel may attack Iran.

¶ Iran has insisted that it is enriching uranium for peaceful uses and has rejected Security Council demands that it halt the activity until questions about the possible weaponization of its nuclear fuel stockpile are answered. Last week the International Atomic Energy Agency, the monitoring arm of the United Nations, rebuked Iran for refusing to grant inspectors unlimited access to sites where they believe suspicious activity may have occurred.

¶ Iran’s most senior atomic energy official responded on Monday by asserting that the I.A.E.A. had been compromised by “terrorists and saboteurs,” and he disclosed that power lines to its two main uranium enrichment sites had been hit by explosions. The official, Fereydoon Abbasi, did not say whether the sites had been damaged, but his assertions raised the possibility that Israel, the United States or some other groups had carried out another attack in a clandestine effort to subvert the enrichment program short of a military attack.

¶ The I.A.E.A. did not comment on Mr. Abbasi’s assertions, but in a statement on Tuesday it said that the agency’s director general, Yukiya Amano, had met with Mr. Abbasi and told him “it is essential for Iran to extend its full cooperation to the agency.”

¶ In a rising show of military force meant as a signal to Iran, the United States is leading a 30-nation naval mine-clearing exercise in the Persian Gulf in 12 days of maneuvers that began on Monday. Iran responded on Tuesday by deploying what the state-run news media called a homemade missile destroyer, a newly refurbished submarine and a new underground missile launchpad in the northern city of Noshahr.

¶ Western powers have said negotiations are the preferred solution to the nuclear issue. Britain added pressure on Tuesday, with its foreign secretary, William Hague, telling lawmakers in London that although the sanctions were having a major impact, “we will be intensifying those sanctions in the coming weeks and months in the absence of successful negotiations.”

¶ In the United States, United Against Nuclear Iran, an advocacy group that helped pressure a global banking communications network to expel sanctioned Iranian banks, said it had undertaken a new effort to force the authorities who assign international Internet addresses to block sanctioned Iranian entities and persons from access to the Web.

¶ In letters sent to the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, known as ICANN, based in Los Angeles, and the Réseaux IP Européens Network Coordination Centre, known as RIPE NCC, based in Amsterdam, the advocacy group’s president, Mark D. Wallace, said they may be in violation of Iran sanctions and that by disconnecting Internet access, “the dictatorial regime of Iran would be severely impeded in pursuing its illegal and amoral activities.”

¶ ICANN officials did not respond to requests for comment. RIPE NCC, in a statement posted on its Web site, said that it did not believe it had violated sanctions “but we will investigate in cases where new information is provided to us and we will ensure that changing circumstances do not place the RIPE NCC in violation of sanctions.”