WarSclerotic

‘How Dead Is the Book Business?’; Bring Out Your Best Books Lists – Entertainment – The Atlantic Wire.

The 97-year-old novelist of such books as The Caine Mutiny has been around long enough to have met Simon and Schuster (“they were as different as chalk and cheese,” he recalls). Yet his interests aren’t trapped in amber, and he’s still tackling modern life in his fiction. His latest offering, The Lawgiver, incorporates texts, e-mails, transcripts from Skype sessions into the narrative. When asked if he plans to keeping writing, Wouk says, “What am I going to do? Sit around and wait a year? … Sometimes, when I’m down, I feel like I’ve shot my bolt. But it passes, and I go back to the computer.” You listening, Philip Roth?  [The New York Times]

First in Europe: France recognizes Syrian opposition – Israel News, Ynetnews.

France said on Tuesday it recognizes Syria’s newly formed opposition coalition as the legitimate representative of the Syrian people, becoming the first European nation to do so. Syrian opposition groups struck a deal in Doha on Sunday to form a broad coalition to overthrow President Bashar al-Assad. 

“France recognizes the Syrian National Council as the sole legitimate representative of the Syrian people and as future government of a democratic Syria allowing to bring an end to Bashar al-Assad’s regime,” Hollande told a news conference in Paris. (Reuters)

PM: I will decide when to strike … JPost – Diplomacy & Politics.

( More weaseling words and repetitively empty threats instead of action.  Does ANYBODY believe the rockets won’t fall again in short order?  My only consolation is that I’ll get to see Luis sans beard.  – JW )

Two rockets fired from Gaza shatter fragile calm | The Times of Israel.

Missiles hit greenhouse in Hof Ashkelon region, no injuries reported

Two rockets fired by Gaza terrorists slammed into a greenhouse in the Hof Ashkelon region Tuesday afternoon, breaking a brief lull in hostilities after four days of cross border fire.

The building suffered damage, but there were no reports of injuries.

The rockets were the first after several hours of quiet since the morning, when a Grad rocket was fired at Ashkelon.

Since Saturday more than 160 rockets and mortar shells were fired on Israel from Gaza. More than 40 Israelis were reported lightly injured, mostly suffering from shock and light shrapnel injuries.

Israel retaliated by firing on rocket launching squads and terrorist infrastructures.

Despite mounting talk of Gaza ground op, senior minister says current round of violence over | The Times of Israel.

(Over?  Really?  I heard the “color red” on my Iphone app 20 minutes ago and now: “Gaza-based Palestinians fired two rockets into the Hof Ashkelon Regional Council area Tuesday afternoon, according to Army Radio.” – JW )

An Israeli soldier directs an APC after returning from an operation along the Israel-Gaza border (file photo: Tsafrir Abayov/Flash90)

Minister Benny Begin, a member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s “inner forum” of nine ministers, on Tuesday assessed that the current round of cross-border violence with terror factions in Gaza had come to a close.

Speaking with Israel Radio after Begin after a special deliberation of top-level ministers, Begin called on the government to exercise restraint, saying, “We have to take into account that the issues are more complex than some people believe.”

Begin noted that Hamas was affiliated with Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood, a link that contributed to the complexity of the situation, and rejected the idea of talking to Hamas in order to ensure a lasting cessation of hostilities.

“Hamas is a terror organization that calls for the destruction of Israel, and we must not conduct negotiations with them,” he said, adding that Israel had in the past reached short-term ceasefires with the leaders of the Gaza Strip.

Maariv reported that Egypt had threatened to recall its new ambassador in Tel Aviv, Atef Salem, if Israel embarked on a ground operation in Gaza.

Before the meeting, with talk mounting of a possible Israeli ground operation against terror factions in Gaza, Defense Minister Ehud Barak met with OC Southern Command Maj.-Gen. Tal Russo in the headquarters of the IDF’s Gaza Division, and vowed to respond forcefully to rocket attacks from the Strip.

The defense minister stopped short of explicitly mentioning a ground operation, but asserted that Israel would decide “when and by what means to restore our deterrence. Hamas is responsible for what’s been going on, and it won’t emerge unscathed from recent events.”

Cross-border violence continued Tuesday morning, for the fourth straight day, as Palestinians fired a rocket at southern Israel and Israel Air Force jets struck rocket launching sites and a weapons warehouse in the Strip. The rocket slammed into an open area outside the coastal city of Ashdod, but did not cause casualties or damage.

As of Tuesday morning, over 160 rockets and mortar shells had hit Israel since Saturday. More than 40 Israelis were reported lightly injured, mostly suffering from shock and light shrapnel injuries. Palestinian sources on Tuesday morning said a terrorist had died of wounds sustained in an IAF airstrike on Sunday, bringing the number of dead in Gaza to seven. Palestinians say four of those killed since Saturday were civilians.

A volley of Grad rockets was fired at towns in the south just after nightfall on Monday, with a number landing near Beersheba, Netivot and Ofakim. Two rockets were shot down by the Iron Dome anti-missile system near Ofakim. Three rockets landed in open areas near Sderot before 10 p.m. No injuries or damage were reported in those attacks.

Earlier in the day, 26 people were treated for shock after a direct hit on a home in Netivot. A second missile hit a factory in the city’s industrial zone in the afternoon.

On Tuesday morning, Education Minister Gideon Sa’ar hinted that a more comprehensive Israeli response to the rocket attacks was in the offing.

“Anyone with eyes in his head” can see that a ground operation in the Gaza Strip was near at hand, Sa’ar said. In an interview with Israel Radio, the minister, a member of Prime Minister Netanyahu’s security cabinet, reiterated that increasingly frequent bouts of cross-border violence in recent months were creating an untenable situation.

“The cabinet will choose the timing responsibly and level-headedly,” Sa’ar said, noting that any cease-fire agreement with Gaza would be fragile due to the whims of a multiplicity of factions that did not feel obligated to comply with Hamas’s instructions.

“We can’t remain dependent on each and every terror cell, and we have to make the other side realize that there are painful repercussions to the firing of rockets at Israel,” he said.

MK Nahman Shai, who is vying for a spot on the Labor Party’s Knesset list for the upcoming elections, called for a diplomatic solution, including, “perhaps in the future, direct talks with Hamas.”

Knesset speaker Reuven Rivlin announced that the Knesset, which is currently in recess, would convene on Thursday for a special session to deliberate recent developments along the border with Gaza.

On Monday, Netanyahu started taking steps to shore up international support for a possible military ground operation into Gaza that would aim to quell the ongoing rocket fire from the strip.

“The world must understand that Israel has the right and obligation to defend its citizens,” he told some 50 ambassadors in Ashkelon. “We will not sit idly in front of recurrent attacks that occur almost daily, against our citizens and our children. More than one million citizens have to live in a reality where within 15 or 30 seconds they need to find shelter against terrorists who shoot at civilians, while the terrorists themselves hide behind civilians. That’s a double war crime.

“None of your governments would accept such a situation,” he said. “We do not accept such a situation, and I, as prime minister of Israel, am not prepared to accept this situation, and we will act to stop it.”

Barak and IDF Chief of General Staff Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz met with Netanyahu Monday night to present him with their assessment of a possible military escalation against the Gaza Strip.

President Shimon Peres told CNN that Israel was not seeking an escalation of hostilities, but would do whatever was necessary to protect its citizens.

“No country in the world would agree to it — without exception,” Peres said. “[The Israeli government] shall try to stop it by all the means we can mobilize and use… we don’t think that we’re defenseless.”

He added that the international community should cut off funding to Hamas as long as it remained belligerent.

The rocket fire began on Saturday night, touched off by an Israeli airstrike that followed an attack on an Israeli jeep patrolling near the border that left four soldiers injured.

Next Stop: The Obama Administration Puts Its Trust in Negotiations with Iran.

The most important foreign policy effort President Barack Obama will be making over the next year is negotiating with Iran. The terms of the U.S. offer are clear: if Iran agrees not to build nuclear weapons, it will be allowed to enrich a certain amount of uranium, supposedly for purposes of generating nuclear energy (which Iran doesn’t need) and other benefits, supposedly under strict safeguards.

Will Iran accept such a deal? The Obama administration and others argue as follows: Sanctions have taken a deep bite out of Iran’s economy and frightened the regime with the prospect of instability. Iranian leaders are concluding that nuclear weapons aren’t worth all of this trouble. They are interested in becoming wealthy not in spreading revolution, and this includes even the once-fanatical Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), which is steadily gaining power in the country.

In a few months, June 2013, Iran will have elections to choose a new president to replace Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Perhaps, goes the argument, they will pick someone more flexible and less provocative, a signal that they want to stand down from the current confrontation. Thus, a deal is really possible and it could be implemented.

I won’t dismiss this altogether. The truth is that despite extremist statements and radical tactics, the Iranian regime is by no means ideologically or theologically mad. The rulers want to stay in power and they have been far more cautious in practice than they have been in rhetoric. Despite the claims that the Iranian regime just wants to get nuclear weapons to attack Israel as soon as possible, a serious analysis of this government’s history, leaders, and factions indicates otherwise.

A key factor here is that Iran wants nuclear weapons for “defensive” purposes. By this, I do not mean that a poor Tehran regime is afraid that it will be attacked for no reason at all, and thus needs to protect itself. Not at all. It is Iran’s aggressive, subversive, and terrorist-sponsoring positions that jeopardize the regime. Like it or not, if the Tehran government got on with the business of repressing its own people without threatening its neighbors, the world would be little concerned with its behavior. But it has refused to take that easy and profitable choice.

Rather, Iran wants nuclear weapons so it can continue both its regime and behavior without having to worry about paying any price for the things it does. The situation has, however, changed in two respects.

First, the “Arab Spring” has put an end to any serious hope by the regime of gaining leadership in the Middle East or in the Muslim world. Two years ago it was possible that Arabs would dance in the streets and cheer Iran’s having a nuclear weapon as the great hope of radical Islam. Today, though, the Sunni Islamists are on the march and have no use for rival Shias, much less ethnic Persians.

They want to make their own revolutions, destroy Israel, expel the West, and seize control of the Middle East for Sunni Arabs and not under the leadership of Persian Shias. Iran’s sphere of influence has been whittled down to merely Lebanon, Iraq, and a rapidly failing Syrian regime. Under these conditions, getting nuclear weapons will not bring Iran any great strategic gain.

It is, however, equally or more possible that Iran would use the negotiations to wrest concessions from the West without giving anything in return and to stall for time as it steadily advances toward its nuclear goal. As this happens, Israeli concerns will be dismissed by the administration and the mass media. The kinder ones will say that Israel is being unnecessarily concerned; the more hostile will say that it is acting as a warmonger when everything can be settled through compromise.

For its part, the Obama administration is desperate to get a deal with Iran and quick to believe that the Tehran regime is being reasonable. The White House’s own ideology, arrogance, and naivete make it the perfect victim for an Iranian con job.  It is the same pattern we’ve repeatedly seen in which supposedly economic considerations dominate ideology and everyone — including the Muslim Brotherhood, the PLO, and the Taliban — wants to be moderate and peaceful if only given the proper chance to do so.

As we’ve also seen in other cases, the White House and administration will argue that Iran is intransigent largely or mainly because “we” haven’t made enough concessions and have a long history of imperialist behavior toward the country. Consequently, the Islamist government’s trust must be won by American apologies for past behavior and material proof that the United States will now be nice to it. In other words, the White House will practically beg to be treated like a sucker. Already, even before talks have begun in earnest, the Obama administration is sweetening the offer to Iran.

Of course, it is worthwhile to try negotiations. But as in all policy making, such endeavors must be entered into with a clear sense of the possibilities, alternatives, goals, and unacceptable concessions, as well as a readiness to admit the strategy isn’t working. What happens as talks drag on month after month, with Iran demanding a better offer and proof that the West has honest intentions? Certainly, as long as the talks continue, the White House would be arguing for reducing pressure and stopping threats lest Iran get scared or mistrustful. Already, we are receiving hints that it is Israel’s fault for scaring Iran into thinking it needs nuclear weapons, forgetting the fact that Israeli threats result from Iranian leaders’ boasts about the genocide they intend to commit once they have atomic arms.

Part of the Obama administration sales pitch for U.S.-Iran talks is that Obama really will get tough if Iran stalls, uses the time to continue developing nuclear weapons, or cheats. People in positions of authority or influence — including in the mass media as well as governments — claim Obama will attack Iran if it plays him false. The administration’s patience is wearing thin, we are told; it won’t let the Iranian regime make it look like a fool.

For my part, I don’t believe that Obama would ever initiate military action against Iran. I think he will also do everything possible to prevent Israel from doing so, which means that Israel would also not launch an attack. Personally, I don’t favor an attack on Iran (for reasons I’ve explained in detail elsewhere), but it is a costly error to base a policy of concessions and letting Iran stall on a false claim of willingness to use force at some later point. In addition, whether or not you think it a good idea, an attack on Iran by either Israel or the United States as a means of stopping the nuclear program isn’t going to happen.

I suggest the most likely possibilities are as follows:

If Iran’s leaders find the pressures of sanctions so tough, the threat to the regime’s survival so great, and their greed for remaining in power and making more money so big, they will then make a deal. We will be told that Obama is a great statesman who has achieved a big success and rightly won the Nobel Peace Prize. He will indeed have prevented Iran from going nuclear, at least for a while.

Or Iran will use the chance to talk endlessly and build nuclear weapons while the administration’s hints of dire retribution will prove to be bluffs as the leaders in Tehran expect. The year 2013 will pass without any deal. During Obama’s second term, Iran will either get nuclear weapons or have everything needed to do so but will not actually assemble them for a while. U.S. policy will then accept that situation and shift to a containment strategy.

I’d bet on the latter outcome. But we are now going to see a campaign insisting that a peaceful resolution with Iran is at hand and ridiculing anyone who has doubts about this happy ending.

Israel Hayom | Threat-focused Iran launches ‘biggest ever’ air drills.

Israel Hayom | Egypt to Hamas: We will not intervene if violence continues.

Israel Hayom | Subdue the enemy.

Israel Hayom | Changing the rules of the game.