WarSclerotic

US, Russia reportedly agree to removal of Assad from power | The Times of Israel.

Opposition sources claim Moscow backs diplomatically arranged regime change in Syria; no official confirmation

US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, right, and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov during the Asian-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Summit in Vladivostok, Russia, in September. (photo credit: Jim Watson/AP)

The United States and Russia reportedly agreed to a measure by which Syrian President Bashar Assad would step down after 21 months of violent insurrection, and a transitional government would assume power, Arabic newspaper A-Sharq Al-Awsat cited opposition group members saying on Saturday.

According to the report in the London-based paper, the US convinced Russia to change its stance on Syria during high-level diplomatic meetings in Dublin and Geneva. Moscow reportedly consented to tell Assad that he could either step down in an orderly transfer of power and receive international protection, or that his safety would not be guaranteed and negotiations for a transition government would be held without him.

The plan would create a transitional government made up of regime and opposition figures, diplomatic sources told the Daily Telegraph. Russian officials told the British newspaper that Moscow was prepared to ease the Syrian president out of power.

“Assad doesn’t have a future, he knows this,” it quoted a senior Russian official saying. “But he is not a fool. He will not just go voluntarily. All sides must sit down and negotiate a way out of this. That means we talk to Assad but those who back the rebels must put pressure on them.”

Neither Washington nor Moscow confirmed the accuracy of the reports.

The reports came a day after Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that his country would not try to convince Assad to step down.

“We are not in the business of regime change. Some of the regional players were suggesting to us ‘Why don’t you tell President Assad to leave? We will arrange for some safe haven for him’,” he told state-owned Russia Today in an interview.

Russian President Vladimir Putin also said Friday that Russia isn’t a defender of Assad and wants to see a democratically elected government, but added that peace can only be achieved through an agreement that would ensure the protection of various religious and ethnic groups in Syria.

The A-Sharq Al-Awsat report further said that the UN’s special envoy to Syria, Lakhdar Brahimi, is expected to fly from Cairo to Damascus in order to lay out the options to Assad. The Syrian president has stated that he intends to remain in power at least until the 2014 elections, by which point his family will have ruled Syria for four decades.

Moscow keeping tabs on Syrian chemical weapons, Russian FM says | The Times of Israel.

Sergey Lavrov says Assad regime has consolidated arsenal to better protect it from rebels

MOSCOW (AP) — Russia’s foreign minister says the Syrian government has consolidated its chemical weapons in one or two locations amid a rebel onslaught.

Sergey Lavrov says Russia, which has military advisers training Syria’s military, has kept close watch over its chemical arsenal. He says the Syrian government has moved them from many arsenals to just “one or two centers” to properly safeguard them.

US intelligence says the regime may be readying chemical weapons and could be desperate enough to use them. Both Israel and the US have also expressed concerns they could fall into militant hands if the regime crumbles.

Lavrov also told reporters on a flight from an EU summit late Friday that countries in the region had asked Russia to convey an offer of safe passage to President Bashar Assad.

Copyright 2012 The Associated Press.

Russian forces take Syrian chemical, biological weapons under control.

DEBKAfile Special Report December 22, 2012, 2:48 PM (GMT+02:00)

Russia’s airborne special forces

The chemical warfare threat looming over Syria’s civil war and its neighbors has taken an epic turn with the announcement by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov Saturday, Dec. 22, that “the Syrian government has “consolidated its chemical weapons in one or two locations amid a rebel onslaught and they are under control for the time being.”
He added that Russia, “which has military advisers training Syria’s military, has kept close watch over its chemical arsenal.”
debkafile’s military and intelligence sources report: The Russian foreign minister’s statement was a message to Washington that the transfer of Syria’s weapons of mass destruction to one or two protected sites was under Russian control. This had removed the danger of them falling into the hands of the al Qaeda-affiliated Jabhat al-Nusra ,which had come ominously close Friday, Dec. 21, when the Islamists spearheaded a Syrian rebel assault for the capture of the al-Safira military complex and Bashar Assad’s chemical and biological stores.

Lavrov did not go into detail about how this arsenal was removed and to which locations. But his reference to “Russian military advisers training Syria’s military” clearly indicated that Russian forces were directly involved in removing the WMD out of the reach of the Jabhat al-Nusra terrorists.
His assertion that they were “under control” indicated that Russia was also involved in safeguarding them.

debkafile’s Moscow sources add: Russia’s military intervention in the Syrian civil war achieved four objectives:

1.  The prevention of Western or Israel military action for seizing control of Syria’s chemical and biological weapons arsenals;

2.   The prevention of Western military intervention in the civil war behind the forces dedicated to the removal of Bashar Assad. The Russian military is now engaged in the dual mission of guarding his WMD arsenal and his regime;
3.  The Russian military presence in Syria delivers a heavy swipe to the rebels;
4.   Russia’s intervention and military presence have laid the groundwork for Moscow and Washington to work out an accord that will bring Syria’s civil war to an end.

debkafile reported Friday, Dec. 21:

The Syrian Air Force is again firing Scud missiles, this time to stem the general offensive Syrian opposition forces, including jihadis, launched Friday, Dec. 21, to capture the Syrian army’s military-industrial complex at al Safira and the big chemical and biological weapons store adjoining the facility. It is there, that Scud D missiles stand ready for launching, loaded with chemical weapons.

Rebel forces are converging on Al Safira from the east, the west and the south. Among them are brigades of the Jabhat al-Nusra which the US has designated part of al Qaeda in Iraq.
debkafile military sources report extremely heavy fighting. The rebels have reached points 1-2 kilometers from the perimeter walls of the Al Safira chemical weapons stores and are being pounded by Syrian warplanes and assault helicopters as well as Scuds, in a desperate effort to halt their advance.

Success in seizing control of those stores would re-tilt the balance of the war in their favor and bring President Bashar Assad face to face with a decision on whether to broach the perilous dimension of chemical warfare on the rebels or even against NATO or US targets outside Syria.
A prime factor in his decision would be the information received in Moscow and Tehran – and almost certainly passed on to the Syrian ruler – that taking part in the offensive are rebels who underwent training in recent weeks in northern Jordan by US, Czech and Polish officers in tactics for seizing chemical or biological caches and dismantling them.

Russian and Iranian intelligence watchers suspect that elements from all three armies as well as Jordan are present in the rebel assault force, in order to be on the spot when the weapons of mass destruction are captured and appropriate them to forces under NATO command.  They must beat Jabhat al-Nusra’s fighting brigades to this target, although at this moment, the jihadis are ahead of the race.
The battle for al Safira has brought US and NATO into direct intervention in Syrian hostilities. Western intelligence services estimate that even if Assad removed some of the banned weapons from this complex, large quantities remain and must be prevented from reaching the wrong hands.

The Chuck Hagel Controversy – Jeffrey Goldberg – The Atlantic.

( OK.  This does it for me.  With this article Goldberg has crossed the line.   I can’t take him seriously any more.  Inwardly, when I hear his name from now on it will be prefixed by the phrase “the scumbag.” – JW )

Goldblog wasn’t planning on covering the controversy surrounding the so-far theoretical nomination of Chuck Hagel to be secretary of defense, because it is, after all, theoretical, and because I think the situation is much more complex than both right and left think believe it to be, and who wants to get into it right now? I’m into enough at the moment.

But then I received an email being circulated among Jewish liberals who support Hagel, and it provoked me to think through some of the deeper issues here. The point of the aforementioned e-mail was to argue that Hagel is, in fact, “pro-Israel,” and it provides a list of the various times he’s voted for this or that on behalf of Israel in the Senate. “Senator Hagel cosponsored the Palestinian Anti-Terrorism Act of 2006,” for instance. “The bill, which became US law, declared it U.S. policy to oppose organizations such as Hamas and Hezbollah…” And so on.

What struck me as unusual about the list is that it was framed as a response to right-wing criticism. It did not advance arguments you would expect to hear from the Left, but tried to mollify the Right. It contained nothing like, “Hagel is adamant in his support for a settlement freeze,” or somesuch; the letter was designed to say, in effect, “Don’t worry, Hagel is actually closer ideologically to Lindsey Graham than you think.”

About Hagel himself, I have mixed feelings: He is a patriot, and a smart and pleasant man (I’ve met him on a couple of occasions) and if he’s anti-Semitic, he went about hiding this from me pretty well. I think, based on what I’ve read, that he has harbored very naive views about Iran and Hezbollah (whether he still harbors them I don’t know) and that he’s not particularly sentimental about Israel. He has also accrued some unfortunate supporters, including and especially the scapegoater Stephen Walt, but Hagel can’t be blamed for this. The most troubling question about Hagel’s potential nomination for some people concerns what it would mean about Obama’s views on Iran. I’ve come to the conclusion (I came to it long ago) that Obama is serious when he says all options are on the table, and he might be so serious, in fact, that it wouldn’t matter if his national security adviser was Zbigniew Brzezinski. Hagel, no matter how far he’s moved, hasn’t moved as far as Obama has on the issue. But I’m not sure Hagel’s position in this argument is overly relevant, even if he’s sitting by the president’s side. And who better to sell the president’s militant Iran position than someone who comes from the realist camp? I really don’t think he would be able to influence the president away from the stand he has taken.

Anyway, it’s not Hagel’s record itself that prompts me to write. The strategy advanced by the pro-Hagel Jewish Left is a fine political strategy, I suppose, and I wouldn’t bother commenting on it, except that I just read that the Israeli political party HaBayit HaYehudi (the Jewish Home) is now poised to become one of the the country’s biggest parties. It might, in fact, be the third-largest party in the next Knesset.

The Jewish Home party advances an ideology that will bring about the destruction (the self-destruction) of Israel. The Jewish Home party seeks to erase the dividing line between Israel and the West Bank; it seeks to build more and more settlements; it seeks to absorb the West Bank’s Arabs into Israel as, at the most, second-class citizens. It seeks to empower Orthodox religious nationalism as the dominant ideology of the state turn Israel into the Jewish equivalent of a sharia state. And its policies would turn Israel into a pariah state, and Israel will not survive for the long-term as a pariah state.

How does this relate to Hagel? This is how: Maybe, at this point, what we need are American officials who will speak with disconcerting bluntness to Israel about the choices it is making. If the Jewish Home party becomes a key part of Netanyahu’s right-wing ruling coalition, you can be assured that there will not compromise coming in the forseeable future (it’s almost impossible to forsee compromise now.) Maybe the time has come to redefine the term “pro-Israel” to include, in addition to providing support against Iran (a noble cause); help with the Iron Dome system (also a noble cause); and support to maintain Israel’s qualitiative military edge (ditto), the straightest of straight talk about Israel’s self-destructive policies on the West Bank. Maybe Hagel, who is not bound to old models, could be useful in this regard.

And yes, I write this with some measure of despair.

Israel Hayom | Dennis Ross: If diplomacy fails, be sure the US will attack Iran.

IAF Chief Concerned over Hizbullah’s UAVs – Defense/Security – News – Israel National News.

Amir Eshel

Flash 90

Israel’s greatest concern is of increased attempts by Hizbullah to attain accomplishments by inserting unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) into Israeli territory, the Israeli Air Force said on Wednesday, according to a report on the Israel Defense website.

According to the IAF, Hizbullah is encouraged by the successful entry of its UAV into Israeli territory in October, and senior IAF officers said that up to 50 kilograms of explosives can be loaded onto a UAV which would serve as a precise rocket.

IAF Commander Major General Amir Eshel refused to say whether the IDF or the air force were connected to the series of explosions in Hizbullah’s weapon warehouses which occurred recently, and would only say that “it’s dangerous to sleep with rockets at home – whatever happens, happens.”

A huge explosion rocked Lebanon near the border Monday morning, and Hizbullah immediately accused Israel of carrying out an aerial bombing.

The explosion apparently was in an ammunition depot east of the port city of Tyre. Similar explosions have occurred in the same area in the past two years. Hizbullah has denied that it stores weapons and ammunition in southern Lebanon, but Israel estimates that the terrorist organization not only stockpiles ammunition and guns but also has built up an arsenal of more than 60,000 missiles.

Eshel also discussed the accomplishments of operation Pillar of Defense in Gaza last month. “The operation achieved accomplishments that are being studied throughout the region. This is a red light or a warning to anyone that attempts to operate,” Eshel said, according to Israel Defense. “However, we must not rest on our laurels.”

He added that “The IAF will be put to much more difficult tests than what was presented in Pillar of Defense. The enemy will utilize more force, and we will use more force.”

Eshel also referred to the issue of the deteriorating standing of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, saying, “Syria’s process of disintegration is an existing fact. It’s in our back yard. There are stockpiles of advanced weapons there, including unconventional capabilities. I don’t know what will be on the day after. Beyond the questions, we have a key role to play and it is to deal with the unconventional weapons. This is an issue for Israel, one that stands before the decision-makers, and it is a very complex issue.”

Amman warns: Jihadists hijacking Syria revolution, may target Israel, Jordan next – Israel News | Haaretz Daily Newspaper.

Jordanians saw the first signs two months ago when their intelligence service caught a cell of 11 Salafists who had assembled in Syria and were planning to attack shopping centers and Western embassies in Jordan.

By Anshel Pfeffer | Dec.20, 2012 | 8:17 AM | 13

Free Syrian Army fighters cover two dead bodies they found between rubble during heavy clashes with government forces in Aleppo, Syria. Photo by AP

By The Associated Press | Dec.20,2012 | 8:17 AM

AMMAN – Senior Jordanian officials warn that Syria may devolve into a “black hole that sucks Jihadists from around the world.” They claim that despite their warnings to Western nations and Israel against this expected development in their strife-ridden northern neighbor, advanced weaponry continues to flow into the hands of Salafist and Jihadist organizations who are gradually taking over the rebellion against the regime of Bashar Assad.

The Jordanians fear that with the collapse of the current Syrian government, this weaponry, together with the experience gained by the Jihadists, will be aimed toward other targets in the region – particularly Jordan and Israel. The Jordanians saw the first signs two months ago when their intelligence service caught a cell of 11 Jordanian Salafists who had assembled in Syria and were planning, under the aegis of Al-Qaida, to attack shopping centers and Western embassies in Jordan.

Jordan is working toward the integration of all minorities in the leadership of the rebellion (including Alawites not related to the Assad family ), in order to ensure a balanced future government of Syria and to avoid a slide into Jihadist chaos.

In Jordan there has been heavy criticism of another neighbor of Syria – Turkey, which has allowed fanatics to accumulate strength and ammunition at the expense of moderate and secular rebel groups. Many of the advanced missiles financed by the Gulf states and transferred to the rebels via Turkey in the past few weeks have fallen into the hands of fanatics, despite the attempts of Jordanian and Western intelligence services to ensure that only the rebellion’s moderate factions would receive them.

The secular faction of Syria’s rebellion absorbed another blow this week with the death of Col. Yusef Al Jader, an armored corps officer in the Syrian army who deserted to the rebels and had been thought of as one of the more charismatic and influential commanders among them. Al Jader, better known as Abu Furat, had been trying to minimize the influence of the Jihadists. His death during the battle for the military academy north of Aleppo further weakens the strength of the secular nationalists among the rebels.

Another significant development in the Syrian conflict is the enlistment of Palestinian refugees in Damascus to the cause of the rebellion. Until recently, Palestinians in Syria avoided taking part in the conflict, inter alia because of internal divisions of opinion. Although Hamas identifies with the rebels, especially those identified with the Muslim Brotherhood, other organizations such as the Islamic Jihad and the Popular Front stayed with Assad.

At the beginning of the week, the Syrian army attacked the Yarmok neighborhood, home to over 100,000 Palestinians, killing 25 with artillery fire and air attacks. As a result, a battle broke out within Yarmok between the Popular Front and Syrian rebel forces, and thousands of Palestinians began to flee the Damascus area toward the borders with Jordan and Lebanon.

Jordan established several large refugee camps for those fleeing Syria, but arriving Palestinians are kept separate, in an industrial area known as “Cyber City”. Journalists are not allowed to visit the camp designated for Palestinians, and those refugees are forbidden to leave it in order to work or visit relatives.

In Jordan, where the regime is in the hands of the Hashemite dynasty and Bedouin tribes while the majority of the population is of Palestinian origin, the government is trying to avoid an additional wave of Palestinian refugees.

Arab media reports that the Jordanian army has declared a state of emergency, and that its troops have been issued gas masks in anticipation of chemical weapons being employed by the Syrian regime near the border remained unconfirmed yesterday. Nevertheless, senior Jordanian officials emphasize that they warned the world that the Syrians might use such weapons last year, and that such an eventuality will require the swift intervention of Western powers, since, according to the Jordanians, no nation in the region, including Israel, can overcome Syria’s chemical weapons arsenal.

UN confirms Hezbollah fighting for Assad i… JPost – Middle East.

Photo: REUTERS/Ali Hashisho

Azerbaijan nabs Iranian agents setting trap for Israel-made drone.

DEBKAfile Exclusive Report December 17, 2012, 8:37 PM (GMT+02:00)

Hermes-450 UAV made in Israel

debkafile Special: Last week, the Azerbaijani police rounded up six Iranian agents who had infiltrated the country and were looking for the air bases where their government housed the drones purchased from Israel. The spies were found in possession of cash, fake passports, automatic pistols, advanced electronic equipment for tracking aircraft and electronic warfare devices for jamming flying vehicles and down them. Questioning the detainees uncovered an Iranian plot to capture one of the Israel-made UAVs as it flew over the Caspian Sea.

Following the arrests, Azerbaijan barred entry to the Iranian culture attaché serving at the embassy in Baku on his return from home leave in Tehran. No valid reason was offered for this step except that his visa had expired. Azerbaijani investigators were able to establish that he was an undercover agent who was running the captured ring.
The episode which triggered the considerable friction between Baku and Tehran surfaced on Dec. 9 when Iran spread through its media allegations that he US and Israel had stepped up their intelligence surveillance of the Astara Rayon region of southeastern Azerbaijan along the Caspian maritime frontier with Iran.

The Americans were claimed to have expanded the coverage of their radar, while Israel was said to have increased the number of Orbiter ultra-light drones spying on the region, as well as using the 10 Hermes-450 UAVs, made in Israel and recently sold to Azerbaijan. According to Iranian sources, the Hermes drones’ spying operations over the Iranian border are guided by Israeli military satellites.

In Israel, there was little doubt that Tehran was laying the groundwork for an attempt to force down an Israeli-Azerbaijani drone with the same sort of  traps used against two American drones – the ScanEagle, which was downed over the Persian Gulf earlier this month, and the MQ 1 Predator which came under fire from two Iranian Air Force SU-25 fighters as it approached the skies over the Bushehr nuclear reactor.
Referring to the ScanEagle, Revolutionary Guards Navy commander Adm. Ali Fadavi said Tuesday, Dec. 4, that one of his units had captured a US drone flying over his forces in the Persian Gulf.
Catching Israeli drones is a challenge of a different order since none fly near Iranian borders. All the same, Tehran was suspected of planning to net one of the drones Azerbaijan bought from Israel and, despite the purchaser’s military markings, present it as the capture of an Israeli spy drone controlled by the Israeli Air Force and military intelligence, MI.
This would have been a feather in Tehran’s cap on a par with its success on Oct. 6 in keeping an Iranian drone, launched by Hizballah from Lebanon, on the loose for two hours in Israeli airspace before it was downed.

Senators urge Obama to reiterate willingness to use force against Iran | The Times of Israel.

57 legislators from both parties sign letter pressing president ‘to demonstrate that a credible and capable multilateral coalition exists that would support a military strike’

In this Nov. 5, 2012, photo, President Barack Obama makes a call to thank a volunteer as he visits a call center in a campaign office in the German Village section of Columbus, Ohio (photo credit: AP)

NEW YORK — A bipartisan group of 57 senators have signed a letter this week calling on President Barack Obama to take a more aggressive stance against the Iranian regime in order to stop its nuclear program.

Noting that “Democrats and Republicans in Congress have set aside their differences and worked together on a bipartisan basis with your Administration to put in place the most stringent sanctions ever against Iran,” the letter urges Obama “to reiterate your readiness to take military action against Iran if it continues its efforts to acquire a nuclear weapon.”

Initiated by senators Kelly Ayotte (R-NH), Robert Menendez (D-NJ) and Joe Lieberman (I-CT), the letter openly calls for the Obama administration to undermine the current authoritarian regime in the country and to support more liberal democratic elements.

“We urge you to expand America’s outreach and support to the Iranian people and support of the cause of human rights and democracy in Iran,” the senators wrote, adding, “the current government of the Islamic Republic of Iran will eventually end up in the ash heap of history, not because of the efforts of the United States, but because of the desire of the Iranian people to enjoy the basic freedoms that are their universal right, and that many of their neighbors increasingly are demanding.”

The letter comes against the backdrop of the renewal next month of international diplomatic discussions with the Iranian regime over its nuclear program, and the growing conviction among many observers that 2013 will be a decisive year for Western efforts to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons.

It also comes amidst speculation in Washington that Obama is looking to appoint former Nebraska senator Chuck Hagel as the next Secretary of Defense, succeeding the retiring Leon Panetta. Hagel, a respected Republican known for working well with Democrats, is in the minority opinion among American political leaders on the Iranian issue, having argued in the past against a military strike opposing the Iranian nuclear program and speculating that the United States might be able to live with a nuclear-armed Iran.

The Iranian government “has continued to press forward with its nuclear program,” the senators charged. “It has quintupled its stockpile of low enriched uranium since 2009,” “taken a significant step closer to possessing weapons-grade uranium by enriching up to 20 percent,” and “raced towards completion of its hardened Fordow enrichment facility, more than doubling the number of centrifuges installed there just since the summer of this year.”

The senators urged Obama “to work with our European and Middle Eastern allies to demonstrate to the Iranians that a credible and capable multilateral coalition exists that would support a military strike if, in the end, this is unfortunately necessary.”

According to the senators, “there is no national security challenge that is more urgent and essential to resolve during your second term.”