WarSclerotic

Morsi in 2010: No peace with descendants o… JPost – Middle East.

(  Oogah boogah!  Oink! – JW )

Photo: REUTERS

Israel Hayom | Islamists vow to kill Jews who return to Egypt.

( Radical Islam rarely fails to be its own self parody.  Outrage over the outrageous remarks of Erian is appropriate.  Radical Islam is outraged that the remarks weren’t violently outrageous enough.  WHEW ! – JW )

Iran calls Washington the world’s only nuclear ‘criminal’.

Friday, 04 January 2013

Iran criticizes the United States, blaming it for violating a nuclear non-proliferation treaty and its failure to wipe out terrorism in Afghanistan. (Reuters)

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Iran, whose relationship with the United States has worsened over its disputed nuclear program, blames Washington for violating a nuclear non-proliferation treaty and its failure to wipe out terrorism in Afghanistan.

Iran’s Supreme National Security Council Secretary, Saeed Jalili, who is on a visit to New Delhi spoke to reporters on Friday and denounced Washington for using nuclear weapons against innocent people.

“America is the only nuclear criminal in the whole world. It is the only country in the world, which has used nuclear weapons against innocent people. It is the only country that has the highest quantity of nuclear weapons at its disposal,” he said.

The United States and other Western powers have charged that Iran’s nuclear program is aimed at developing nuclear weapons, but Tehran insists the program is for peaceful purposes. Israel has said it would use military force to prevent Iran from becoming a nuclear power.

However, Jalili during the news conference told reporters that Iran’s engagements with the IAEA are stable and that the country believes in nuclear disarmament and peace.

“Our cooperation with the agency [International Atomic Energy Agency] is continuous and stable. It is our belief and we think that our cooperation with the agency helped in disarmament and non-proliferation,” he said.

Tehran has produced about 233 kilograms of higher-grade enriched uranium since 2010, an increase of 43 kg since August this year, according to the IAEA report issued in Vienna.

Of that amount, it has fed 96 kg for conversion into fuel for a medical research reactor in Tehran, it said.

Such conversions make it harder for the material to be processed into 90 percent, or bomb-grade, enriched uranium and could be a step by Tehran meant in part to counter Western suspicions of a covert atomic bomb program.

The IAEA report also said that “extensive activities” at the Parchin military compound – an allusion to suspected Iranian attempts to remove evidence – would seriously undermine an agency investigation into indications that research relevant to developing a nuclear explosive were conducted there.

Obama last year said he believed there was still a “window of time” to find a peaceful resolution to the decade-old standoff with Iran, avoiding a possible broader Middle East war that would batter a stumbling global economy.

Meanwhile, Jalili also questioned United States decade-long presence in Afghanistan and its failure to curb terrorism and drug-trafficking in the country.

“The question that rises is that U.S., which considers itself a super power, could not control or does not want to control terrorism and drug trafficking in Afghanistan. The question is has is not been able or whether it does not want to control it,” he said.

As the United States prepares for its own dispirited withdrawal from Afghanistan, it is worried about Iran gaining a strategic advantage in Afghanistan, after seeing Tehran win influence in Iraq following the 2003 U.S. invasion.

Iran is however optimist on talks with six major powers about its atomic program will begin very soon, the country’s top nuclear negotiator, Jalili said.

“We are coordinating all these things and we have accepted that these talks should be held in January, but until now, the details have not been finalized,” he said.

Last week, Russian media said the six world powers – the United States, Russia, France, Britain, Germany and China – were still negotiating with the Islamic Republic on a possible date and venue for the talks.

Zbigniew Brzezinski: Iran should be key topic at Senate hearings – The Washington Post.

( Now let’s hear from Jimmy Carter’s National Security Adviser.  One of the most prominent anti-Semites of my lifetime, tell me if anything surprises you. – JW )

By Zbigniew Brzezinski, Friday, January 4, 3:26 AM

Zbigniew Brzezinski was national security adviser to President Jimmy Carter and is the author most recently of “Strategic Vision.”

It is to be hoped that the forthcoming Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearings regarding the president’s nominations for secretary of state and secretary of defense produce a wide-ranging debate regarding this country’s role in today’s very unsettled world. The hearings almost certainly will provoke searching questions regarding the strategic wisdom of potential U.S. military action against Iran. Recent Israeli media reports have cited a former member of President Obama’s National Security Council staff predicting a U.S. attack by about midyear.

It is essential that the issue of war or peace with Iran be fully vented, especially with the U.S. national interest in mind. Although the president has skillfully avoided a specific commitment to military action by a certain date, the absence of a negotiated agreement with Iran regarding its compliance with the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty will inevitably intensify some foreign and extremist domestic clamor for U.S. military action, alone or in coordination with Israel.

Accordingly, five potential implications for the United States of an additional and self-generated war deserve close scrutiny:

●How effective are U.S. military strikes against Iranian nuclear facilities likely to be, with consequences of what endurance and at what human cost to the Iranian people?

●What might be Iran’s retaliatory responses against U.S. interests, and with what consequences for regional stability? How damaging could resulting instability be to European and Asian economies?

●Could a U.S. attack be justified as in keeping with international standards, and would the U.N. Security Council — particularly China and Russia, given their veto power — be likely to endorse it ?

●Since Israel is considered to have more than 100 nuclear weapons, how credible is the argument that Iran might attack Israel without first itself acquiring a significant nuclear arsenal, including a survivable second-strike capability, a prospect that is at least some years away?

●Could some alternative U.S. strategic commitment provide a more enduring and less reckless arrangement for neutralizing the potential Iranian nuclear threat than a unilateral initiation of war in a combustible regional setting?

Best available estimates suggest that a limited U.S. strike would have only a temporary effect. Repetitive attacks would be more effective, but civilian fatalities would rise accordingly, and there would be ghastly risks of released radiation. Iranian nationalism would be galvanized into prolonged hatred of the United States, to the political benefit of the ruling regime.

Iran, in retaliating, could make life more difficult for U.S. forces in western Afghanistan by activating a new guerrilla front. Tehran could also precipitate explosive violence in Iraq, which in turn could set the entire region on fire, with conflicts spreading through Syria to Lebanon and even Jordan. Although the U.S. Navy should be able to keep the Strait of Hormuz open, escalating insurance costs for the flow of oil would adversely affect the economies of Europe and Asia. The United States would be widely blamed.

Given the recently woeful U.S. performance in the United Nations — where the United States and Israel gained the support of only seven states out of 188 in opposing U.N. membership for Palestine — it is also safe to predict that an unsanctioned U.S. attack on Iran would precipitate worldwide outrage. Might the U.N. General Assembly then condemn the United States? The result would be unprecedented international isolation for an America already deeply embroiled in the region’s protracted turmoil.

Congress should also take note that our Middle Eastern and European friends who advocate U.S. military action against Iran are usually quite reticent regarding their readiness to shed their own blood in a new Middle East conflict. To make matters worse, the most immediate beneficiary of ill-considered recourse to war would be Vladimir Putin’s Russia, which would be able to charge Europe almost at will for its oil while gaining a free hand to threaten Georgia and Azerbaijan.

It follows that a failure to reach a satisfactory negotiated solution with Iran should not be viewed as the trigger for a new U.S.-initiated war that is not likely to be confined just to Iran. A more prudent and productive course for the United States would be to continue the painful sanctions against Iran while formally adopting for the Middle East the same policy that for decades successfully protected America’s European and Asian allies against the much more dangerous threats emanating from Stalinist Russia and lately from nuclear-armed North Korea. An Iranian military threat aimed at Israel or any other U.S. friend in the Middle East would be treated as if directed at the United States itself and would precipitate a commensurate U.S. response.

A serious discussion of these issues by the Foreign Relations Committee may help generate a firmer national consensus that a reckless shortcut to war — which is favored now by neither the American people nor the Israeli public — is not the wisest response to a potentially grave crisis. Indeed, could Meir Dagan, the former head of Israel’s Mossad, have been right when he bluntly said that an attack on Iran is “the stupidest thing I have ever heard”? Fortunately, there is a better, even if not a perfect, option.

Read more at PostOpinions: The Post’s View: Overheated rhetoric on Israeli settlements John McCain, Joseph I. Lieberman and Lindsey O. Graham: Syria’s descent into hell David Ignatius: Encouraging signs toward peace in Afghanistan Opinions: 5 steps Obama can take to avert a strike on Iran Jamie Fly and Matthew Kroenig: On Iran, it’s time for Obama to set clear lines for military action

© The Washington Post Company

Netanyahu: Iran Remains the Number 1 Threat – Defense/Security – News – Israel National News.

Netanyahu addresses ambassadors

Flash 90

Iran’s nuclear weapons program remains the number one threat over Israel, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said on Thursday.

Speaking to Israeli ambassadors and consuls at the conclusion of their annual gathering in Jerusalem, Netanyahu said, “The number one threat has been and remains Iran, our commitment has been and remains to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons.”

Netanyahu presented to the ambassadors his assessment of the current situation and predicted that in the short term the turmoil in the Middle East will continue, but “in the long run there is a possibility for change if Iran is prevented from achieving military nuclear capability.”

He noted that as of right now, Iran has yet to cross the “red line” he set during his speech to the United Nations General Assembly in September – if it reaches enough uranium enriched to the 90% level.

At the same time, Netanyahu noted, pressure must continue on Iran to get it to drop its nuclear weapons ambitions.

The comments came in the wake of reports that Iran’s ability to attack Israel has been compromised significantly in the past year.

According to a study by Defense Ministry officials, Iran’s attempts to prop up Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and the weakness of Hizbullah has taken a great toll in manpower and funds from the Islamic Republic.

The officials, quoted in Maariv, said that neither Syria nor Hizbullah are in any position to not only start a war with Israel, but would also be largely unable to respond on behalf of Iran in the event of an Israeli strike at Iran’s nuclear facilities. Syria is too badly divided at this point to respond, and without the material support in men and weapons from Damascus, Hizbullah would be too feeble to respond effectively.

Regarding the deadlock in the peace process with the Palestinian Authority and the West’s anger over Israeli construction in Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem, Netanyahu said, “The settlements are not an obstacle to peace, but rather the Palestinian refusal to recognize Israel as the national homeland of the Jewish people.”

Netanyahu explained that “Hamas can take over the Palestinian Authority any day and therefore we must ensure that there are solid security measures, ensure that any arrangement would guarantee a recognition of Israel as a Jewish state, and demand a true declaration of an end to the conflict.”

He added that “the Arab demand of the right of return means the elimination of Israel.”

Egyptian forces capture American-made missiles headed for Gaza Strip | The Times of Israel.

Anti-tank, anti-aircraft and other rockets discovered in secret depot south of el-Arish in Sinai

Troops firing an anti-aircraft missile during training. (photo credit: Manuel Valdez, US Marine Corps/Department of Defense)

Egyptian security forces say they discovered and captured a store of American-made missiles headed for the Gaza Strip, the Palestinian Ma’an news agency reported Friday.

The missiles, discovered in the northern Sinai peninsula, included anti-tank and anti-aircraft projectiles, as well as rockets capable of reaching a number of ranges.

The forces captured the missiles in a secret depot south of el-Arish, after receiving intelligence information about the smuggling attempt.

A security source told Ma’an the missiles were about to be taken by truck to the smuggling tunnels at the border with Gaza and brought into the Palestinian enclave.

The missiles are thought to have come in from Libya. Officials have feared, since the revolution in that country, that heavy arms could fall into the arms of Islamists and be smuggled into Sinai and Gaza.

In late December, Egyptian forces, along with local Bedouin, captured 17 French-made rockets that were to be smuggled into the Strip.

Egypt attempted to shut down the smuggling tunnels between Gaza and the Sinai during a crackdown against terror in the peninsula in August. Hamas uses the tunnels to bring in weapons as well as other goods kept out by Israel’s blockade of the Strip.

Israel has accused Iran of manufacturing rockets and sending them into the Strip via Sinai, including the Fajr-5 rocket, which is capable of hitting Tel Aviv.

Israel launched an eight-day offensive in November to stop rocket fire into Israel from the Strip. During the conflict, Hamas fired over 1,500 rockets at Israel, many of which had been smuggled in via the tunnels.

Even Syria death toll of 60,000 unlikely to revolutionize world leaders into action – Israel News | Haaretz Daily Newspaper.

( I’m waiting for Israel to somehow be blamed for the Arab savagery and the West’s fecklessness. – JW )

Lacking international consensus on outside military intervention, and since opposition forces, political and military, also oppose foreign intervention, a resolution in Syria depends on the rebels’ ability to seize key locations.

By Zvi Bar’el | Jan.03, 2013 | 3:37 PM | 18

A Jordanian army vehicle transporting Syrian refugees last month. A UN report Wednesday put the death toll in the Syrian civil war at 60,000. Photo by Reuters

By DPA | Jan.03,2013 | 3:37 PM | 1

The shocking new revelation that the number of dead in the fighting in Syria is some 20,000 higher than previous estimates is itself based on an estimate. It seems the United Nations is presenting an exact figure, but as the UN’s Human Rights Commissioner Navanethem Pillay admits, the numbers may possibly be much higher. Only a few days ago the UN’s special peace envoy to Syria Lakhdar Brahimi said the number could reach 100,000.

The huge numbers of those killed should be shocking. That is how it was when we counted 1,000 dead in Syria, and how it was when the number reached 10,000. Even the daily toll of the dead, which rose from just a few to 400 only three days ago, moved world leaders. But even then they made do with condemnations, verbal lashings and hollow calls to Syrian President Bashar Assad to leave.

Whoever thinks of the numbers of dead in Darfur, Rwanda, Algeria or Iraq still cannot say even approximately if the number there was 100,000 or 300,000 people since Saddam Hussein fell; and it is hard to believe that the announcement of the new number for deaths in Syria will generate a revolution in the positions of world leaders, who are having a hard time formulating a joint policy as to what actions must be taken in Syria.

The battles in Syria will not end or be decided because of the huge number of deaths. Moreover, since it is not clear how many of the dead are soldiers or civilians, and among the civilians how many were supporters of the Assad regime and how many were its opponents; Sunnis versus Alawites; and whether Syria is already deep in a factional civil war or is the national struggle causing the greatest number of killings.

Lacking international consensus on outside military intervention, and since opposition forces, political and military, also oppose foreign intervention, a resolution in Syria depends on the rebels’ ability to seize key locations such as government buildings, airports, main roads and border crossings – as well as how much they can damage Assad’s limited web of control. Some of these sites are already controlled by the opposition, such as the main highway between Daraa and Damascus, the airport in Aleppo and the airport in Damascus, which was not captured but is threatened by the rebels and flights to and from it have been halted. Many of the border crossings between Syria and Turkey and Iraq have also been captured by opposition forces – some of whom are not acting in coordination.

Another possible chance for resolution depends on Assad’s recognition that he has lost the battle and must prepare himself for the stage of retreat from power. Until now, there were no signs shown publicly that Assad intends to give up or leave. True, he announced he was ready at any time to negotiate with the opposition, but he is not willing to accept the basic premise that he must leave and not be part of the negotiations.

Russia’s vacillating positions – which once say they are not committed to Assad but to democracy and public order in the country, and another time reject the condition that Assad must forfeit his power – also provide Assad with support for the continued existence of his regime. The realistic forecast for now is that the number of dead will only rise and the battles will continue to divide the opposition forces, without being able even to agree on the establishment of a temporary government.

Hovering over this forecast is the troubling and terrifying question as to the ability of Syrian citizens to continue and suffer losses – and nonetheless continue to rebel. At this stage, it seems that public opinion is no longer relevant, since it is no longer a matter of demonstrations against the regime but the transfer of the struggle to the armed opposition forces, who are the ones with the monopoly on the continuation of the struggle.

Iran says talks with big powers … JPost – Iranian Threat – News.

Photo: REUTERS/Mohammed Ameen

Muslim Brotherhood took ‘billions’ from Obama: Egypt lawyers.

Friday, 04 January 2013

Egyptian lawyers filed a complaint that accused Muslim Brotherhood illegally receiving billions from Obama administration. (Reuters)

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( Thanks to Daryll. – JW )

Pat Condell tells it like it is.  Again