WarSclerotic

Breaking News & Top Stories – World News, US & Local | NBC News.

 ( As dozens of innocents, including Americans are being butchered by Al Qaeda terrorists, this is what the American MSM reports.  When both the government and the media betray our interests, what are we to do? -JW )

Jews must oppose Hagel – Israel Opinion, Ynetnews.

( And friends of Israel. – JW )

Op-ed: President Obama chose to betray US Jews at earliest opportunity after his reelection

Shoula Romano Horing

Despite the fact that 69% of American Jews voted for Obama, donated and campaigned passionately for him, he has chosen to betray them at the earliest opportunity after his reelection. Even though there were other capable mainstream candidates, he has picked Chuck Hagel for the important position of defense secretary, a fringe candidate who has been one of the few vocal anti- Israeli senators.

Almost every major pro-Israeli Jewish organization and many individual Jewish leaders had strongly opposed Hagel’s impeding appointment, but after the president publicly announced his selection, they backed down and have made clear they will not lobby against or fight Hagel’s confirmation in the Senate, despite their concerns with the choice. Sadly, this reluctance to challenge Obama on this nomination will weaken the pro-Israeli community and render it obsolete, which in turn will weaken Israel.

But much more, the Jewish leadership’s tolerance of a nominee whose comments Anti-Defamation League National Director Abe Foxman characterized as “borders on anti –Semitism” is a betrayal of their supposed role of safeguarding the community against those who spread false stereotypes and prejudices against Jews.

Hagel’s past words and actions reveal that he has a “Jewish” problem. First, Hagel has made clear in Aaron David Miller’s 2008 book “The Too Much Promised Land” that he believes in the existence of a “Jewish lobby” and that “the Jewish lobby intimidates a lot of people in Congress.” Moreover, Hagel is quoted as saying that “Most of the times members of Congress play it safe and adopt an ‘I’ll support Israel’ attitude. AIPAC comes knocking with a pro- Israel letter and then you’ll get 80 to 90 senators on it. I don’t think I’ve signed one of the letters,” adding, “I’m not an Israeli senator. I’m a United States senator.”

First, there is no such thing as a “Jewish” lobby but a pro-Israeli lobby which includes many Christians and is not supported by all Jews. Such a lobby operates in the best tradition of democracy like the NCAAP and AARP do and singling the Jews out implies dual loyalty. Second, the word “intimidates” suggest that Congress is friendly to Israel, not from political conviction but out of personal fear. But reality shows that Israel is widely supported by the American people. A Gallup poll taken last year showed 71% of the Americans view Israel favorably.

Dangerous agenda

Moreover, his view is a repeat of the age old anti-Semitic libel that Jews secretly work together to gain control of the world. It is disconcerting that Senator Hagel would concern himself with “the Jews,” when in reality he could not have endured any political pressures from his own state’s Jewish community. In Nebraska there are only 6100 Jews in a state with a population of 1.8 million.

Moreover, many in the Nebraska Jewish community that knows him best recalled that Hagel, as a Nebraska senator, was hostile to Israel and to the Jewish community. The former editor of the Omaha Jewish Press newspaper Carol Katzman, recalled that Hagel “was the only one we have had in Nebraska, who basically showed the Jewish community that he didn’t give a damn about the Jewish community or any of our concerns.” When Hagel served as a president of USO he expressed intense opposition to keeping the USO Haifa port open to US troops abroad. During a 1989 meeting with Jewish leaders of the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA), Marsha Halteman, a JINSA representative recalled that he told them that if the Jews wanted to keep the USO in Haifa open “Let the Jews pay for it.”

However, Hagel’s obvious Jewish problem would have been inconsequential if he was not appointed to be secretary of defense, who is one of the officials responsible for implementing the close cooperation between the US and Israel. The concern is that Hagel’s record proves that he has a problem appreciating the Jewish state as a true US ally and has a moral inclination for appeasing Israel’s most vicious enemies.

The record shows that Hagel voted against imposing sanctions on Iran, which regularly calls for the extermination of Israel and has explicitly ruled out the military option against Iran’s nuclear weapons. He called for talks with Hamas, whose charter calls for the murder of all Jews – not just Israelis – and he has refused to support a Senate letter and resolution branding Hezbollah and the Iranian Revolutionary Guards as terrorist organizations.

It is remarkable how much political capital Obama is willing to spend to make Hagel, an ex -Republican senator, with a dubious administrative and executive record, his defense minister, unless Hagel represents everything Obama believes in but was afraid to say during his first term – including his underlying hostility to Israel.

Jews must fight this nomination even if they lose, because Obama chose this fight in order to intimidate the pro-Israeli lobby and undermine and weaken the Congress’ and US Jews’ support for Israel. If not, they will give a message to Obama that he has a free hand to shove his dangerous agenda down Israel’s throat. Jews must now call their US senators to voice opposition to the nomination and Israelis must choose a government which will be willing to say no to Obama.

Shoula Romano Horing is an attorney in Kansas City. Her blog: http://www.shoularomanohoring.com

Algerian forces launch operation to break desert siege | Reuters.

(Reuters) – Twenty-five foreign hostages escaped and six were killed on Thursday when Algerian forces launched an operation to free them at a remote desert gas plant, Algerian sources said, as one of the biggest international hostage crises in decades unfolded.

The standoff began when gunmen calling themselves the Battalion of Blood stormed the gas facility on Wednesday morning. They said they were holding 41 foreigners and demanded a halt to a French military operation against fellow al Qaeda-linked Islamist militants in neighboring Mali.

The raid increased fears that jihadist militants could launch further attacks in Algeria, a vast desert country with large oil and gas reserves that is only just recovering from a protracted conflict with Islamist rebels during the 1990s which cost an estimated 200,000 lives.

Fast-moving details of the military operation to free the hostages from the gas plant were difficult to confirm. Algeria’s official APS news agency said about half the foreign hostages had been freed.

A local source told Reuters six foreign hostages were killed along with eight captors when the Algerian military fired on a vehicle being used by the gunmen.

Mauritania’s ANI news agency, which has been in constant contact with the kidnappers, said seven hostages were still being held: two Americans, three Belgians, one Japanese and one British citizen.

It quoted one of the kidnappers as saying that Algerian ground forces were trying to fight their way into the complex.

ANI and Qatar-based Al Jazeera reported that 34 of the captives and 15 of their captors had been killed when government forces fired from helicopters at a vehicle. Those death tolls, far higher than confirmed by the local source, would contradict the reports that large numbers of foreigners escaped alive.

Britain and Norway, whose oil firms BP and Statoil run the plant jointly with the Algerian state oil company, said they had been informed by the Algerian authorities that a military operation was under way but did not provide details.

As many as 600 Algerian workers at the site managed to flee, the official Algerian news agency said.

RAISING THE STAKES

The incident dramatically raises the stakes in the French military campaign in neighboring Mali, where hundreds of French paratroopers and marines are launching a ground offensive against rebels after air strikes began last week.

Algerian Interior Minister Daho Ould Kablia said the kidnappers were led by Mokhtar Belmokhtar, a veteran Islamist guerrilla who fought Soviet forces in Afghanistan in the 1980s and had set up his own group in the Sahara after falling out with other local al Qaeda leaders.

A holy warrior-cum-smuggler dubbed “The Uncatchable” by French intelligence and “Mister Marlboro” by some locals for his illicit cigarette-running business, Belmokhtar’s links to those who seized towns across northern Mali last year are unclear.

The hostage takers earlier allowed some prisoners to speak to the media, apparently to put pressure on Algerian forces not to storm the compound. An unidentified hostage who spoke to France 24 television said prisoners were forced to wear explosive belts and captors had threatened to blow up the plant.

A local source told Reuters the hostage takers had blown up a petrol filling station at the plant.

Two hostages, identified as British and Irish, spoke to Al Jazeera television and called on the Algerian army to withdraw from the area to avoid casualties.

“We are receiving care and good treatment from the kidnappers. The (Algerian) army did not withdraw and they are firing at the camp,” the British man said. “There are around 150 Algerian hostages. We say to everybody that negotiations is a sign of strength and will spare many any loss of life.”

Ireland said later that the Irish hostage was among those freed.

NUMBERS UNCONFIRMED

The precise number and nationalities of foreign hostages could not be confirmed, with some countries reluctant to release information that could be useful to the captors.

Britain said one of its citizens was killed in the initial storming on Wednesday and “a number” of others were held.

The militants said seven Americans were among their hostages, a figure U.S. officials said they could not confirm.

Norwegian oil company Statoil said nine of its Norwegian staff and three Algerian employees were captive. Britain’s BP, which operates the plant with Statoil and Algerian state oil company Sonatrach, said some of its staff were held but would not say how many or their nationalities.

Japanese media said five workers from Japanese engineering firm JGC Corp. were held, a number the company did not confirm. Paris has not said whether any hostages were French. Vienna said one hostage was Austrian, Dublin said one was Irish and Bucharest said an unspecified number were Romanian.

Spanish oil company Cepsa said it had begun to evacuate personnel from elsewhere in Algeria, an OPEC member.

Paris said the Algeria attack demonstrated it was right to intervene in Mali: “We have the flagrant proof that this problem goes beyond just the north of Mali,” French ambassador to Mali Christian Rouyer told France Inter radio.

President Francois Hollande has received public backing from Western and African allies who fear that al Qaeda, flush with men and arms from the defeated forces of Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi, is building a desert haven in Mali, a poor country helpless to combat fighters who seized its north last year.

However, there is also some concern in Washington and other capitals that the French action in Mali could provoke a backlash worse than the initial threat by militants in the remote Sahara.

The militants, communicating through established contacts with media in neighboring Mauritania, said they had dozens of men armed with mortars and anti-aircraft missiles in the compound and had rigged it with explosives.

“We hold the Algerian government and the French government and the countries of the hostages fully responsible if our demands are not met, and it is up to them to stop the brutal aggression against our people in Mali,” read one statement carried by Mauritanian media.

They condemned Algeria’s secularist government for letting French warplanes fly over its territory to Mali and shutting its border to Malian refugees.

PRESSING ON

The attack in Algeria did not stop France from pressing on with its campaign in Mali. It said on Thursday it now had 1,400 troops on the ground in Mali, and combat was underway against the rebels that it first began targeting from the air last week.

“There was combat yesterday, on the ground and in the air. It happened overnight and is under way now,” said Le Drian. Residents said a column of about 30 French Sagaie armored vehicles set off on Wednesday toward rebel positions from the town of Niono, 300 km (190 miles) from the capital, Bamako.

The French action last week came as a surprise but received widespread international support in public. Neighboring African countries planning to provide ground troops for a U.N. force by September have said they will move faster to deploy them.

Nigeria, the strongest regional power, sent 162 soldiers on Thursday, the first of an anticipated 906.

“The whole world clearly needs to unite and do much more than is presently being done to contain terrorism, with its very negative impact on global peace and security,” President Goodluck Jonathan said.

Germany, Britain and the Netherlands have offered transport aircraft to help ferry in African troops. Washington has said it is considering what support it can offer.

Many inhabitants of northern Mali have welcomed the French action, though some also fear being caught in the cross-fire. The Mali rebels who seized Timbuktu and other oasis towns in northern Mali last year imposed Islamic law, including public amputations and beheadings that angered many locals.

A day after launching the campaign in Mali, Hollande also ordered a failed rescue in Somalia on Saturday to free a French hostage held by al Qaeda-linked al Shabaab militants since 2009. Al Shabaab said on Thursday it had executed hostage Denis Allex. France said it believed he died in the rescue.

(Reporting by Lamine Chikhi; Writing by Peter Graff; Editing by Giles Elgood)

Obama, Clinton Silent on Hostage Crisis | The Weekly Standard.

Terrorists: Some hostages, captors killed in Algeria.

( The WH does not allow gov employees to use the word “Islamic” in relation to terrorism.  Now we have Mali and the supposedly resulting hostage grab in Algeria as the verbally non-existent radical Islamists continue to grow stronger.  There’s more to this disease than Osama bin Laden, BHO.  You yourself are likely to pay the price with your legacy. – JW )

Islamist terrorists have told a Mauritanian news outlet that Algerian military helicopters strafed the gas complex where they are holding hostages, killing 35 of the foreigners and 15 of the kidnappers, the Associated Press is reporting.

Reuters, quoting an unidentified local source, said six foreign hostages and eight militants were killed. Neither claim was confirmed by Algerian authorities. Earlier, as many as 20 foreign hostages, including an unknown number of Americans, reportedly had escaped their captors, an Algerian official told the AP.

A spokesman for the Masked Brigade, which had earlier claimed responsibility for the assault Wednesday on the gas complex deep in the Sahara desert, said Abou El Baraa, the leader of the kidnappers, was among militants killed in the Algerian army’s helicopter attack. He also said seven hostages survived, including two Americans.

British oil giant BP reported that the British Foreign Office confirmed only that an Algerian military operation was under way at the gas facility in eastern Algeria where hostages were being held.

“Sadly, there have been some reports of casualties but we are still lacking any confirmed or reliable information,” BP Group Chief Executive Bob Dudley said.

In Washington, U.S. State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland confirmed that “U.S. citizens were among the hostages.”

Algerian soldiers surrounded the facility near Amenas after kidnappers occupied it Wednesday. The militants appeared to have no escape, with Algerian troops ringing the facility and army helicopters clattering overhead.

A spokesman for the terrorist group Qatiba, which translates as Those Who Sign with Their Blood, told Mauritanian news website Sahara Media Agency on Wednesday that the attack was in retaliation for Algeria’s decision to allow French aircraft to use its airspace in its intervention in Mali.

The spokesperson, pictured in a black turban and an automatic weapon in front of a jihadist flag, said his group took 41 foreigners hostage, including Americans, French, British and Japanese nationals.

The spokesman added that there were 400 Algerian soldiers on site, but said his group had not targeted the soldiers. None of the information from the Mauritanian site could be independently verified.

Norwegian oil company Statoil and British company BP confirmed their facilities at In Amenas in southeastern Algerian came under attack at 5 a.m. local time Wednesday.

In Rome, U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta declared that the U.S. “will take all necessary and proper steps” to deal with the attack in Algeria. He would not detail what such steps might be but condemned the action as “terrorist attack.”

The identities of the hostages were not clear, but Ireland announced that they included a 36-year-old married Irish man. Prime Minister David Cameron’s office said “several British nationals” were involved.

A Norwegian woman said her husband called her saying he had been taken hostage.

Japanese news agencies, citing unnamed government officials, said there are three Japanese hostages.

“I want to say this is unforgivable,” said Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who was traveling from Vietnam to Thailand on Thursday as part of a Southeast Asian tour.

“Our first priority is to protect their lives,” Abe said of the hostages. Japanese and U.S. officials were meeting in Tokyo to cooperate in resolving the crisis, and Defense Minister Itsunori Onodera called for close exchange of information between the two governments.

Late Wednesday, Statoil said five employees — four Norwegians and a Canadian — were safe at an Algerian military camp and two of them had suffered minor injuries. It said 12 employees were unaccounted for.

Six people were wounded in the attack, including two foreigners, two police officers and two security agents, Algeria’s state news agency reported.

Algeria’s top security official, Interior Minister Daho Ould Kabila, said that “security forces have surrounded the area and cornered the terrorists, who are in one wing of the complex’s living quarters.”

“We reject all negotiations with the group,” Kabila said on national television, raising the specter of a possible armed assault to try to free the hostages.

Hundreds of Algerians work at the plant and were taken in the attack but the state news agency reported that they have gradually been released in small groups.

Wednesday’s attack began with the ambush of a bus carrying employees from the gas plant to the nearby airport but the attackers were driven off, according to the Algerian government, which said three vehicles of heavily armed men were involved.

“After their failed attempt, the terrorist group headed to the complex’s living quarters and took a number of workers with foreign nationalities hostage,” said the statement.

Al-Qaeda’s influence in the poorly patrolled desert wastes of southern Algeria and northern Mali and Niger has grown and it operates smuggling and kidnapping networks throughout the area. Militant groups that seized control of northern Mali already hold seven French hostages as well as four Algerian diplomats.

Algeria’s strong security forces have struggled for years against Islamist extremists, and have in recent years managed to nearly snuff out violence by al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb around its home base in northern Algeria. In the meantime, AQIM moved its focus southward.

AQIM has made tens of millions of dollars off kidnapping in the region, abducting Algerian businessmen or political figures, and sometimes foreigners, for ransom.

The attack is the first time the country’s hydrocarbon industry was targeted since the 1990s, says Geoff Porter, an analyst with North Africa Risk Consulting, a political risk firm specializing in North Africa and the Sahara.

“Even during the worst of the Islamist violence in the 1990s, Algeria’s hydrocarbon infrastructure was never attacked,” Porter said. “This is a real departure.”

Algerian leaders adopted an eradication policy against Islamist insurgents in a war that cost more than 100,000 lives. The insurgents eventually accepted amnesty and renounced violence. Remnants of the insurgency have been fighting for an Islamic state in northern Mali, Porter said.

All three AQIM factions in North Africa and the Sahara were “on a downward trend” until 2012, Porter said. The collapse of Libya, which allowed weapons from former Libyan leader Moamar Gadhafi’s vast arsenal to be seized by extremists, “helped them gain power in northern Mali and the group has transformed from 2011 and 2012,” he said.

While not all the Jihadi factions involved in violence across the region call themselves al-Qaeda or are officially affiliated with the group, their goals tend to be the same, Porter said.

“The goal is still spread radical Islam, attack the near enemy, attack the far enemy, create a Shariah state — it’s just no longer called al-Qaeda,” he said.

Aaron Zelin, an analyst at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said that while al-Qaeda is “probably the weakest it’s ever been,” the jihadist movement has adapted and has strengthened in North Africa.

“The central organization has been weakened but the branches have gotten stronger because a lot of them are more embedded within the local milieu,” he said.

In its new form, al Qaeda and its Jihadi affiliates and sympathizers are less able to launch attacks on the USA or Europe, where security is better than a decade ago, and more focused on “setting up little emirates” and threatening US and Western interests in their own countries, Zelin said.

“They want to bleed the U.S. and it’s allies dry and exhaust them over a long period of time,” he said.

The natural-gas field where the attack occurred is more than 600 miles from the Mali border and 60 miles from Libya’s deserts and is operated by a joint venture by Sonatrach, the Algerian national oil company, BP and Statoil.

According to the Mauritanian site Sahara Media Agency, “Those who Sign With Their Blood” was set up by Mokhtar Belmokhta and a fellow jihadist several months ago when they quit al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb. Before that, Moctar had run the Malian town of Gao, which has been held by insurgents since last summer, alongside an al-Qaeda splinter group, Mujao, or Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa.

A worker at the gas field site told French news agency AFP that the armed group is demanding the release of 100 Islamists held in the country in exchange for the hostages. Another worker at the field taken hostage told French newspaper Le Figaroby telephone that the terrorists have declared they’ve “mined” the base. She added that the attackers were equipped with rocket launchers.

“We rejoice in the success of this blessed kouzwa (intervention) in response to the flagrant interference of the French crusaders’ forces at Mali, whose aim is to infringe upon the Islamic regime in place in Azawad (Northern Mali), at a time when Muslims continue to martyr themselves under the heel of bloody Bashar Al Assad, as the world knows and looks on,” the group said in a communication to Agence Nouakchott d’Information, a Mauritanian news agency.

US studying legal basis for assisting France in Mali – Israel News, Ynetnews.

( Obama finding problems with a “legal basis” to fight al Qaeda?!  This, after the Benghazi tragedy and the fact that not one of those murderers have been captured.  Though I’m still not with the “Obama’s an Islamic 5th column” crowd, I’m at a loss to explain any of this. – JW ) 

The United States takes the French fight with al Qaeda-affiliated militants in Mali “very seriously” but must evaluate French military needs and the legal basis for US action before providing aid, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said on Wednesday.

Panetta, speaking to reporters in Rome, said the United States already was providing information to Paris to help French forces in their effort to disrupt the advance of Islamist groups in Mali until the ECOWAS grouping of African nations can put troops on the ground. (Reuters)

Iran to deploy warships to Mediterranean in show of force | The Times of Israel.

Navy commander says 24th fleet to fan out across the region and ‘counter threats’ to the Islamic Republic

An Iranian warship in the Strait of Hormuz (illustrative photo: Alex Hicks, Wikimedia Commons)

Iranian warships will be deployed to the Mediterranean sea, the Red Sea and other regional waterways, Tehran’s navy said on Wednesday.

The move will put Iranian firepower at Israel’s doorstep, and likely raise tensions in the already skittish region.

Navy Commander Habibollah Sayyari said Iran’s 24th fleet would be sent to points around the region to act as a show of force and “counter threats” to Iran, according to the semi-official news agency Press TV.

Ships will be sent to the Mediterranean, the Red Sea, the Gulf of Aden, the Suez canal, the Indian ocean and Southeast Asia, Sayyari said.

The Iranian navy has steadily expanded its international presence since 2008, when it began patrolling in the Gulf of Aden to protect commercial vessels owned or leased by Iran against piracy.

Last year, two Iranian warships for the first time in decades traveled through the Suez Canal, extending Iran’s naval reach to the Mediterranean Sea. 

Earlier this month, Iran wrapped up a five-day naval drill, dubbed Velayat-91, near the strategic Strait of Hormuz. State TV said the “Ghader,” or “Capable,” sea-launched anti-ship missile with a range of 200 kilometers (120 miles) was among the weapons used in the maneuver.

TV said the navy also used another anti-ship missile, dubbed Noor, or Light, during the drill. It showed several missiles being fired and hitting their targets at sea. Reports on the maneuvers say Iran also used its electronic warfare systems.

Iran’s growing arsenal includes short- and medium-range ballistic missiles that are capable of hitting targets in the region such as Israel and US military bases in the Gulf.

The maneuvers covered nearly 1 million sq. kilometers (400,000 sq. miles) from the Strait of Hormuz to the northern part of the Indian Ocean, including the Sea of Oman.

Iran has threatened to close the strait over Western sanctions targeting its nuclear program, but has not repeated the threats lately. The strait is the passageway for one-fifth of the world’s oil supply.

On Wednesday, Sayyari said the drill wasn’t a threat to other countries in the region, but rather a defensive measure. 

“We announce that we are able to provide security in the region with the help of all neighboring countries,” he said.

Sayyari has said Iran aims to put warships in international waters off the US coast “within the next few years.” He also said Iran’s navy would be “present anywhere in international waters in order to safeguard the Islamic Republic’s interests,” including near the South Pole.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Israel comes first – Israel Opinion, Ynetnews.

Op-ed: Better to have a somewhat displeased American president than a terror-ridden country

Hanoch Daum

I’ll let you in on a little secret: I’ve been thinking a lot about Shaul Mofaz lately. I believe that – like a young Ethiopian at the entrance to the Ganki club in Tel Aviv – he will eventually get in. As for Ofer Lifschitz of the Brit Olam (“Eternal Covenant”) party, well, he says God sent him to us, yet everyone ignores him. This is terrible. What if God really sent him? It’s unclear why God didn’t give him a worthy advertising budget as well, but maybe he wants to tell us something through Lifschitz? Maybe God asked that he explain to us the purpose of creation?

Now I’ll tell you another secret: Throughout this entire time not once was I bothered by what Barack Obama thinks. I suppose he does not like the fact that in Israel there is a government that protects the country’s interests and does not embark on dangerous diplomatic adventures just to please the world.

Obama is not hiding his displeasure and is attacking Benjamin Netanyahu’s policy from every direction. However, I’m convinced he will get along with a Netanyahu who stands up for his principles. He has no other choice.

The easiest thing for Netanyahu would be to become the darling of the international community. Such a goal would be very easy to achieve. Clinton worshipped Ehud Barak for offering the Golan Heights to Syria and Jerusalem to Arafat. Rabin and Peres were also admired in Europe because of the Oslo Accords. We even got the Nobel Prize, along with murderous suicide terror.

The disengagement from Gaza helped Arik Sharon a lot in his dealings with the Bush Administration and the press, which forgave him for the Greek island affair after he swung to the Left.

It was a pleasure traveling the world as prime minister back then, but it was very difficult to travel within Israel, as the disengagement brought rocket terror to the south, and the last withdrawals brought terror to the heart of Israel’s cities; ruthless terror that was a direct result of Israeli concessions, which only proved there is no one on the other side who will agree to peace.

I prefer a somewhat displeased American president than a terror-ridden country.

Former US commander warns of Iran attack risks – Israel News, Ynetnews.

Admiral William Fallon says US-led military op could put Iranian nuclear program back several years, notes Israel less capable of strike and may face more difficult task than in Iraq, Syria

AFP

A former US military commander warned Wednesday that a potential US strike against Iran would take weeks and probably only set back the country’s nuclear program by several years.

Admiral William Fallon, the former head of US Central Command which covers the Middle East, said that Iran posed concerns for both the United States and Israel but voiced hope for a diplomatic solution to the nuclear row.

“If the US were to put a full-fledged strike campaign in there, that would probably take several weeks, it could put this program back for several years,” Fallon said at the American Security Project, a research group.

Israel, which has not ruled out military action, has less capability than the United States and would face a more difficult task than in 1981 and 2007 when it secretly bombed nuclear sites in Iraq and Syria, Fallon said.

Iran’s suspected nuclear facilities are not a “pinpoint target” but are instead dispersed and largely underground, he said.

“The bottom line is, it’s not going to be a one-time shot. It’s not going to be like ’81 or even 2007,” Fallon said.

Strike as last resort

Fallon resigned as Central Command chief in 2008 and ended a four-decade military career after an article in Esquire magazine portrayed him as critical of then president George W. Bush’s stance on Iran.

Fallon joined other former US officials last year in signing a study that said military action should be a last resort on Iran and estimating that military strikes could set back the nuclear program by up to four years.

Other signatories included former senator Chuck Hagel, recently nominated by President Barack Obama to be defense secretary.

But Senator Chuck Schumer, a hawkish supporter of Israel who had initially wavered on supporting Hagel, said Hagel promised him that planning military contingencies on Iran would be his first priority at the Pentagon.

Iran denies Western charges it is developing nuclear weapons, saying its nuclear work is for peaceful purposes.

Experts from the UN International Atomic Energy Agency on Wednesday held talks in Tehran on addressing international concerns over Iran’s nuclear program that have triggered US-led economic sanctions.

A US think tank, the Institute for Science and International Security, said Monday that Iran was on track to be able to produce material for at least one nuclear bomb by mid-2014.

Barack Obama: Conceited-in-chief – JPost – Opinion – Columnists.

US President Barack Obama Photo: Kevin Lamarque / Reuters

Anyone who thought that a victory in the November elections would bring out the softer, gentler side of Barack Obama’s policy toward Israel was bound to be in for a rude awakening.It was, after all, fairly clear that in the run-up to the presidential balloting, Obama was on his best behavior as he courted the Jewish vote. He refrained from slamming Israel and instead sought to portray himself as “having Israel’s back.”

But now, instead of biting his lip, Obama is choosing to give Israel some lip.

With less than a week to go before Israelis go to the polls, the occupant of the White House decided to take time out of his busy schedule and brazenly interfere in the Jewish state’s election campaign.

In a barely-concealed leak to journalist Jeffrey Goldberg of The Atlantic magazine, Obama launched a stinging broadside against Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu.

Goldberg wrote that after the president was informed of Netanyahu’s decision to build in E-1, which would connect Jerusalem with Ma’aleh Adumim, Obama “didn’t even bother getting angry.”

“He told several people,” Goldberg said, “that this sort of behavior on Netanyahu’s part is what he has come to expect, and he suggested that he has become inured to what he sees as self-defeating policies of his Israeli counterpart.”

Furthermore, Goldberg noted, “in Obama’s view, Netanyahu is moving his country down a path toward near-total isolation.”

This anecdote was nothing less than Obama’s gift to Israel’s left, as they struggle to gain traction with the Israeli electorate.

In effect, he handed Tzipi Livni, Shelly Yechimovitch and the extremists of Meretz a formidable talking point, enabling them to cite the ostensible leader of the free world as they bash Netanyahu’s policies.

Not surprisingly, it didn’t take Livni long to do just that.

Within hours of the publication of Obama’s remarks, Livni went on the offensive, convening a press conference in Tel Aviv to say that the president’s statement showed that there was a need for “a dramatic change” in Israel’s leadership.

In other words, Obama has now stuck his nose directly into Israel’s electoral contest.

THIS IS nothing less than a heavy-handed affront to a close US ally and it shows just how petty Obama is.

Peeved at what he perceived as Netanyahu’s support for his opponent Mitt Romney, the president decided to take revenge by lending a helping hand to Israel’s Left.

But as is his habit, Obama went too far and overstepped the bounds of decency. According to Goldberg, in the period following the unilateral Palestinian move at the United Nations late last year, Obama said in private conversations that “Israel does not know what its own best interests are.”

He added that Obama believes that “Iran poses a short-term threat to Israel’s survival; Israel’s own behavior poses a long-term one.”

This crude condescension is breathtakingly offensive on so many levels.

For Obama to suggest that Israel does not know what is best for itself is eerily reminiscent of the colonial mindset, which in bygone days looked down on the poor savages and felt compelled to teach them a thing or two “for their own good.”

Moreover, for a man presiding over a mounting national debt of $16.4 trillion, and who spends taxpayer money like a drunken sailor on shore leave, it is Obama who doesn’t seem to grasp what his own country’s best interests are, let alone those of Israel.

And to assert that Israel’s policies pose a greater threat to the future of the state than the Ayatollahs’ atomic ambitions is a slap in the face to Israel’s democratic system.

This is not your run-of-themill arrogance. It is hostility wrapped in condescension and swathed in disdain.

With this latest shot across Israel’s bow, the commanderin- chief has taken upon himself a new role, that of the conceited-in-chief.

Indeed, the last time a senior American official spoke with such antagonism towards the Jewish state was in June 1990, when then-secretary of state James Baker publicly complained that the Israeli government wasn’t willing to make enough concessions to the Palestinians.

After reading aloud the phone number for the White House switchboard – 1-202-456-1414 – he told Israel’s leadership, “When you’re serious about peace, call us.”

It is essential that American Jewry speak out loudly and clearly against Obama’s insulting tone and aggressive rancor.

This is not the kind of rhetoric that a president should be using when talking about America’s closest ally in the Middle East, and it only serves to bolster what many of us had warned about prior to the November elections: Obama is no friend of the Jewish state.

Whatever he may think of Israel’s policies, common decency – as well as common sense – dictate that Obama should respect the wishes of the Israeli public and their elected leadership.

Thankfully, the president’s slurs are unlikely to have any discernible outcome on Israel’s elections, which Netanyahu is expected to win.

But with four more years to go until Obama leaves office, this latest slight may be just the start of what could prove to be a very long – and very unpleasant – second term.