WarSclerotic

Israel Hayom | Syria is Iran’s weakest link.

Report: IAF Warplanes Seen Flying Lebanon Skies – Defense/Security – News – Israel National News.

IAF F-16

Israel news photo: Flash 90

Lebanese media reported Sunday afternoon that Israeli war planes were spotted in the skies above southern Lebanon. 

It appeared the pilots were rehearsing attacks on targets in the region, local sources told media outlets.

Both Syria and Lebanon accused Israel of carrying out air strikes on a convoy last Wednesday that was transporting Russian-made surface-to-air missiles from the Damascus area towards the border with Lebanon.

The two countries also accused Israel of bombing the Jamraya military research center, where chemical weapons were being processed. At least two people died in the attack, and a number of others were wounded. Among the casualties were alleged members of Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards.

For the first time, Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak this weekend obliquely acknowledged that indeed, Israel had carried out the strike, which he referred to as “proof that when we say something, we mean it.”

“We say that we don’t think it [Syria] should be allowed to bring advanced weapons systems into Lebanon,” he told top international diplomats and defense officials at a conference Sunday in Germany.

Barak did not bluntly say that Israel had carried out the strike, skirting the issue by saying, “I cannot add anything to what you have read… about what happened in Syria several days ago.

“But I keep telling … that we said, and that is another proof that when we say something we mean it, we say that it should not be allowable to bring advanced weapons systems into Lebanon and Hizbullah from Syria when [Syrian President Bashar al-] Assad falls.”

Barak added that in his view, “Hizbullah from Lebanon and the Iranians are the only allies that Assad has left.” He said the region has not been this unstable since the collapse of the Ottoman Empire.

Assad’s fall could come at any time, Barak added, noting “this will be a major blow to the Iranians and to Hizbullah.”

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad accused Israel on Sunday of seeking to “destabilize” his country, in a statement released to the government-run Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA).

The air strike had “unmasked the true role Israel is playing, in collaboration with foreign enemy forces and their agents on Syrian soil, to destabilize and weaken Syria,” Assad was quoted as saying during a meeting in Damascus with top Iranian officials.

Barak: Assad’s fall is imminent. Jalili, Assad weigh reprisal for Israel.

DEBKAfile Special Report February 3, 2013, 2:36 PM (GMT+02:00)

Vehicles at the Jamraya complex near Damascus

Israel’s defense minister Ehud Barak had strong words for Iran and its allies at the Munich Security Conference Sunday, Feb. 3, while, in Damascus, Iran’s National Security Director Saeed Jalili conferred urgently with Syrian President Bashar Assad. They discussed activating the secret mutual defense pact binding Iran, Syria, Hizballlah and Hamas in reprisal for the Israeli air strike which reportedly hit a military complex near Damascus last Wednesday.

Without directly confirming the Israel attack on the Jamraya military compound, defense minister Barak said, “…what happened in Syria several days ago… that’s proof that when we said something we mean it… and we say that we don’t think it should be allowed to bring advanced weapons systems into Lebanon.”

Addressing top world diplomats and defense officials, Barak when on to say: “Hizballah from Lebanon and the Iranians are the only allies that Assad has left.” Assad’s fall is “coming imminently” and that “will be a major blow to the Iranians and Hizbollah. I think that they will pay the price,” he said.

In Tehran, Iranian Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani warned Israel Sunday of the consequences of its alleged strike. “The world is witnessing a vengeance carried out by the West, particularly the US, and some backward elements in the region against resistance.” Larijani called on countries in the region to distance themselves from Israel and said he believed “the Islamic awakening movement in the region would give a proper response to the Zionist regime.”

On the face of it, Tehran looks as though it is passing the buck for “a proper response to the Zionist regime” to fellow Muslims and the Arab world.

However, debkafile’s Iranian and intelligence sources believe the Iranians are simply playing for time to decide how to retaliate for Israel’s reported strike on the military complex which Syria shares with its allies. The man to watch is Jalilee who, we can report exclusively, arrived post haste in Damascus Saturday, Feb. 2, to warn Syrian leaders that Tehran is not willing to forego a military response to an attack which destroyed a whole supply of advanced Iranian weapons Tehran sent to Hizballah in the last two years and which were stored at the Jamraya compound.
The Syrian ruler clearly agrees with his Iranian guest. Sunday, he accused Israel of trying to “destabilize” his country. His first remarks on the reported Israeli air strike in Syria on Wednesday came after he met Jalilee. He added that Syria was able to confront “current threats… and aggression.”

Iran, Syria and Hizballah must now decide on the nature of their reprisal, set up the operation and assign forces for its implementation, while taking into account Israel’s options for a counter-response.

Barak’s tough comments in Munich told Tehran that Israel is ready to remove the gloves against Syria and Hizballlah. Iranian leaders heeded his words well while at the same time keeping track of the Syrian opposition leader Mouaz al-Khatib’s meetings in Munich with US Vice President Joe Biden and, for the first time, with the foreign ministers of Russia and Iran, Sergey Lavrov and Ali Akbar Salehi.
Salehi spent 45 minutes with the Syrian dissident on the sidelines of the conference addressed by the Israeli defense minister.
Those meetings were taken as suggesting that the Syrian opposition does not expect the Syrian ruler to fall in the short term and has therefore decided there is no option but to start talking to him about a power-sharing format for ending the Syrian conflict.  Tehran is already angling for a role in a Syrian peace settlement.

However an Iranian-backed reprisal operation countered by a tough Israel response could upset this promising scenario.

Assad: Strike aimed at destabilizing Syria – Israel News, Ynetnews.

( No surprises here.  We knew this would happen. Assad is using the same tactic Saddam hoped to use in the first gulf war, but failed when Shamir decided to not retaliate at the US’s urging. 

Rally the Islamic world to his side because he’s being attacked by the JEWS ! 

I don’t believe it will work for him, as Saudi Arabia is dead set against him.  But it has the Syrian rebels denigrating him for not retaliating and the Turkish idiocy covered here yesterday as a side effect of the same idea. – JW )

In first public comments on alleged Israeli attack on military research base outside Damascus last week, Syrian president says his country able to confront ‘current threats …and aggression’ against it

Roi Kais

Syrian President Bashar Assad commented for the first time Sunday on the recent airstrike in his country, blaming Israel and saying the attack was aimed at weakening and destabilizing Syria.

Syria’s state news agency SANA said Assad made the remarks in a meeting with Saeed Jalili, Iran‘s national security council secretary, at the Syrian capital.Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report

Assad said after the meeting that “Syria, with the power of its army and adherence to resistance, is able to confront all the current threats and curb any aggression against the Syrian army and its historical and cultural role.”

Assad and Jalili, Sunday (Photo: Reuters)

The Syrian president stressed that “the Israeli aggression in one of the scientific research centers in the Jamraya area on the outskirts of Damascus exposes Israel’s real role in cooperating with the hostile external forces and their aides on Syrian soil in an attempt to undermine Syria’s stability, weaken it and cause it to abandon its national stances.”

Jalili said after the meeting, “We have a great amount of faith in the Syrian leadership’s wisdom to deal with the brutal aggression which aims to affect Syria’s pioneering role in the resistance axis.”

Israel’s defense minister made his country’s first public comments Sunday on the alleged attack.

Ehud Barak brought the issue up at a gathering of the world’s top diplomats and defense officials in Germany, initially saying: “I cannot add anything to what you have read in the newspapers about what happened in Syria several days ago.”

But, addressing the audience in English, he then added: “I keep telling frankly that we said – and that’s proof when we said something we mean it – we say that we don’t think it should be allowed to bring advanced weapons systems into Lebanon.”

Iran: Syrian response will put Israel in a com… JPost – Defense.

If Israel strikes Syria again, all bets are off – Telegraph Blogs.

With every passing week, we see more and more evidence that Syria’s civil war is both seeping out of the country’s borders and, like a flame sucking in oxygen, is pulling regional powers in at the same time.

To Syria’s south, Jordan – which has just finished holding elections – faces a near unprecedented influx of Syrian refugees. To the east in Iraq, tens of thousands of Sunni demonstrators – many of whom identify with the largely Sunni uprising next door, and cheered on by an Al Qaida-linked group – blocked a major road in western Iraq in protest against the Shia-dominated government. To the north, today’s bombing at the US embassy in Ankara has been blamed on a banned Left-wing group, the DHKP-C, but most early lists of suspects included Jabhat-al-Nusra, Al Qaida’s Syrian front, while relations between Turkey and Syria are their lowest ebb.

The most volatile of all issues, however, may be Israel’s intervention into the Syrian crisis this week. It appears that Israeli jets bombed not just a convoy of Russian-supplied SA-17 anti-aircraft batteries, located at a military base northwest of Damascus, but other targets also, including a biological weapons research centre.

It remains unclear whether the missiles were stationary or were being moved, but in the preceding days the Israeli cabinet had been meeting feverishly and shouting, to anyone who would listen, that chemical weapons were not the only thing that they were worried about. Since the base was less than five miles from Syria’s border with Lebanon, Israel might have been concerned that the missiles would be transferred to Hezbollah, challenging Israel’s hitherto absolute air superiority over the militant group.

There remain a few puzzling aspects to this story. Syria only received these missiles from Russia over the last couple of years (ironically, they were purchased after Israel destroyed a half-built Syrian nuclear reactor in 2007). Why would the regime hand over something so advanced to Hezbollah just when it most needs its air defences to deter a no-fly zone or other foreign intervention?

One possible answer is that the missiles were in fact being moved within Syria for safekeeping, and Israel, unable to tell where they were headed, pounced. That is speculation for now. But, if there was such confusion, it highlights how easily one side might misperceive the red lines of another, and how easily a broader war could be sparked: imagine, for instance, the possible consequences of an inadvertent explosion at a Syrian chemical weapons site.

For now, the strike isn’t likely to trigger a larger war. Although Syria has publicly blamed Israel – something it didn’t do in 2007, when it was last bombed – it has incentives to keep its retaliation purely verbal. The Syrian military is heavily stretched by the rebellion, and it showed restraint the last several times that it was similarly attacked.

Iran’s bark is also worse than its bite. A day before the strike, one of Iran’s most senior foreign policy figures insisted that “an attack on Syria is considered attack on Iran and Iran’s allies”. Then, after the strike, Iran’s deputy foreign minister warned of “grave consequences for Tel Aviv”. But put this bluster aside, and there’s little that Iran can do. It can target Israeli interests outside of the region – as it probably did last year, in retaliation for the assassinations of its nuclear scientists – but it also needs to keep its powder dry in case of direct threats to itself. Hezbollah, itself unaffected by the bombing, won’t want to rush in. A wider war would put pressure on the group’s domestic standing, and it has no wish to be blamed for the destruction of Lebanon.

Russia, still sending assistance to the Syrian regime, also joined in the condemnation. But its concern is simple: that Israel’s actions do not become, and are not seen as, the thin end of a wedge for broader military intervention to topple Assad. It might be especially worried about this, given the ease with which Israeli jets sailed through Syria’s supposedly fearsome air defences. But as long as Israel doesn’t make this a habit, and given the strike was not intended to help the rebels, Russia is unlikely to lift a finger in response.

The bigger problem is that Israel might have set a relatively low bar for intervention. Sure, the SA-17 is a special case. It cuts to the heart of Israel’s greatest advantage: undisputed air superiority over every neighbour. But there are a number of other non-chemical weapons in Syria that will be of concern, such as the Yakhont anti-ship missiles, also of Russian origin.

Israel’s planes are still loitering over Lebanon, presumably to keep the pressure on Assad. But if, as this newspaper has reported, “more cross-border strikes [are] likely”, and the United States has given a “green light” for these, it will become harder and harder for Syria to abstain from undertaking the retaliation it is probably desperate to avoid. At some point, it is no longer tenable for Assad to sit there doing nothing. What makes this more complicated still is that, according to Time magazine’s sources, the US is also prepared to conduct air strikes if rebels look like getting hold of chemical weapons.

Israel’s policy towards Syria has, for two years, consisted of keeping its distance and sending warnings to Assad. As the Syrian state weakens and, at the same time, it has less and less to lose, Israel will find it increasingly difficult to insulate itself from events next door. If air strikes recur, this policy is going to fall apart.

Jerusalem Post – Breaking News.

Barak: We’re following Syrian WMD issue closel… JPost – Defense.

Danger ahead | The Nation.

( Ladies and Gentlemen, read this carefully. Its brilliant, its true and very well written. – Luis)

By: Eric S. Margolis | February 03, 2013 . 0

After the monkey that didn’t quite make it to space, the Iranian ‘stealth bomber’ Israel News | Haaretz Daily Newspaper.

Iran continues to showcase its technological achievements in commemoration of 34 years to the Islamic Revolution, with the aim of presenting Iran as at the forefront of technology, despite its international isolation.

In this picture obtained from the Iranian Students News Agency, ISNA, an Iranian technician holds a monkey which has been prepared for riding Iranian rocket into space, in an undisclosed location. Photo by AP

A screenshot of a video showing the Iranian ‘stealth bomber.’

Iran continues to present unique technological achievements as part of its Ten Days of Dawn, a series of events commemorating 34 years to Ayatollah Khomeini’s Islamic Revolution. One of the celebrations’ main messages is Iran’s self-reliance, its resources and capabilities that enable it to remain at the forefront of technology despite the international sanctions and isolation.

Last week it was the monkey who supposedly was launched into space and then returned to earth. It has since transpired that not only was this little more than a PR stunt, not disclosing any extraordinary capabilities, but according to reports, comparing the different photographs published by the Iranians proves that there were at least two different monkeys in on the act. This indicates that even if there was a space-launch, the astronaut failed to come back in one piece. On Friday, Iran heralded a new scientific milestone, the Qaher 313, a stealth bomber no less, which according to the breathless Iranian reporters is capable of carrying out low-level attacks while evading enemy radar.

A stealth fighter is without doubt an impressive technical feat. The United States invested decades of development in the development of the F-22 and ceased its production early due to its high cost. The next U.S. stealth bomber about to enter operational service is bedeviled with technical problems and its price is sky-rocketing faster than the plane. The Russians and Chinese are both working on stealth fighters but are still a the prototype stage. Iran has now joined the super-powers club.

At first sight, the Qaher 313 does look like a fighter with stealth capabilities and is externally similar to the F-22 and F-35. A closer look at the example presented to the regime’s leaders, including President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Defense Minister Ahmad Vahidi looks like little more than a glorified mock-up which seems to have been build from leftover props of a cheap science-fiction flick. Since the Iranian media broadcast the first pictures Friday, aviation and military online forums have been debating the aerodynamic failures of the plane. It seems that it will probably never take off, let alone make it into aerial combat.

The list of the plane’s design flaws is long and varied, we will mention just a few. The inlets which are supposed to supply air to the jet engine are too small and situate on the plane in a position which will not ingest enough air at some angles. The engine doesn’t even have a nozzle from which it powers the aircraft. The cockpit is too small (the pilot who was supposed to ‘model’ the fighter barely managed to get his legs and torso inside) and its instruments seem to have been taken from a much less advanced aircraft. The forward “canard” winglets which are supposed to improve control are fixed without any maneuverability. The blurry video published by the Iranians which purports to show the Qaher 313 in flight seems to show not a manned fighter-jet but a small radio-operated drone.

The Qaher 313 won’t cause any panic in the Israeli Air Force’s intelligence wing, or at any other serious intelligence organization. The only serious question the new “plane” that almost certainly never appeared on an aeronautical engineer’s drawing table but doubtlessly took thousands of Propaganda Ministry man-hours to construct raises is who are the Iranians trying to kid? Do they think anyone in the west or their rivals in the Middle East are stupid enough to swallow this? It seems more likely that they are trying to impress their own people, whose financial suffering from the international sanctions is worsening by the day, with yet another glorious achievement of the Islamic revolution.