WarSclerotic

Al Qaeda forms volatile 1,000-km chain from Baghdad to Damascus.

DEBKAfile Exclusive Analysis March 12, 2013, 8:30 AM (GMT+02:00)

IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz on Golan

Israel’s Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz rated war as a “low risk” for the foreseeable future, but credited the risk of escalation as “very high,” in a lecture he delivered Monday, March 11 at the Herzliya Interdisciplinary Institute for policy and strategy. “Almost every week, some incident occurs that could drag the region into a conflagration,” he warned.

debkafile’s military sources: Gen. Gantz’s distinction between “war” and “conflagration” stems from the differentiation Israel’s senior policy-making and military circles have begun making of late to support a misconception that a full-blown war is no longer on the cards at present. They support this rationale by arguing that full-scale war can only be fought by large regular armies, while a “conflagration” or “escalation” entails smaller units and less terrain.
The Egyptian army, which would be the key to a major conflict, is held up in this regard as being in no state to go to war, given their country’s disastrous political and economic plight. The generals, according to this theory, wouldl take into account the low state of their units and lack of logistical preparedness and simply decline to issue any order to embark on war against Israel.
So when Gantz talked about a conflagration, he was thinking in terms of the Islamist militias in Syria, Hizballah in Lebanon and the Salafists allied with al Qaeda cells in Sinai – none of which are capable of launching war on the classical dimensions of the past.

What this kind of thinking omits to take into account is that, while the regular Arab national armies which attacked Israel in the past are indeed crumbling, the militias in their countries are mushrooming dangerously. They are bursting out of their national boundaries, nourished with arms, manpower and funding from distant sources in and beyond the Middle East.
debkafile’s military sources point to the example of the Syrian army’s 17th Reserve Division, whose recent defeat in the battle for the Euphrates River in eastern Syria established a regional landmark. It removed the last gap in the 1,000-kilometer long chain of command formed by Islamist forces identified or associated with al Qaeda, which now runs contiguously from the northern outskirts of Baghdad to the eastern fringes of Damascus.  The Syrian Golan, since it fell to the Islamist militias fighting with Syrian rebels, forms part of that chain. The Battle for the Euphrates was a landmark event in that it opened the way for al Qaeda to conduct itself as a transnational force in combat. And indeed, in a recent encounter, al Qaeda in Iraq claimed victory over Syrian military units which, having crossed the border into that country, lost the battle at the cost of 48 soldiers and 9 agents dead.

Therefore, any “conflagration” in Syria, for instance, could quickly spread to Lebanon, Iraq or the Golan; and a violent incident in Egypt may emanate from or spill over into Libya, Israel or Algeria.
This eventuality was intimated in another part of the Gantz lecture: “The only permanent factor we are seeing in the last two years is that nothing is permanent. Egypt, too, which underwent a revolutionary process, has not achieved permanence; old and familiar arenas are changing and are being replaced by newer, weightier, ones,” said the chief of staff. “The threats have not gone, only assumed new shapes and when we encounter them in the future, will demand of us enhanced strength.”
Gantz went on to say: “True, we aren’t preparing to fight a regular army, but when next challenged, we shall still have to crawl through the burrows of Gaza and reach every building in Judea and Samaria.”
The general omitted reference to Iran. This may have been because a nuclear Iran represents the prospect of all-out war with a national army and is therefore the exception to the theory embodied in his lecture.
Regarding Syria, he said: “The situation in Syria has become exceptionally dangerous and unstable. Although the probability of a conventional war against the Syrian army is low, the terrorist organizations fighting Assad may next set their sights on us. The Syrian army’s tremendous strategic resources may well fall into terrorist hands.”

‘Secrets’ of Obama’s upcoming visit to the Middle East revealed – Alarabiya.net English | Front Page.

( Obama asks Arab Americans to “give him a pass” on his speech in Israel…  i.e. Whatever he says, he doesn’t really mean.  I hope all of Israel reads this Al Arabiya article and completely ignores the lies he’s planning on foisting on the Israeli public with this speech.  – JW )

Israel Hayom | Syria rebels vow to ‘liberate Golan Heights’ after Assad falls.

Israel Hayom | Report: Germany, Turkey bust Iranian nuclear smuggling ring.

News from The Associated Press.

Analysis: Obama carries 3 goals on trip to Israel

By STEVEN R. HURST
Associated Press

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WASHINGTON (AP) — Three goals will dominate President Barack Obama’s coming visit to Israel, his first as president: Convincing Israel and its leadership he means what he says about stopping Iran from building a nuclear weapon, mending a deeply troubled relationship with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and, in return, enticing Israel back to negotiations with the Palestinians.

Some of the cosmic stars of diplomacy and Middle East reality are lining up to make the visit a success. Others are not. Whatever the outcome, the visit that will also take Obama to the West Bank and Jordan will mark a significant step by the president deeper into a problem that has bedeviled American leaders for decades. Managing expectations, therefore, is essential in the remaining two weeks before Obama sets off on his mission.

Palestinian and Iranian issues dominated Obama’s remarks in a White House briefing with representatives of major U.S. Jewish organizations on Thursday. The president said it would be premature to take a grand peace plan, according to a person at the session who requested anonymity to detail the private remarks. The person said Obama planned to tell Israelis that just wanting peace was not enough, but would ask what hard steps are they were willing to take.

On Iran and attempts to sidetrack its nuclear program, Obama said Tehran must be left with sufficient face-saving room to accept a diplomatic solution. The president said he was not “going to do extra chest-beating in public” during the visit to Israel just to convince people he is tough, according to the person at the meeting. .

He left the talking on that issue earlier in the week to Vice President Joe Biden, who spoke the Washington gathering of American Israel Public Affairs Committee, America’s most powerful pro-Israel lobbying organization.

“The president of the United States cannot and does not bluff,” Biden told the group when he turned to U.S. vows to keep Iran from obtaining an atomic bomb. “President Barack Obama is not bluffing.”

Israel views a nuclear armed Iran as a threat to its existence, and Netanyahu has hinted at launching a pre-emptive military strike on the Islamic Republic to set back its nuclear program. Tehran has already enriched enough uranium to 20 percent purity for the country, should it decided to do so, to quickly move toward levels needed for a bomb.

Obama says he won’t let that happen, declaring that a U.S. military attack would be possible should negotiations with Iran fail. Netanyahu, however, needs reassuring. That showed in his words to the same AIPAC conference addressed by Biden.

“From the bottom of my heart and the clarity of my brain, words alone will not stop Iran,” the Israeli leader said, reinforcing his contention that negotiations with Tehran and damaging international sanctions may not stop Iran from becoming a nuclear power. The Iranians say they are only trying to refine sufficient uranium as fuel for power generation and medical research.

Netanyahu, thus, will want more public reassurances from Washington.

“Obama will have Netanyahu in his pocket if he truly manages to convince him that the United States will use military force if necessary,” said Jonathan Adelman, a professor and Israeli specialist at the University of Denver. “Then, Netanyahu will be comfortable saying: `You deal with the Iranians and we will give you serious negotiations with the Palestinians.'”

Aaron David Miller, a scholar at the Woodrow Wilson Center who was a Mideast negotiator under six secretaries of state in both Republican and Democratic administrations, said “Obama needs to have two kinds of conversations” during his visit.

In private, Miller said, the two leaders will have to find a way “to give one another the benefit of the doubt on both Iran and the peace process so they can figure out a way to manage each issue because there is no comprehensive solution.” The men have been “at cross purposes,” he said “because they couldn’t manage that uncertainty in the past.”

The two men got off to a terrible start. Netanyahu visited the president shortly after Obama took office in 2009 and publicly and bluntly rejected Obama’s insistence that Israel stop building Jewish settlements in the West Bank, land that the Palestinians view as the territory that will make up their future state. Obama subsequently dropped the issue, but it remains foremost in the minds of Palestinians, a pre-condition for a return to negotiations about creating a two-state solution – Israel and a Palestinian state living peacefully and side-by-side in a tiny swath of land over which so much blood has been shed.

For that reason, there looks to be little doubt that Obama and Netanyahu will emerge from their meetings, smiling and reassuring their constituencies that the bad blood of Obama’s first term is a thing of the past.

There have been hints, but only hints, that Netanyahu might be ready to again call a halt to expanding settlements – part of a potential deal that would leave those around Jerusalem in place in return for a land swap elsewhere. That’s a bitter pill for the Palestinians, but one they might swallow if the deal were sufficiently sweet. And the Israeli government quickly knocked down such reports on settlements.

Netanyahu is weakened at home after January elections in which his deeply conservative coalition was gravely damaged.

The prime minister has been unable in the ensuing weeks to pull together a new coalition and form a government despite a readiness to shed his former alignment with deeply conservative, ultra-Orthodox Jewish political powers.

Signaling a shift toward moderation, he has drawn former opposition leader Tzipi Livni into a future government, if it can be formed, to be justice minister and chief negotiator with the Palestinians. Livni’s party promises to push for the two-state solution with the Palestinians. But plenty of hardliners will remain in government.

The hope is that Obama reassurances on Iran will give a politically weakened Netanyahu the needed cover for a move back toward talks with the Palestinians, who are worried that Obama will do too little during his visit to pressure the Israeli leader on the need to resume negotiations.

—

EDITOR’S NOTE – Hurst is AP international political writer and has covered foreign affairs for more than 30 years.

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News from The Associated Press.

Serious human rights abuses, including dozens of public executions, motivate foreign ministers to up the pressure on Islamic state

March 11, 2013, 3:19 pm

Flags outside the European Union in Brussels (photo credit: Flickr/BY 2.0/motiqua )

BRUSSELS (AP) — The European Union is tightening sanctions against Iran, concerned about alleged violations of human rights in the country.

EU foreign ministers, meeting Monday in Brussels, added nine people they said were “responsible for serious human rights violations” to the list of those subject to a travel ban and an asset freeze, bringing the number of people sanctioned in this way to 87. The foreign ministers also decided to freeze the assets of one “entity,” meaning a company or organization.

The measures will be valid until April 13, 2014. The names of those sanctioned will be published Tuesday.

Iran carried out at least 55 public executions in 2012, UN spokeswoman Cecile Pouilly has said. Some 400 people were reportedly put to death in the country last year.

Copyright 2013 The Associated Press.

European Union tightens the screws on Iran

Serious human rights abuses, including dozens of public executions, motivate foreign ministers to up the pressure on Islamic state

March 11, 2013, 3:19 pm 0

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Flags outside the European Union in Brussels (photo credit: Flickr/BY 2.0/motiqua )

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BRUSSELS (AP) — The European Union is tightening sanctions against Iran, concerned about alleged violations of human rights in the country.

EU foreign ministers, meeting Monday in Brussels, added nine people they said were “responsible for serious human rights violations” to the list of those subject to a travel ban and an asset freeze, bringing the number of people sanctioned in this way to 87. The foreign ministers also decided to freeze the assets of one “entity,” meaning a company or organization.

The measures will be valid until April 13, 2014. The names of those sanctioned will be published Tuesday.

Iran carried out at least 55 public executions in 2012, UN spokeswoman Cecile Pouilly has said. Some 400 people were reportedly put to death in the country last year.

Copyright 2013 The Associated Press.

via European Union tightens the screws on Iran | The Times of Israel.

James Zogby: The Rise and Fall of Iran in Arab and Muslim Public Opinion.

Policy discussions here in the U.S. about Iran and its nuclear program most often focus exclusively on Israeli concerns. Ignored are Arab and Muslim attitudes, especially those of Iran’s Arab and non-Arab Muslim neighbors. It is known that several Arab governments have problems with the Islamic Republic in Tehran, but what of their publics?

Over the past decade, we have been polling regional attitudes toward Iran and its policies culminating at the end of 2012 with a survey of 20,000 citizens in 17 Arab countries and three non-Arab Muslim countries (Turkey, Azerbaijan, and Pakistan). This 20 nation poll covered a range of topics including: attitudes toward Iran, its people, culture, and its nuclear program.

Comparing our most recent findings (compiled in my new eBook Looking at Iran: Iran’s Rise and Fall in Public Opinion) to the data from our earlier surveys in the region reveals important and dramatic changes in Arab and Muslim attitudes toward Iran. It also helps to identify factors that appear to serve as “drivers” behind these changes.

For example, when we polled on many of these same issues in 2006, Iran’s favorable ratings in Arab and Muslim countries were at their highest point. Back then, in most countries, Iran’s favorable ratings were in the 75 percent range (with Saudis giving Iran an 85 percent rating). Six years later the tables have turned. Now Iran’s favorable ratings in these same countries have fallen to less than 25 percent (Saudi ratings have plummeted to 15 percent).

What emerges from our 2011 and 2012 polls is that the earlier favorable attitudes toward Iran were not about Iran, per se. Instead they appear to be more a reaction to Arab public opinion’s fury at Israel’s behavior and U.S. policies in Lebanon, Palestine, and Iraq, coupled with the perception that Iran and its allies were standing firm in opposition to the “machinations of the West.” What changed in 2012 is that the United States has lowered its regional profile, while Iran is perceived to be playing a divisive role in Iraq, Bahrain, Lebanon, and Syria.

What also emerges from our 2012 survey is the presence of a worrisome sectarian divide that has taken hold in several countries, with Sunni attitudes largely opposing Iran and its regional policies, and Shia communities in many of these same countries expressing support for Iran. There is a growing consensus among both Sunni and Shia Muslims that Iran and its policies are contributing to this sectarian rift. There is, however, a limit to Iran’s appeal in the Arab World and that is the result of the important role that Arab culture and identity play as unifying factors in shaping attitudes across sectarian lines.

There was a time, just a few years ago, when favorable Arab public opinion of Iran in some countries stood poles apart from the positions of their governments with respect to Iran and its policies. Some observers made much of this, suggesting that the concerns with Iran’s policies expressed by Arab governments were out of touch with their publics. That may have been true in 2006, but after Iran and its allies overplayed their hands in several countries (with Syria being the “nail in the coffin”–majorities in 17 of the 20 countries covered in our 2012 survey oppose Iran’s involvement in Syria), that gap has now been erased. Most Arabs and Muslims now hold decidedly negative views of Iran and are solidly opposed to Iran’s regional ambitions.

The same is true of Arab and Muslim attitudes toward Iran’s nuclear program. Back in 2006, when Iran was seen as the bastion of resistance to the West, their nuclear ambitions were supported and defended by majorities in most countries. Our earlier polls show Arab and Muslim public opinion supporting Iran’s claim that the program was for peaceful purposes. Whether peaceful or not, strong majorities in almost every country were opposed to any international effort to impose sanctions or use military means against the Islamic Republic. Today, there is virtually no support for Iran’s nuclear ambitions — with majorities now believing that Tehran has designs on producing a nuclear weapon. And sympathy for Iran has been replaced by widespread support for sanctions to stop Iran should it persist in advancing its nuclear program.

Opposition to the use of military force remains high, with strong majorities still against it. But here too there has been a change, with some increase in the number of those who now support the use of a military strike should Iran persist with its nuclear program.

The lesson is clear. When Iran was seen in the Arab and Muslim Worlds through the prism of U.S. and Israeli practices, it won. But when Iran is judged by its regional behavior and its domestic repression, it loses support in Arab and Muslim public opinion.

Karzai Accuses U.S. of Taliban Collusion as Hagel Visits – Bloomberg.

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel was greeted on his first visit to Afghanistan since taking office by suicide bombs, threats and Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s accusation that the U.S. is colluding with the Taliban.

As Hagel prepared to leave a U.S. military compound in Kabul on March 9, a Taliban suicide bomber blew himself up outside the Ministry of Defense, and another suicide bomb detonated in Khost province. Yesterday, Karzai said that those attacks, which together killed 19 people, aided U.S. goals. A joint Hagel-Karzai press conference at the presidential palace was canceled for what Pentagon officials said were security reasons.

 

Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai.

U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said he told Afghan President Hamid Karzai that “it was not true that the United States was unilaterally working with the Taliban trying to negotiate anything.” Photographer: Jason Reed/Pool/Getty Images

While the Taliban said the attacks were aimed at sending a message to Hagel that the insurgents remain a powerful force, Karzai said in a speech yesterday that the U.S. is holding peace talks with the radical Islamists and the bombs were in the “service of America.”

“On the surface and to this outside observer, it appears that Karzai has gone way off the reservation, perhaps more so than he has in the past,” said David Maxwell, a retired U.S. Army colonel who’s associate director of the Center for Security Studies at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service. “I cannot see how we could work with such an apparently delusional leader much longer, but unfortunately I do not know if we have any other good options.”

Karzai’s allegations and the suicide attacks gave the new defense secretary, who took office March 1, a close-up view of the military and political obstacles the Obama administration faces as it tries to extricate the U.S. from a war it’s been waging for more than 11 years, train Afghan forces to take over the fight, root out official corruption, curb opium trafficking, and develop the Afghan economy.

Withdrawing Troops

President Barack Obama has ordered the withdrawal of 34,000 of about 68,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan by February. Former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said last month that the drawdown will occur in stages, with the force dropping to 50,000 by November, after the summer fighting season, and then to 34,000 by February. More troops will come home after Afghan elections planned for early 2014, Panetta said.

“When you spend 48 hours in Afghanistan or any part of the world that’s still dangerous, you again recognize the complications that exist every day in these parts of the world,” Hagel, a combat veteran of Vietnam, told reporters at a U.S. military base after he met with Karzai yesterday. Asked about Karzai’s accusation that the U.S. was colluding with the Taliban, Hagel said he “spoke clearly and directly” to Karzai on the matter. Hagel didn’t elaborate.

Earlier yesterday, Marine Corps General Joseph Dunford, head of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s International Security Assistance Force, said the Afghan president’s comments were “categorically false.”

Shed Blood

“We have fought too hard over the past 12 years, we have shed too much blood over the past 12 years, we have done too much to help the Afghan security forces grow over the last 12 years,” Dunford told reporters. “To ever think that violence or instability would be to our advantage, that’s clearly not where we are right now.”

Hagel said he’d told Karzai that “it was not true that the United States was unilaterally working with the Taliban trying to negotiate anything. The fact is any prospect for peace or political settlements, that has to be led by the Afghans. Obviously the U.S. will support efforts, if they’re led by the Afghans, to come to some possible resolution if that eventually evolves.”

In recent weeks, the U.S. and Afghanistan also have disagreed about the role of U.S. special operations forces and the transfer of Afghan prisoners to Afghan control.

Bagram Prison

A planned transfer of prisoners being held by the U.S. at Bagram air base outside Kabul to Afghan control over the weekend was delayed because the two sides couldn’t agree on the terms of the handover. Karzai had said he would release some of the prisoners.

“What I need to be satisfied as a commander is that there’s a plan in place to ensure that those people who need to be off the battlefield are in fact detained,” said Dunford, who became the top NATO military officer last month.

“We need the latitude to finish the work here in the next 22 months,” he said.

Friction has increased between the two counties because Afghans are increasingly assuming responsibility for running their country and are asserting authority, Dunford said.

“We’re balancing increased Afghan sovereignty with continued presence of coalition forces who exercise a piece of that sovereignty because we are in the middle of a conflict,” Dunford said.

Expelling Commandos

Karzai issued an order last month expelling U.S. commandos from Wardak province, near Kabul, alleging that the soldiers were involved in atrocities. Dunford said the two sides were discussing that order to ensure that Afghan forces are ready to assume authority for the province, which is a gateway to Kabul.

Asked if Karzai’s latest outbursts against the U.S. are undermining trust, Dunford said the Afghan president may be under political pressure to send a message to his constituents.

“Karzai has both an internal and external audience, and he knows far better than I how to message the internal and external audiences,” Dunford said.

“If you look at Karzai’s record over the past decade, he has periodically made statements similar to this most recent one,” said Brian Katulis, a senior fellow who specializes in national security policy in the Middle East and South Asia at the Center for American Progress, a Washington policy institute. “He often does this at times when he wants to signal his independence and his country’s sovereignty.”

‘Unhinged From Reality’

“The statements are sometimes unhinged from reality, and they quite often are aimed at playing to various domestic constituencies in his country,” Katulis said in an e-mail. “They do little to maintain and build trust and credibility with the United States and its NATO allies, however.”

A key test of the Afghan National Security Forces’ ability to deal independently with insurgents will come this summer when the forces will lead the battle for the first time, with the U.S. providing only some advice and support, Dunford said.

The U.S. and Afghanistan are negotiating a bilateral security agreement to ensure that any U.S. military personnel stationed in Afghanistan after 2014 remain immune from Afghan laws.

To contact the reporter on this story: Gopal Ratnam in Kabul at gratnam1@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: John Walcott at jwalcott9@bloomberg.net

Hundreds of UN Syrian Golan UN observers scramble to safety in Israel.

DEBKAfile Special Report March 11, 2013, 5:25 AM (GMT+02:00)

UN observers take refuge in Israel in Golan dawn

The flight of hundreds of UN Disengagement and Observers Force (UNDOF) soldiers – Indian, Austrian and Filipino – in trucks and APCs from the Syrian side of Golan into Israel was in full swing early Monday, March 11. debkafile quotes them as telling Israeli officers manning the Israeli side of the enclave that their commanders urged them to get out when they could because “We can no longer vouch for your safety.”
Many more UN troops are expected to make their way during the day to refuge in IDF camps across the border. Their officers, they said, had already placed their belongings aboard waiting vehicles ready to move across as soon as they received permission from their governments in Vienna, New Delhi and Manila or the UN Secretariat in New York.
Our military sources report that this mass exit signals the breakup of the 1,000-strong UNDOF which for 39 years manned the 8 sq. km separation zone between Syria and Israel. It was set up in 1974 to end the war of attrition fought  in the sequel to the Yom Kippur War between the IDF and Cuban armored brigades flown in from Angola by the Soviet Union to support the Syrian army.
The UN force’s collapse began with the Croatian government’s recall of its 100 troops last week.

As the peacemakers flee, Russia is today hardly likely to interfere with who gets to control the Golan separation zone which was split between Syria and Israel.

debkafile reports three potential candidates are eying the sliver of land for different reasons:

1. The Martyrs of Yarmuk Islamist militia force of the Syrian rebel movement, which staked its claim last week by kidnapping 21 blue-and-white helmeted Filipino observers on the Golan and later releasing them in Jordan.

It is feared in Washington, Jerusalem and Amman, that Al Qaeda-associated forces will waste no time in overrunning the highly strategic patch of Golan borderland, armed with chemical weapons and even Scud D missiles captured from Syrian army bases. They may even be plotting an attack during President Barack Obama’s visits to Jerusalem and Amman, starting March 20.

debkafile’s military sources report that in sync with the UN observers’ escape, Israeli military reinforcements are massing on the Golan Syrian border.
2.  US, Jordan and/or Israel may step in to keep the Islamists out, using either large special forces units for ground raids or a swarm of armed drones.
3.  Hizballah militia units were spotted Sunday night on the move from south Lebanon toward the Lebanese-Syrian border areas abutting on the Golan separation zone.