WarSclerotic

The Syrian War: Israel and U.S. Coordinating How to Target Assad’s Arsenal | TIME.com.

52 days after an Israeli general publicly declared that Syria has used chemical weapons against rebels, the Obama administration reached the same conclusion, and used the finding to justify announcing it would send small arms to the side of the victims. “I will not say ‘We told you so,’ only, okay, the proof is there, so there’s no more question about it,” says Israeli foreign ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor, taking with a smile the easy part of the equation now laid before Israel. As for the hard part: “Now, what should be done? It’s not for Israel to say, because the international involvement in this should not include Israel. Israel follows very closely developments there. It’s very concerned about activity on its borders. But we’re not aspiring to be involved in any action about what’s happening in Syria.”

In fact, of course, Israel is closely involved already, and in more ways than they are acknowledged publicly. Israeli military officials tell TIME that American intelligence had the same information that Brig. Gen. Itai Brun cited in his April 23 presentation to a public conference – video footage showing victims foaming at the mouth, and other indicators that made it clear that sarin had been used on the battlefield more than once. “We are sharing,” one Israeli intelligence official said at the time. “We have our cards on the table with the Americans for a long time. They’ve had all this information.”

Though the speech embarrassed President Obama, who had repeatedly called use of chemical weapons “a game changer” in his Syria policy, it was officially inadvertent. No one in Israel’s political echelon knew of Brun’s remarks in advance, and officials from both countries spent several days publicly repairing the impression that Israel was trying to force Obama to intervene. At an operational level, cooperation between the two countries has been exceptionally close — and growing closer as Washington publicly ramps up its military involvement in the Syrian conflict.

“Things are happening behind the scenes,” says one Israeli official. “Things are really happening.”

Earlier this month, the Pentagon announced it was sending F-16s and Patriot missile batteries to Jordan, ostensibly for an exercise (“Eager Lion”), but which would remain in the Hashemite Kingdom afterward.

“It’s a clear, purposeful, presence of a strike force near the border of Syria,” the Israeli official noted. “I think it’s a message, a clear message.” The message is also meant to be legible to Iran, which is arming Syria and the Lebanese militia Hizballah by air, as well as testing the resolve of Western powers who threaten to strike its nuclear program. “It’s only a short leap to the Gulf,” the official said.

Patriot batteries went into Turkey last year, under the banner of NATO. And the chief of Mossad, Israel’s overseas intelligence agency, traveled to Ankara this week to meet with Turkey’s National Intelligence Organization, known by its Turkish initials MIT. As opponents of Syrian President Bashar Assad organize themselves to assist the rebels opposing him, Israel feels obliged to lay low. Though closely aligned with Washington, and maintaining diplomatic relations with Jerusalem, countries like Jordan and Turkey have majority Muslim populations who would not welcome overt military cooperation with Israel. “If this is to hold water, this cannot involve Israel,” the Israeli official said.

Behind the scenes, however, Israeli and U.S. military officials are coordinating how to target and destroy Assad’s arsenal of unconventional weapons under assorted scenarios, Israeli military and intelligence officials tell TIME. One scenario would be the sudden removal of Assad from the scene, be it by flight, death or if he simply disappears. That would prompt the allies to launch operations on the estimated 18 depots and other sites where WMDs are stored, the officials said. Search and destroy operations would also be launched if the weapons appeared to be about to fall into the hands of the rebels, which include Islamist extremists aligned with al-Qaeda.

The Israeli officials emphasized that it had not been decided whether both Israeli and U.S. forces would act, or who would do what. But the U.S. plans called for deploying forces on the ground as well as waves of airstrikes, to assure that the chemical and biological components are neutralized, according to the Israeli officials.

(MORE: Violence in Syria)

Israel already has struck by air inside Syria three times this year, targeting advanced weapons systems such as anti-aircraft batteries and highly accurate Russian-made missiles that officials said were being transferred to Hizballah, something Israeli officials repeatedly had warned would prompt discreet, surgical action intended only to safeguard its military advantage over the Lebanese militia, which is sponsored by Iran and supported by Syria (where Hizballah recently sent troops to help Assad).

“The main arms of concern to us are the arms that are already in Syria — these are anti-aircraft weapons, these are chemical weapons and other very, very dangerous weapons that could be game changers,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told the BBC in April, in remarks the Israeli foreign ministry said remained operative in the wake of Obama’s decision to arm the rebels. “They will change the conditions, the balance of power in the Middle East. They could present a terrorist threat on a worldwide scale. It is definitely our interest to defend ourselves, but we also think it is in the interest of other countries.”

Moderate Rohani on track for outright Iran election win | JPost | Israel News.

Reformist-backed Iranian cleric far ahead of conservative rivals in presidential election, easing beyond 50% mark in latest count; Supreme leader hails elections as a “vote of confidence” in Islamic Republic.

Hizballah units near Golan. Some receive “limited-use” chemical arms.

Chemical canister landing in Saraqeb, Idlib

American sources claimed Saturday,  June 15, that the “military support” the Obama administration promised the Syrian opposition Friday consisted of automatic weapons, mortars and recoilless rocket grenades (RPGs) for delivery within three weeks through Turkey.

Those items, say debkafile’s military sources, are no more than a mockery of the rebels’ needs. Any Middle East arms trafficker can quickly lay hands on advanced anti-air and anti-tank missiles for a price running into tens of thousands of dollars – whether in Lebanon, Egyptian Sinai, the Palestinian Authority – or even in trading among the Syrian rebel militias themselves. The going prices, according to our sources, are for instance, up to $50,000 for a shoulder-borne Grail SA-7 anti-air missile and $40,000 for a T-55 tank in poor technical condition plus 40 shells.
After the US weapons arrive, the huge imbalance between the rebels’ and Syrian army’s arsenals will be as stark as ever. It widens constantly with the landing almost every few hours of Russian and Iranian air transports delivering military equipment to cover the ongoing war requirements of the Syrian army and Hizballah.
Friday, as Iranians elected a new president, their supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said in a speech: “To the Americans, I say, OK, to hell with you. Any one who listens to you is a loser. The Iranian people have never attached any value to their enemies.”

And in Beirut, Hizballah’s Hassan Nasrallah said: “Where we need to be, we will be. Where we began assuming responsibilities, we will continue to assume responsibilities” and, he added, no one in Lebanon will be allowed to interfere with this.
Nasrallah, half of whose military strength is fighting for Bashar Assad in Syria, was warning Hizballah’s foes at home that he is still strong enough to deal with any opponents of his Syrian venture as well.
On the heels of the bravado from Tehran and Beirut, a statement heard Friday from Damascus strongly pointed to the three allies’ forthcoming direction.  Syrian President Bashar Assad said: “We have plans to open a resistance front on the Golan Heights,” adding that “such a move could unify the various factions in Syria.” This was the first time Assad had disclosed his plans to join “the resistance” against Israel as a diversion for breaking up the rebel front against his regime.
He spoke after ordering the Syrian and Hizballah troops to peel off into two heads and advance simultaneously on two fronts – one, for their major offensive to recapture Aleppo, and two, the Golan, which is divided between Syria and Israel.

debkafile’s military sources report that Thursday night, the first movements were detected heading toward the Syrian side of the Golan and the Jordanian border, from the Syrian and Hizballah military concentrations piling up in the last two weeks around the southwestern town of Deraa.

Senior officers in the IDF’s Northern command have no doubt that Assad plans to deploy Hizballah units on the border of Israeli Golan while a Syrian back-up force will take up position on the Jordanian border. According to some intelligence sources, rudimentary “limited-use” chemical weapons have been handed out to some of the Hizballah units operating in Syria. They come in the form of plastic canisters, roughly the size of a tin of canned food, which can be fired or simply lobbed by hand. Poisonous sarin nerve gas escapes through two holes upon impact.

This device was developed by Iran for the Syrian army to use on a small scale to save Assad from being accused of using a “weapon of mass destruction.”

In Washington, US and Israeli officials took turns Friday night in junking their red lines for Syria. The Obama administration confirmed that the Syrian government’s use of chemical weapons against the opposition on multiple occasions was “on a small scale.”

Israel’s Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon said in a lecture that Israel had set the Assad regime three red lines against supplying advanced weapons to Hizballah or any other terrorist group; letting them have chemical weapons or allowing Israel to be attacked from the Golan.

Both the US administration and Israel have been overtaken by events. By downplaying the scale of Syrian chemical warfare and providing the rebels with nothing more than light weapons, Washington is in effect granting Assad a license to continue his “small scale” use of chemical weapons. And the Israeli defense minister chose to ignore the fact that the Syrian ruler is past trampling over Israel’s red lines, safe thus far from  evoking an effective response.

The sense of the rest of his remarks at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy Friday are equally abstruse: “Israel will not intervene in Syrian in part because any such intervention would harm the side Israel favors,” said Ya’alon. But he did not address the reverse situation which is more realistic, whereby Syria and Hizballah are preparing to “intervene” in Israel.

The impression gained from his remarks was that, just as the Obama administration has chosen to hold back from a pointed response to Assad’s use of chemical weapons, so too Israel is backing away from coming to grips with the offensive build-up targeting its borders.
Is Moshe Ya’alon simply toeing the line of Obama’s non-intervention policy for Syria?

At all events, he never mentioned by a single word the fact that Hizballah has been armed with “limited-use chemical weapons” – either before or after his meeting with Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel early Saturday.

New House bill promises to help Israel combat existential threats | The Times of Israel.

Amendment ensures Washington’s support in face of Iran’s nuclear program; still requires Senate and presidential support before becoming law

An F-16 refueling in the air during a drill. (photo credit: Jeffrey Allen, U.S. Air Force/Department of Defense)

WASHINGTON (JTA) — The U.S. House of Representatives passed a defense authorization bill that would make it U.S. policy to take “all necessary steps” to ensure Israel is able to “remove existential threats,” among them nuclear facilities in Iran.

“It is the policy of the United States to take all necessary steps to ensure that Israel possesses and maintains an independent capability to remove existential threats to its security and defend its vital national interests,” said the amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act passed Friday.

The amendment, initiated by Rep. Peter Roskam (R-Ill.) and first reported by Americans for Peace Now weekly legislative roundup, would require the president to report every 90 days on how the policy is being implemented.

That report would identify “all aerial refueling platforms, bunker-buster munitions, and other capabilities and maintenance by Israel of a robust independent capability to remove existential security threats, including nuclear and ballistic missile facilities in Iran, and defend its vital national interests.”

The language must survive the reconciliation process with the Senate and then be signed by the president in order to become law.

The amendment is similar to a non-binding resolution passed last month in the Senate that urged the president to provide “diplomatic, military, and economic support” to Israel should it be “compelled” to strike Iran’s suspected nuclear weapons program.

The House version of the defense authorization act already included a number of Israel-related measures, including tripling Obama’s request for missile defense cooperation funding from $96 million to $284 million.

The whole act passed Friday 315-108 and Roskam’s amendment passed by voice vote.

Report: 73 Syrian officers flee to Turkey – Israel News, Ynetnews.

Though it seems tide turned in Assad’s favor, Turkey reports mass defection, including 20 colonels, 7 generals. In Beirut, Hezbollah leader stays committed to Syrian fighting

Roi Kais

Turkey’s state-run news agency says 73 Syrian military officers – including seven generals and 20 colonels – have crossed the border with their families “seeking refuge” in Turkey.

The Anadolu Agency said Friday that the group totaled 202 people. It said they arrived in the town of Reyhanli and were taken to a Turkish refugee camp that houses military officers who have defected from the Syrian army.

At the same time, the Assad regime got a welcome boost from Hezbollah Leader Hassan Nasrallah, who made it clear he will not be deterred by internal Lebanese criticism of his group’s support for Damascus.

Nasrallah, who gave a speech on Friday marking “Lebanese casualty day,” announced the Shiite organization does not intend to abandon its Syrian ally or the Syrian fighting.

“We’ll be were we should be, and will keep shouldering the responsibility until the end,” he committed.

Hezbollah’s involvement in the Syrian crisis, especially in the battles over the border-town of Qusair, caused an uproar in Lebanon and raised concerns that violence may spill across the border.

But Nasrallah insisted: “We’re the last ones to intervene in Syria. There are those who want to see the Syrian regime deposed as if the alternative is a different regime. But the alternative is anarchy.”

Commenting on the possibility that foreign nations will supply the Syrian rebels with arms following reports of chemical weapons use by the regime, Nasrallah declared that “they were armed long ago.”

“Against this international attack, we take part in the existential struggle which wants to see to whole region fall, not only Syria. This is the heretic American-Israeli project,” he accused.

Hezbollah’s leader said his organization’s involvement was completely transparent: “We declared it openly. It’s not as if we sent our men to Syria and said we’re delivering milk and blankets, and it’s not as if we buried our men in Syria and silenced their relatives in Lebanon.”

According to Nasrallah, “The story of a people and a regime is long over. There’s a rift – some of the people support the regime and we’re backing that part, and there’s another part that we’re for with regards to reforms, but we don’t support those who call for the destruction of Syria.”

His speech was broadcast on massive screens in a ceremony in Beirut, and was aired on the Al-Manar TV channel, owned by Hezbollah.

During the ceremony, Nasrallah commended the “Lebanese resistance which acted to defend the holy places.”

“This resistance liberated Lebanon from the occupation,” he said. “Without it, Lebanon’s water would have gone over to the settlements and the original inhabitants wouldn’t be able to use them, just like in the West Bank.

“Without the resistance, our oil our oil reserves would have been transferred to the Tamar deposit, and our government would have had to answer to Israel like in Tyre and Sidon.

“And who was it who drove them out? Who fought and who remained silent? Who fought the occupier and who shook his hand?” Nasrallah said.

The news agencies contributed to this report

Barack Obama’s plan to arm Syrian rebels falls short – Jeffrey Goldberg.

Published: June 14, 2013 3:28 PM
By JEFFREY GOLDBERG, Bloomberg View

Photo credit: AP | A Syrian woman cries near Dar El Shifa hospital while the body of her brother, killed by Syrian Army, lies on the street in Aleppo, Syria. (Sept. 25, 2012)

Here are five observations, most of them depressing, about the Syrian civil war, formulated in light of the announcement by the White House that President Bashar al- Assad’s regime has, in fact, used chemical weapons and that, in response, the U.S. will supply small arms and ammunition to the Syrian rebels.

1. This move is possibly not too late, but it is certainly too little if the goal is to defeat Assad. The battle for Aleppo, the center of rebel strength, appears to be upon us. If Aleppo falls to the combined forces of Assad and the Iranian- backed terrorist group Hezbollah, many thousands of people will be killed and the uprising will, in all likelihood, come to an end. Civil unrest will continue, but the back of the rebellion will have been broken.

The rebels haven’t been doing well lately — they’ve been making headlines mainly for YouTube videos showing atrocities committed by some in their ranks, rather than for military victories — and small arms won’t alter the balance. Even if handguns and rifles are all that the rebels would need for victory, delivering such weapons isn’t simply a matter of driving trucks into Aleppo. It will take time to build a proper pipeline to “vetted” rebels, which is to say, rebels who promise not to one day kill Americans with these weapons. Anti-tank weapons may be of help, but at the moment these don’t appear to be forthcoming, and portable surface-to-air missiles will most definitely not be forthcoming.

2. That’s because we don’t actually know who we’ll be helping. Will these small arms find their way to al-Qaeda- associated groups, like the Nusra Front? We don’t even know who owns guns in the U.S. — how are we going to know for sure who owns our taxpayer-supplied firearms in Syria? Recent history in Afghanistan is very much on President Barack Obama’s mind: The weapons the U.S. supplied to mujahedeen fighters there to battle the Soviets three decades ago eventually were used against the U.S. and its allies. It would be best, from the president’s perspective, if this did not happen again.

3. From the president’s perspective, in fact, it would be best not to get involved at all. But the pressure on him this week became too much to bear. Former President Bill Clinton essentially called Obama a dithering coward because of his unwillingness to enter the Syrian conflict, and the intelligence community found evidence that Assad’s regime has definitively crossed the chemical weapons “red line” the president had spoken of — surely to his everlasting regret — last year.

Obama sees no clean way out, and no clear rationale for deepening U.S. involvement. He also sees a rebel coalition that is both dysfunctional and radicalized, and he knows that there is an outcome to this war that is worse than the continuation of Assad’s rule: the dissolution of the Syrian state and its replacement, in some locations, with al-Qaeda havens. Even an all-in move by Obama to make the rebels’ cause his own probably wouldn’t prevent the country’s collapse (it has, in fact, already collapsed as a unitary state). And he knows that if terrorist groups establish footholds in Syria — geographically close to our crucial allies, Jordan and Israel — he will have to act against them.

4. Many commentators (including, at times, this one) have argued that Obama’s irresolute approach to Syria is emboldening Iran, making it more likely that its supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, will hasten his pursuit of nuclear weapons. A hesitant Obama on Syria equals a hesitant Obama on Iran, or so the thinking goes. But there are two assumptions built into this analysis that I hadn’t fully considered before. One is that Khamenei — who this week said, for the thousandth or so time, that America should go to hell — wasn’t already intent on bringing his country to the nuclear threshold. No one has explained why Khamenei would halt his quest for nuclear weapons if his allies were defeated in Syria. Couldn’t this instead lead him to think that he’s surrounded and friendless and so needs nukes more than ever?

The second assumption is that Obama is a comprehensively vacillating president. I won’t rule this out, particularly because if he hadn’t vacillated early on support for Syria’s rebels (who weren’t always this radicalized), we might be facing a slightly different situation today. But Obama’s overriding concern in the Middle East has always been Iran’s nuclear program; he has never wavered from his position that the U.S. will stop Iran by any means necessary, and it’s not unreasonable to think that he’s keeping his eye on this ball and this ball alone. He knows that, apart from Senator John McCain (and now, apparently, Clinton) there are very few Americans who want to see the U.S. inject itself into the Syrian civil war, especially now that it is shaping up in some ways to be a battle between Hezbollah and al-Qaeda.

5. Humanitarian interventionists argue that Obama may inadvertently be presiding over another Rwanda. Clinton’s great regret, he says, was allowing the Rwandan genocide to take place without making a more aggressive effort to stop it. Obama, the thinking goes, doesn’t want to be burdened with the knowledge that he failed to stop a genocide. However, Syria is not Rwanda.

The death toll in Syria is horrendous, topping 90,000 now, but it isn’t genocide — it’s a civil war.

Jeffrey Goldberg is a Bloomberg View columnist.

Obama’s Sensible, Risky Syrian Strategy – Bloomberg.

President Barack Obama’s decision to arm rebels in Syria comes too late and carries enormous risks. It’s also the right thing to do — so long as its aim is to bring about a political settlement, not victory for the rebels.

U.S. officials have acknowledged in briefings that the motivating factor in their decision was the recent intervention by forces from Iran and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah to turn the war in favor of President Bashar al-Assad, although in public they cited the Syrian regime’s use of chemical weapons.

The Hezbollah-Iran axis undoubtedly prompted U.S. action for several reasons. First, a diplomatic settlement is possible only if both sides understand they cannot win. Hezbollah changed that calculus; Assad no longer has an incentive to negotiate an end to the fighting.

Second, the U.S. is already involved in the Middle East, like it or not, and has interests and allies to secure. There would be significant costs to U.S. interests in letting the war rage on until Iran and Hezbollah secure a victory for Assad.

Third, the United Nations now estimates that 93,000 people have died in the Syrian conflict. Former President Bill Clinton’s invocation of the “wuss” doctrine this week was over the top, but he was right about this: Failing to act as tens or hundreds of thousands of civilians are massacred — as Clinton did in Rwanda and, for several years, in Bosnia — will be hard to explain in the future, even if it seems sensible in the present.

Which is not to say that arming the rebels isn’t risky. Arms might end up in the hands of al-Qaeda. Victory for the rebels might produce a new Sunni regime that’s anti-American, and turn Syrian territory into a haven for Sunni extremists to rekindle the civil war in Iraq. Or U.S. arms could be used by the rebels to massacre Alawites and Christians.

These are all reasons to limit support for the rebels to what it takes to force a settlement and protect U.S. allies. They are also reasons for Obama to continue to try to internationalize Syria policy.

Fortunately, the president will have a chance to make his case at next week’s Group of Eight summit in Northern Ireland. His mission: Win over skeptical allies such as Germany (which opposes arming the rebels), and explain to Russian President Vladimir Putin that the U.S. isn’t interested in starting a proxy war in Syria, nor in a victory for the rebels, but in forcing a settlement.

The president’s words might take on added credibility if they were coupled with assurances that he will continue to rebuff calls in Congress to knock out Syria’s air force and create a no-fly zone across the country. Unless in response to escalation by Russia and Iran, those actions could render impossible the strategic equilibrium that could drive the warring parties to stop fighting — and may end with the U.S. “owning” another war in a broken Middle Eastern country.

And now the big questions: How do you arm Syria’s rebels so that they are strong enough to hold their own but not strong enough to win? How do you keep weapons out of the hands of Islamic extremists? How do you bring about balance in a civil war a world away? Is such a balance even possible?

The only honest answer is this: It’s impossible to say. It’s slightly easier to imagine the alternatives at either end of the spectrum. One is to involve U.S. forces in another large-scale military action in the Middle East, in the unlikely hope that this produces a moderate and tolerant regime; the other is to allow the slaughter to continue, leaving Iran and Hezbollah free to gain ever-greater control of Syria. In this world of bad choices, the best option for Obama is to persuade U.S. allies to help arm the Free Syrian Army with a specific aim of leading both sides in the conflict to accept a political settlement.

Ya’alon: Kerry peace move has failed so far; Arab League initiative is ‘spin’ – Diplomacy & Defense – Israel News | Haaretz Daily Newspaper.

In advance of meeting with his U.S. counterpart, defense minister claims Palestinians already enjoy ‘political independence.’ Ya’alon also calls for ‘political stomach’ by U.S. and others to ‘go all the way’ against Iran, describes Syrian conflict as insolvable.

Minister Ya’alon in the south of Israel. Photo by Ariel Hermoni / Ministry of Defense

Israeli Defense Minister Moshe “Bogie” Ya’alon may have ruffled more than a few feathers in Washington on Friday by declaring that Secretary of State John Kerry’s peace initiative has “failed so far” and that the Arab League proposals – which Kerry has praised –  is nothing more than “spin.”

On Syria, Ya’alon downplayed reports of an ascendant President Bashar Assad, saying he controlled only 40% of Syrian territory. He expressed skepticism about any conclusion to the Syrian civil war – “with or without Assad.”

In the entire Middle East, he said, the monarchies are relatively stable but “the nation-states, the republics, are in a state of collapse.”

Ya’alon also said that Iranian leader Ali Khamenei “has to be convinced that the U.S. and the West have the political stomach to go all the way – including the use of military force” before he will consider stopping Tehran’s nuclear drive.
“Iran should face clear dilemma whether to go on with rogue activities or to survive as a regime,” Ya’alon said.

In an address to the Washington Institute in advance of his meeting with U.S. Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel, Ya’alon said that Kerry’s plan to bring the sides to the table had missed its June 7 deadline and had “failed so far.”

He dismissed the recent Arab League agreement for “territorial swaps” between Israel and the Palestinians and the Arab initiative as a whole as nothing more than “spin” and a “dictation” to Israel to give up territory before discussing its own demands. U.S. Secretary of State Kerry has praised the Arab League move as a significant step towards peace.

Ya’alon said that the Palestinians are clinging to their preconditions for coming to talks – “they want to get something for nothing” – and, in any case, they are unwilling to accept Israel’s two main demands – recognition of its right to exist as a Jewish state and a willingness to declare “end of conflict” after an agreement on borders is reached.

Ya’alon called on the U.S. to demand an eradication of incitement in education programs as a precondition to the continued transfer of funds. He described Palestinian resistance to Israel is part of the effort to delegitimize Israel.
“I can’t be optimistic,” he said. The conflict with the Palestinians, he added, needs to be “managed”- a settlement might better be built “from the bottom up” by improving economic conditions and the “governance” of Palestinian institutions. Ya’alon mocked “solutionists” and “nowists” who believe in “instant solutions” to complex Middle East problems.

Ya’alon said that Syria had become an arena for a “game of superpowers” between the U.S. and Russia as well between Shiites and Sunnis and Iran and moderate Arab states. He said that the rebels are divided between the Muslim Brotherhood, which is supported by Turkey and Qatar, the Salafists, who are backed by Saudi Arabia – and al-Qaida elements whose goal is to destabilize all the countries surrounding Israel in order to use them as launching ground against their main enemy, Israel.

Regarding U.S. military aid to the rebels, Ya’alon said that Israel “was not in a position to dictate” to America what kind of weapons should be supplied to Syrian rebels – but “we have consultations.”

Ya’alon was subdued  his reaction to Russian arms supplies to the Middle East, saying that while Israel “is not happy” about the arms supplies, Russian policies in the area “are not aimed against Israel.”

Ya’alon praised the “earnest and intimate” dialogue what has developed between him and Hagel.

Hezbollah chief says group to keep fighting in Syria | The Times of Israel.

Sheik Hassan Nasrallah says he has made a ‘calculated’ decision to defend President Bashar Assad’s regime at any cost

In this Monday, Sept. 17, 2012 file photo, Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, center, waves to his supporters, in the southern suburb of Beirut, Lebanon (photo credit: AP/Hussein Malla)

BEIRUT (AP) — The leader of Lebanon’s Hezbollah group vowed Friday to keep fighting in Syria “wherever needed” and said his Shiite Muslim group has made a “calculated” decision to defend the Syrian regime no matter what the consequences.

The comments by Sheik Hassan Nasrallah in a speech to supporters in southern Beirut signaled for the first time the Iranian-backed group will stay involved in the civil war raging next door after helping President Bashar Assad’s army recapture a key town in Syria’s central Homs province from rebels.

President Barack Obama has authorized lethal aid to Syrian rebels after the US announced it had conclusive evidence that the Syrian regime used chemical weapons. US officials are still grappling with what type and how much weaponry to send, but the announcement buoyed opposition forces, which have found themselves heavily outgunned and outmanned by the Hezbollah-backed regime.

The Syrian government on Friday dismissed US charges that it used chemical weapons as “full of lies,” accusing Obama of resorting to fabrications to justify his decision to arm Syrian rebels.

US officials said the administration could provide the rebel fighters with a range of weapons, including small arms, ammunition, assault rifles and a variety of anti-tank weaponry such as shoulder-fired rocket-propelled grenades and other missiles. The officials insisted on anonymity in order to discuss internal administration discussions with reporters.

Hezbollah has come under harsh criticism at home and abroad for sending its gunmen to Qusair, and Nasrallah’s gamble in Syria primarily stems from his group’s vested interest in the Assad regime’s survival. The Syrian government has been one of Hezbollah’s strongest backers for decades and the militant group fears that if the regime falls it will be replaced by a US-backed government that will be hostile to Hezbollah.

Nasrallah said verbal and other attacks against his militant group “only serve to increase our determination.”

“We will be where we should be, we will continue to bear the responsibility we took upon ourselves,” Nasrallah said. “There is no need to elaborate… we leave the details to the requirements of the battlefield.”

Assad’s forces, aided by fighters from Lebanon’s militant group Hezbollah, captured Qusair on June 5, dealing a heavy blow to rebels who had been entrenched in the strategic town for over a year.

Since then, the regime has shifted its attention to recapture other areas in the central Homs province and Aleppo to the north.

A visibly angry Nasrallah did not say outright whether his fighters would go as far as fighting in Aleppo, but his words strongly suggested the group was prepared to fight till the end.

“After Qusair for us will be the same as before Qusair,” he said. “The project has not changed and our convictions have not changed.”

Nasrallah reiterated that the fight in Syria was one against the “American, Israeli and Takfiri project” that was meant to destroy Syria, which along with Iran has been the group’s main backer. Takfiri Islamists refers to an ideology that urges Sunni Muslims to kill anyone they consider an infidel.

Much of the group’s arsenal, including tens of thousands of rockets, is believed to have come from Iran via Syria or from Syria itself.

In addition to the increased military aid, the US also announced Thursday it had conclusive evidence that Assad’s regime has used chemical weapons, including the nerve agent sarin, on a small scale against opposition forces. The White House said multiple chemical attacks last year killed up to 150 people.

Obama has said the use of chemical weapons cross a “red line,” triggering greater U.S involvement in the crisis.

“The White House has issued a statement full of lies about the use of chemical weapons in Syria, based on fabricated information,” a statement issued Friday by the Syrian Foreign Ministry said. “The United States is using cheap tactics to justify President Barack Obama’s decision to arm the Syrian opposition,” it said.

The statement also accused the US of “double standards,” saying America claims to combat terrorism while providing support for “terrorist” groups in Syria, such as Jabhat al-Nusra, with arms and money. The group, also known as the Nusra Front, is an al-Qaida affiliate that has emerged as one of the most effective rebel factions in Syria.

The commander of the main Western-backed rebel group fighting in Syria said he hoped that US weapons will be in the hands of rebels in the near future.

“This will surely reflect positively on the rebels’ morale, which is high despite attempts by the regime, Hezbollah and Iran to show that their morale after the fall of Qusair deteriorated,” Gen. Salim Idris told Al-Arabiya TV.

Loay AlMikdad, a spokesman for the Free Syrian Army, said Idris will begin meeting with international players on Saturday to work out the details of the weapons and their delivery.

“We encourage them to take a decision in this relation, by establishing a no-fly zone either all over Syria or areas they choose based on their technical or military considerations on the ground,” he said, adding that would ensure safe areas for civilians. “We hope they start arming immediately. Any delay costs blood of Syrians. It is not water, it is blood of the Syrians, women and children and its future.”

AlMikdad said the rebels have asked for shoulder propelled rockets, thermal anti-tank missiles, anti-aircrafts missiles, surface to surface missiles and armored vehicles.

The regime’s advances have added urgency to US discussions on whether to provide the rebels with weapons. The United Nations said this week that nearly 93,000 people have been confirmed dead in Syria’s civil war, but the actual number is believed to be much higher.

Russia, a staunch ally of Assad, disputed the US charge that Syria used chemical weapons against the rebels.

President Vladimir Putin’s foreign affairs adviser, Yuri Ushakov, told reporters that the information provided by US officials to Russia “didn’t look convincing.”

But he said there was no talk yet about whether Russia could retaliate to the US move to supply weapons to the Syrian rebels by delivering the S-300 air defense missile systems to the regime.

“We aren’t competing over Syria, we are trying to settle the issue in a constructive way,” he said.

Ushakov warned that providing such assistance could derail efforts to convene a Syria peace conference. The main opposition coalition has already said it would not attend, all but scuttling the initiative.

Alexey Pushkov, chairman of Russia’s parliamentary foreign affairs committee, wrote on his Twitter account Friday that “the data on Assad’s use of chemical weapons were faked in the same place as the lie about (Saddam) Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction,” referring to the deposed Iraqi dictator.

“Obama is going down the route of G. Bush,” he added, in reference to former President George W. Bush’s assertion — never proven, but used to justify the invasion of Iraq — that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction.

A lawmaker in Damascus echoed those comments.

“This reminds us of what America did in the prelude to the invasion of Iraq by releasing fabrications and lies to the international community that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction,” said Issam Khalil, a member of Assad’s Baath party.

In Friday’s violence, Syrian troops and rebels fought some of the heaviest battles in months in Aleppo, Syria’s largest city, activists said.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the clashes were concentrated in the city’s eastern rebel-held neighborhood of Sakhour, calling the fighting “the most violent in months.” It said regime troops attacked the neighborhood from two directions but failed to advance, suffering casualties.

Copyright 2013 The Associated Press

Poll puts relative moderate ahead in Iran’s presidential elections | The Times of Israel.

Hasan Rowhani declares he’s running ‘to boot out extremists’; for supreme leader Khamenei to let Rowhani win would be ‘a mortal blow,’ says Israeli analyst

By Times of Israel staff and AP and JTA June 14, 2013, 8:54 pm

Iranian presidential candidate Hasan Rowhani, a former top nuclear negotiator, casts his ballot during presidential elections at a polling station in downtown Tehran on Friday (photo credit: AP/Vahid Salemi)

An Iranian telephone survey on Friday evening gave relative moderate Hasan Rowhani a shock, big lead in the presidential elections.

Israel’s Channel 2 quoted Rowhani saying earlier Friday, as Iran went to the polls to choose a successor to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, that “I entered the political arena in order to boot out the extremists” — a remark tantamount  to open defiance of the regime led by Iran’s Supreme Spiritual leader Ali Khamenei.

As things stood, the Israeli TV report said, former nuclear negotiator Rowhani was being voted into a second round presidential runoff on June 21, probably against Tehran’s mayor, Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf, who was in second place in the poll. A runoff is mandated if no candidate gets over 50% in Friday’s voting.

But it would be unthinkable for Khamenei to allow Rowhani to win the presidency, the respected Israeli Arab affairs analyst Ehud Ya’ari said. So Khamenei’s dilemma, said Ya’ari on Friday night, will be whether to fake the results of Friday’s vote in order to exclude Rowhani, or risk letting the troublesome candidate through to the second round next Friday, and possibly having to fake the result there. For Khamenei to let Rowhani win the presidency, said Ya’ari, would be “a mortal blow.”

Widespread allegations of result-fabrication in the 2009 presidential elections, which saw Ahmadinejad re-elected at the expense of reformist rival Mir Hossein Mousavi, led to a brief upsurge in protests by reformers, which were violently suppressed by the regime.

The analyst said that Rowhani, the only relatively moderate candidate left in the race, had built support from among Iranian reformists, from the country’s various minorities, and from figures linked to the earlier years of the regime, such as former president Hashemi Rafsanjani, whose own candidacy in these elections was banned.

The survey cited by Channel 2 was carried out by Information and Public Opinion Solutions, a US-based polling group that conducted telephone polls of more than 1,000 Iranians in both cities and rural areas. It gave Rowhani 38 percent of the vote, far ahead of second placed Qalibaf on 24%, with Khamenei’s widely reported preferred candidate Saeed Jalili in fourth place with just 12.6%. Results are expected Saturday.

Amid turnout estimated at some 70%, Rowhani’s campaign manager, Mohammad-Reza Nematzadeh, was quoted in media reports saying: “From what we are hearing, by God’s grace and with the people’s support, he is leading in all the country, down to the level of villages.”

Rowhani is far from a radical outsider. He led the influential Supreme National Security Council and was given the highly sensitive nuclear envoy role in 2003, a year after Iran’s 20-year-old atomic program was revealed.

But he is believed to favor a less confrontational approach with the West and would give a forum for now-sidelined officials such as Rafsanjani and former president Mohammad Khatami, whose reformist terms from 1997-2005 opened unprecedented social and political freedoms that have since been largely rolled back.

Khamenei delivered a salty rebuke to the US earlier Friday as Iranians lined up to vote in a presidential election that has suddenly become a showdown across the Islamic Republic’s political divide: hard-liners looking to cement their control and re-energized reformists backing the lone moderate.

Khamenei responded to US questions over the openness of the balloting, telling Washington “the hell with you” after voting began in a race widely criticized in the West as pre-rigged in favor of Tehran’s ruling system. Khamenei also charged that the US elections are controlled by “the Zionist regime.”

“US president is being elected only from two parties while Zionist regime is controlling everything behind the scenes,” said a cartoon posted Thursday on Khamenei’s English language Facebook page.

Long lines snaked outside some voting stations in Tehran and elsewhere. Iran’s interior ministry extended the voting time by four hours. The enthusiasm suggested an election once viewed as a pre-engineered victory for Iran’s ruling establishment has become a chance for reform-minded voters to re-exert their voices after years of withering crackdowns.

Until polling day, there was no clear front-runner among the six candidates trying to succeed the combative Ahmadinejad, whose eight-year era is coming to an end because of rules blocking a run for a third consecutive term. But influential figures on all sides appealed for a strong turnout, indicating both the worries and hopes across an election that has been transformed in recent days.

Iran’s loose coalition of liberals, reformists and opposition activists — battered and fragmented by relentless pressures — have found last-minute inspiration in former nuclear negotiator Rowhani.

Some analysts said a victory by Rowhani would be seen as a small setback for Iran’s hard-liners, but not the type of overwhelming challenge posed four years ago by the reformist Green Movement, which was brutally crushed after mass protests claiming Ahmadinejad’s 2009 re-election was the result of systematic fraud in the vote counting. Israeli analyst Ya’ari considered it would be far more dramatic a blow.

Rowhani’s backers, such as former president Rafsanjani have urged reformists and others to cast ballots and abandon plans to boycott the election in protest over years of arrests and intimidation.

“Both I and my mother voted for Rowhani,” said Saeed Joorabchi, a university student in geography, after casting his ballot at a mosque in west Tehran.

In the Persian Gulf city of Bandar Abbas, local journalist Ali Reza Khorshidzadeh said many polling stations have significant lines and many voters appear to back Rowhani.

But fervor also was strong for other presumed leading candidates: hardline nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili and Tehran’s mayor, Qalibaf, who is boosted by a reputation as a steady hand for Iran’s sanctions-wracked economy.

“We should resist the West,” said Tehran taxi driver Hasan Ghasemi, who backed Jalili.

Outside Iran, votes were casts by the country’s huge diaspora including Dubai, London and points across the United States.

Khamenei, who has not publicly endorsed a successor for Ahmadinejad following their falling out over the president’s attempts to challenge the supreme leader’s near-absolute powers, remained mum on his choice Friday.

Instead, he blasted the U.S. for its repeated criticism of Iran’s clampdowns on the opposition and the rejection of Rafsanjani and other moderate voices from the ballot.

“Recently I have heard that a U.S. security official has said they do not accept this election,” Khamenei was quoted by state TV after casting his vote. “OK, the hell with you.”

In Washington on Thursday, State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said that while the U.S. does not think the Iranian election process is transparent, it is not discouraging the Iranian people from voting.

“We certainly encourage them to,” Psaki said. “But certainly the history here and what happened just four years ago gives all of us pause.”

Iran’s election overseers allowed eight candidates on the ballot out of more than 680 registered. Two candidates later dropped out in bids to consolidate votes with rivals. Journalists were under wide-ranging restrictions such as requiring permission to travel around the country. Iran does not allow outside election observers.

Iran’s security networks, meanwhile, have displayed their near-blanket control, ranging from swift crackdowns on any public dissent to cyberpolice blocking opposition Internet websites and social media.

Yet other cracks are evident.

Western sanctions over Iran’s nuclear program have pummeled the economy by shrinking vital oil sales and leaving the country isolated from international banking systems. New U.S. measures taking effect July 1 further target the country’s currency, the rial, which has lost half its foreign exchange value in the past year, driving prices of food and consumer goods sharply higher.

Such concerns could have a direct effect on the outcome of the election. Qalibaf is widely viewed as a capable fiscal manager and could draw in votes, since economic affairs are among the direct responsibilities of Iran’s president.

All other major issues are fully controlled by the Khamenei, his inner circle and its protectors, led by the powerful Revolutionary Guard. The other candidates permitted on the ballot by election overseers are seen as loyalists, including Jalili and Khamenei adviser Ali Akbar Velayati.

Such insiders in the presidency would give Iran’s leadership a seamless front with significant challenges ahead, such as the possible resumption of nuclear talks with the U.S. and other world powers and the increasing showdown in Syria between rebels and the Iranian-backed regime of Bashar Assad.

Recent comments by Khamenei were interpreted as leaning toward Jalili, whose reputation is further enhanced by a battlefield injury during the 1980-88 war with Iraq that cost him the lower part of his right leg.

But the election also could leave Iran further divided. Rowhani’s rapid rise from longshot to reformist hopeful — aided by endorsements from artists and activists — has shown the resilience of Iran’s opposition despite relentless crackdowns. A defeat could leave them even more embittered and alienated.

At final rallies, Rowhani’s supporters waved his campaign’s signature purple — a clear nod to the single-color identity of the now-crushed Green Movement and its leader, Mousavi, who has been under house arrest for more than two years. On Wednesday, thousands of supporters welcomed Rowhani yelling: “Long live reforms.”

Some Rowhani backers also have used the campaign events to chant for the release of Mousavi and other political prisoners, including former parliament speaker Mahdi Karroubi, leading to some arrests and scuffles with police.