WarSclerotic

Is Israel Ready to Attack Iran? | Your Single Source for News.

By Rod Pennington

Recently, with little fanfare, the Saudi government expressed their willingness to allow the Israeli Air Force to use its air space unchallenged if it wanted to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities.  Living in such close proximity, the Kingdom is nervous about the extreme erratic Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the radical clerics having “The Bomb”.

The Israelis may have concluded that President Obama’s attempt to “engage” the Iranians has failed.  And worse has given Iran an extra year to in which to develop a nuclear weapon. An unnamed high official was contemptuous of the way Israel was being treated by the current administration. “They bully their friends and bow to their enemies.”

If Israel is going to attack the Iranian facilities it will likely be sooner rather than later.  The Russians have agreed to sell Iran their state-of-the-art S-300 anti-aircraft missiles.  Once deployed and activated it would make an Israeli attack much more difficult if not impossible.  The Israeli realize their window of opportunity is closing, and fast.  They will likely need to strike within the next 90 days or be willing to have a country that has vowed to wipe them off the planet have the bomb.

Israel has made it clear it will not allow its sworn enemies to join the Nuclear Weapon’s club.  In 1981 the Israeli Air Force took out the nuclear facility of Saddam Hussein near the Iraqi capital. There is no reason to believe they will allow a much more belligerent Iranian government to have the bomb.

Iran signals no scaling back in nuclear activity despite victory of ‘moderate’ Rouhani | JPost | Israel News.

Pamela Geller Barred From Britain for Anti-Muslim Rally on London Slaying – Forward.com.

( This woman gives the anti radical Islam movement a bad name.  Strident and stupid, I cringe hearing her speak.  Nevertheless, FUCK the UK for violating free speech and pandering to Islam once again. – JW )

Controversial Blogger Planned To Speak at Far Right Protest

By Liam Hoare

London — Pamela Geller, the controversial anti-Islam blogger and activist infamous for her staunch criticism and denigration of Islam, has been banned from entering the United Kingdom by Home Secretary Theresa May.

In a two-page letter which Geller uploaded onto her blog, Atlas Shrugs, the Home Office informed Geller that has been “excluded from the UK” on the basis that her “presence here would not be conducive to the public good.” Her previous history indicated to the Home Secretary that Geller may attempt to “foster hatred which might lead to inter-community violence in the UK.”

Below the letter in her blogpost, Geller reacted to the decision:

In a striking blow against freedom, the British government has banned us from entering the country. Muhammad al-Arifi, who has advocated Jew-hatred, wife-beating, and jihad violence, entered the U.K. recently with no difficulty. In not allowing us into the country solely because of our true and accurate statements about Islam, the British government is behaving like a de facto Islamic state. The nation that gave the world the Magna Carta is dead.

Geller and her co-founder of Stop Islamisation of America (SIOA), Robert Spencer, who has also been banned from entering the UK, had been due to attend and speak at a rally in Woolwich organized by the English Defense League, the far-right movement which purports to share with Geller a mutual concern over the Islamisation of Europe, on Saturday, June 29. “Today is a sad day for freedom of speech,” EDL leader Tommy Robinson stated after Geller announced her ban.

It was in Woolwich that on May 22, the soldier Lee Rigby was murdered by two assailants armed with knives and a meat cleaver. One of the suspects, Michael Adebolajo, justified the action by stating that, “The only reason we have killed this man today is because Muslims are dying daily by British soldiers.” Since the attack, several mosques and Islamic community centers across Britain have been desecrated with graffiti, including swastikas and the letters EDL and NF. On June 23, a small explosive device was left outside a mosque in Walsall, near Birmingham.

In a statement, a Home Office spokesman said: ‘We condemn all those whose behaviors and views run counter to our shared values and will not stand for extremism in any form.’

Under British legal provisions introduced in 2005 to combat terrorism and extremism, the Border Agency under the auspices of the Home Office has the power to either deport or deny entry to non-UK citizens who engage in “unacceptable behaviors.” This covers people who use the media or public speech to “foment, justify or glorify terrorist violence in furtherance of particular beliefs, seek to provoke others to terrorist acts, foment other serious criminal activity or seek to provoke others to serious criminal acts, or foster hatred which might lead to inter-community violence in the UK.”

On the basis of Geller’s work with SIOA, Jihad Watch, and Atlas Shrugs, as well as her previous public statements, the Home Secretary personally deemed that if she were to “espouse such views” in the UK, Geller “would be committing unacceptable behaviors and would therefore be behaving in a way that is not conducive to the public good.”

Syrian TV – Army eliminates Jabhat al-Nusra terrorists in several areas, some non-Syrians.

Iran’s top leader: Nuclear solution ‘easy’ – Israel News, Ynetnews.

In first comments on nuclear issue since Rohani’s election, Khamenei says solution to nuclear impasse would be easy if West were serious about seeking deal; adds ‘opposition front against Iran’ doesn’t want issue to be solved

Associated Press

Iran’s supreme leader said a solution to the nuclear impasse with the West would be “easy” if the United States and its allies are serious about seeking a deal, Iranian media reported Thursday.

The remarks by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei are his first on the nuclear issue since the presidential election earlier this month of Hasan Rohani, who supports direct talks with Washington. It suggests Khamenei also could endorse bolder diplomacy by Tehran if talks resume with world powers.

Several newspapers, including the hard-line Jomhouri Eslami, quoted Khamenei as saying “the solution to Iran’s nuclear case is an easy and smooth job” if Western powers want to strike a deal.

“The opposition front against Iran does not want the nuclear issue to be solved,” Khamenei told a group of judiciary officials Wednesday.

Khamenei, who has final say on all state matters, singled out the US for what he called “new excuses” to block possible headway on negotiations over Tehran’s nuclear program.

No other details were given in the press reports, but Rohani has suggested greater openness on Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for easing sanctions.

The West suspects Iran seeks a nuclear weapon. Tehran denies the charge, saying its nuclear activities aim at peaceful purposes such as power generation and medical isotopes.

Khamenei also urged all governmental bodies to support Rohani, a former nuclear negotiator who has the backing of reformist leaders. He formally takes over from outgoing President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in August.

“Managing the country is a difficult job, indeed,” Khamenei said. “All individuals and bodies must help the president-elect.”

Also Wednesday, Iran’s foreign minister, Ali Akbar Salehi, said Iran supports direct flights to the US as a way to serve the large Iranian community in Southern California and elsewhere. There have been no direct air routes between the two countries since the US broke ties after the storming of the American Embassy in Tehran in 1979 in the wake of the Islamic Revolution.

Russia evacuates Tartus, also military, diplomatic personnel from Syria. High war alert in Israel.

Shortly after the DEBKA aired a special video on the Syrian war’s widening circle, Moscow announced Wednesday June 26, that the evacuation which had begun Friday of all military and diplomatic personnel from Syria was now complete, including the Russian naval base at Tartus.

“Russia decided to withdraw its personnel because of the risks from the conflict in Syria, as well as the fear of an incident involving the Russian military that could have larger consequences,” said a defense ministry official in Moscow. He stressed that a 16-ship naval task force in the eastern Mediterranean remains on post and arms shipments, including anti-air weapons, would continue to the Syrian government in keeping with former contracts.

In another sign of an impending escalation in Syria, the Israeli Golan brigade staged Wednesday an unannounced war maneuver on the Golan, attended by Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and top army chiefs. In London, Prime Minister David Cameron called the government’s National Security Council into session in Downing Street on Syria. Opposition leader Ed Milliband was invited to attend the meeting, a custom observed only when issues of the highest security importance are discussed.

Earlier Wednesday, debkafile carried the following report in its special video presentation under the heading: Putin and Obama cross swords on Syrian. What Next?

The sullen confrontation between Presidents Vladimir Putin and Barack Obama at the G8 Summit in Northern Ireland last week condemned Syria to five months of escalating, unresolved vicious warfare – that is until the two leaders meet again in September.

For now, tempers are heating up between Washington and Moscow on Syria and other things too, notably the elusive American fugitive Edward Snowden.
US and Israeli intelligence watchers see the Syrian crisis entering seven ominous phases:
1. A five-month bloodbath centering on the battle for Aleppo, a city of 2.2 million inhabitants.

The Syrian army plus allies and the fully-mobilized opposition will hurl all their manpower and weapons into winning the city.

Military experts don’t expect the rebels to hold out against Assad’s forces beyond late August.

2.  Neither side has enough manpower or game-changing weaponry for winning the war outright.

That is, unless Presidents Obama or Putin steps in to retilt the balance.

3. The US and Russia are poised for more military intervention in the conflict up until a point just short of a military clash on Syrian soil – or elsewhere in the Middle East. US intelligence analysts have judged Putin ready to go all the way on Syria against the US – no holds barred.
The Russian president is meanwhile deliberately goading Washington and raising temperatures by playing hide-and-seek over the former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, charged with espionage for stealing and leaking classified intelligence. At home, he is considered variously as a traitor and a brave whistleblower.

For several hours Snowden vanished between Hong Kong and Moscow – until the Russian president admitted he was holed up in the transit area of Moscow airport and would not be extradited by Russia to the United States.

4.  Iran, Hizballah and Iraq will likewise ratchet up their battlefield presence.

5. A violent encounter is building up between Middle East Shiites flocking to Syria to save the Assad regime alongside Russia, and the US-backed Sunni-dominated rebel forces.
It could scuttle the secret US-Iranian negotiating track on its nuclear program, which was buoyed up by the election of the pragmatic Hassan Rouhani as President of Iran.

6.  The Geneva-2 Conference for a political solution for the Syrian crisis is dead in the water. Moscow and the US are divided by unbridgeable issues of principle, such whether Bashar Assad should stay or go and Iranian representation.

7.  So long as the diplomatic remains stuck in the mud, the prospects of a regional war spreading out of the Syrian conflict are rising. Iran, Israel, Jordan and Lebanon may be dragged in at any moment – if they have not already, like Lebanon.

A small mistake by one of the Syrian warring parties in Syria could, for example, touch off Israeli retaliation and a wholesale spillover of violence.

Khamenei blames western ‘stubbornness’ for Iran’s nuclear program | JPost | Israel News.

New Iranian president sees US as only way forward in nuke talks | The Times of Israel.

Hasan Rouhani, former lead nuclear negotiator for the Islamic Republic, expected to push for direct talks with Washington

By Brian Murphy June 26, 2013, 10:49 am

Iranian President elect Hasan Rouhani during his presidential election campaign, on June 10, 2013. (photo credit: AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Hasan Rouhani knew there was an element of risk.

Just a week before Iran’s election gatekeepers announced the presidential ballot, Rouhani said one-on-one talks with Washington are the only way for breakthroughs in the nuclear standoff, given that the United States — as he put it — is the world’s “sheriff.”

Such a public portrayal of America’s importance and the need to make overtures to it undoubtedly rattled a few among Iran’s ruling clerics, who decide which candidates are cleared to run. Yet they allowed Rouhani to enter the race, and to the surprise of many, he surged to a runaway victory.

Rouhani’s repeated emphasis on direct outreach to Washington may now have a chance for real traction among the ultimate decision-makers in Iran — the ruling clerics and the powerful Revolutionary Guard. They have long opposed unilateral talks, insisting they would do no good. But the lack of major blowback to Rouhani’s speech in mid-May signaled that the idea is no longer a taboo for the establishment, even if it is not yet entirely convinced. Another sign came from Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who in March hinted he would not stand in the way.

“We have disagreements with the US on regional and international matters, but obviously friendship or hostility with the world is not permanent,” Rouhani told an audience at Tehran’s Sharif University in his May address. “Every country can improve its relations with others.”

Rouhani was Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator from 2003 to 2005 and he has said he is convinced he could have sealed a deal if Tehran had been talking directly to Washington at the time. Efforts are under way for a new, fourth round of the multilateral nuclear talks bringing together Iran and the US and other world powers. Earlier rounds have brought no headway.

It’s far too early to gain anything more than hints from Iran on whether Rouhani’s election this month could shift tactics in nuclear negotiations.

Rouhani does not formally take office until August. Washington has said it appreciates Rouhani’s appeals for more engagement, but knows the meaningful decisions are made higher up by Iran’s theocracy.

Moreover, Rouhani has made clear he has the same red lines as the ruling clerics: He said in his first post-victory news conference that Iran will never surrender its ability to enrich uranium — the central issue of the disputes.

Still, the next chief nuclear envoy on the Iranian side is almost certain to side closer to Rouhani’s view that seeking one-on-one talks with Washington is a worthy pursuit. It’s widely expected that hard-liner Saeed Jalili — who finished a distant third behind Rouhani in the June 14 election — will be sent packing by the ruling clerics to avoid internal tensions.

It may be weeks before a shortlist for successors is known. But some possible names mentioned include former Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Velayati, who finished next-to-last in the presidential race; Mohammad Javad Zarif, a former envoy to the UN, and Amir Hossein Zamaninia, a former member of Iran’s negotiating team.

No dates have been proposed to possibly resume talks between Iran and a six-nation bloc, the permanent UN Security Council members plus Germany. The four previous rounds since last year have foundered on a central deadlock: The US and others insist Iran sharply scales back its uranium enrichment as a first step, while Iran says the West should ease sanctions as an opening offer.

The West and allies fear Iran’s enrichment labs could eventually produce material for a nuclear weapon — and some critics in Israel and elsewhere believe that extended negotiations will only give Iran more time to advance its program.

Rouhani “may well create an opening,” wrote Dennis Ross, a former White House envoy for the Middle East and South Asia, in a commentary published Tuesday in The New York Times. “But we should be on our guard: It must be an opening to clarify what is possible and to test outcomes, not to engage in unending talks for their own sake.”

Iranian officials, including Rouhani, say that Iran will not give up control over the entire nuclear cycle, which turns uranium ore into reactor-ready fuel, but that it only seeks the technology for energy production and medical uses.

“The bottom line is that Rouhani’s views are not a wholesale change from the ruling system’s. They are pretty much the same on all the central points on what Iran wants,” said Mohammad Ali Shabani, a British-based Middle East expert concentrating on Iranian affairs. “The issue is over tactics and how to get there.”

For Rouhani, that likely means pushing the ruling clerics to see the value in direct nuclear talks with the US, which broke off ties with Tehran after the seizure of the US Embassy in Tehran in the wake of the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

Rouhani’s frequent references to a failed 2005 accord help explain his views.

He said he was close to a French-backed deal that would have allowed the maximum level of inspection by the UN’s nuclear agency in exchange for keeping Iran’s nuclear case from reaching the UN Security Council, which set in motion layer after layer of economic sanctions over the years. The deal was not backed by France’s European partners, and Rouhani now believes it was a mistake not to deal directly with Washington.

“The American are, as the saying goes, the sheriff. So it would be easier if we rather hammer things out with the sheriff than deal with lesser authorities,” he told the university audience in May.

The scholar Shabani said Rouhani now hopes to “redeem himself” for letting the 2005 deal slip away.

“It’s a mistake to think Rouhani is soft,” he said. “He’s not. He has a clear view that the only talks that matter — the only talks that are meaningful in the end — are with the Americans.”

Whether Rouhani can sell this with the ruling establishment is not so simple.

The supreme leader opened the door in March for one-on-one nuclear talks with the US in a significant reversal of policy. But it was far from a ringing endorsement. “I’m not optimistic about these talks, but I’m not opposed to them, either,” Khamenei said.

In the past, Iran has insisted that any unilateral negotiations with Washington deal with a host of disputes between the two countries beyond the nuclear issue. The US has rebuffed such multitasking talks.

One major sticking point could be efforts by Iran’s establishment to use any new openings for nuclear dialogue as a back channel forum to discuss the civil war in Syria, where Washington backs the opposition and Iran is firmly behind its crucial alliance with Bashar Assad’s regime.

“For much of the Iranian leadership at the moment, Syria is more of a priority than the nuclear talks,” said Mustafa Alani, a regional analyst at the Gulf Research Center based in Geneva.

“Rouhani, though, believes the nuclear issue is the key to everything else. You resolve that and then move on to other things. This view may be logical, but may be not what Iran’s rulers are thinking. This could leave Rouhani trying to swim against the current.”

Copyright 2013 The Associated Press.

Syrian death toll tops 100,000 | The Times of Israel.

Rights organization says over 36,000 civilians have been killed since fighting broke out in March 2011

A Syrian man grieves over the bodies of four members of his family in Aleppo last year. (photo credit: AP Photo/ Khalil Hamra)

BEIRUT (AP) — More than 100,000 people have been killed since the start of Syria’s conflict over two years ago, an activist group said Wednesday.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which has been tracking the death toll in the conflict through a network of activists in Syria, released its death toll at a time when hopes for a negotiated settlement to end the civil war fade.

It said a total of 100,191 had died over the 27 months of the conflict. Of those, 36,661 are civilians, the group said.

On the government side, 25,407 are members of President Bashar Assad’s armed forces, 17,311 pro-government fighters and 169 militants from Lebanon’s Hezbollah, who have fought alongside army troops.

Deaths among Assad’s opponents included 13,539 rebels, 2,015 army defectors and 2,518 foreign fighters battling against the regime.

Entry of the foreign media into Syria is severely restricted and few reports from the fighting can be independently verified.

Earlier this month, the U.N. put the number of those killed in the conflict at 93,000 between March 2011 when the crisis started and end of April this year.

The government has not released death tolls. The state media published the names of the government’s dead in the first months of the crisis, but then stopped publishing its losses after the opposition became an armed insurgency.

Syria’s conflict began as peaceful protests against Assad’s rule. It gradually became an armed conflict after the Assad’s regime used the army to crackdown on dissent and some opposition supporters took up weapons to fight government troops.

Even the most modest international efforts to end the Syrian conflict have failed. U.N.’s special envoy to Syria, Lakhdar Brahimi, told reporters on Tuesday that an international peace conference proposed by Russia and the U.S. will not take place until later in the summer, partly because of opposition disarray.

The fighting has increasingly been taking sectarian overtones. Sunni Muslims dominate the rebel ranks while Assad’s regime is dominated by Alawites, an offshoot sect of Shiite Islam.

Sunni-majority Saudi Arabia is Washington’s key ally and a foe of Iran. Tehran, a Shiite powerhouse, supports Assad.

Saudi Arabia is sending lethal aid to the rebels. The United States also said it will provide arms to the opposition despite the Obama administration’s reluctance to send heavier weapons for fear they might end up in the hands of al-Qaeda-affiliated groups. Russia, Assad’s staunch supporter, has been providing his army with weapons.

In Damascus, Syrian Information Minister Omran al-Zoubi lashed out at Saudi Arabia, accusing the Gulf kingdom of backing “terrorists” after Riyadh condemned Damascus for enlisting fighters from its Lebanese ally in its struggle with rebels.

Damascus has previously blamed the Sunni Gulf states, who along with the United States and its European allies back the Syrian opposition, for the civil war.

The remarks by al-Zoubi were carried late Tuesday by the state agency SANA after Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal met with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry in Jiddah and condemned Assad for bolstering his army with fighters from Hezbollah. Prince Saud charged that Syria faces a “foreign invasion.”

Al-Zoubi fired back, saying Saudi diplomats have blood on their hands and are “trembling in fear of the victories of the Syrian army.”

The Syrian military with Hezbollah’s help captured the central town of Qusair earlier this month and says it is building on the victory to attack rebel-held areas elsewhere.

Copyright 2013 The Associated Press.

Netanyahu says Israel will withstand any challenge to its security | JPost | Israel News.