WarSclerotic

Iran’s Rouhani acknowledges chemical weapons attack in Syria | JPost | Israel News.

( “Mr. Moderate”… Establishing his credentials. – JW )

US forces move closer to Syria as options weighed | The Times of Israel.

Fourth warship with ballistic missiles deployed to eastern Mediterranean; top US general Dempsey to present Obama with Syria strike scenarios Saturday

By AP and Michal Shmulovich August 24, 2013, 10:32 am

US President Barack Obama, pictured here speaking in Syracuse, New York in August, says a possible chemical weapons attack in Syria this week is a “big event of grave concern” that has hastened the timeframe for determining a US response. (photo credit: AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

WASHINGTON — US naval forces are moving closer to Syria as President Barack Obama considers military options for responding to the alleged use of chemical weapons by the Assad government. The president emphasized that a quick intervention in the Syrian civil war was problematic, given the international considerations that should precede a military strike.

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel declined to discuss any specific force movements while saying that Obama had asked the Pentagon to prepare military options for Syria. US defense officials told The Associated Press that the Navy had sent a fourth warship armed with ballistic missiles into the eastern Mediterranean Sea but without immediate orders for any missile launch into Syria.

US Navy ships are capable of a variety of military action, including launching Tomahawk cruise missiles, as they did against Libya in 2011 as part of an international action that led to the overthrow of the Libyan government.

“The Defense Department has a responsibility to provide the president with options for contingencies, and that requires positioning our forces, positioning our assets, to be able to carry out different options — whatever options the president might choose,” Hagel told reporters traveling with him to Asia.

Hagel said the US is coordinating with the international community to determine “what exactly did happen” near Damascus earlier this week. According to reports, a chemical attack in a suburb of the capital killed at least 100 people. It would be the most heinous use of chemical weapons since Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein gassed thousands of Kurds in the town of Halabja in 1988.

According to CBS News, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Martin Dempsey is expected to present President Obama with options for a Syria strike during a meeting at the White House Saturday morning.

Meanwhile, the French newspaper Le Figaro reported Saturday that a possible reason Syrian President Bashar Assad may have deployed chemical weapons earlier this week was because Syrian rebel units, also comprising “Israeli, Jordanian, and CIA commandos,” had been training for a week near Daraa in southern Syria and were approaching Damascus.

The newspaper mentioned the fact that US-Jordanian military exercises have been ongoing in the Hashemite Kingdom. American special ops teams have also been training the Jordanian army to handle possible chemical threats from Syria, Jordanian Prime Minister Abdullah Ensour told reporters earlier this week.

Top military officials, including general Dempsey, will come to Jordan next week to discuss recent developments in Syria, the Hashemite Kingdom’s semi-official news agency, Petra, reported Saturday. Army leaders from Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Turkey, France, Britain, Canada, Germany, and Italy were also set to attend.

Obama remained cautious about getting involved in a war that has killed more than 100,000 people and now includes Hezbollah and al-Qaeda. He made no mention of the “red line” of chemical weapons use that he marked out for Assad a year ago and that US intelligence says has been breached at least on a small scale several times since.

“If the US goes in and attacks another country without a UN mandate and without clear evidence that can be presented, then there are questions in terms of whether international law supports it — do we have the coalition to make it work?” Obama said Friday. “Those are considerations that we have to take into account.”

Obama conceded in an interview on CNN’s “New Day” program that the episode is a “big event of grave concern” that requires American attention. He said any large-scale chemical weapons usage would affect “core national interests” of the United States and its allies. But nothing he said signaled a shift toward US action.

The New York Times reported Saturday that Obama aides were studying the NATO air war in Kosovo as a precedent for ways how to handle a suspected chemical weapons attack in Syria without United Nations backing. The Obama administration was looking into ways to circumvent Russia’s likely veto of any military action in Syria at the UN Security Council, the report stated. It was seeking to build an international coalition, based on legal justification that Syrian civilians are greatly suffering, in support of such military action.

US defense officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to discuss ship movements publicly. But if the US wants to send a message to Assad, the most likely military action would be a Tomahawk missile strike, launched from a ship in the Mediterranean.

For a year now, Obama has threatened to punish Assad’s regime if it resorted to its chemical weapons arsenal, among the world’s vastest, saying use or even deployment of such weapons of mass destruction constituted a “red line” for him. A US intelligence assessment concluded in June chemical weapons have been used in Syria’s civil war, but Washington has taken no military action against Assad’s forces.

US officials have instead focused on trying to organize a peace conference between the government and opposition. Obama has authorized weapons deliveries to rebel groups, but none are believed to have been sent so far.

White House spokesman Josh Earnest told reporters Friday that the president didn’t expect to put “boots on the ground” in Syria.

In his first comments on Syria since the alleged chemical attack, Obama said the US is still trying to find out what happened. Hagel said Friday that a determination on the chemical attack should be made swiftly because “there may be another attack coming,” although he added that “we don’t know” whether that will happen.

After rebels similarly reported chemical attacks in February, US confirmation took more than four months. In this instance, a UN chemical weapons team is already on the ground in Syria. Assad’s government, then as now, has rejected the claims as baseless.

Obama also cited the need for the US to be part of a coalition in dealing with Syria. America’s ability by itself to solve the Arab country’s sectarian fighting is “overstated,” he said.

Pressure Rises on Hamas as Patrons’ Support Fades – NYTimes.com.

By JODI RUDOREN

¶ GAZA CITY — The tumult roiling the Arab world had already severed the lifeline between the Palestinian militant group Hamas and two of its most important patrons, Iran and Syria.

¶ Now, the dismantling of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood by the new military-backed government that ousted the Islamist president has Hamas reeling without crucial economic and diplomatic support. Over the past two weeks, a “crisis cell” of ministers has met daily. With Gaza’s economy facing a $250 million shortfall since Egypt shut down hundreds of smuggling tunnels, the Hamas government has begun to ration some resources.

¶ Its leaders have even mulled publicly what for years would have been unthinkable — inviting the presidential guard loyal to rival Fatah back to help keep the border with Egypt open. (They quickly recanted.)

¶ The mounting pressure on Hamas has implications beyond the 141 square miles of this coastal strip that it has ruled since 2007. It could serve to strengthen President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority and his more moderate Fatah faction that dominates the West Bank just as Washington-orchestrated peace talks get under way. It also adds another volatile element to the rapidly changing landscape across the region, where sectarian tensions have led to bloodshed and the Islamists’ rise to power through the ballot box has been blocked.

¶ “Now, Hamas is an orphan,” said Akram Atallah, a political analyst and columnist, referring to the fact that the movement sprang from Egypt’s Brotherhood a quarter century ago. “Hamas was dreaming and going up with its dreams that the Islamists were going to take over in all the capitals. Those dreams have been dashed.”

¶ The tide of the Arab Spring initially buoyed Hamas, helping bolster Iran and Syria, which provided the Gazan leadership weapons and cash, while undermining President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt, who was deeply distrustful and hostile to the group. But Hamas eventually sided with the Sunni opposition in the civil war in Syria — alienating President Bashar al-Assad and his Iranian backers. That was offset when Mr. Mubarak was replaced by Mohamed Morsi, a Muslim Brotherhood leader and ideological ally who relaxed the borders and brokered talks between Hamas and the hostile West as well as its Palestinian rivals.

¶ With Egypt’s military crackdown, Mr. Morsi in detention and the Brotherhood leadership either locked up, dead or in hiding, smuggling between Gaza and Egypt has come to a virtual halt. That means no access to building materials, fuel that costs less than half as much as that imported from Israel, and many other cheap commodities Gazans had come to rely on.

¶ Egypt kept the Rafah crossing point closed for days — stranding thousands of students, business people, medical patients, foreigners and Gazans who live abroad. Adding to Hamas’s isolation, the new emir of Qatar, another benefactor, is said to be far less a fan than his father and predecessor.

¶ In interviews here this week, as well as in public speeches, several Hamas leaders insisted that the Egypt crisis makes repairing the Palestinian rift more urgent. Instead, it already appears more elusive, with the loss of Cairo as the host and broker for reconciliation talks.

¶ Seizing on its opponent’s weakness, the Fatah Revolutionary Council plans to consider declaring Gaza a “rebel province” at a leadership meeting Sunday with President Abbas, which would tighten the noose by curtailing Palestinian Authority financing of operations in the strip. Officials in Fatah and Hamas said that both have increased arrests of the other’s operatives in recent weeks. The Hamas leaders here blame Fatah for what they call a “vicious campaign” against them in the Egyptian news media.

¶ “You can feel the heat because of what’s happening in Egypt,” said Ahmed Yousef, a former aide to Ismail Haniya, the Hamas prime minister of Gaza, who now runs a Gaza research group called House of Wisdom. “The tense relations between Gaza and Ramallah has been intensified. Everybody is suspicious.”

¶ In separate interviews this week, three senior Hamas leaders — Ziad el-Zaza, the finance minister and deputy prime minister; Ghazi Hamad, who handles foreign affairs; and Mahmoud al-Zahar, a hard-liner — said they were taking a “wait and see” approach to Egypt, hoping that perhaps the tide could turn their way. They imagined that a public backlash against what they called a coup could yet lead to the Brotherhood’s resurgence.

¶ “Our policy right now is to keep the people quiet,” Mr. Zahar said. “We have to keep our people highly immunized against the extreme attitude.”

¶ Mr. el-Zaza, the finance minister, declined to say what spending was being cut beyond the use of government cars and expense accounts. All three said Hamas had been through worse: Israeli bombings and assassinations, exiles from Arab capitals, months-long closures of the Rafah crossing during Mr. Mubarak’s reign. “The region is in labor,” Mr. Hamad said. “It’s a time of difficulty, time of challenges.”

¶ The opposition here has been emboldened by the events across the border. A new youth movement called Tamarod — Arabic for rebellion — after an Egyptian group that helped bring down Mr. Morsi, released a YouTube video urging the overthrow of Hamas and a Facebook page calling for mass demonstrations on Nov. 11. An engineering student who is among the group’s founders and spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals said that Hamas had detained at least 50 of Tamarod’s Facebook fans this week, and that he and several others had been jailed, placed under house arrest and had their mobile phones and computers seized. “Maybe Hamas leaders are afraid of what happened in Egypt,” he said.

¶ Several experts said toppling Hamas would be tough. Unlike the Brotherhood, Hamas controls the security forces and service institutions in Gaza as well as its politics. And so far, the rhythm of life appeared to carry on.

¶ Qatar-financed workers were widening the main north-south road this week. Kiosks were crammed with cartoon-character backpacks ahead of school opening on Sunday. The Ferris wheel at a Hamas-run amusement park continued to turn. But at the Rafah crossing, hundreds of desperate would-be travelers waited in vain for days. The gleaming, air-conditioned terminal opened last year was empty but for a handful of Hamas workers watching Al-Jazeera, its baggage carousel idle, a sign flashing “Welcome to Gaza” to nobody.

¶ Egypt announced Friday that it would reopen the border on a limited basis Saturday, after not allowing anyone to leave since Aug. 15, after the government’s deadly raids on two Islamist protest camps.

¶ While Gazans have suffered from intermittent Rafah closures for years, this time many dismissed the ostensible security rationale and saw it as collective political punishment.

¶ “The governments are fighting, and we pay the price,” said Ahmed Muqat, 20, who was trying to get back to medical school in Turkey. “Things are going from worse to worse.”

¶ Dalia Radi, 22, got married Aug. 15, but instead of a honeymoon, spent the week sitting on plastic chairs in a parking lot outside the crossing. For Ms. Radi, whose new husband has lived in Norway for six years, it would have been her first time leaving Gaza.

¶ For Mayy Jawadeh, a 21-year-old student at the University of Tunisia, it may be the last.

¶ “I will never come back again to Gaza,” Ms. Jawadeh said. “Here, no rights for humans — no electricity, no water, you can’t travel. Hamas interferes in Egypt and we bear the brunt.”

¶

Air War in Kosovo Seen as Precedent in Possible Response to Syria Chemical Attack – NYTimes.com.

By MARK LANDLER and MICHAEL R. GORDON

WASHINGTON — As President Obama weighs options for responding to a suspected chemical weapons attack in Syria, his national security aides are studying the NATO air war in Kosovo as a possible blueprint for acting without a mandate from the United Nations.

With Russia still likely to veto any military action in the Security Council, the president appears to be wrestling with whether to bypass the United Nations, although he warned that doing so would require a robust international coalition and legal justification.

“If the U.S. goes in and attacks another country without a U.N. mandate and without clear evidence that can be presented, then there are questions in terms of whether international law supports it, do we have the coalition to make it work?” Mr. Obama said on Friday to CNN, in his first public comments after the deadly attack on Wednesday.

Mr. Obama described the attack as “clearly a big event of grave concern” and acknowledged that the United States had limited time to respond. But he said United Nations investigators needed to determine whether chemical weapons had been used.

Kosovo is an obvious precedent for Mr. Obama because, as in Syria, civilians were killed and Russia had longstanding ties to the government authorities accused of the abuses. In 1999, President Bill Clinton used the endorsement of NATO and the rationale of protecting a vulnerable population to justify 78 days of airstrikes.

A senior administration official said the Kosovo precedent was one of many subjects discussed in continuing White House meetings on the crisis in Syria. Officials are also debating whether a military strike would have unintended consequences, destabilize neighbors like Lebanon, or lead to even greater flows of refugees into Jordan, Turkey and Egypt.

“It’s a step too far to say we’re drawing up legal justifications for an action, given that the president hasn’t made a decision,” said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the deliberations. “But Kosovo, of course, is a precedent of something that is perhaps similar.”

In the Mediterranean, the Navy’s regional commander postponed a scheduled port call in Naples, Italy, for a destroyer so that the ship would remain with a second destroyer in striking distance of Syria during the crisis. Pentagon officials said the decision did not reflect any specific orders from Washington, but both destroyers had on board Tomahawk cruise missiles, long-range weapons that probably would be among the first launched against targets in Syria should the president decide to take military action.

On Friday, the Russian government called on President Bashar al-Assad of Syria to allow United Nations investigators into the areas east of Damascus where the attack occurred. But American and foreign diplomats said Russia’s move did not reflect any shift in its backing of Mr. Assad or its resistance to punitive measures in the Security Council.

In a statement, Russia’s foreign ministry put the onus on Syria’s opposition forces to provide secure access to the site of the “reported incident.” A second statement suggested that the Russians believed the attack was actually a provocation by the rebels. It cited reports criticizing government troops that were posted on the Internet hours before the attack.

“More and more evidence emerges indicating that this criminal act had an openly provocative character,” Aleksandr K. Lukashevich, a spokesman for Russia’s foreign ministry, said in the statement. “The talk here is about a previously planned action.”

However, Mr. Lukashevich may have been confused by YouTube’s practice of time-stamping uploaded videos based on the time in its California headquarters, no matter the originating time zone. The attacks occurred early Wednesday in Syria, when it would still have been Tuesday in California for about eight more hours.

Mr. Lukashevich praised the Assad government for welcoming Carla del Ponte, a member of a United Nations commission on Syria who suggested in May that the rebels had used chemical weapons, and he accused the Syrian opposition of not cooperating with the investigation by United Nations experts.

The Syrian government did not comment on Friday.

On Friday CBS News, citing administration officials, reported that American intelligence agencies detected activity at locations known to be chemical weapons sites before Wednesday’s attack. The activity, these officials believe, may have been preparations for the assault.

Other Western officials have been less cautious than Mr. Obama. “I know that some people in the world would like to say that this is some kind of conspiracy brought about by the opposition in Syria,” said William Hague, Britain’s foreign secretary, in an interview with Sky News. “I think the chances of that are vanishingly small, and so we do believe that this is a chemical attack by the Assad regime.”

Mr. Hague did not speak of using force, as France has, if the government was found to have been behind the attack. But he said it was “not something that a humane or civilized world can ignore.”

Such statements carry echoes of Kosovo, where the Yugoslav government of Slobodan Milosevic brutally cracked down on ethnic Albanians in 1998 and 1999, prompting the Clinton administration to decide to act militarily in concert with NATO allies.

Mr. Clinton knew there was no prospect of securing a resolution from the Security Council authorizing the use of force. Russia was a longtime supporter of the Milosevic government and was certain to wield its vote in the Security Council to block action.

So the Clinton administration justified its actions, in part, as an intervention to protect a vulnerable and embattled population. NATO carried out airstrikes before Mr. Milosevic agreed to NATO demands, which required the withdrawal of Yugoslav forces.

“The argument in 1999 in the case of Kosovo was that there was a grave humanitarian emergency and the international community had the responsibility to act and, if necessary, to do so with force,” said Ivo H. Daalder, a former United States ambassador to NATO who is now the president of the Chicago Council on Global Affairs.

In the case of Syria, Mr. Daalder said, the administration could argue that the use of chemical weapons had created a grave humanitarian emergency and that without a forceful response there would be a danger that the Assad government might use it on a large scale once again. Dennis B. Ross, a former adviser to Mr. Obama on the Middle East, said that if the president wanted to develop a legal justification for acting, “there are lots of ways to do it outside the U.N. context.”