WarSclerotic

Momentum grows for military action against Syria – Middle East Israel News Broadcast | Haaretz.

U.S. and France say they are in position for a strike; Arab League joins call for punitive action; British PM calls in Parliament for emergency vote.

By The Associated Press | Aug. 28, 2013 | 6:21 AM | 3

U.S. Navy showing the guided-missile destroyer USS Ramage (DDG 61), the amphibious transport dock ship USS Carter Hall (LSD 50) and the guided-missile destroyer USS Roosevelt (DDG 80). Photo by AFP

Momentum appeared to build Tuesday for Western military action against Syria, with the U.S. and France saying they are in position for a strike, while the government in Damascus vowed to use all possible measures to repel it.

The prospect of a dramatic U.S.-led intervention into Syria’s civil war stemmed from the West’s assertion – still not endorsed by UN inspectors – that President Bashar Assad‘s government was responsible for an alleged chemical attack on civilians outside Damascus on August 21 that the group Doctors Without Borders says killed 355 people. Assad denies the claim.

The Arab League also threw its weight behind calls for punitive action, blaming the Syrian government for the attack and calling for those responsible to be brought to justice.

British Prime Minister David Cameron recalled Parliament to hold an emergency vote Thursday on his country’s response. It is unlikely that any international military action would begin before then.

U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said U.S. military forces stand ready to strike Syria at once if President Barack Obama gives the order, and French President Francois Hollande said France was “ready to punish those who took the heinous decision to gas innocents.”

Obama is weighing a response focused narrowly on punishing Assad for violating international agreements that ban the use of chemical weapons. Officials said the goal was not to drive Assad from power or impact the broader trajectory of Syria’s bloody civil war, now in its third year.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Monday the West should be under no illusion that bombing Syrian military targets would help end the violence in Syria, an ally of Moscow, and he pointed to the volatile situations in Iraq and Libya that he said resulted from foreign military intervention.

Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem said his country would use “all means available” to defend itself.

“We have the means to defend ourselves and we will surprise everyone,” he said. At a news conference in Damascus, al-Moallem challenged Washington to present proof to back up its accusations and he also likened the allegations to false American charges in 2003 that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction before the U.S.-led invasion of that country. “They have a history of lies – Iraq,” he said.

Vice President Joe Biden said there was no question that Assad was responsible for the attack – the highest-ranking U.S. official to say so – and the White House dismissed as “fanciful” the notion that anyone other than Assad could be to blame.

“Suggestions that there’s any doubt about who’s responsible for this are as preposterous as a suggestion that the attack did not occur,” spokesman Jay Carney said.

A U.S. official said some of the evidence includes signals intelligence – information gathered from intercepted communications. The U.S. assessment is also based on the number of reported victims, the symptoms of those injured or killed, and witness accounts. The officials insisted on anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly discuss the internal deliberations.

The United Nations said its team of chemical weapons experts in Syria had delayed a second trip to investigate the alleged attack by one day for security reasons. On Monday, the team came under sniper fire.

If Obama decides to order an attack against Syria, it would most likely involve sea-launched cruise missile attacks on Syrian military and communications targets.

The U.S. Navy has four destroyers in the eastern Mediterranean Sea within range of targets inside Syria. The U.S. also has warplanes in the region.

In Cyprus, Defense Minister Fotis Fotiou said naval traffic in the eastern Mediterranean was very heavy with vessels from “all the major powers.” He also said Cypriot authorities were planning to deal with a possible exodus of foreign nationals from Syria.

U.S. military intervention in Syria was running into fierce opposition from some members of Congress. A growing chorus of Republican and Democratic lawmakers demanded that Obama seek congressional authorization for any strikes against the Assad regime.

Charles Heyman, a former British officer who edits The Armed Forces of the UK, said the lack of a UN Security Council resolution authorizing the use of force against the Syrian government greatly complicates matters for the West. He said that may make it difficult for Cameron to win parliamentary backing.

“It’s clear the governments want some form of military operation, but if the Security Council doesn’t recommend it, then the consensus is that it’s plainly illegal under international law,” Heyman said. “The only legal way to go to war is in self-defense and that claim is difficult to make.”

Russia, a permanent member of the Security Council, has steadfastly opposed any international action against Syria.

Italian Foreign Minister Emma Bonino said her country would not back any military action against Syria unless it was authorized by the Security Council — even though it considers a chemical attack to be a war crime.

German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle said Monday that if the Syrian government were proven to have been behind the gas attack, then Germany would support “consequences.” But with less than four weeks until national elections, it is unlikely Germany would commit any forces.

Center-left opposition parties have rejected military intervention without UN proof that the Syrian government was behind the attack. And a senior member of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s party said the German military was already at “the breaking point” due to commitments in Afghanistan and elsewhere.

Support for some sort of international military response is likely to grow if it is confirmed that Assad’s regime was responsible.

The UN confirmed its chemical weapons team’s mission faced a one-day delay Tuesday to improve preparedness and safety after unidentified snipers opened fire on the team’s convoy Monday.

In Geneva, UN spokeswoman Alessandra Vellucci said the UN inspection team might need longer than the planned 14 days to complete its work. She said its goal is to determine what chemical weapons might have been used in the August 21 attack.

The Obama administration is making a legal argument for undertaking a military response to the use of chemical weapons against civilians in Syria, but said any action against the Syrian regime is not intended to depose Assad.

Carney said the United States and 188 other nations are signatories to a chemical weapons convention opposing the use of such weapons. Those countries have a stake in ensuring that international norms must be respected and there must be a response to a clear violation of those norms, he said.

In a veiled allusion to difficulties in getting any strong action through the Security Council, France’s Hollande said that “international law must evolve with the times. It cannot be a pretext to allow mass massacres to be perpetrated.”

He then went on to invoke France’s recognition of “the responsibility to protect civilian populations” that the UN General Assembly approved in 2005.

Obama discussed Syria on Tuesday with Prime Minister Stephen Harper of Canada, a NATO ally, and in recent days with Cameron, Hollande and Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd.

Harper’s office said he agreed with the assessment that the Assad regime used chemical weapons against its own people, and called it an outrage that requires a “firm response,” without defining what that might entail.

In supporting calls for action against Syria, the 22-member Arab League, which is dominated by Gulf powerhouses Saudi Arabia and Qatar, provides indirect Arab cover for any potential military attack by Western powers.

At an emergency meeting, the Arab League also urged members of the Security Council to overcome their differences and agree on “deterrent” measures.

“The council holds the Syrian regime totally responsible for this heinous crime and calls for all involved in the despicable crime to be given a fair international trial like other war criminals,” the Arab League said in a statement.

Heyman predicted a possible three-phase campaign, with the first step — the encirclement of Syria by Western military assets by air and sea — already underway.

“Phase two would be a punitive strike, taking out high-value command and control targets and communications centers,” Heyman said. “That could be done easily with cruise missiles from ships and aircraft. Phase three would be a massive takedown of Syrian air defenses. That would have to be done before you could take out artillery and armor, which is the key to long-term success.”

Australia endorses possible US strike on Syria | JPost | Israel News.

Expert warns Syria, Iran team effort is worrisome | Boston Herald.

Warmongering threats by Syria and Iran to put Israel in their crosshairs are likely part of a coordinated effort to pressure the United States to back down from considering strikes against Syria, an expert told the Herald.

“From the Israeli point of view, this has to make them nervous. But I think it’s 
political rhetoric to unnerve the Israelis, which is designed to put pressure on us,” said William C. Martel, an international security expert at Tufts University’s Fletcher School. “I see the efforts of Russia and Iran to support Syria now at all costs. I think that’s something that should worry us because it appears they are working in a coordinated fashion.”

Martel, who said the likelihood of an attack is very low because Israel has a more powerful weapons cache than Iran, said he worries President Obama’s threat to take action without following through 
after earlier, smaller chemical weapon attacks has damaged the United States’ standing in the world.

“I think that we communicated to the rest of the world — to Russia, Iran and Syria — we make threats that are not serious,” Martel said. “The leaders in those capitals aren’t quite sure what the U.S. is going to do now.”

Momentum appeared to build yesterday for Western military action against Syrian President Bashar Assad’s 
regime for allegedly using chemical weapons on civilians, with the U.S. and France saying they are in position to strike and Syrian leaders vowing to use all possible measures to repel it.

“Whatever we see in the next week or two, it’s going to be limited — simply cruise missiles or a combination of cruise missiles and air strikes, but not boots on the ground,” said Jim Walsh of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Security Studies Program.

Domestic politics in the leadup to likely military 
action, he said, always makes for strange bedfellows.

“The partisan divides that happen with these things is interesting,” Walsh said. “You have the liberal interventionists ready to take action for humanitarian concerns line up with the neo-conservative Republicans, then on the other side, you have the libertarian Republicans’ side link up with the Democrats who worry that we’ll get bogged down in a foreign conflict.”

Martel said U.S. officials must consider the threat to 
national security.

“There are all sorts of extremists in Syria right now,” he said. “The nightmare is chemical weapons in the hands of extremists.”

082713syria005.jpg

Photo by:

Reuters

CAUTION: A Free Syrian Army fighter holds his weapon as he peeks into an alleyway in the al-Jdeideh neighborhood of the former city of Aleppo yesterday.

1

Wednesday, August 28, 2013

PrintEmail Comments (0)

By:

Gary J. Remal 
and Erin Smith

Warmongering threats by Syria and Iran to put Israel in their crosshairs are likely part of a coordinated effort to pressure the United States to back down from considering strikes against Syria, an expert told the Herald.

“From the Israeli point of view, this has to make them nervous. But I think it’s 
political rhetoric to unnerve the Israelis, which is designed to put pressure on us,” said William C. Martel, an international security expert at Tufts University’s Fletcher School. “I see the efforts of Russia and Iran to support Syria now at all costs. I think that’s something that should worry us because it appears they are working in a coordinated fashion.”

Martel, who said the likelihood of an attack is very low because Israel has a more powerful weapons cache than Iran, said he worries President Obama’s threat to take action without following through 
after earlier, smaller chemical weapon attacks has damaged the United States’ standing in the world.

“I think that we communicated to the rest of the world — to Russia, Iran and Syria — we make threats that are not serious,” Martel said. “The leaders in those capitals aren’t quite sure what the U.S. is going to do now.”

Momentum appeared to build yesterday for Western military action against Syrian President Bashar Assad’s 
regime for allegedly using chemical weapons on civilians, with the U.S. and France saying they are in position to strike and Syrian leaders vowing to use all possible measures to repel it.

“Whatever we see in the next week or two, it’s going to be limited — simply cruise missiles or a combination of cruise missiles and air strikes, but not boots on the ground,” said Jim Walsh of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Security Studies Program.

Domestic politics in the leadup to likely military 
action, he said, always makes for strange bedfellows.

“The partisan divides that happen with these things is interesting,” Walsh said. “You have the liberal interventionists ready to take action for humanitarian concerns line up with the neo-conservative Republicans, then on the other side, you have the libertarian Republicans’ side link up with the Democrats who worry that we’ll get bogged down in a foreign conflict.”

Martel said U.S. officials must consider the threat to 
national security.

“There are all sorts of extremists in Syria right now,” he said. “The nightmare is chemical weapons in the hands of extremists.”

– See more at: http://bostonherald.com/news_opinion/international/middle_east/2013/08/expert_warns_syria_iran_team_effort_is_worrisome#sthash.dsedD1xR.dpuf

082713syria005.jpg

Photo by:

Reuters

CAUTION: A Free Syrian Army fighter holds his weapon as he peeks into an alleyway in the al-Jdeideh neighborhood of the former city of Aleppo yesterday.

1

Wednesday, August 28, 2013

PrintEmail Comments (0)

By:

Gary J. Remal 
and Erin Smith

Warmongering threats by Syria and Iran to put Israel in their crosshairs are likely part of a coordinated effort to pressure the United States to back down from considering strikes against Syria, an expert told the Herald.

“From the Israeli point of view, this has to make them nervous. But I think it’s 
political rhetoric to unnerve the Israelis, which is designed to put pressure on us,” said William C. Martel, an international security expert at Tufts University’s Fletcher School. “I see the efforts of Russia and Iran to support Syria now at all costs. I think that’s something that should worry us because it appears they are working in a coordinated fashion.”

Martel, who said the likelihood of an attack is very low because Israel has a more powerful weapons cache than Iran, said he worries President Obama’s threat to take action without following through 
after earlier, smaller chemical weapon attacks has damaged the United States’ standing in the world.

“I think that we communicated to the rest of the world — to Russia, Iran and Syria — we make threats that are not serious,” Martel said. “The leaders in those capitals aren’t quite sure what the U.S. is going to do now.”

Momentum appeared to build yesterday for Western military action against Syrian President Bashar Assad’s 
regime for allegedly using chemical weapons on civilians, with the U.S. and France saying they are in position to strike and Syrian leaders vowing to use all possible measures to repel it.

“Whatever we see in the next week or two, it’s going to be limited — simply cruise missiles or a combination of cruise missiles and air strikes, but not boots on the ground,” said Jim Walsh of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Security Studies Program.

Domestic politics in the leadup to likely military 
action, he said, always makes for strange bedfellows.

“The partisan divides that happen with these things is interesting,” Walsh said. “You have the liberal interventionists ready to take action for humanitarian concerns line up with the neo-conservative Republicans, then on the other side, you have the libertarian Republicans’ side link up with the Democrats who worry that we’ll get bogged down in a foreign conflict.”

Martel said U.S. officials must consider the threat to 
national security.

“There are all sorts of extremists in Syria right now,” he said. “The nightmare is chemical weapons in the hands of extremists.”

– See more at: http://bostonherald.com/news_opinion/international/middle_east/2013/08/expert_warns_syria_iran_team_effort_is_worrisome#sthash.dsedD1xR.dpuf

Could Israeli experts be wrong about a Syrian attack on Israel? | JPost | Israel News.

Europe prepares for military intervention in Syria | McClatchy.

A citizen journalism image provided by the Media Office Of Douma City, which has been authenticated based on its contents and other AP reporting, a Syrian man mourns over a dead body after an alleged poisonous gas attack fired by regime forces, according to activists, in Douma town, Damascus, Syria. | Uncredited/AP

Matthew Schofield | McClatchy Foreign Staff

BERLIN — Europe moved closer overnight to military intervention in Syria.

British Prime Minister David Cameron called Parliament back today to debate the situation in Syria. According to news reports, commercial pilots near Cyprus say they have seen British C-130s and radar images of small formations of fighter jets heading to Britain’s Akrotiri airbase, which is only about 150 miles from Syria. The moves appear to be preparation for what is as yet an undefined military response to alleged chemical weapons attacks in the Syrian civil war.

U.S. Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel spoke by phone with the defense ministers of France and the United Kingdom this morning. According to a Pentagon statement on the phone conversations, Hagel said the U.S. was ready “to respond to the outrageous chemical attacks” and that he “condemned the violence carried out by the Syrian regime and stated that the United States military is prepared for any contingency involving Syria.”

A senior State Department official said a meeting scheduled in the Hague with a Russian delegation has been postponed because of consultations about “the appropriate response to the chemical weapons attack in Syria on August 21.” But the official added: “As we’ve long made clear – and as the events of August 21 reinforce – it is imperative that we reach a comprehensive and durable political solution to the crisis in Syria. The United States remains fully invested in that process.”

In Damascus Tuesday, Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al Moallem said that if the U.S. attacked, his country would employ “all means available” to defend itself. He said the U.S. has “a history of lies” and likened its claims that Syria had used chemical weapons to the warnings a decade ago that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction as a presage to the invasion of Iraq.

Syrian rebels leaders have allegedly been told to expect a western strike against the Assad Regime “within days.”

The Reuters news agency has reported that someone leaving a meeting in Istanbul of the Syrian National Coalition said: “The opposition was told in clear terms that action to deter further use of chemical weapons by the Assad regime could come as early as in the next few days, and that they should still prepare for peace talks at Geneva.”

Meanwhile in Russia, Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander Lukashevich reiterated the view of his government that the west is rushing to judgment and considering action long before the facts are established. He said in a statement, “Attempts to bypass the Security Council, once again to create artificial groundless excuses for a military intervention in the region, are fraught with new suffering in Syria and catastrophic consequences for other countries of the Middle East and North Africa. We are calling on our American partners and all members of the world community to demonstrate prudence, strict observance of international law, especially the fundamental principles of the UN Charter.”

While Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has made it clear that his nation urges restraint, British Foreign Secretary William Hague told the BBC today that strong non-military efforts have not prevented the escalation of events in Syria. He said that even without UN approval, “the great humanitarian need and humanitarian distress” could justify action.

“We have tried those other methods – the diplomatic methods – and we will continue to try those,” he said. “But they have failed so far.”

The 22-member Arab League began meeting in Cairo to discuss the situation.

French newspaper website Le Figaro said that “a green light is expected” for action in Syria, and a final “decision will be taken soon.” The website also quoted an unnamed diplomat asking, “The question is when, but the real question is for what?”

And former British Prime Minister Tony Blair wrote in today’s Times of London, “If we do not intervene to support freedom and democracy in Egypt and Syria, the Middle East faces catastrophe.”

He went on to say: “I understand every impulse to stay clear of the turmoil, to watch but not to intervene, to ratchet up language but not to engage in the hard, even harsh business of changing reality on the ground. But we have collectively to understand the consequence of wringing our hands instead of putting them to work.”

Still, in the United Kingdom, not everyone was sure that the time for intervention is here. The Shadow Foreign Secretary Douglas Alexander told the BBC as far as committing British troops, neither he nor other members of Parliament were “prepared to write the government a blank cheque.”

“Is it a broad objective of changing the civil war or trying to remove Bashar al-Assad, or is it a more limited objective of trying to degrade his capability to use these weapons with impunity?” he asked.

And in Germany, the news website of Der Spiegel wondering if “Syria intervention may endanger Merkel reelection” in reference to federal elections in September. The article noted that a decade ago, then German Chancellor Gerhard Schroder took a stand against involvement in war in Iraq — a move that deeply damaged relations with the United States, but may have allowed his party to remain in control of the German government.

The article noted, “Eleven years later, Germany is once again preparing for a general election. And once again, the West is weighing intervention in the Middle East. This time around, though, Chancellor Angela Merkel appears to be betting that the horrific images that emerged from last week’s apparent use of chemical weapons in Syria will be enough to trump the German electorate’s traditional pacifism.”

U.S. wins Arab League backing as plans emerge for strike against Syria | McClatchy.

Syrian protesters rally to condemn the alleged poison gas attack on the suburbs of Damascus, in front of the Syrian embassy in Amman, Jordan on Friday, August 23, 2013. | Mohammad Abu Ghosh/Xinhua/MCT

| View larger image

By Nancy A. Youssef and Hannah Allam | McClatchy Foreign Staff

SEA hacks: Syrian Electronic Army says it hit Twitter, New York Times..By Will Oremus

 

 

 

 

 

Screenshot / NYTimes.com

UPDATE, Tuesday, Aug. 27, 10:09 p.m.: Once again, it turns out that the Syrian Electronic Army infiltrated its major U.S. media targets indirectly, by compromising a related third party.

The hack that took down the New York Times homepage on Tuesday afternoon and knocked out embedded images on Twitter was the result of a phishing attack on an Australian Web-hosting firm, Melbourne IT, the firm confirmed Tuesday evening. From the Australian Financial Review:

A spokesman for the Melbourne-based company said the login credentials of a reseller for the company had been compromised, allowing attackers to access servers and change key details that direct users to the correct websites.

The New York Times’ own story on the hack also identifies the direct target as Melbourne IT, which both the Times and Twitter apparently use as their domain-name registrar. The Times’ chief information officer, Marc Frons, affirmed—slightly cryptically—that the culprit was “the Syrian Electronic Army or someone trying very hard to be them.” Twitter did not mention Melbourne IT or the SEA by name, but issued a statement acknowledging that DNS records had been modified for twimg.com, one of the domains Twitter uses to display images.

The note of uncertainty in Frons’ statement about the SEA stems from the murkiness surrounding the hacker group, about which not a lot is known except that it appears to vociferously support the regime of Bashar al-Assad. Whether it does any good on behalf of that regime is unclear. The Washington Post’s Max Fisher suggests that the group’s actions make “a lot more sense if you think of them as pranksters who also happen to love Assad than as state-aligned hackers in pursuit of concrete goals.” On the other hand, the Times notes that Syrian rebels and some security experts take the group far more seriously, viewing it as “the outward-facing campaign of a much quieter surveillance campaign focused on Syrian dissidents.”

Either way, it’s clear that the group’s attacks on U.S. media organizations are growing more sophisticated, if still not particularly damaging. Major domain-name registrars like Melbourne IT are supposed to maintain tight security. But the SEA has demonstrated once again the power of carefully crafted phishing attacks—schemes that involve tricking an organization’s individual employees into downloading malware or giving out sensitive information. That’s the same approach the hacker group has used in the past to gain control of the Twitter accounts of major media organizations, including the Associated Press. (I wrote in more detail about the AP phishing attack here.)

Melbourne IT ranks as the world’s sixth-largest ICANN domain registrar, responsible for some 2.5 million domains, according to webhosting.info. By far the largest is U.S.-based Go Daddy, with over 25 million.

Original post, Tuesday, Aug. 27, 5:59 p.m.: Two weeks ago, I wrote that the hackers in the Syrian Electronic Army were getting the upper hand on U.S. media outlets. Today, if initial reports are correct, they appear to have stepped up their game another notch.

The homepage of the New York Times went down Tuesday afternoon, and a spokeswoman for the paper reported that the outage was “most likely” the result of a “malicious external attack.” Whether it was in fact the work of the Syrian Electronic Army was not immediately clear, but at least one security researcher reported that the Times’ domain name server appeared to be pointing to a Syrian Electronic Army domain. Meanwhile, the Times continued to publish stories using a workaround, directing readers to its naked IP address—http://170.149.168.130/ —rather than to www.nytimes.com.

Meanwhile, the SEA is claiming that it has hacked Twitter itself:

You might notice that the images in the tweet above are broken. Whether that’s part of the SEA’s Twitter hack is also not clear, but it seems plausible—Twitter was rife with broken images Tuesday afternoon. The link in the tweet points to a “WhoIs” site, which keeps records the owners of various Web addresses. As of 5:45 p.m. on Wednesday, the site was showing the administrator name for Twitter.com as “SEA SEA,” with an email address of sea@sea.sy.

Circa’s Anthony De Rosa found what could be a link between the two hacks:

And at around 5:45 p.m., the SEA issued a new tweet suggesting that the Huffington Post’s U.K. site might be compromised as well:

The story is still developing. The bottom line, for now: The SEA is continuing to make good on its threat to retaliate for Twitter’s takedown of its account, but it still has not accomplished anything particularly substantive in the way of damaging critical U.S. websites or getting its message out to the public. Yet.

Israel Hayom | Rice: Only regime has capacity to launch CW with rockets.

President Barack Obama’s national security adviser makes U.S. stance clear on who was responsible for chemical attack in Syria • Secretary of State Kerry warns Assad of ‘consequences’ to ‘undeniable’ attack • Syria: Kerry’s evidence is “fabricated.”

The U.S. continued to ratchet up its rhetoric on Tuesday regarding a possible missile strike in Syria, with U.S. President Barack Obama’s National Security Adviser Susan Rice releasing a statement on Twitter that pins the blame for last week’s chemical weapons attack outside of Damascus solely on the Syria government.

“Only regime has capacity to launch CW (chemical weapons) with rockets [sic],” Rice wrote.

A day earlier, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry had outlined the clearest justification yet for U.S. military action in Syria, saying there was “undeniable” evidence of a large-scale chemical weapons attack, with intelligence strongly signaling that Syrian President Bashar Assad’s regime was responsible.

Kerry, speaking to reporters at the State Department, said last week’s attack “should shock the conscience” of the world.

“The indiscriminate slaughter of civilians, the killing of women and children and innocent bystanders by chemical weapons is a moral obscenity. By any standard, it is inexcusable and — despite the excuses and equivocations that some have manufactured — it is undeniable,” said Kerry, the highest-ranking U.S. official to confirm the attack in the Damascus suburbs that activists say killed hundreds of people.

“This international norm cannot be violated without consequences,” he added.

Syria has accused U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry of lying by claiming there is “undeniable” evidence of a large-scale chemical weapons attack in Syria likely carried out by the regime.

A statement on the state-run Syrian Arab News Agency on Tuesday says Kerry’s insistence on “jumping over” the work of U.N. experts in Syria shows that the U.S. has deliberate intentions to exploit events. SANA in the statement said Kerry has “fabricated” evidence.

Officials said Obama has not decided how to respond to the use of deadly gases, a move the White House said last year would cross a “red line.” But the U.S., along with allies in Europe, appeared to be laying the groundwork for the most aggressive response since Syria’s civil war began more than two years ago.

Two administration officials said the U.S. was expected to make public a more formal determination of chemical weapons use on Tuesday, with an announcement of Obama’s response likely to follow quickly. The officials insisted on anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly discuss the internal deliberations.

The international community appeared to be considering action that would punish Assad for deploying deadly gases, not sweeping measures aimed at ousting the Syrian leader or strengthening rebel forces. The focus of the internal debate underscores the scant international appetite for a large-scale deployment of forces in Syria and the limited number of other options that could significantly change the trajectory of the conflict.

“We continue to believe that there’s no military solution here that’s good for the Syrian people, and that the best path forward is a political solution,” State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf said. “This is about the violation of an international norm against the use of chemical weapons and how we should respond to that.”

The Obama administration was moving ahead even as a United Nations team already on the ground in Syria collected evidence from last week’s attack. The U.S. said Syria’s delay in giving the inspectors access rendered their investigation meaningless and officials said the administration had its own intelligence confirming chemical weapons use.

“What is before us today is real and it is compelling,” Kerry said. “Our understanding of what has already happened in Syria is grounded in facts.”

The U.S. assessment is based in part on the number of reported victims, the symptoms of those injured or killed and witness accounts. Administration officials said the U.S. had additional intelligence confirming chemical weapons use and planned to make it public in the coming days.

Officials stopped short of unequivocally stating that Assad’s government was behind the attack. But they said there was “very little doubt” that it originated with the regime, noting that Syria’s rebel forces do not appear to have access to the country’s chemical weapons stockpile.

Assad has denied launching a chemical attack. The U.N. team came under sniper fire Monday as it traveled to the site of the Aug. 21 attack.

It’s unclear whether Obama would seek authority from the U.N. or Congress before using force. The president has spoken frequently about his preference for taking military action only with international backing, but it is likely Russia and China would block U.S. efforts to authorize action through the U.N. Security Council.

Kerry on Monday made several veiled warnings to Russia, which has propped up Assad’s regime, blocked action against Syria at the U.N., and disputed evidence of the government’s chemical weapons use.

“Anyone who can claim that an attack of this staggering scale can be contrived or fabricated needs to check their conscience and their own moral compass,” he said.

The State Department also said it is postponing a meeting with Russian diplomats on Syria this week. The meeting at The Hague was about setting up an international conference to find a political resolution to the Syrian crisis. A senior State Department official said Monday the meeting between Undersecretary Wendy Sherman and U.S. Ambassador to Syria Robert Ford with their Russian counterparts was canceled because of the ongoing U.S. review about alleged use of chemical weapons in Syria.

British Prime Minister David Cameron, who like Kerry cut short his vacation because of the attack, spoke Monday with Russian President Vladimir Putin to outline the evidence of chemical weapons use by Assad’s regime.

Cameron’s office also said the British government would decide on Tuesday whether the timetable for the international response means it will be necessary to recall lawmakers to Parliament before their scheduled return next week. That decision could offer the clearest indication of how quickly the U.S. and allies plan to respond.

The most likely U.S. military action would be to launch Tomahawk cruise missiles off U.S. warships in the Mediterranean. The Navy last week moved a fourth destroyer into the eastern Mediterranean.

Officials said it was likely the targets would be tied to the regime’s ability to launch chemical weapons attacks.

Possible targets would include weapons arsenals, command and control centers, radar and communications facilities, and other military headquarters. Less likely was a strike on a chemical weapons site because of the risk of releasing toxic gases.

Military experts and U.S. officials on Monday said that the precision strikes would probably come during the night and target key military sites.

The president has ruled out putting American troops on the ground in Syria and officials say they also are not considering setting up a unilateral no-fly zone.

Syria was the subject of a call Monday between Obama and Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd. The White House said the two leaders discussed possible responses by the international community to the use of chemical weapons near Damascus. And as part of ongoing consultations, Obama National Security Adviser Susan Rice met with a delegation of top Israeli officials. The White House said topics covered were developments in Iran, Egypt, Syria and other regional security issues.

It’s unlikely that the U.S. would launch a strike against Syria while the United Nations team is still in the country. The administration may also try to time any strike around Obama’s travel schedule — he’s due to hold meetings in Sweden and Russia next week — in order to avoid having the commander in chief abroad when the U.S. launches military action.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Monday countered the U.S. claim that the investigation at the site of last week’s attack was too little, too late.

“Despite the passage of a number of days, the secretary-general is confident that the team will be able to obtain and analyze evidence relevant for its investigation of the August 21 incident,” U.N. spokesman Farhan Haq said in New York.

In an emergency press conference on Monday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said: “They [the West] have not been able to come up with any proof but are saying at the same time that the red line has been crossed and there can be no delay. Using force without the approval of the U.N. Security Council is a very grave violation of international law.”

Israel says it won’t stay on sidelines if Syria attacks – latimes.com.

In the 1991 Persian Gulf War, the U.S. persuaded Israel not to retaliate when Iraq hit it with Scud missiles. This time is different.

A woman shows a child how to put on a gas mask at a distribution center in Tel Aviv. Israelis are bracing for an attack after Syria vowed to strike Israel if Syria is struck by the United States. (Uriel Sinai / Getty Images / August 26, 2013)

‘A pity they both can’t lose’ | The Times of Israel.

Five insights on how US action in Syria might play out, and how Israel might want it to; and one battle-proven suggestion for an ultimatum to Assad

US fighter jets flying in formation over the Mediterranean in 2009. (photo credit: Seaman Andrew Skipworth/US Navy, Department of Defense)

As the hulking US war machine comes to life, pivoting menacingly toward Syria, five insights and one suggestion regarding the developing situation to the north:

1) There are still fundamental differences of opinion within the Israeli security establishment as to the preferred results of the looming US offensive in Syria and the eventual outcome of the war.

After two and a half years of fighting, including a Hezbollah-driven triumph in Qusayr in June, the prevailing opinion is that weakening Bashar Assad harms Hezbollah and Iran and therefore trumps all other considerations. In Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s eyes, all considerations are subservient to the Iranian quest for the bomb. Defanging the Iranian threat, Netanyahu believes, is his historic mission. His former bureau chief and current Minister of Economy and Trade Naftali Bennett confirmed this in an interview with the Times of Israel in 2012, saying that, from his old boss’s perspective, “it is his raison d’être.”

On Sunday, during the government’s weekly cabinet meeting, Netanyahu touched on this again, noting that the Syrian example of WMD use proves that “the most dangerous regimes in the world can’t possess the most dangerous weapons in the world.”

But there are also those who believe that Assad’s removal from the stage will only lead to far more extensive bloodshed and that a victory for the Sunni extremists will place Israel in greater peril than an Assad victory.

Maj. Gen. (res) Uzi Dayan, a former deputy chief of the IDF General Staff and a former head of the National Security Council, said in a telephone interview that he is firmly opposed to deposing Assad. “What really frightens me is a ring of Muslim Brotherhood nations from Turkey to Egypt. That’s what I’m most concerned about,” Dayan said.

Uzi Dayan, a former general and nephew of Moshe Dayan (Photo credit: Moshe Shai/ Flash 90)

He suggested that Sunni extremists would then destabilize Jordan and Lebanon. “Whoever is interested in keeping the Hashemite Kingdom in Jordan,” he said, “would do well not to support the deposing of Bashar Assad, because they [Jordan] are the next target.”

Furthermore, he called the killing of 100,000 people thus far during the war “a promo” in comparison to what the future held in a post-Assad era.

Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon, without saying which side he prefers in the ongoing war, has suggested that the gravest possible result in Syria is anarchy. “The worst outcome in Syria is a chaotic situation… meaning a vacuum in which al‐Qaeda elements, terror elements will come in and will challenge us, will challenge Jordan, will challenge the stability of the region,” he said in June during an address at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

When journalist Barbara Slavin asked Ya’alon after his talk whether an accurate description of his feelings regarding the conflict in Syria might be in line with Henry Kissinger’s alleged quip about the Iran-Iraq War – that it’s a pity they both can’t lose – he said simply, to laughter from the audience, “might be.”

2) The US will strike Syria, perhaps attempting to strip Assad of the ability to fire chemical weapons, perhaps simply to deter his regime from leaning in that direction again, and perhaps, in the maximalist approach, to pry several fingers of the Alawite fist from power. Israeli officials are keen to convey that the chances of a Syrian counter-strike against Israel, in any of these instances, as slim. That is an optimistic prognosis.

On May 15, several days after Israel allegedly struck Fateh-110 missile warehouses in Damascus, at least two mortar shells landed on the high flanks of Mount Hermon. The original assessment was that this was stray fire from battles on the Syrian side of the Golan Heights. Veteran military analyst Ron Ben-Yishai subsequently revealed that the mortar fire on the Hermon had not been an accident. It was an assignment that the Syrian regime farmed out to Hezbollah, which then farmed it out to an unknown extremist Sunni organization, which launched the retaliatory fire. That sort of attack allowed Damascus to claim domestically that it had responded to Israeli aggression, and it allowed Israel, for its part, to absorb the blow in silence.

But beyond that sort of symbolic action there is a wide spectrum of responses. Syria, or an emissary, could strike Israeli territory with a larger caliber weapon, in a more sensitive location; it could task Hezbollah with a foreign response, such as an attack on an embassy or a Jewish community center; it could target military installations of varying degrees of importance, including air bases; it could target civilian centers; and it could – although this is extremely unlikely – use a weapon of mass destruction.

The most likely scenario, in response to a US strike, is something akin to last Thursday’s rocket fire on the western Galilee or an attack along the Golan Heights – a move that is difficult to trace back to the regime and of a scale that does not demand an immediate and scathing Israeli response.

3) In such a scenario, in the current constellation, Israel, despite proclamations to the contrary, may find its hands tied. The US is in the process of assembling an international coalition. Great Britain, France and Turkey are on board. Germany, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Qatar will likely play an assisting role. The USS Harry S. Truman, an aircraft carrier, is currently in the Red Sea. It could make a U-turn and sail back into the Mediterranean. But even if it does, providing a nearby battle platform for US jets, the US may still want to use its air bases in Incirlik and Izmir in Turkey and thus, at the very least, provide a way for the NATO member, a long-standing foe of Alawite-run Syria and one of the few islands of stability in the Middle East, to be closely involved in the offensive. Israeli actions would complicate that sort of cooperation.

On August 21, MK Avigdor Liberman, the head of the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, responded to Turkish Prime Minister Racep Tayyip Erdogan’s claim that “Israel is behind the coup in Egypt,” with the following proclamation: “Anyone who heard Erdogan’s words, which were filled with hate and incitement, understands without any doubt that this is a continuation of the way of Goebbels.” This so-called heir to the Nazi propaganda minister, it stands to reason, would be disinclined to cooperate with the US-led coalition if USAF and IAF planes share the skies.

4) On Monday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov called a US-led strike on Syria, without the UN Security Council’s authorization, “a severe violation of international law,” and characterized such an act as a “catastrophe.” He did not threaten the US-led coalition with hostile action, but Russia, like Israel, seems to believe that Syria is a test case for Iran, and therefore there is a good chance that Russia, in the wake of a US strike, will  provide previously withheld air defense systems such as the S-300 to Syria and prove, in the aftermath of a strike, even less cooperative with the West on Iran and the sanctions regime. Israel has made crystal clear its profound opposition to the Russian supply of S-300s — not only because of the advantage the systems would bring to Assad, but also because of the protection they would afford Hezbollah.

5) In 1991, when the US invaded Iraq, Israel had little to offer in the way of intelligence. Iraq is a distant country and was, and remains, far down the list of priorities for Israel. Syria is a different story altogether. The countries are neighbors. In September 2007, when Israel reportedly obliterated Syria’s nuclear reactor in Dir a-Zur, the strike came as a complete surprise to the Syrian leadership. Earlier this year, Amos Yadlin, the head of military intelligence at the time of the strike and the current head of the INSS think tank in Tel Aviv, revealed that even the Syrian army chief of staff did not know about the covert nuclear plant. Since then, Israel reportedly has struck in Syria four times and the nature of those strikes would indicate that the Israeli security establishment has a very good handle on the state of affairs within Syria. The behind the scenes cooperation between Israel and the US, therefore, likely is and will remain quite close.

6) On July 12, 2006, two hours after Israel learned that two of its soldiers had been abducted during a cross-border Hezbollah raid, MK Ami Ayalon, a former admiral and Shin Bet commander, called his party colleague, then-defense minister Amir Peretz, and offered him some advice. “Tell the prime minister to call a press conference and to announce that he is giving Hezbollah three days to return the soldiers. At the same time, announce a large call-up of reserves and the preparation of the IDF for an attack,” he said, according to an account in the Second Lebanon War book “Captives of Lebanon.”

Peretz was incredulous. “You don’t understand,” Ayalon told him. It isn’t Hezbollah that needs these three days. It’s you.”

Peretz did not heed the advice; Israel went rapidly to war — and ended that war, more than a month later, at best inconclusively.

The US is in a similar situation. It needs to rush, while the outrage over Assad’s alleged chemical attack remains fresh, but it needs time to assemble itself. Once the obligatory moves to the UN have been made and the machinery of war is in place, the US should offer Bashar Assad an ultimatum. It could even be sugar-coated. Everyone detests the usage of chemical weapons, President Barack Obama could say. They are a heinous weapon. You claim the rebels have used them against your forces. We have evidence of your forces using them against civilians. In the interest of world security we offer you three days to surrender all chemical weapons materials to a UN team. So that they do not fall into the wrong hands. So that the weapons are safe. If you do not comply, we will be left with no alternative but to strike.

Assad is fighting for his life, and for the life of his clan and his religious group. There is little chance of him accepting the terms of a US ultimatum. However, there is no better time to bargain with him than with the cold steel of an American sword against his neck. In the worst case scenario, he says no, makes a bravado-laced speech, and the coalition buys itself some time, gets synchronized, and offers the world, as in the first Gulf War, a countdown to action.