WarSclerotic

Politics makes strange bedfellows, and none stranger than the trio in the latest Syrian crisis that brings together Iranian ayatollahs, congressional Republicans and Barack Obama. Watching with great interest from the sidelines are Bashar Assad and Binyamin Netanyahu.Assad’s survival is in the balance. Strong evidence indicates he has used poison gas more than once to kill and wound thousands of his own citizens. Obama, who was caught bluffing on previous threats to take strong action against the brutal Syrian regime, says this time he is serious about making Assad pay, but shied away from immediate action to seek approval from a Congress, which his foes have gridlocked. That hesitation could prove costly for him, but not for Assad or the ayatollahs, who understandably interpret it as American weakness and lack of resolve.

Iranian leaders have their own dilemma. They can decide to protect their Syrian client who has become a dead man walking or trade their own pariah status for international acceptance by brokering a political settlement in Syria. That would be only half the price for their new respectability; they would also have to enter into serious negotiations with the West over the future of their nuclear program.

But why bother if the United States is weak, indecisive and unable to present meaningful incentives (i.e. threats)? That’s where congressional Republicans come in. They have, with the help of some Democrats (most will eventually fold when it comes time to vote), pressed the president to get congressional approval to attack Syria and are inclined to vote no in order to guarantee him an embarrassing defeat.

But even in the process of handing Obama a loss in the policy debate, they could deliver him a partisan political victory.

For many Republicans Obama is the real enemy, and his failure is a higher priority than stopping chemical weapons, punishing Assad or even protecting Israel.

Obama faces a plethora of bad choices. He says his goal is not regime change but to discourage Assad from a repeat performance and to encourage a political solution, but neither he nor anyone else is quite sure how to do that.

He already appears to many as weak and indecisive for having sought congressional permission, but those who block action risk being considered Assad’s enablers, particularly if the Syrian dictator takes congressional disapproval as license to strike again.

The risk for Republicans in refusing permission to attack Syria is that in their overriding desire to destroy Obama they will be shifting the blame for future Syrian chemical attacks and Iranian nuclear development from the White House to the GOP.

But don’t hold your breath; hatred of Obama and the endless jockeying for partisan gain could trump the moral imperative to stop Assad’s chemical atrocities and send a clear signal to others that such wanton killing won’t be tolerated.

Meanwhile in Jerusalem, Prime Minister Netanyahu is very wisely keeping quiet and telling his government to do the same. The actions of both Obama and Congress are raising questions across Israel about what this means for Obama’s promise to have Israel’s back in the ongoing confrontation with Iran.

Many believe the main reason Netanyahu agreed to go to the peace table with the Palestinians was not as much to make a deal with them as to protect his relationship with Washington and keep Obama on board in the effort to halt Iran’s nuclear quest.

Republicans made a major effort in last year’s presidential campaign, often with Netanyahu’s encouragement, to convince Israel and American Jewry that they are more reliable and faithful friends of Israel than Obama, especially when it came to blocking Iran’s nuclear ambitions. If they turn around and block an attack on Syria, Iran’s major client, they’ll be telling Netanyahu, you’re on your own.

The administration has decided to play the Israel card, stressing the potential fallout for Israel if Assad gets a get-out of- jail card. Protecting Israel is a central theme of the administration’s bid for congressional backing, according to Politico.

So far the American Israel Public Affairs Committee has tried to stay out of the debate – except for its fund-raisers, who are busily exploiting the crisis – but it may have to get involved.

That poses a dilemma: The Jewish community wants to avoid a repeat of the inaccurate and spiteful accusations of the Mearsheimer-and-Walt crowd who accused Israel of pushing the US to war against Iraq.

But much more is at stake here than punishing Assad. It goes to the heart of AIPAC’s lobbying agenda for more than 20 years – blocking Iranian nukes. If the Iranians take away from this debate that either Obama doesn’t have the resolve or support to carry through on threats to block the bomb or that Republicans will block him from acting, green lights will be flashing at every reactor and centrifuge in the Islamic Republic.

Would Obama, stinging from a defeat by congress, shy away from acting against Iran when it reached the nuke threshold or would he decide the matter is too important to leave to Congress to decide, especially a hostile GOP, and thus strike out on his own? I doubt even he could answer that question right now.

Israelis appear less worried that Assad would retaliate against them in the event of an American attack – after all, Assad blustered but didn’t act when Israel destroyed his nuclear reactor and at least two missile shipments destined for Hezbollah in Lebanon – than they are about how the American action or inaction will be interpreted in Iran.

Before leaving on an extended vacation, the House passed 400-20 a new set of tougher sanctions on Iran; the Senate is expected to take the bill up in September. Congress has consistently pressed several reluctant administrations to tighten the pressure on Tehran. Obama wants to hold off on new sanctions to test whether Hassan Rohani, the new president, is bringing new policies and new approaches to nuclear negotiations.

But that could become moot if Congress cuts off the president’s legs in their ongoing partisan effort to hand him a defeat at any cost.

The Iranians as well as North Koreans and other states with nuclear ambitions will be watching the debate and vote in Congress closely to judge American determination to avert the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.

What happens on Capitol Hill in the coming days can have a significant impact on whether Iran builds a nuclear weapon.

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A powerful Middle Eastern axis of Sunni states has taken form in the region, which “does not view Israel as a sworn enemy,” and has successfully kept extremist jihadi terrorism at bay, Maj.-Gen. Amos Gilad, Director of the Political-Military Affairs Bureau at the Ministry of Defense, stated on Sunday.

Speaking before the Institute for Counter-Terrorism’s international summit at Herzliya, Gilad said that Israel “won’t ever be accepted as a formal member” of the Sunni axis, but that the states that make it up all view the US as the sole super power and that their regional policies are indirectly beneficial for Israel.

“This has a huge importance… and gives us many opportunities,” Gilad said.

Gilad described Egyptian Defense Minister General General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi as a new leader “that history will remember,” noting that he is combating the Muslim Brotherhood, a “movement that envelopes the region.” The Brotherhood has not swerved from its ideological commitment to Israel’s destruction and to toppling all of the region’s regimes, he said.

“When [Hamas Prime Minister Ismail] Haniyeh set a meeting with Morsi, he was symbolically received immediately,” Gilad said. “Hamas is officially part of the Muslim Brotherhood. Their self confidence was huge when Morsi was in power.” Now, he noted, Hamas has been left without a single ally in the region.

Had the Muslim Brotherhood succeeded in its plot for regional domination, a ring of hostility would have been formed around Israel, Gilad noted. From the perspective of Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah, there are two threats to his country: Iran and the Muslim Brotherhood.

This was reflected in the billions of dollars donated to Egypt by Saudi Arabia and the UAE after Sissi took power, Gilad argued.

“Sisi didn’t act against them [the Muslim Brotherhood] on behalf of the West or Israel, but only for the good of Egypt. He simply saw that Egypt was falling into the abyss, in terms of repression and the economy… He wishes to save Egypt,” Gilad said.

Jordan, for its part, excels at counter-terrorism due to its own interest to combat radical Islamist interests. As a result, there are no terrorist attacks in Jordan, or attacks from Jordan on Israel, Gilad said. “Their existence as an independent kingdom is impressive,” he added.

“All of the Kingdoms, from Saudi Arabia to Bahrain are surviving [the period of Middle Eastern turmoil]. Not one faces an existential danger,” he said.

“This axis is very heavy-weight. I recommend viewing Egypt as the leader of the Arab world, and I disagree with those who don’t see it this way. There is a mass of 87 million Egyptians who are one nation, with a 5,000 year history,” Gilad said.

“I’m identifying a serious fight against terrorism in Sinai. It’s an impressive fight against al-Qaida organizations,” he continued.

Gilad said that despite many threats, Syria has refrained from sponsoring terrorist attacks against Israel due to Israeli deterrence.

“The reasons [this isn’t happening] are clear,” he said.

Hezbollah too is deterred by Israel, and there has even been a decrease in its attempt to carry out low-signature attacks abroad, though the threat has not vanished, Gilad added.

Israeli deterrence would be harmed should Iran become a nuclear state, or obtain the image of a nuclear-armed state, he warned.

The United States would notify Israel hours in advance of an attack on Syria, an Israeli official said on Sunday.

While formally on the sidelines of the Syria crisis, Israel fears coming under reprisals from its northern foe should the United States launch strikes to punish Damascus for alleged use of chemical weaponry.

Asked how much advance notice Israel would get from its US ally about such attacks, the Israeli official, who was briefed on contacts with Washington, told Reuters: “Hours.”

Israel plans to deploy anti-missile systems and troop reinforcements if President Barack Obama, who faces domestic resistance over the military intervention in Syria, gives the green light for US action.

Obama has asked Congress to approve strikes against Syrian President Bashar Assad’s government in response to a chemical weapons attack on Aug. 21 that killed more than 1,400 Syrians.

Next week in Washington, hundreds of activists of the influential pro-Israel American Israel Public Affairs Committee will lobby Congress for military action in Syria.

At the weekly Israeli cabinet meeting on Sunday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made no direct reference to the Syrian debate in the United States.

But Israeli officials have privately voiced concern US failure to attack Syria would embolden Iran, an ally of Damascus, in its defiance of international calls to curb a nuclear program which the West fears is aimed at developing nuclear arms.

Tehran says it is enriching uranium for peaceful purposes.

WASHINGTON/BAGHDAD –  Syrian President Bashar Assad warned that if there was a military strike by the United States on his country, there would be retaliation by those aligned with Syria.

CBS reported Assad’s remarks  that he made in an interview with Charlie Rose on Sunday on its news program “Face the Nation.”

Syria was as prepared as it could be for an attack, Assad said.

Assad denied that he was behind a chemical weapons attack on the Syrian people and said evidence was not conclusive that there had been such an attack.

“There has been no evidence that I used chemical weapons against my own people,” CBS reported Assad said in an interview conducted in Damascus.

Meanwhile, Iran’s new foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said the United States will ignite a fire across the Middle East if it attacks Syria. Zarif made the remarks on a visit to Iraq on Sunday, warning Western powers against warmongering.

After more than two years of civil war, US President Barack Obama is trying to drum up support for limited strikes on Syria in response to a chemical weapons attack that Washington blames on Assad’s government.

The Shi’ite-led government in Baghdad has sought to maintain a neutral stance towards the conflict and opposes any Western military intervention in Syria, fearing it will further destabilize Iraq.

“We are concerned about warmongering in this region,” said Zarif at a news conference during his first official trip abroad since taking office. “Those who are short-sighted and are beating the drums of war are starting a fire that will burn everyone.”

Zarif was received by his Iraqi counterpart Hoshyar Zebari and was also expected to meet Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki later in the day.

The Syrian conflict has widened a fault line between Islam’s two main denominations, pitting mainly Sunni rebels, their Gulf Arab sponsors and some Western powers against Assad, whose Alawite sect derives from Shi’ism.

Iraq’s own sectarian balance has come under acute strain from the civil war next door, which has given new momentum to Sunni Islamist insurgents who have been striking with a frequency and on a scale not seen in years.

Sunni and Shi’ite militants from Iraq have also crossed into Syria to fight on opposite sides of the conflict, complicating the government’s official position of neutrality.

“Interference (in Syria) will affect the neighboring countries maybe directly, including Iraq, which will be affected in terms of security and humanitarian issues,” Zebari said at the news conference.

Last week, the Wall Street Journal reported the United States had intercepted a directive from a senior Iranian official instructing Shi’ite militants in Iraq to attack US interests in Baghdad in the event of a strike.

Alireza Miryousefi, the spokesman for Iran’s UN mission in New York, on Saturday denied the allegations and dismissed them as “baseless”.

“One should remember that reliance on such intelligence reports from anonymous US officials will lead to another disaster similar to the Iraq tragedy,” Miryousefi was quoted as saying by Press TV.

It isn’t the US cruise missiles that terrify Saleem, a pro-government militia fighter who survived some of the toughest battles of Syria’s civil war. It’s the rebel onslaught that could begin once American bombs start to fall.

Holed up on bases where loudspeakers blare patriotic songs, or scattered for their safety in tented camps, Syrian soldiers are bracing for an attack by a superpower which they have little power to resist.

Orders have been given to stand firm. Headquarters buildings have been evacuated, infantry dispersed into small formations, hospitals stocked with emergency supplies and radar stations placed at the highest level of alert.

“I’m more afraid now than I was ever when we fought in Qusair or Khalidiyeh,” said Saleem, referring to some of the most hard-fought battles of the past six months.

“If a foreign strike comes and the rebels manage to intensify their operations simultaneously, that’s a whole new level of combat. I’m still more scared of rebel mortars than US cruise missiles.”

Interviews conducted remotely with more than a dozen Syrian soldiers, officers and members of militia groups backing President Bashar Assad reveal deep fears as they prepare for US strikes at locations across the country.

Most of the soldiers were contacted by a Syrian journalist working for Reuters, now based in Beirut, who cannot be identified for security reasons. The soldiers he spoke to also requested anonymity or used only their first names.

Their comments reveal a military worried about its prospects after strikes that could reshape the battlefield in a war that has already killed more than 100,000 people and driven a third of the population of 22 million from their homes.

Many said their greatest worry is not the American missiles themselves, but the prospect that outside intervention could embolden their rebel enemies, who could launch an offensive and tip the balance of power in the two-and-a-half year civil war.

Although commanders spoke of unspecified plans to fight back against US attacks, junior service members described the notion of actually taking on US forces as absurd.

“Our small warships are spread around the coast on full alert, and why? To confront the US destroyers? I feel like I’m living in a bad movie,” said a Syrian Navy sailor reached on a vessel in the Mediterranean.

“Of course I’m worried. I know we don’t really have anything to confront the Americans. All we have is God.”

Soldiers celebrated last week when US President Barack Obama announced that he would go to Congress to seek approval before launching strikes to punish Syria for a poison gas attack that Washington says was carried out by Assad’s forces.

A resident the Damascus suburb of Jumayra described soldiers at a nearby military research complex partying in the street, drinking spirits and smoking water pipes after Obama’s speech that put military action off for weeks.

But despite government declarations that Obama’s hesitation was a “political victory”, Syrians still expect that the reprieve will be only temporary. Preparations have been made for deadly strikes.

At a military hospital in Damascus, one medic said doctors had redistributed field clinics and restocked and hospitals and dispensaries. Ambulances had been fitted with supplies for emergency surgery, he said.

“I’ve worked here 10 years. The last major alert we had was during the war on Iraq. We were at 75 percent alert then. This is the first time I’ve ever seen a 100 percent alert.”

Any US attacks will come after months in which the war had been going the government’s way. Last year saw rebels make rapid gains, but this year government forces have fought back with the support of Lebanon’s Hezbollah Shi’ite militant group, recapturing much of the central region of the country.

The main tactic that commanders said they were implementing to protect their forces from US strikes is to disperse them away from sites that would be targets.

In Homs, a strategic central province that is home to important bases and scene of many of this year’s government advances, the colonel of an infantry division said he had spread his 20,000 troops across the territory in small encampments.

Fuel, food and weapons have been discretely shipped at night to previously-agreed secret locations.

“We’re not idiots. We’ve evacuated our headquarters and we’ve spread all our manpower out,” he said.

He also implemented a diffuse “cluster” system of command to temporarily replace the traditional military hierarchy, in which the commanding officer sits atop a pyramid of subordinates.

The structure not only makes units harder to target but also proved effective this year in urban fighting, with government forces learning to operate more like both their Hezbollah allies and their rebel guerrilla foes.

“Now we have small clusters of 20 to 50 men. Each cluster works individually and their leader reports directly to the commanding officer. It makes us more mobile and effective on the ground,” the colonel said.

The central area around Homs, where the government seized back territory from the rebels this year, would be a main area where Syria’s forces will be looking to prevent the rebels from mounting a counter-offensive in the wake of US strikes.

“The area between Homs and Damascus is an area of concern,” he said. “Any attack on Homs is an attempt to divide Syria. If Homs is destroyed, it could open a route for the rebels between the north and the south, or re-open the route to Lebanon.”

Syria’s infantry forces have been hurt by low pay and tension between members of Assad’s minority Alawite sect and conscripts from the Sunni Muslim majority.

Nevertheless, the colonel insisted morale was still high among his troops, and had actually been boosted by the prospect of US strikes.

“We’re stuck in the same trench out here, so the sectarian tensions have been subsiding because we’re all facing the same threat. Cruises missiles don’t differentiate between Sunnis and Alawites,” he said. “I have three Sunni soldiers in my office. I no longer see them as threats, I see them as my children.”

The government will be hoping that attacks will not be enough to shift the momentum against it. Assad’s forces and their Hezbollah allies remain far better armed than their domestic adversaries.

Washington has given mixed signals about its plans. The White House says any assault will be “limited,” and bringing down Assad is not the aim. US officials are also worried about tipping the balance too much in favor of rebels, many of whom belong to anti-Western groups linked to al Qaeda.

But Washington also says any strikes will “degrade” the Syrian government’s ability to defend itself. Among targets could be some of the 26 bases used by Assad’s air force, one of the government’s main battlefield advantages.

There is little Syria can actually do to defend itself from American missiles. Its air force and air defenses would be of little use. Israel has already proven that by bombing Syria several times this year with impunity.

“There are holes in our defense system. Several fronts could be used against us,” acknowledged an air defense colonel in Damascus, who said his forces were on the highest level of alert. Surveillance and air defense systems have been damaged because they have been dismantled in rebel-held areas, the air defense colonel said.

He said he did not know exactly what Syria would do to retaliate against US strikes, but insisted there were plans to fight back.

“We have all kinds of scenarios, we have plans A,B,C and D, so to speak,” he said. “I don’t know what the exact response will be, but I can tell you we won’t just sit and watch.”

Air defenses themselves could be among the first targets.

“My friends here are a bit scared, and I am afraid too,” said Nawrath, a 23-year-old soldier on an air defense base. “We’re on a radar base between Homs and Damascus. Of course we are on the target list. But in the end, death is all the same.”

Nawrath said air force commanders had been scrambling to increase their scope of coverage ahead of a potential attack.

“They are trying to prepare plans to prevent aircraft from entering and to widen our coverage area.”

Whatever will come next, civilians say they are likely to suffer. Those who live in pro-government areas are worried about rebel advances if the military takes too much damage.

“State TV tells us every day that the rebels are taking one big defeat after the other, but we can see that they are around us, just a few blocks away,” said shopkeeper Jamal, in the Damascus Shi’ite neighborhood of Hay al-Amin.

All that stands between the rebels and the old city are a sports stadium being used as a military barracks and an intelligence base, he said. “And if the US hits hard, there will be nothing.”

A woman in Damascus said civilians would bear the brunt no matter what – whether US strikes tip the balance in the rebels’ favor or leave the army with the upper hand.

“Either the American strike could end up too weak and the regime will take revenge against Damascenes. Or it could be too strong and the rebels will take over and make little effort to distinguish between collaborators and those who supported the revolution,” she said.