WarSclerotic

Iran parades 30 2,000-km range missiles – Israel News, Ynetnews.

During parade marking anniversary of Iran-Iraq war, army displays missiles capable of hitting Israel, US bases. President Rohani says ready for talks with West, Israel ‘trampled all international WMD treaties’

News agencies

Iran paraded 30 missiles with a nominal range of 2,000 kilometers (1,250 miles) Sunday, the first time it had displayed so many with a stated capacity to hit Israeli targets.

Iran displayed 12 Sejil and 18 Ghadr missiles at the annual parade marking the anniversary of the outbreak of the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war.

The stated range of both missiles would put not only Israel but also US bases in the Gulf within reach.

Iran’s President Hassan Rohani, speaking at the parade on the eve of a trip to New York to attend the UN General Assembly, declared his country is ready for talks with the West on its disputed nuclear problem.

Rohani, who was elected in June promising a new willingness to engage diplomatically with the world, has said the trip may be a chance to start a new round of nuclear negotiations.

Rohani and President Barack Obama are both scheduled to attend the General Assembly’s annual meeting in the week ahead, setting up the possibility of the first exchange between American and Iranian leaders in more than three decades.

Revolutionary Guard troops during parade (Photo: EPA)

“The Iranian nation is ready for negotiation and talks with the West,” Rohani said.

The president has promised to abandon the bombastic approach favored by his predecessor Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, but continues to assert Tehran’s position that it has the right to conduct nuclear activities that the West fears could be a step toward weapons development, especially the enrichment of uranium. Iran says its program is peaceful, intended for purposes including research and cancer treatment, and enrichment is necessary for purposes including the fueling of reactors.

Iran and the United States are also at odds over the civil war in Syria. Tehran backs President Bashar Assad, while Washington supports rebels trying to oust him.

In his speech, Rohani said that Western governments must recognize Iran’s right to enrich uranium in any deal to allay their concerns about its nuclear program.

Rohani said that should extend to “all rights of the Iranian nation, particularly nuclear rights and the right to enrich uranium on its territory within the framework of international rules.”

Long-range missile displayed at parade

“If they (Western governments) accept these rights, the Iranian people are a rational people, peaceful and friendly. We stand ready to cooperate and together we can settle all the region’s problems and even global ones,” the Iranian leader said.

“The Iranian people want development and are not looking to make an atomic weapon.”

Photo: AFP

 Rouhani did not mention Israel by name at the military event but the reference was clear.

“A regime is a threat for the region that has trampled all international treaties regarding weapons of mass destruction,” he said, noting Israel’s undeclared but widely presumed nuclear arsenal.

Rohani also insisted that the US foreswear a military strike against Iran’s nuclear program, a possibility that Washington has left open. “No nation will accept war and diplomacy on (the same) table,” he said.

He reiterated Iran’s position that it does not intend to build nuclear weapons.

Iran claims the right to enrich uranium for peaceful purposes under the terms of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

But the UN Security Council has imposed successive rounds of sanctions on Iran for failing to heed ultimatums to suspend the sensitive activity, which Western governments suspect conceals a covert drive for a weapons capability.

Rohani, a moderate on Iran’s political scene, has made several diplomatic overtures since his election in June.

AFP, AP, Reuters contributed to the report

Al-Qaida-linked Islamists, security forces locked in standoff at Kenya mall – World Israel News | Haaretz.

Conflicting reports emerge about exact role Israelis are playing; Kenya attack death toll rises to 59, as standoff with Al-Qaida-linked group continues; at least 30 hostages still behind held.

Trucks of soldiers from the Kenya Defense Forces arrive after dawn outside the Westgate Mall in Nairobi, Kenya Sunday, Sept. 22, 2013. Photo by AP

Israeli advisers are helping Kenya formulate a strategy to end a siege at a Nairobi shopping mall where Islamist militants have killed at least 59 people and are holding about 30 hostages, an Israeli security source said on Sunday.

“There are Israeli advisers helping with the negotiating strategy, but no Israelis involved in any imminent storming operation,” said the source, who declined to be identified.

The source said only a “handful” of Israelis, “purely in an advisory role,” were on scene at the upscale Westgate shopping center, which has several Israeli-owned outlets and is frequented by expatriates and Kenyans.

An Israeli source in Nairobi said all Israelis who were in the mall at the time of the attack had made it out safely, with the last three rescued overnight.

There were conflicting reports from other security sources in Nairobi about the part Israel was playing. One Kenyan security source, who asked not to be identified, told Reuters that the Israeli military was involved in the operation, while a private security official also said they were helping comb the mall. But the Kenyan Interior Minister insisted it was a national operation, despite offers of foreign support.

The attack by Al-Qaida-linked militants at the Nairobi also wounded 175, Kenya’s interior cabinet secretary said earlier Sunday. Multiple barrages of gunfire erupted over the course of the morning from inside the building where the hostage standoff with Islamic extremists continued nearly 24 hours after they attacked using grenades and assault rifles.

“The priority is to save as many lives as possible,” the cabinet secretary, Joseph Lenku said, reassuring the families of the hostages in the upscale Westgate mall. Kenyan forces have already rescued about 1,000 people, he said.

Lenku said that there are 10 to 15 attackers involved, and Kenyan forces have control of the security cameras inside the mall. Combined military and police forces surrounded the building. Police said the standoff was focused on the mall’s Nakumatt supermarket, one of Kenya’s biggest chains.

The Somali Islamist group al-Shabab claimed responsibility for Saturday’s attack. Several foreigners, including two French citizens, a Canadian civilian and diplomat and three Britons, were among the dead.

Israel’s Foreign Ministry said that Israelis were not the target of the attack.

Police search a man for weapons as he exits Westgate Mall in Nairobi September 21, 2013.Reuters

Officials in the Foreign Ministry said three Israeli citizens that were in the mall at the time of the attack were able to escape unharmed and were collected by the Deputy Israeli Ambassador to Kenya Yaki Lopez and the embassy security officer that were present on the scene.

A senior official at the foreign ministry said that the families of the Israelis that escaped the incident were informed. The ministry said that beyond these persons it is believed that no other Israelis were present.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said there were no Americans among the dead but that several U.S. citizens had been hurt and the wife of a U.S. diplomat working for the U.S. Agency for International Development was killed.

Al-Shabab, which has links to Al-Qaida and is battling Kenyan and other African peacekeepers in Somalia, had repeatedly threatened attacks on Kenyan soil if Nairobi did not pull its troops out of the Horn of Africa country.

The group appeared to taunt the security forces, saying on its official Twitter handle aHSMiPress that there would be no negotiations whatsoever with Kenyan officials over the standoff.

“10 hours have passed and the Mujahideen are still strong inside iWestgate Mall and still holding their ground. All praise is due to Allah!,” the group said.

The raid presents Kenyatta with his first major security challenge since a March election victory. He has vowed to defeat the militants who have said it is time to shift the war to Kenyan soil.

“We have overcome terrorist attacks before,” he said.

Rouhani — a wolf in sheep’s clothing? | The Times of Israel.

Syria’s opposition rejects ‘disingenuous’ mediation efforts of Iran’s new president

Iranian President Hasan Rouhani delivers a speech during his campaign for the presidential election in Tehran, Iran, May 2, 2013 (photo credit: AP/Vahid Salemi)

The Syrian opposition’s refusal to accept Iranian mediation with the Bashar Assad regime leads the news in the Arab media on Sunday, alongside reports on a terrorist attack in the Kenyan capital of Nairobi by African Islamists.

“The Syrian opposition rejects Rouhani’s mediation,” reads the headline in the Saudi-owned daily A-Sharq Al-Awsat, quoting the Syrian National Coalition as calling the Iranian proposal to “ease” talks with the Assad regime “lacking in honesty” and “ridiculous.”

The paper also quotes Russian diplomat Sergei Ivanov as saying Saturday that Russia may remove its support of Assad if he deceives the world on the chemical-weapons issue.

The London-based daily Al-Hayat reports that the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) is studying the list of chemical-weapons sites submitted by the Syrian government.

Meanwhile, Qatari news channel Al-Jazeera reports that rebel forces have achieved significant advances in the Aleppo area, including “a number of strategic locations.” The regime, the channel reports, perpetrated a massacre near Hama.

In an op-ed for Al-Hayat, Saudi columnist Jamal Khashaqji claims that Russia has begun adopting the international policy of deception characteristic of Iran.

“In its unconvincing maneuvers, ‘great’ Russia has begun playing international politics the ugly Iranian way. Last week it surprised the world with an initiative that seemed serious, based on international law and the Security Council, to strip the Syrian regime of chemical weapons in return for preventing a war looming on the horizon…. Days later [the initiative] began to deteriorate, appearing in the image of a small dictator who excels at lying and deceiving,” reads the daily.

“The Iranians mastered this policy, calling their neighbors to brotherly cooperation and then plotting against them. They speak about liberating Jerusalem… and then occupy Lebanon. As for the Russians, they talk of freeing the region and the world of Bashar’s chemical weapons, where in reality they wish to liberate Bashar and prolong the life of his regime. They destroy their relations with all countries in utter thuggery, as long as Bashar remains!”

What is Rouhani up to? 

A number of editorials on Sunday try to evaluate the apparent moderation of Iran’s new president.

“Is Rouhani a sheep or a wolf?” wonders A-Sharq Al-Awsat columnist Abdul Rahman Rashed.

“Hasan Rouhani, the new Iranian president, continues to distribute his gifts [his rosy statements]. He waxed poetic in Saudi Arabia, saying it is a friendly and dear country, and that he intends to negotiate over the nuclear plan and end the dispute with the Western powers. He said he wishes to rectify the damage caused by his predecessor Ahmadinejad with the world, distancing himself from [Ahmadinejad’s] denial of the Holocaust and congratulating the Israelis on the Jewish New Year!

“Rouhani’s Iran may only be a poetic dream in the head of the new president, or it may be a malicious propaganda machine intended to enable Iran to implement its remaining projects that caused its isolation. He wants to remove Iran’s economic sanctions and dismantle the siege on his allies, like Assad in Syria, Hezbollah, and Hamas.

“Personally, I highly doubt Rouhani’s ability, and perhaps his intention, to change the course of the Iranian regime, which is involved up to its ears in a hostile policy towards the Gulf and the West. We see the [Iranian] regime cornered, and it will only grow more isolated as it moves closer to realizing its nuclear aspirations.”

Al-Hayat columnist Abdullah Iskandar claims that Rouhani has already succeeded in “breaking the ice” with the West; this is due not only to his intentions, but to the strategies of elements higher up in Iran’s decision-making establishment.

“Rouhani has succeeded in just a few months since his elections in breaking the ice of his country’s diplomacy toward the West and the United States, a task which his predecessor Mohammad Khatami failed to achieve during his eight years in office (1997-2005).

“It is not Rouhani’s reformist and open rhetoric toward the West that broke the ice of Iranian diplomacy. The matter surpasses the role of president and his wishes…. The decision to open up was taken at the level of the religious-military establishment, during the recent lean years of Ahmadinejad,” writes Iskandar.

“The question is: Why this flexibility now? The religious-military establishment in Iran has become convinced that the long years of rigidity and the diplomacy of defiance and threats have not caused a breakthrough internationally or regionally. On the contrary: The opposing international front only solidified, despite the best efforts of Russia and China, and the economic sanctions only increased.”

Israel Hayom | Report: Israeli forces join battle against Nairobi terrorists.

Israel Hayom | Suspicion outweighs trust.

Dan Margalit

Iran: Try A Little Tenderness.

September 21, 2013: President Hasan Rouhani, unlike his tempestuous predecessor Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has made it clear that he will be much less threatening and more willing to make deals.

He even said some nice things to Israel and allowed the government to establish an official presence on Facebook (even though Iranians are still banned from that social network). This promise of change has had some positive impact. A month into his first term as president and food prices have gone down slightly (they increased 50 percent over the last year) and dollars became 25 percent cheaper to buy on the black market. Iranians are optimistic again. Even the senior clerics, who have veto power over parliament and Rouhani, say Iran is ready to make concessions to get out from under the sanctions. With oil income cut in half in the last year and efforts to get around the sanctions being constantly countered by efficient American sanctions enforcers, Iranian leaders are desperate to gain some relief before a deprived population gets violent. It’s still unclear if Iran is willing to give up its nuclear weapons program (which, officially it insists does not exist although most Iranians believe otherwise). Syria fears that Iran is more willing to give up support for the Assad government than surrender its nukes. Iran now wants another round of negotiations with the West and analysts of Iranian internal politics believe Rouhani will offer lots of concessions, short of actually dismantling the nuclear weapons program, to get sanctions relief.

Despite the sanctions, some Iranian trading partners have remained loyal and kept Iranian economic activity going. China is now the largest trading partner, taking half a billion dollars a month in Iranian goods each month (this year). Most of this is oil, and China pays for it largely with goods. That’s a billion dollars a month in trade activity and it gets around the sanctions and international banking system restrictions. Iraq is even more important, with only six percent less trade volume and taking mostly non-oil exports and supplying all manner of food products and consumer goods. Afghanistan is also a good source of barter (about $440 million a month in exports and imports). India has less to export to Iran but still wants Iranian oil. That trade is about $370 million a month. Another major source of consumer goods is the UAE, most of which has to be paid for with foreign currency. The UAE sends nearly $300 million worth of goods to Iran each month. These consumer goodies go a long way towards keeping Iranians peaceful, despite the fact that Iran is a religious police state and most young Iranians do not like this restrictive atmosphere at all.

Iran announced it will build a second nuclear power plant, one that can generate 360 megawatts of power. The first Iran nuclear power plant (Bushehr) finally went to full power (1,000 megawatts) at the end of August and comes under Iranian control this month. Bushehr only went online for the first time last year. There were many delays in getting this plant operational. The Iranians said that some of the delays were made for safety reasons, because of poor construction of the power plant. The Russian designed plant was supposed to be operational in 2010. Government officials kept complaining to the Russians, with no apparent effect. Russians who worked at Bushehr complained of sloppy work by Iranians and a nuclear power facility that was fundamentally unsafe. Perhaps because of this, the government had 4,000 civilians living near the Bushehr plant relocated at a cost of $10 million. Work on Bushehr began in 1974, but was interrupted by the 1979 revolution and did not resume until 1992, when the Russians took over from a German firm. Russia continues to support the Iranian nuclear power program. This support is largely driven by the need for at least one export customer for Russian nuclear power systems. No one else will buy this stuff because during the Soviet period Russian nuclear reactors were seen as shoddy and accident prone. That is not the case anymore, but the bad reputation persists. So Russia needs to get some safe, reliable Russian nuclear power plants running in Iran to prove that Russian nuclear energy technology is competitive with what is offered by Western firms. Iran is the largest producer of electrical power (70 megawatts) in the Middle East and needs more power to keep economic growth going. Thus Iran wants to build twenty nuclear power plants and right now the only supplier they have is Russia.

Meanwhile, Iran is desperate to keep the pro-Iran Assads in power in Syria. To that end it is depending on Russian efforts to get Syria to voluntarily surrender its chemical weapons. This is a scam that is really meant to halt any American or NATO air strikes against the Assad forces. Discussions about this deal have halted any air strikes for the moment and it is believed that discussions will be dragged out indefinitely as the fighting in Syria continues. Without those air strikes the rebels will suffer more losses (mainly civilians) and the Assad government will be able to hang on longer. Assad believes with enough time (free of air attacks) and enough aid from Iran he can beat the rebels into submission. Israel would like to see the Syrian chemical weapons (intended mainly for Israel) gone but doubts that this will ever happen, especially with the Assads in power. Even if current stocks were destroyed, the Assads could easily replace them. Russia believes that UN chemical weapons monitors and efforts to destroy the chemical weapons in place will make NATO or American air strikes against Assad forces politically impossible, even if the Assad forces are carrying out a much more brutal campaign against pro-rebel civilians and just using everything except chemical weapons. Iran likes this approach because Iran has been willing to help the Assad forces up its game in the brutality department. The Sunni majority will either be driven out of Syria or terrorized into submission. This won’t work as long as the Assad forces have to worry about the possibility of Western intervention from the air. The surrender of chemical weapons to UN observers and starting destruction of the chemical weapons (using foreign contractors, guarded by foreign troops who are not there as peacekeepers) gives Western governments an incentive to keep the Assad government in power until the chemical weapons can be safely destroyed. This can take a long time and Iran believes that as long as the negotiations are seen as active the Assads are safe from Western air power.

While Russia still refuses (because of the tight sanctions) to sell Iran weapons, the Russians have shipped a billion dollars’ worth of weapons to Syria since the civil war began in 2011. Russia insists that this is not in violation of arms embargoes against Syria and are simply deliveries of weapons ordered before 2011. In the last year Syria has delivered over $200 million in cash to Russian banks to keep these weapons coming (mainly S-300 anti-aircraft systems and anti-ship missiles) and their warranties operational. These purchases are being paid for by Iran, which flies in the cash to a Syrian financial operation in Moscow. The cash is then delivered to Russian government accounts via a Moscow bank. The Syrian Moscow operation is run by an uncle of Syrian dictator Basher Assad. While Russia has ideological and political reasons for supporting the Assads, there’s also the money angle. These Russian shipments are not challenged by the international community because they are, technically, defensive weapons and cannot be used to attack the rebels. Another problem that is less clear is whether the weapons are being sent to Iran. That is illegal, but without any clear evidence of such transfers there’s nothing anyone can do. The cash transfers are also illegal, since Iran is banned from the international banking system for anything involving weapons, oil sales, and military equipment in general. But no one is going to shut down air traffic between Iran and Russia. Meanwhile, at least 14 Russian cargo ships arrived in Syria since 2011, plus numerous air freight flights. Recently Russia quietly approved new shipments of small arms, which is forbidden but can be flown in and join similar weapons Syria had before 2011. Russia appears to believe that no one will challenge this either.

Iran also depends on Russia is to print new Syrian currency and export consumer goods to Syria. This is part of an effort to keep Assad supporters in place and loyal. Most of the foreign cash coming in to keep the Syrian economy going in government controlled territory comes from Iran, which has apparently told the Assads that the economic sanctions on Iran (for its nuclear weapons program) mean that the Iranian cash cannot keep coming indefinitely. The Assads have to either crush the rebellion or come up with a peace deal. Neither seems likely to happen any time soon. This puts Iran in a bind and there is no easy way out. Using nerve gas against the rebels is no problem for Iran, were it not for the international backlash. Crushing the rebellion with conventional weapons may take too long for Iran but if they are forced to cut back on their cash aid the Assads will suffer a huge morale hit, which could give the rebels the boost they need to win. The only way to halt that is to send more Iranians to fight in Syria, rather than depending on Arab mercenaries (Hezbollah and Shia volunteers from throughout the region). There have been reports of more Iranians in combat zones, but these appear to be advisors not fighters.

Meanwhile, the Western sanctions enforcers (mainly Americans) have also gone after Hezbollah supporters around the world. Hezbollah is now recognized as a terrorist organization by most Western nations, thus making it possible for their overseas income to be attacked (via restrictions on access to the international banking systems). Hezbollah has long received a lot of cash from legal (donations and some legitimate businesses) and illegal (all manner of scams) sources overseas. Without this, and Iranian aid, Hezbollah would be in bad shape (unable to train and pay its thousands of full time workers, most of them armed). Iran would suffer a major defeat if Hezbollah were to be crushed, which is something most Lebanese want very much.

Rouhani’s new tune, and Netanyahu’s broken record | The Times of Israel.

However skeptical Israel may rightly be about ostensible change in Iran, the arguments that proved effective against Ahmadinejad do not work as well when facing his far more sophisticated successor

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sets out his ‘red line’ for Iran on a cartoon-bomb drawing during a speech to the UN General Assembly, on September 27, 2012. (photo credit: Avi Ohayon/GPO/ Flash90)

The last few weeks have underlined that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu can be rhetorically and practically effective when dealing with external threats, as he faced up to Syria’s vows to attack Israel in case of a US strike on its territory. What’s less clear is how effectively he grapples with ostensible tolerance from long-time foes, as in the charm offensive being mounted by Iran’s sophisticated new president, Hasan Rouhani.

Netanyahu was calm and level-headed in handling the Syria crisis. In the days after US President Barack Obama threatened to punish the regime of Bashar Assad for its August 21 chemical-weapons attack, and before a Russia-brokered deal made such a strike exceedingly unlikely, the prime minister was responsibility personified. Despite repeated threats from Tehran and Damascus that Israel would “come under fire” if the US intervened, Netanyahu instructed his ministers to keep quiet and let Washington handle the situation, while he himself issued well-balanced statements that did not provoke Assad but, rather, deterred him from attacking by making it plain that Israel would not hesitate to respond forcefully.

Iran’s new campaign to win the hearts and minds of the West, however, requires a different kind of reaction. But although Netanyahu and his ministers anticipated the change of tone from Tehran, they do not appear to have formulated an effective response; instead, they are stubbornly repeating the same messages they issued when the easy-to-demonize Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was the public face of the Islamist regime.

Over the last few days, Rouhani has sent message after message signaling the Islamic Republic’s eagerness to engage with the West over its nuclear program. Rouhani purports to have abandoned Ahmadinejad’s warmongering, and has allowed it be reported that it might be ready to compromise on the nuclear program – even though, publicly, the president reiterates that uranium enrichment is Iran’s right and that he has no intention of halting what he risibly insists is a purely peaceful program.

Iran has never sought — and will never seek — a nuclear weapon, Rouhani promised last week on an American television network, nor does it “seek war with any country.” These words are music to American ears. If Netanyahu considers them to be utterly disingenuous, and he plainly does, simply saying “I don’t believe him,” or words to that effect, isn’t sufficient anymore. Sweet-talking, reasonable-sounding, berobed Rouhani is a lot tougher to discredit than the Holocaust-denying, gay-bashing, unkempt Ahmadinejad.

The West — whose desire to avoid further military misadventure was starkly illustrated by its response to Assad’s chemical-weapons outrage — is unsurprisingly inclined to test Rouhani’s sincerity. While assuring Jerusalem that they will not be fooled by Tehran’s sweet talk, the Americans are receptive to the idea of a possible détente. The White House has not ruled out a possible Obama-Rouhani meeting on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly this week in New York, something that would have been unthinkable just a few weeks ago. French President Francois Hollande is set to meet with Rouhani at the UN, as is British Foreign Secretary William Hague, even though Britain does not have diplomatic relations with Iran.

Israel’s hugely skeptical response to Rouhani’s slick PR may be entirely justified. But showing the new friendly face of Tehran to be disingenuous requires more than a recycling of the same-old bleak sound bites. Cartoon bombs — as unveiled by Netanyahu at last year’s UN General Assembly — aren’t going to work anymore. This year’s show is going to have to be more serious and nuanced.

“The Iranians are continuing to spin in the media so that the centrifuges continue spinning. The real test lies in the Iranian regime’s actions, not words,” Netanyahu said in a statement Thursday night, immediately after Rouhani’s peace-loving interview. The prime minister reiterated, as he has done dozens of times in the past few months, the four conditions the international community needs to demand from the Iranians: halting all uranium enrichment, removing already enriched material, shutting down the Fordo nuclear facility in Qom, and discontinuing the plutonium track. Until these four criteria are fulfilled, said Netanyahu, the world needs to “intensify the pressure,” not ease it.

Likewise, Intelligence and Strategic Affairs Minister Yuval Steinitz said in an interview published over the weekend that “Rouhani has launched a charm offensive on the West, but he plans to charm his way to a nuclear weapon. While he sends letters to Obama and wishes the Jews a happy New Year, the centrifuges continue to spin. Not only has the [nuclear] project not stopped, it is galloping forward.”

Israel has all the reasons in the world to be wary. The Iranians are savvy tacticians and Rouhani is clearly willing to go a long way rhetorically to persuade the West to ease sanctions that are biting into the economy, while relentlessly inching toward the bomb.

Indeed, Steinitz predicted Rouhani’s reported willingness to suspend uranium enrichment weeks ago. “He will come to the West, just like he did in 2003 [when Rouhani was Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator], and say: ‘Let’s make an interim deal. I’ll make a few concessions here, you will make some concessions there,” Steinitz told The Times of Israel in August. The Iranians might even offer unilateral gestures, such as, for example, halting uranium enrichment at the Qom facility for three or four months, Steinitz said. “But after that, [Rouhani] will request reciprocity. He will say, ‘Now show me that you are easing the sanctions so that I can prove to the Iranian people that this approach pays.’ He will come with a concept of confidence-building measures. He will say there is no trust, and trust is built step by step.”

The skeptical Israeli argument is sound; the concern is that it is insufficient. Repeating the same mantra may produce diminishing returns when the world’s perception of Iran is changing. Tehran is remaking its image, rapidly, from a saber-rattling, Holocaust-denying rogue state, bent on wiping Israel off the map, to a peace-loving, truce-brokering, would-be haven of modernity. Israeli leaders are not alone in doubting there’s been a genuine change of heart, but many in the West, most notably President Barack Obama, are disinclined to dismiss it out of hand.

“Disparaging knee-jerk reactions” such as the Prime Minister’s Office’s “obligatory too-clever-by-half pun about ‘spinning’ the media in order to keep the centrifuges ‘spinning,’ wouldn’t have cut it any more, even in the best of times,” Chemi Shalev wrote from the US in Sunday’s Haaretz. Israel needs to be aware that “Americans are in a peace-in-our-time kind of mood,” in which they would like to believe that Iran can really be a constructive partner in solving the Middle East’s many problems, he noted.

At junctures like this, dreaming of an era of reduced conflict, even usually responsible leaders can allow themselves to become forgetful — to put aside, for a moment, Iran’s appalling history of fostering terrorism; to gloss over its brutal repression of internal dissent; and to ignore the fact that much of its purportedly peaceful nuclear program was constructed in secret, in breach of its international obligations, and is plainly focused on attaining a weapons capability.

And even to forget that Rouhani is a creature of the regime, not an opponent — a politician carefully selected as one of only six presidential candidates approved by Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, a practiced diplomatic manipulator with the nous to have temporarily frozen the Iranian nuclear program when it was feared that the US would be coming for Iran after Iraq in 2003, only to revive it again when the danger had passed.

Yes, regimes, even the most demonic, can change. But Netanyahu’s and Israel’s interest lies in reminding the rest of the West of the necessary barometers to measure that change — encouraging the maintenance of pressure so that Tehran is prodded in the right direction, pushing an incremental approach, where only measurable change matters — not fine rhetoric.

Thus far, Netanyahu’s relentless warnings about Iran’s approaching nuclear weapons capability, and his not-so-subtle threats to use military force as a last resort to prevent a nuclear Iran, have done much to alert the world to the dangers. Even Western officials who oppose the prime minister’s Iran policy admit that.

But when Rouhani speaks a different language to his predecessor, and the West seems ready to listen, Israel’s disinclination to adapt risks isolation — rather than empathy — for Jerusalem. It hardly helps, of course, that much of the West already regards Israel as being as much of an aggressor state as is Iran.

“Respect him, but suspect him,” a common Hebrew expression advises, yet embracing ostensibly friendly gestures by enemy entities was never Netanyahu’s strong suit. That is also why his answer was rather cold when, earlier this year, the Arab League considered for the first time the possibility of mutually agreed land swaps in the framework of its Arab-Israeli peace Initiative, making a significant step toward Jerusalem’s position.

At least Netanyahu said, at the time, that Israel agrees “to discuss any initiative that is proposed and that is not a dictate.” Iran’s current charm offensive, by contrast, is being rejected outright… at least by the prime minister. Interestingly, as so often, it has been President Shimon Peres who has been more nuanced: “The sanctions are doing their job and are influencing the leadership in Iran,” Peres said Friday. “I hope we are hearing a new voice coming from [Tehran],” he said.

Obama would like to believe that the Syrian crisis is being solved through diplomacy, and that the Iranian threat might just be averted in the same way. Israel’s doubts are more than reasonable. But right now Rouhani is singing a new tune, and Netanyahu risks sounding like a broken record, repeating a song people would much rather not listen to anymore.

Israel Hayom | ‘US won’t interfere if Israel needs to defend itself by itself’.

Intelligence Minister Yuval Steinitz: If the Iranians continue to advance, they will have nuclear capability within six months • There is no alternative to the U.S. as the world’s policeman.

Israeli commando force joins Kenyan military storming Nairobi mall seized by Islamist gunmen.

Terrorist attack in Nairobi mall

AFP reports from a security source in Nairobi that Israeli special forces joined the Kenyan military in storming the Westgate shopping mall, Sunday, Sept. 22, to break the standoff with some dozen Al Qaeda-linked Somali Al Shabaab gunmen barricaded there with hostages for the second day. The death toll from the Saturday shooting-grenade attack has risen to 59 with 205 people injured.

debkafile, the only world publication to reveal the Israeli involvement from the start of the Nairobi mall attack Saturday, now discloses that the Israeli commandos were airlifted to Kenya when the Westgate mall was first attacked. Nairobi invoked a secret security pact between the two governments under which Jerusalem guarantees military assistance should the Kenyan government be threatened by a foreign force.

This was the first time Israeli special counter-terror forces have fought Al Qaeda terrorists face to face on foreign soil. The Israeli foreign ministery refused to confirm or deny any inovlvement in Kenya.

debkafile reported exclusively Saturday that the AQAP-backed Somali terrorists singled the target out to hit two targets – Kenya and Israel

After releasing Muslims, the raiders held onto an unknown number of hostages, some on the ground floor where Israeli shops are located; more in other parts of the seven-floor building. Unknown too is the number of injured and possibly dead victims, including foreigners, who are still trapped in the building. American, British, Canadian and French citizens were reported killed or injured in the initial attack Saturday.

The Kenyan and Israeli authorities have blanketed with secrecy the scene inside the mall, from which a barrage of gunfire and explosions were heard during the morning. Local police and special forces are trying to force the Islamist gunmen to surrender and give up the hostages.

Israeli security experts are known to be assisting in the operation.

The US sent a commando unit to Nairobi from bases in Italy and the UK, an advance counter-terror forward team. The Cobra cabinet is holding continuous sessions in London as the situation unfolds.

In Israel, no one in authority is willing to comment on the incident, despite Israel’s involvement. Three Israelis were reported rescued from the mall Saturday, but there is no word on any who may still be trapped there.
Since its creation in 2006, the Somali Al-Shabaab has maintained strong operational ties with the Yemen-based AQAP command for its long and bloody insurgency against the Mogadishu government.  Our counter-terror sources report that the Somali wing receives training, munitions and medical care at al Qaeda’s Yemeni camps. They interact frequently by means of speedboats plying regularly between the Yemen and Somalia.

The scale of the Westgate mall attack, which was carried out by up to a score of well-trained fighting men armed with large quantities of ammunition, pointed to heavy AQAP involvement from the word go.
In the past, Al Qaeda has notoriously singled out American and Israeli targets in East Africa – the 1998 attacks on the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, and the 2002 assault on Israeli tourists in Mombasa.

However, the Nairobi attack was related to the present.

Al Qaeda’s eyes and ears in Kenya didn’t miss the military and intelligence assistance Israel renders Kenya for its operations against Islamist terror in two areas: The Israeli army and security bodies send combat equipment and provide tactical advice to the Kenyan units fighting alongside Somali government forces against Al Shabaab; and Israel’s intelligence agencies and police are helping the Kenyan government build a strong shield or barrier against the Somali war’s spillover, to guard against Al Shabaab opening up a second front to the rear of the Kenyan forces fighting across the border.
This protective barrier clearly sprang a large leak Saturday.

Syrian general: Assad ordered me to gas people – Israel News, Ynetnews.

Former chemical weapons chief in Assad’s army tells The Telegraph orders to use WMDs against civilians came from the top; claims Syrian dictator transferring some chemical weapon stocks to Hezbollah, Iran

Ynet

Brigadier-General Zaher al-Sakat, a former chemical weapons chief in Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s army, says he was ordered three times to use chemical weapons against his own people, but could not go through with it and replaced chemical canisters with ones containing harmless bleach.

The general insisted that all such orders had to come from the top – President Assad himself – despite insistent denials by the regime that it has never used chemical weapons.

In an interview with The Telegraph last week, Sakat claimed to have his own intelligence that the Syrian president is evading the terms of a Russian-brokered deal to destroy his chemical weapons by transferring some of his stocks to his allies – Hezbollah, in Lebanon, and Iran.

According to the British newspaper, Gen Sakat’s personal history gives new insight into the extent to which, it is said, the Assad regime gradually turned to the use of chemical weapons, despite angry public denials, after rebels encroached on Damascus and Aleppo, the country’s two biggest cities, in the summer of last year.

As chief scientific officer in the army’s fifth division, he ran chemical weapons operations in the country’s southern Deraa province, where the uprising began in March 2011. He told The Telegraph he witnessed the first uses of violence against peaceful protesters – and the first use of “dirty tricks,” placing weapons in the mosque where the protests started to suggest the protesters were armed.

UN inspector at site of gas attack near Damascus (Photo: AP)

Gen Sakat said the regime wanted to “annihilate” the opposition using any means, and said he received his first orders to use chemical weapons in October last year. On three occasions, he said he was told to use a mixture of phosgene and two other chlorine-based agents against civilian targets in Sheikh Masqeen, Herak, and Busra, all rebel-held districts.

However, under cover of darkness, he said he had replaced the canisters containing the chemicals with ones containing water mixed with dilute bleach which would give off a similar chlorine smell.

At first, his trick worked. “They were completely convinced that this was the same poisonous material,” he told the Sunday Telegraph in an interview. “In this way I saved hundreds of lives of children and others.”

But after the third occasion, in January, his bosses became suspicious at the lack of deaths in his “attacks” and he began to plot his escape to Jordan, where he has been based since the spring.

Gen Sakat believes chemical weapons have now been used 34 times, rather than the 14 occasions cited by international intelligence agencies. But he agrees with a variety of assessments that differing substances and concentrations are used, which would account for the differing death rates, with some attacks killing very few or none.

Although phosgene has been banned internationally since the 1920s, it is much less potent than sarin, the chemical now known to have been deployed in Ghouta. The army was concerned not to use the most dangerous chemicals in the far south because of its proximity to Israel, Gen Sakat told The Telegraph.

General Sakat said that even before the deal to disarm Syria of its chemical weapons was finalized, “they (Assad regime) were already mobilizing them to move to Lebanon and even Iraq. There have already been weapons handed over to Hezbollah.”

Gen Sakat told The Telegraph a team of his activists had observed a column of more than 20 vehicles, some identifiable as belonging to the program, heading towards the Lebanese border. He also alleged that other stocks were being transferred through Iraq to Iran.

“They saw these shipments start before (Russian Foreign Minister Sergei) Lavrov appeared and mentioned the deal,” he said.

The Telegraph quoted a retired Israeli Major-General and former attaché to Washington, Gadi Shamni, as saying: “I am positive they’re already trying to move things from one location to another to hide it.

“It will be very hard to cheat in one week. But November is a very long time away – in winter, the sky is cloudy, and visibility is low. US satellites cannot be very effective – it’s a very problematic issue and the Syrians understand it very well.”