WarSclerotic

Barrie Dunsmore: Israel’s de facto veto power – VTDigger.

Editor’s note: This op-ed by retired ABC News diplomatic correspondent Barrie Dunsmore first aired on Vermont Public Radio. All his columns can be found on his website, www.barriedunsmore.com.

The new Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, who set a new moderate tone for his country’s image when he visited the United Nations recently, might have created an awkward problem for Israel. When the former Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was denying the Holocaust and threatening to wipe Israel off the map, he was an easy target. But last week, in his meeting with President Barack Obama, and in his speech to the United Nations General Assembly, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had the more challenging task of attacking Rouhani’s apparent moderation. But he was undaunted.

Before his arrival, Mr. Netanyahu promised “to tell the truth in the face of the sweet-talk and the onslaught of smiles.”

After the White House meeting the Israeli prime minister said, “Iran is committed to Israel’s destruction, so for Israel the ultimate test of a future agreement with Iran is whether or not Iran dismantles its military nuclear program.”

In his General Assembly speech he was more sarcastic and tougher. Under the headline, “Israeli Leader Excoriates New Iranian President,” the New York Times story began: “Netanyahu sought to shred the credibility of Iran’s new president … as a beguiling figure who used soothing words and charm to mask intentions to build nuclear weapons.”

While Israeli leaders denigrate the Iranian “charm offensive,” many people around the world, not least average Iranians, see Iran’s new moderate tone as a sign of hope that the issue of Iran’s nuclear ambitions can be resolved through diplomacy rather than still another disastrous Middle East War.

Still, the substantive talks have not yet begun and we know they are going to be difficult. The American price for lifting the punishing economic sanctions that are significantly hurting the Iranian middle class, is going to be onerous. Iran’s nuclear capabilities will have to become transparent, limited to peaceful purposes and subject to strict international inspections. It is not at all clear whether hardline commanders of the powerful Revolutionary Guard Corps, who believe Iran should be a nuclear power, will acquiesce to such demands.

In a sense, the Rev Guards are to President Rouhani what the Israelis are to President Obama. Both of their hawkish positions will be significant factors in the new negotiations which begin in Geneva Oct. 15.

There may come a time when the Iranians have made significant concessions which satisfy the Europeans, Russia and China — but not Israel. What would happen then? Frankly it seems unlikely that America would accept any agreement opposed by Israel. That’s because, as Mr. Netanyahu warned in his U.N. speech, “If Israel is forced to stand alone, it will stand alone.” In other words, Israel reserves the right to attack Iran to prevent it from becoming a nuclear power. And whatever the truth, the United States would be considered complicit in any such attack — certainly in the Middle East. So while Israel may not actually be sitting at the negotiating table, it effectively has given itself veto power over any agreement.

Syrian tanks lay siege to key rebel-held town athwart Damascus-Golan highway.

Syrian tanks blast key town of Khan Arnabeh

Two Syrian armored brigades set out from Damascus Monday night, Oct. 7, to link up with forces already fighting in southern Syria to reach Quneitra opposite the Israeli Golan border. debkafile’s military and intelligence sources report long convoys of around 200 tanks, APCs, armored vehicles and self-propelled artillery are heading for an assembly-point south of the Daraa in the south.

Large Syrian forces tightened their siege through Tuesday night, Oct. 8, on the rebel-held town of Khan Arnabeh which is the key to controlling the main highway from the capital, Damascus Syrian Golan.The town is expected to fall within a short time. Its capture also provides the key to the central crossroads around the Golan town of Quneitra and will enable the Syria army to return to its former positions along the disengagement zone dividing the enclave between Syria and Israel, which is patrolled by UN peacekeepers.

The Syrian army is saturating Khan Arnabeh with concentrated fire from tanks, aircraft and self-propelled artillery. debkafile’s military sources report that rebel resistance is light – and not only on the Golan. Western military sources report that the rebels are fighting half-heartedly in other battle sectors across Syria with little spirit to do more than hold their ground.

During the day, as the battles came closer to the Israeli border, the IDF ordered the crews working on the Golan security fence to leave the area for their own safety.

debkafile reported Monday nigh that the Syrian air force bombarded rebel-held border villages to soften them up ahead of the offensive.

The size and movements of the advancing Syrian forces indicate that the regime in Damascus has determined to root out the rebel presence in all parts of Syrian border with Israel – from the Hermon Mts. in the north, down to the Syrian-Israel-Jordanian border junction opposite the southern Israeli Golan.

The main body is presently on the move in the area between the Yarmuk River which marks the Syrian Jordanian border and Quneitra.
The Syrian rebel forces clinging to small locations along the Israeli border are small and not expected to last long under a sizeable Syria military assault, one of whose objectives is undoubtedly to sever the links between rebel positions on the Golan and the IDF.

The only outward sign of those links is the regular transfer of injured rebels to Israeli hospitals for medical treatment – an estimated 200 have so far been treated.
Until now, the Syrian high command held back from a military operation in this region for fear of drawing forth an Israeli or Jordanian counter-attack. However, after consenting to the disabling of its chemical weapons, the Assad regime feels confident that neither Israel nor Jordan will dare fight back.

Syrian leaders gained an even greater sense of immunity from the rare words they head from US Secretary of State John Kerry Monday, commending them for allowing UN experts to dismantle the chemical production equipment and stocks, even though it suddenly turned out Sunday, Oct. 6 that the international OPCW experts had relegated the work to the Syrian army.

Jordan has responded to the heavy Syrian military movements in close proximity to its territory by putting on a state of preparedness the two army divisions, Nos. 60 and 40, which stand guard on its border with Syria.

Netanyahu sticks to his guns on Iranian enrichment | The Times of Israel.

PM says there’s ‘nothing wrong with diplomacy’ — if Tehran relinquishes its centrifuges and stops producing plutonium

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks to reporters during a press conference, Tuesday, October 8, 2013 (photo credit: Flash90)

Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu reiterated on Tuesday his insistence that any Western deal with Iran must guarantee the removal of all of Iran’s uranium enrichment centrifuges and the cessation of its plutonium production program.

In a meeting in Jerusalem, Netanyahu told his Greek counterpart, Antonis Samaras, that Iran’s nuclear program is a threat to the entire region, and that Tehran’s insistence on maintaining centrifuges for enriching uranium, while producing plutonium, was a clear indication that its goal is a nuclear weapon.

The two men met to sign an agreement aimed at strengthening ties and cooperation between the two countries.

Netnayhu expressed doubt as to whether Iran’s new president, Hassan Rouhani, could truly make a difference in the bid to resolve the West’s concerns while decisions on the country’s nucelar problem were in the hands of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.

“The greatest threat to peace and security of the region and of our world is Iran’s pursuit of its nuclear weapons program,” Netanyahu said at the ceremony. “Iran’s presidents might change, but that country’s nuclear program continues to expand. That is because the real leader of Iran, the real ruler of Iran, the so-called supreme leader, is committed to getting nuclear weapons.”

The prime minister said that talks between Iran and the P5+1 group of nations — Britain, France, Russia, China, the United States, and Germany — have thus far proven to be a failure.

“The only tangible result of the P5+1 is that Iran has managed to buy more time and to advance in this time its program to develop nuclear weapons,” he said. “Meanwhile, the Iranian regime continues to plan and conduct terrorism across the globe, including an attempt through its own agencies and its proxies in various countries in Europe: an attempt in Cyprus; a successful murder, unfortunately, in Bulgaria; terrorism across the globe.”

Netanyahu asserted that while Iran was desperate for a reduction in the severity of the international sanctions imposed on its economy, it had no intention of stopping its nuclear military aspirations to that end.

“I think that there’s nothing wrong with diplomacy if it achieves a good deal,” he said. “But a bad deal is worse than no deal. And a bad deal is a partial deal that removes the sanctions, or most of them, and leaves Iran with the capacity to enrich uranium and pursue the plutonium route to nuclear bombs.”

The US and other world powers engaged in talks with Tehran over its nuclear program have signaled that they would accept some enrichment for civilian purposes as long as it was under international supervision. Iran says its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes, a claim Israel and much of the West have rejected.

Netanyahu, however, reiterated his demand that Iran stop using gas centrifuges to enrich uranium enrichment and halt plutonium production altogether. He pointed to countries that maintain civilian nuclear programs for energy production without using gas centrifuges or producing plutonium.

“I met yesterday with the President of the Czech Republic,” he said. “They have nuclear energy. They have many reactors. But they don’t have heavy water plutonium reactors, which are only used for weapons, and they don’t have centrifuges for enrichment, because that’s what you need to make weapons. What does Iran insist on? Centrifuges for enrichment and plutonium reactors. They don’t need it and they shouldn’t have it.”

As Iran nuke talks approach, West unlikely to offer immediate sanctions relief | JPost | Israel News.

Western diplomats are playing down any suggestion that Iran’s new openness on world stage will result in immediate, broad easing of sanctions; “There is risk we get carried away by positive atmospheres” says diplomat.

Iran: We can ‘clearly prove’ nuclear program isn’t for bomb | JPost | Israel News.

Iran’s parliament speaker to CNN: West should allow enrichment for civilian purposes.