WarSclerotic

Egypt, US aid and Israel | JPost | Israel News.

In mid-August, US President Barack Obama interrupted a golfing trip at Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts to condemn the military junta in Egypt for its violent attack on the Muslim Brotherhood government leaders.

Iranian dissidents say Tehran moving nuclear research site | JPost | Israel News.

NCRI says nuclear weaponization research and planning center was being moved to a large, secure site in a Tehran defense ministry complex; accusation comes less than a week before G5+1 nuclear talks in Geneva.

When it comes to Iran, Israel is walking a fine line in Washington – Diplomacy and Defense Israel News | Haaretz.

Lobbying Congress for tougher sanctions against Iran risks incurring Obama Administration’s wrath.

Netanyahu poses with U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman Robert Menendez (R) and other committee members at the Capitol. September 30, 2013. Photo by AFP

Israel is conducting a diplomatic campaign aimed at blunting the success of the so-called charm offensive led by Iranian President Hassan Rohani during his visit to the United Nations last month. After the Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s aggressive speeches, Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon, who is now in the United States, is focused on persuading the Americans not to allow any relaxation of the sanctions on Iran before Tehran signs a binding agreement that will slam the brakes on its nuclear program. In the background, Israel is canvassing Congress with a more ambitious goal in mind – intensifying the sanctions, a move that could lead to a confrontation with the Obama administration, which opposes doing so at this stage.

At the end of a meeting Tuesday night with his host, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, Ya’alon said that any easing of sanctions would lead to their collapse. There are plenty of interested parties who would be glad to start doing business with Iran should the sanctions be lifted, Ya’alon said, which would alleviate the economic pressure on Tehran while allowing the Iranians to continue enriching uranium. Ya’alon urged the United States to avoid falling into the “trap” of relieving the sanctions as a confidence-building measure until Iran has fulfilled the conditions set for it.

Ya’alon also met with Senator Robert Menendez, chairman of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Menendez, a New Jersey Democrat, is one of Israel’s most prominent friends on Capitol Hill, and a major player in the sanctions issue. The Kirk-Menendez Amendment, which he co-sponsored with Sen. Mark Kirk, an Illinois Republican, imposed many of the sanctions two years ago, and is considered by many the most effective measure taken by the United States against Tehran’s nuclear program.

Israel would prefer that the renewal of nuclear talks between the six world powers and Iran in Geneva next Tuesday be accompanied by a tightening of sanctions that would involve expanding on the original Kirk-Menendez initiative. The Senate is debating, among other things, harsher steps against the Iranian banking system and restrictions on trade in metals (which the Iranians have been using as a substitute for trade in dollars, something that has been restricted by measures taken against them by the international community).

U.S.: No tougher sanctions before talks

The Israelis, who officially claim they that don’t intervene in congressional matters, believe that sanctions should be intensified if it turns out that Iran continues to enrich uranium during negotiations. However, Wendy Sherman, the senior State Department official responsible for negotiations with Iran and for handling the sanctions, told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee last week that the administration believes it best not to toughen sanctions ahead of the next round of talks.

Sherman even hinted it would be appropriate to consider removing some sanctions down the road if Iran makes concessions during the negotiations. In light of the new positive atmosphere in relations between the United States and Iran, which culminated in a telephone conversation between U.S. President Barack Obama and Rohani, it is difficult to imagine the administration supporting a move in Congress for additional sanctions even after the talks in Geneva.

Israel is entering a sensitive area here, with the timing particularly problematic in light of the crisis between the president and his Republican rivals that has paralyzed the entire U.S. government. One can certainly understand the logic behind Israel’s tough approach to Iran, given the number of times Tehran has already led the West around by the nose. But the sequence of aggressive statements by Netanyahu, from his speech to the UN General Assembly to his address at Bar-Ilan University’s Begin-Sadat Center this week, create the impression that Jerusalem is not prepared to consider any compromise with Iran at all.

‘Act of strategic suicide’

The prime minister has barreled through Washington like the proverbial bull in a china shop in the past, when he preached to Obama in front of the cameras (in a meeting dubbed “the history lesson” a couple of years ago), and then with the blatant intervention attributed to his people on behalf of Mitt Romney, the Republican candidate for president, during last year’s election. Although the relationship between Obama and Netanyahu has somewhat improved since the president’s visit to Israel in March, it could easily deteriorate if Israel is perceived as ignoring the rules of the game on Capitol Hill. The White House is still keeping track of every move.

Although official Israel is doing all it can these days to maintain the military option against Tehran as a realistic possibility, it seems that events of recent months have completely altered the international agenda. No matter how many times the prime minister reminds his audiences of the possibility that Israel will act alone, the global debate is now being conducted in the space between sanctions and compromise. In other words, the question is over what concessions can be extracted from Iran with the help of the sanctions that have already brought its economy practically to its knees.

Jerusalem now realizes, perhaps more than at earlier stages, the full ramifications of conducting an independent military strike on Iran against the will of the United States. A former senior defense official, who played a major role in recent years in the relations between the two countries, told Haaretz this week that an Israeli strike after an agreement is reached between Iran and the world powers and against the latter’s will, on grounds that the compromise reached was insufficient, could be likened to “an act of strategic suicide.”

The gaps between the United States and Iran are still large and cannot be bridged during the coming round of talks, but the current global atmosphere makes independent military action by Israel very difficult. Even the man who would have to implement such an attack if so ordered – Chief of Staff Benny Gantz – referred during his Bar-Ilan speech to the renewed diplomatic efforts aimed at Iran, along with the chemical disarmament effort in Syria, as positive regional trends that in an optimistic scenario could “lead to what people much greater than me, and under other circumstances, referred to as a ‘new Middle East.’”

Egypt: US Threat Won’t Stop Our ‘Fighting Terror’ – Middle East – News – Israel National News.

Egypt unrest (file)

Flash 90

Egypt, government officials said Thursday, will “not be pressured” by the United States into changing its policies on how to deal with Islamist radicals. “Egypt will not submit to American pressure,” a government spokesperson said in the wake of an announcement by Washington that it would withhold some military assistance.

On Wednesday, the State Department confirmed that it would cut hundreds of millions of dollars in aid to Egypt to register displeasure over the military’s pace of restoring democracy following the ouster of President Mohammed Morsi. The U.S. provides $1.5 billion in annual aid to Egypt, but the State Department did not provide a dollar amount of the aid being cut. State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki was quoted as having said the United States will withhold delivery of certain large-scale military systems, as well as cash assistance to the Egyptian government, until “credible progress” is made toward an inclusive government set up through free and fair elections.

Speaking Thursday morning, Egyptian government spokesperson Abd al-A’iti said that “the American stance does not specify a reduction of American aid, but an extension of a delay in providing this aid. The United States has done this in the past, it is not new.”

With that, he added, “the decision to delay aid is a mistaken one and unacceptable. It broadcasts the wrong message to those who wish to interfere in the relationship between Egypt and the United States. This stance does not take into account the fact that Egypt is fighting terrorism,” he said.

The Egyptian spokesperson stressed that Cairo was acting against the Muslim Brotherhood “not in order to satisfy America’s desires, but in response to the needs of the Egyptian people.” He called on the administration of President Barack H. Obama to “reconsider” his decision.

A report Thursday said that Israeli officials were concerned over the decision by the U.S. to cut military aid to Egypt. According to the report, Israeli officials fear that the cuts could jeopardize Egypt’s commitments to the Camp David Accords. The report in the New York Times quoted an Israeli government source as saying that the ramifications of holding back aid could backfire; instead of convincing the Egyptian government to act in a more democratic manner and halt the persecution of Islamists, the move could radicalize Egypt even more.

Israel Hayom | Iranian parliament denies Iran has ‘surplus’ of uranium.

Israel Hayom | The art of foot dragging and deception.

It is hard to ignore this week’s Wall Street Journal report that Iran is prepared to stop enriching uranium for military purposes, particularly amid the backdrop of the historic Obama-Rouhani phone conversation two weeks ago.

Indeed, after 34 years of Khomeini ideology, during which the Iranian regime severed all ties with the United States, the phone call was extremely important. Following the call, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sensed that the West’s policy toward Iran, which he had devoted so much work to over the years, was slipping away and crumbling at Israel’s feet.

It is important to first examine the American interest behind speaking with Iran’s president. The U.S. understood that the policy it had conducted and sought in the Middle East was not up to date, foolish even. The rise of Russia on America’s broken back, fostered by the crisis in Syria (and following U.S. crises in Iraq and Afghanistan), caused the Americans to understand that if Russia (and China) support the actions of the Syrian regime and serve as its financial, military and political patrons, what would then happen if and when the U.S. needs to threaten Iran with a military strike as it did against Syria?

Iran, for its part, identified the American weakness, and it perceives the mere existence of holding the phone conversation as an act of bravery stemming from a place of strength and prestige. It cannot be argued that the Revolutionary Guard condemned the renewed communication with the U.S. because it was concerned about losing control of certain market monopolies it had seized due to the economic sanctions. Other elements inside Iran, like Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, saw the phone call as unnecessary and inappropriate. Either way, it is certain that Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei wholeheartedly supported it.

But will this phone call kick start a process whereby Iran will sit at the negotiation table to discuss its nuclear program, and in exchange the West will ease the burden of the economic sanctions it has imposed? There are several insights to this question. Firstly, the sanctions are indeed working and making an influence, specifically on the nuclear issue. The Iranian people do not lack for medicine or basic products — and while the quality may be Chinese and Korean, at the end of the day no one is dying of starvation. Secondly, it can be assumed that Iran has enough enriched uranium to build a bomb. The removal of sanctions will only be the wrapping on the West’s gift to Iran, and Iran’s nuclear bomb will be the present itself. Thirdly, Iranian President Hasan Rouhani, along with the rest of the regime’s leaders, are making a mockery of the American administration and stalling for more time, just as they did in the past and will continue to do in the future.

The West is forgetting one thing: More than any other politician in Iran, Rouhani is recognized as the most uncompromising figure in regards to acquiring nuclear capabilities. It is enough to leaf through the dozens of books and articles he has written and peruse the regime’s official websites.

The Geneva talks between Iran and the six world powers will be devoid of content, because the Iran of today will never relinquish its right to go nuclear. Twenty percent more or less — Iran has over 20 nuclear facilities operating at varying levels of production. The entire purpose of this process is to buy more time and to create a false impression of coming closer to the West. Meanwhile, Iran — simultaneous to the negotiations, the removal of sanctions and the supposed supervision of its nuclear sites — will continue, with the international approval of the six world powers, to do what it has been doing for many years: strive toward nuclear capability, civilian and military.

The writer is a lecturer at the Department of Middle Eastern & Israel Studies/Political Science and research associate at the Middle East Research Center at Ariel University.

Israel Hayom | Steinitz: Iran’s proposal to cap nuclear work ‘a joke’.

Israel Hayom | ‘Israel believes and hopes US aid cut will not affect peace with Egypt’.

Israel Hayom | Wishful thinking is not a strategy.

Clifford D. May

Italy conference exposes ‘Iran’s true face’ – Israel News, Ynetnews.

Conference on ‘new face of Iran’ held in Italy exposes its traditional anti-Israel stance, as Iranian ambassador refuses to attend event over participation of Israeli embassy worker

Menachem Gantz

It was meant to be a conference dubbed “The New Face of Iran – the opportunities for dialogue opening before an international audience during the days of President Rohani.”

The Italian Institute for Asia and the Mediterranean Basin arranged a formal event on Tuesday at the Italian Parliament in Rome, sponsored by the Iranian embassy in Italy. The institute invited the public to participate and sent invitations to media representatives. An Italian citizen working at the Israeli Embassy also registered for the event.

Having realized that the embassy worker had confirmed his attendance at the conference, the Iranian ambassador to Italy, Jahanbakhsh Mozaffari, said he would not attend that event, if the worker would be present. He requested that his attendance be blocked.

The Italian Foreign Ministry got involved and turned to the Israeli Ministry in Rome in order to enable the participation of the Iranian ambassador in the conference. But the Israeli ambassador, Naor Gilon, decided there was no reason to honor such a request, and the representative of the embassy was sent to the parliament.

Upon his arrival, the organizers approached him again – this time aggressively and vulgarly – and demanded that he leave the place. “I am an Italian citizen, and with all due respect to the Iranian ambassador, I have more of a right to enter the Italian Parliament than the Iranian ambassador,” the man said, demanding to remain.

Arriving an hour-and-a-half late, the Iranian ambassador realized that the event would either be canceled, or go on without him, and decided to attend, and pass on his message regarding financial cooperation with countries that have been “hurt as a result of illegal sanctions.”

The Israeli Embassy’s spokesperson in Rome, Amit Zarouk, confirmed the incident saying, “We do not play by Iranian rules. I am happy that our insistence helped expose to the Italians the true face of Iran, which has not changed.”