WarSclerotic

‘US monitored high-priority Israeli military targets’ | JPost | Israel News.

New York Times reports that data taken by fugitive whistle-blower Edward Snowden files show NSA spied on, and also shared intelligence with, Israel.

Syrian conflict: Persian Gulf officials, tired of waiting for U.S., move to boost aid to rebels – The Washington Post.

By Karen DeYoung and Bob Woodward, Published: November 2

Persian Gulf countries, led by Saudi Arabia, are moving to strengthen their military support for Syrian rebels and develop policy options independent from the United States in the wake of what they see as a failure of U.S. leadership following President Obama’s decision not to launch airstrikes against Syria, according to senior gulf officials.

Although the Saudis and others in the region have been supplying weapons to the rebels since the fighting in Syria began more than two years ago and have cooperated with a slow-starting CIA operation to train and arm the opposition, officials said they have largely given up on the United States as the leader and coordinator of their efforts.

Instead, the Saudis plan to expand training facilities they operate in Jordan and increase the firepower of arms sent to rebel groups that are fighting extremist elements among them even as they battle the Syrian government, according to gulf officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity to preserve comity with the United States.

What officials described as a parallel operation independent of U.S. efforts is being discussed by the Saudis with other countries in the region, according to officials from several governments that have been involved in the talks.

Unhappiness over Syria is only one element of what officials said are varying degrees of disenchantment in the region with much of the administration’s Middle East policy, including its nuclear negotiations with Iran and criticism of Egypt’s new government.

Secretary of State John F. Kerry arrives in Saudi Arabia on Sunday on a hastily arranged visit — to include his first-ever meeting with King Abdullah on Monday — that is designed to smooth increasingly frayed U.S. relations with the kingdom.

Kerry will also stop in the United Arab Emirates, Jordan and Israel, all of which have expressed concerned at what they see as a weakened U.S. posture in the region. The 11-day trip also includes visits to the West Bank, Poland, Algeria and Morocco.

Egyptian state media reported Friday that Kerry will begin his trip with a brief stop Sunday in Egypt, his first visit there since the military ousted President Mohamed Morsi this summer. The State Department declined to confirm the visit.

Officials in several countries that had pledged to support a U.S. strike on Syrian targets after confirmation that President Bashar al-Assad had used chemical weapons described their stunned reaction to Obama’s abrupt decision in late August to cancel the operation just days before its planned launch so he could ask for congressional agreement.

“We agreed to everything that we were asked . . . as part of what was going to take place,” said a senior Saudi official reached by telephone in the kingdom. Instead of the 10-to-12-hour warning before launch that the Americans had promised, the official said that Saudi intelligence chief Prince Bandar bin Sultan “did not know about [the cancellation]. . . . We found out about it from CNN.”

Although the current policy differences are unlikely to be resolved soon, if at all, the Saudis derive part of their standing as a regional leader from their close ties to Washington. Kerry’s visit, in large part, is designed to publicly stroke that aspect of the Saudi image.

Gulf officials emphasized that the U.S.-Saudi relationship, spanning eight decades since the kingdom’s founding, is based on a range of issues, including energy, counterterrorism, military ties, trade and investment, that remain important to both.

Any major attempt at outside intervention in Syria on behalf of the opposition would be limited without the participation of U.S. equipment, personnel, and command and control. Although France, for example, shares some of the Saudi concerns and the French defense minister met with King Abdullah and discussed major new defense contracts in Riyadh early this month, the United States’ partners in Europe have long expressed reluctance to intervene in Syria without a mandate from the United Nations or NATO.

In Britain, Prime Minister David Cameron’s support for the U.S. strike option being prepared this summer was abandoned when Parliament voted against any participation.

Turkey, a NATO partner that has long protested what it sees as Obama’s tepid Syria policy, has branched off on its own in terms of support for the rebels. Although the administration has long described Iranian support for Assad as crucial to the Syrian president’s survival, foreign ministers from Turkey and Iran met in Ankara last week to voice their shared concerns about the increasingly sectarian nature of the war.

Sunni Saudi Arabia has no interest in reaching out to Shiite Iran, which it sees as its primary rival for influence in the region. The Saudis are convinced that the United States is so eager to make a deal with Iran that it has already signed on to an arrangement that its allies in the region — including Israel — are sure to disapprove of.

“Absolutely,” the senior Saudi official said.

Saudi distress over the Obama administration’s engagement with the new leadership in Iran may be even more fundamental to the current strain in relations than differences over Syria and also Egypt.

The Saudis, who see Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood as a threat, believe the administration is hypocritical in its concern that the military rulers who overthrew Morsi are using too heavy a hand in cracking down on Morsi’s Brotherhood organization. The United States, said one gulf official, expressed little concern over similar abuses under Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, whom the United States supported before he was overthrown in early 2011.

With new U.S. arms shipments to Egypt suspended, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Kuwait have given the new Egyptian government $12 billion to defray expenses, and officials said they plan to contribute at least another $3 billion in the coming days.

While the United States and its gulf allies share the same objectives in the region — a stable Egypt, a non-nuclear Iran and a peaceful Syria without Assad — one official said those allies have concluded that none of those objectives will be reached with Obama’s current policy.

Israel, which shares their concerns, has been relatively reticent in expressing its worries in public, as have the UAE, Jordan and others. But the Saudis have been unusually public in voicing their dissatisfaction.

In a speech in Washington this month, former intelligence chief Prince Turki al-Faisal described Obama’s Syria policies as “lamentable.” Last month, the Saudis canceled their annual speech at the U.N. General Assembly and later turned down their first election to a Security Council seat in what they made clear was a protest against inaction in Syria and outreach to Iran.

“When you commit to something and then you don’t deliver on it, that’s when you have a problem,” the Saudi official said. “It is an accumulation of these type of cases, incidents, and on and on.”

© The Washington Post Company

Egypt claims ‘multiple options’ for arms deals outside US | The Times of Israel.

Foreign minister, who’s set to meet Sunday with John Kerry, says Cairo seeking to ‘diversify’ amid ‘turbulent’ ties with Washington

Russia’s President Vladimir Putin (photo credit: AP/Esteban Felix)

Egypt could bypass the United States and seek other partners in the international community with whom to forge economic, and military, relationships, the Egyptian foreign minister said Saturday, ahead of a visit to the region by US Secretary of State John Kerry, beginning Sunday.

In an interview with Reuters, Nabil Fahmy chose the word “turbulent” to describe the current state of relations between Washington and Cairo, an allusion to the Obama administration’s open displeasure with the ouster in July of the country’s elected president, Mohamed Morsi.

He was quoted as saying that, looking ahead in the wake of the US’s decision to scale back military aid to Egypt, his government had “multiple choices, multiple options” for new partnerships.

Despite the fact that he is a former Egyptian ambassador in Washington, Fahmy’s first major state visit as foreign minister in September was to Russia, with which Egypt has shared interests. The Soviet Union was Cairo’s chief backer for much of the second half of the twentieth century.

Last week, the London Times reported that Russia has been seeking to upgrade its military ties with Egypt in an effort to augment its limited access to the Mediterranean and bolster its navy’s presence in the region.

An Egyptian diplomatic delegation was in Moscow last weekend for meetings with Russian officials. According to the Times, the purpose of the trip was to lay the groundwork for a visit to Cairo by Putin.

On October 19, Israel’s Channel 2 reported that Egypt was looking to Russia to supply it with arms after the US froze much of its military aid in protest over Morsi’s ouster.

Fahmy, however, sought to dispel reports that his country had found a new patron in Moscow, thus shuffling off an alliance with Washington that has been in place since Egypt signed a peace treaty with Israel in 1979.

His meeting Sunday with his American counterpart would be “a frank, honest dialogue between friends,” Reuters quoted Fahmy as saying. “We will work in that constructive fashion to develop the relationship but there is no question in our mind that we will fulfill our national security needs as they are required from whatever source we need.”

He stressed that Cairo was not attempting to reprise its former relationship with the Soviet Union, dismissing such notions as springing from a misguided “Cold War mentality.” Rather, he asserted, “The Egyptian government is committed to diversifying its relationship[s]” by finding “10, 20, 30 new partners,” of whom Moscow would be one.

Israel has reportedly argued “directly and bluntly” with the Obama administration against cutting aid to Egypt, telling Washington it was making “a strategic error” in reducing financial assistance to Cairo.

During his trip to the region, Kerry, the US secretary of state, is also expected to focus on shoring up the troubled peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians, and allaying the concerns of other regional partners – most notably Saudi Arabia – over the Obama administration’s recent diplomatic efforts vis-à-vis Syria and Iran.

The end of the “special relationship”: Israel after America | Jerusalem Post – Blogs.

David Turner

Ignoring the advice of Saudi and Israeli Intelligence, soon after President Bush ordered the invasion of Iraq the administration realized that their principle reason behind the war, Iraqi weapons of mass destruction (WMD) was a myth created by Iran, a ruse to encourage the invasion (Iran’s agent in the White House, Ahmed Chalabi, fed disinformation re WMD to the administration “corroborated” by “trusted” Iranian Intelligence). Whatever inspired the administration to invade (several motives were provided, and replaced) Iranian motives were obvious: Sadam fought them to standstill in the 1980’s and Iraq stood between them and their ambitions to neutralize American influence and dominate the region.

Having defeated the Iraqis America then faced Shiite militias funded, trained and often led by Iranian officers. America was involved in another unwinnable “Vietnam.” With no graceful escape available Bush chose an accommodation with the Iranians to minimize US casualties. Between destroying the military standoff between Iraq and Iran and essentially kowtowing to Iran (Bush ended America’s thirty-year policy of non-recognition (Bush provided Iran a State Department interest section in downtown Tehran, likely reward for ordering Muqtada al-Sadr not to attack during the “Surge,” Bush’s “victory” to set a withdrawal date). And Iran, now facing a war-weary America, continued unopposed with its nuclear weaponization program.

If Bush backroom deals with the Iranians provided for an “honorable exit” from Iraq, provided Iran with her Iraqi satellite, who but Barak Obama, a politician dedicated to peace and naïve in foreign affairs would have been a better choice for president to continue the Bush policy of appeasing Iran? Under Obama’s watch Iraq all but ordered the US to leave; under his hesitant nuclear diplomacy Iran was provided a world stage to publicly and continuously embarrass the superpower by serially rejecting compromise. And America’s credibility declined as Iran’s soared.

An interview with Susan E. Rice recently appeared in the New York Times in which Obama’s new national security adviser laid out the administrations “new” Middle East policy:

“We can’t just be consumed 24/7 by one region, important as it is,” she said, adding, “He [Obama] thought it was a good time to step back and reassess, in a very critical and kind of no-holds-barred way, how we conceive the region.”

The Times article continued by summarizing the president’s UN speech:

“At the United Nations last month, Mr. Obama laid out the priorities he has adopted as a result of the review. The United States, he declared, would focus on negotiating a nuclear deal with Iran, brokering peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians and mitigating the strife in Syria. Everything else would take a back seat.”

If this sounds akin to a child’s hopeful letter to Santa this is because, at least in the eyes of anyone not employed on the president’s foreign policy team, all three initiatives are at best extremely improbable:

“The president’s goal, said Ms. Rice…is to avoid having events in the Middle East swallow his foreign policy agenda, as it had those of presidents before him.”

But even a brief look at the president’s agenda before the UN, beginning with the Iranian bomb: the president’s five-year failure as negotiator has brought the world to a one-month threshold to weaponization as concluded by the Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security (past head of the IAEA came to an even shorter threshold). A president who, upon entering office had as his chief priority to reduce nuclear proliferation instead has put the most unstable region in the world, target of America’s War on Terror, on a path to a nuclear arms race.

As regards, “brokering peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians,” anyone outside the White House with even a minimum awareness of more than a century of failure (as mandatory power England several times tried to bring the sides together only to be faced with Palestinian rejection) would be aware that as much as both sides would benefit, as much as both peoples desire peace, that each sides minimal demands (Israel: security including a demilitarized Palestine with Israeli military outposts in the Jordan Valley; the Palestinians: “return” of the “refugees” to their homes which, translated, amounts to the end of Jewish sovereignty); anyone with any sense of reality must realize that even if Obama’s “peace in our time” in nine months is serious, that regardless how forcefully presented, that the chances of the Kerry round of talks bridging the differences is highly unlikely: the peace process is dead at the gate.

And as for Obama’s Syria “policy”… Right!

If the United States, despite all indications to the contrary, intends to remain in the region then it will have to undergo a presidential structural revolution. Attacking Iraq, ousting Mubarak; these certainly resulted with approval of America’s foreign policy “brain trust.” And such flawed policy advice seems endemic to the White House. The impact of such stupid or naïve, (reader’s choice) decision-making is that virtually all previous American alliances in the region are in disarray. And White House confusion regarding priorities continues. Amid leaks that the administration would use its financial aid as a way to force Egypt to allow the Muslim Brotherhood to be party to a return to “democracy” Saudi intelligence chief Prince Bandar bin Sultan met with Putin in Moscow in July:

“We will continue to support the [Egyptian] army, and we will support Defense Minister Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Sisi because he is keen on having good relations with us and with you. And we suggest to you to be in contact with him, to support him and to give all the conditions for the success of this experiment. We are ready to hold arms deals with you in exchange for supporting these regimes, especially Egypt.”

The message to Obama, clear from the independence demonstrated by the formerly dependent Saudis, is now openly adopted by Egypt. Al-Sisi responded to the Obama threats to limit aid by inviting Russia to take America’s place.

“Lt. Gen. Vyacheslav Kondrashov, Russian Deputy chief of staff and head of GRU military intelligence, spent the first day of his visit to Cairo, Tuesday, Oct. 29, with Egyptian military chiefs, going through the list of Russian military hardware items they want to buy … The Egyptians asked Moscow to supply the sort of advanced weapons withheld by the United States, and topped their shopping list with medium-range intercontinental ballistic missiles that cover Iran and most of the Middle East.

And so, on the unlikely assumption that the past thirteen years of consistent and persistent policy misadventures represent simple “amateurism” based on the advice of America’s “brain trust” then a complete foreign policy housecleaning, including the State Department, is the only way to reverse the decline of America as “superpower.” Idealistic platitudes such as “freedom” and “democracy” may work as domestic public relations; on the ground success is determined by Realpolitik. And that would have left Sadam in place in Iraq, Qadafi in Libya and Mubarak in Egypt! Perhaps not the “democrats” so desired by the west, but certainly preferable in spilled blood and spent treasure achieved to date!

With America’s role as regional hegemon coming to an end, what are Israel’s (and the Arab state’s) options for a post-America Middle East? To even approach this question demands a prior question: since the region is too volatile to simply be abandoned to itself, too strategic to be ignored by aspiring “superpowers,” who will likely replace the United States?

There are two obvious possibilities, China and Russia. While China has made major inroads into American interests in Africa and Afghanistan/Pakistan, she does not yet have the navy to assert control over a region half a world away. And so, barely four decades after the US ejected the USSR from Egypt Putin is positioning Russia to return the favor. And since already patron to Iran and Syria, Russia’s return to the region without firing a shot is a nothing short of spectacular.

Conventional Wisdom (and American analysts) holds that Russia is too weak militarily and economically to challenge the United States. And this is true, at least if the United States continued to view the region a “national interest.” But is that the case? And if not, how explain the US withdrawing from the Middle East with its strategic oil reserves and Suez Canal? Perhaps the discovery of an abundance of oil shale deposits outside the region? Simple economics might be behind Arab oil fast losing importance to American policy-makers.

Regarding the region as “strategic real estate:” the US has been attempting under Obama to “pivot” from the Middle to Far East. Stubbornly the chaos which the United States played no small part in creating continues as distraction. The president’s policy of “benign neglect” as national course change from Bush “interventionism” has, rather than achieving status quo on the ground instead accelerated regional instability and frustrated America’s “pivot” east. And so Syria festers the result of Obama benign neglect as Iraq festers thanks to Bush adventurism. And Iran, masked by the smokescreen provided by its Syrian intervention continues its relentless march to nuclear weaponization.

Measured against US policy over the past thirteen years the US will continue its retreat blaming all the while the Syrians and the Iraqis and the Egyptians and the Jews for obvious American failures. And so Russia, militarily and economically far inferior inherits the region by default, realization of a centuries-long dream. And Europe the result of the Russian Navy to the south, the Russian Army to the north; already dependent on Russian natural gas to fuel its factories and heat its homes: Europe, as the Middle East, will be forced to leave the American orbit.

Returning to the question of this article’s title: how does Russia replacing America impact Israel? I numerous times addressed this question over the years while tracking America’s retreat into isolationism. So beyond providing links to those discussions I will limit myself to this: For decades Israel served America’s interests in the region, contrary to the imaginings of American pundits of the left and right. For decades Israel served to stabilize the region by threatening forces challenging stability, threatening American interests in Arab oil and the Suez Canal. Over the decades Israel saved the US many billions of dollars which otherwise would have be allocated by the US to directly protect those interests.

One obvious example: when Jordan was threatened by Soviet-backed Syrian tanks in 1970 American troops were not needed because Israel was able to threaten Syria’s flank forcing it to retreat. And the world was spared the possibility of a US-USSR nuclear showdown. And while the history of Israel/US military and intelligence cooperation is yet to be fully written Israel almost always defers to the American president assuring American interests are not endangered by Israeli independent action. The United States, the major party to the “special relationship,” achieves its interests at far less cost, minimal risk, and zero visibility.

Russia, successor to the Soviet Union, is aware of Israel’s role and value to the US during the Cold War. But even beyond Israel’s not insignificant value as counter-threat to forces threatening hegemonic/Israeli interests Russia has other interests in a n already developing alliance with Israel. For example Putin is courting Israeli as technology innovator to help Russia develop her own technological base. Russia is partnering with Israel in the area of natural gas deposits off Israel’s coast. And it happens also that Russia and Israel have a common enemy in Islamist terrorism, Chechnya one example. Russia and Israel are already allied in significant strategic interests. Certainly the instability of the Islamist Spring recommends Israel as continuing to provide the same stabilizing force for the future regional hegemon, Russia.

Analysis: Israel’s impunity in Syria | JPost | Israel News.

Israeli strikes to stop the transfer of heavy arms to Hezbollah will continue sporadically, and the results will be the same: media blackout, tacit acceptance and efforts by the Iranians to quietly try, try again.