WarSclerotic

Israel Hayom | ‘Death to America,’ with a smile.

Dr. Ephraim Kam

Iranian FM: We Don’t Threaten Israel, or Anyone – Defense/Security – News – Israel National News.

( “Butter wouldn’t melt in our mouths… DEATH TO ISRAEL!! ” – JW )

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif

Reuters

On a visit to Paris, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said Wednesday that Western states should forget about the idea of armed action against Iran. “Not all options are on the table,” Zarif said, echoing comments by Western politicians implying the possibility of the use of force against Iran if the talks in Geneva on stemming Iran’s nuclear program fail.

“There is no call to talk about the use of force,” Zarif said in comments quoted by Israeli daily newspaper Ma’ariv. “The only thing that can be done is to continue the negotiations in Geneva and to reach a negotiated solution. We do not threaten Israel or anyone else with the use of force.”

The comments were made at a press conference, in which Israeli reporters participated. A Ma’ariv reporter asked Zarif if relations between Iran and Israel were a possibility. “The issue of diplomatic relations between Israel and Iran are not a topic of discussion in Geneva,” he said.

Zarif was in Paris to attend the 37th session of the General Conference of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). Late Wednesday, he left for Geneva to participate in the negotiations Thursday in Geneva between Iran and the six major powers – the United States, China, Russia, France, Britain, and Germany – on the enrichment level of uranium in Iran’s nuclear program.

In advance of the negotiations, Israel issued a statement calling on the West to keep the strong economic sanctions against Iran in place. In response to reports that the U.S. was planning to ease the sanctions in return for an Iranian declaration that it would limit its uranium enrichment, the government statement said that the sanctions needed to remain in place to ensure that Iran actually limits its nuclear activities, instead of just talking about it.

US proposes 6-month freeze for Iran’s nuclear program – Israel News, Ynetnews.

As second round of negotiations set to begin in Geneva, senior US official reveals proposed deal: Iran will get access to oil funds trapped abroad if it stops nuclear program for six months

Yitzhak Benhorin

WASHINGTON – The United States intends to present Iran with the first step of a future agreement that will stop the “doomsday/nuclear clock” for six months. On the eve of negotiations between the six powers and Iran in Geneva, the US wants a complete six-month halt in nuclear activity. During that period negotiations will continue towards a final resolution.

The US government will offer slight relief from the current economic sanctions, but will not permit any easing of the central sanctions on energy and banking, which have ground the Iranian economy to a halt, without a final agreement with visible, practical results.

Wendy Sherman, the undersecretary of state for political affairs, who leads the US delegation to the talks in Geneva, told MSNBC: “I have very clear instructions from the president and from the secretary, that we need to make sure in a first step we stop the advance of Iran’s nuclear program.

“To put time on the clock, that in return for that, if they deal with all of the issues that we want them to deal with, there will be very limited sanctions relief. It would be temporary, targeted, and reversible… and that indeed the fundamental architecture of our sanction regime would remain for a final comprehensive agreement.”

Negotiations: not a cover

The US government does not want the negotiations to provide Iran with cover to continue its work towards a nuclear weapon. In a New York Times article, a senior American official is quoted telling the Grey Lady’s reporters. “Put simply, what we’re looking for now is a first phase, a first step, an initial understanding that stops Iran’s nuclear program from moving forward for the first time in decades and that potentially rolls part of it back.”

The initial thaw of sanctions by the US would allow the Iranian government to use funds deposited in countries which purchased Iranian oil. According to a report from the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, which tracks the impact of sanctions on Iran, the sum made available to the Iranian government would total $90 billion. The aforementioned senior American official defined the deal as “limited, targeted and reversible sanctions relief” in return for first steps by the Iranians to curb their nuclear program.

Capitol Opposition

Meanwhile on Capitol Hill, Senator Bob Corker, the ranking Republican member of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, has drafted an amendment that would prevent any sanction relief until Iran adheres to current UN Security Council Resolutions regarding its nuclear program.

The president has the authority to issue an executive order to freeze the amendment on national security grounds; theoretically, Obama could use this option to stop the senator.

Senator Corker, a second-term senator from Tennessee, is asking for a congressional resolution to deny President Obama the aforementioned option, though sources in Congress clarified that Democratic senators would refuse to act against the president. But the Democratic senators would agree to increase the severity of sanctions against Iran if there is no progress in the talks over the following weeks, and Iran continues its quest for the nuclear bomb.

Turkey’s relationship with the Muslim Brotherhood – Alarabiya.net English | Front Page.

Monday, 14 October 2013

Al Arabiya Institute for Studies – Mohammad Abdel Kader

Since the June 30 revolution in Egypt, Turkey has become the regional hub for the Muslim Brotherhood’s international organization. Istanbul has played host to many meetings planning what steps are to be taken against the military-backed Egyptian government after the July 3 ouster of President Mohammad Mursi.

These Ankara sponsored events were part of Turkey’s attempt to outlaw “the foreign legitimacy” of the new Egyptian leadership, a move made in addition to its previous role as a political boot camp after the January 25 revolution.

Turkey’s defense of the Muslim Brotherhood, and the tears of Recep Tayyip Erdogan when the Egyptian security forces attempted to storm the sit-in of Rabaa al-Adawiya, proved Erdogan’s ties with the Muslim Brotherhood’s international organization and their mutual interest in restoring “the era of Islamic rule,” seen by the Brotherhood as the basis for protecting “the Islamic nation.”

After the end of the Ataturk party’s rule, and the start of the democratic party’s era, the Brotherhood started collaborating with Necmettin Erbakan, who in 1969 founded Milli Görüş, the Turkish Muslim Brotherhood.

In 1996, Erbakan attempted to facilitate the rise of a new Islamic power, the Eight Islamic countries group, made up of Libya, Iran, Egypt, Pakistan, Indonesia, Nigeria, Bangladesh and Malaysia. Also, the Brotherhood fielded a strong presence at the 2006 celebration of 533 years’ occupying Constantinople.

Although Erdogan attempted to showcase the image of a civilized Islam, based on the Sufi teachings of Shamsuddin al-Tabrizi and Jalaluddin Rumi, the Turkish Islamists were fascinated by the Egyptian experience to an extent that they started translating the letters Hassan al-Banna, who founded the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, and the teachings of 20th century Islamic theorist Sayyid Qutb, among others.

Even the Justice and Development party was, to a certain extent, considered a Muslim Brotherhood faction, giving business opportunities to Brotherhood businessmen for example. Erdogan was an open follower of the master of Islamists in Turkey, Necmettin Erbakan.

In that era, many Brotherhood leaders moved to Turkey which launched “historic reconciliations” between the Syrian and Egyptian regimes and the Brotherhood. This was done in order to create a favorable environment for forming Brotherhood branches, without much success before the Arab Spring.

Turkey and Brotherhood meetings

Many reports showcase Turkey’s role in supporting the Brotherhood with weapons and activists, including the Turkish Intelligence officer Irshad Hoz who was arrested in Egypt. Turkey received many fugitives after the June 30 revolution, in coordination with Hamas in Gaza and the state of Qatar.

In this context, Istanbul hosted two main conferences; the first was on July 10, it was held at a hotel near Ataturk airport and featured leaders from the Muslim Brotherhood’s international organization, such as Youssef Nada (the offshore tycoon who is one of the main supporters of the Brotherhood), Rashed al-Ghanoushi and Mohammad Riyad al-Shafaka, and representatives from the Hamas movement. This conference was held in the shadow of a globally popular conference held by the Turkish Saadet Party to support democracy.

The conference adopted a “patience strategy” from a study assessing the situation after “the military coup against the [legitimate leaders] in Egypt,” prepared by the Brotherhood’s International Center for Studies and Training. These strategies consist of launching awareness campaigns, bringing to trial the figures of the Egyptian Army, igniting the conflict within communities, calling for civil obedience and besieging the key government institutions.

The second meeting was a cover-up for the Muslim Brotherhood meeting in Lahore and it adopted an action plan to face what happened in Egypt. The meeting also studied the repercussions of what happened to the Brotherhood in Egypt on its brother organizations in Tunisia, Sudan, Jordan and Algeria. It also discussed the obstacles to their free movement in the GCC countries. The meeting witnessed a large attendance from the Brotherhood’s international membership, including participants from Morocco, Malaysia, Mauritania, Libya, Somalia, Syria and Kurdistan-Iraq.
In parallel, Istanbul hosted another meeting on September 25 and 26, and the Brotherhood participated as members of the “Islamic Parliamentarians union” and “parliamentarians for transparency.”

The future of the relationship

Turkey still seems to be supporting the line of “democracy restored through elections,” neglecting its previous slogan of supporting “the legitimacy made by revolution” which was adopted to overthrow President Hosni Mubarak.

This means that cold relations will not only occur between Turkey and Egypt, but concern will spread to other Arab countries which are against Turkey’s hosting of Brotherhood leaders and their meetings.

Although the Turkish leadership still considers that the alliance with the Brotherhood isn’t as harmful, at the national level, as ties with any other sort of Egyptian government, it still sees the rise to power of (Sunni) Islamic movements as an opportunity for the Justice and Development party to rise as a leader of modern Turkey and the post-revolutionary Arab region. This would allow Turkey to play a dominant role in regional politics by hosting the headquarters of the Muslim Brotherhood’s international organization as long as the Justice and Development party, under the leadership of Erdogan, remains in power.

Netanyahu’s Nay-Saying on Iran Is Working « Commentary Magazine.

For weeks, even people who share Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s suspicions of Iran have been loudly proclaiming that his tactics are all wrong: He’s alienating the world with his negative attitude toward the Iranian charm offensive.

“His bombastic style is his undoing,” proclaimed Haaretz military analyst Amos Harel. Rabbi Eric Yoffie, the former head of the Union for Reform Judaism, similarly warned that Netanyahu “should lower the tone, dispense with bluster,” since “In America, Israel is losing the debate on Iran.”

Given that nobody else on the planet even comes close to Netanyahu’s record of success in generating movement on the Iranian issue, I never understood why anyone would think they knew better than he how to do it. But I hadn’t noticed how effective his recent “bombastic bluster” has been until today, when a senior Israeli official pointed out something I’d missed: “We changed the conversation in which everyone was talking about easing the existing sanctions to a conversation in which everyone is discussing the need for preventing additional sanctions,” he said.

Nothing proves this better than President Barack Obama’s decision to convene an urgent meeting with American Jewish leaders last week to ask them not to press for more sanctions (two of the four groups present laudably refused). And while much of the credit for this goes to Congress, which has refused to take the threat of new sanctions off the table, there’s no doubt Netanyahu’s pressure contributed significantly.

First, that’s because nobody can be more Catholic than the pope: If Israel, which views Iranian nukes as an existential threat, weren’t vociferously objecting to the removal of existing sanctions and demanding new ones, it would be much harder for anyone else do so–certainly for American Jewish groups, but to some degree even for Congress.

Second, Israel’s track record shows that if it feels pushed to the wall by an existential threat, the chance of it taking military action can’t be ruled out. And since the world doesn’t want an Israeli attack on Iran, it has consistently tried to keep Israeli angst below that line. Netanyahu’s current campaign was thus aimed at convincing the world that easing sanctions would risk pushing Israel over the line–and he seems to have succeeded.

This isn’t the first time Netanyahu has successfully used similar tactics. His credible threat of Israeli military action is what originally persuaded Europe to impose an oil embargo on Iran, as a French official acknowledged openly at the time: “We must do everything possible to avoid an Israeli attack on Iran, even if it means a rise in the price of oil and gasoline,” he said. This same credible threat is what bought time for negotiations by persuading Iran to curtail its 20 percent enrichment–as even the Washington Post, not usually a Netanyahu fan, acknowledged in April. And finally, it helped bring Iran to the negotiating table–something Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel acknowledged this week, but which Iran’s own Intelligence Ministry acknowledged a year ago, when it issued a report advocating diplomatic negotiations over its nuclear program to avert the threat of a “Zionist” attack.

None of this means the danger of a bad deal with Iran has passed; far from it. But the first step toward preventing a bad deal was to prevent a hasty removal of sanctions, and that, Netanyahu seems to have accomplished.

He certainly knows that threatening military action and dismissing Iranian charm offensives as meaningless won’t make him popular. But so far, it has proven effective–and as long as that remains true, he will quite rightly be prepared to dispense with being loved.

Iran: Rumors Of War |.

( A lefty analysis less stupid than most. – JW )

Nov. 5, 2013

Is Israel really planning to attack Iran, or are declarations about the possibility of a pre-emptive strike at Teheran’s nuclear program simply bombast?

Does President Obama’s “we have your back” comment about Israel mean the U.S. will join an assault? What happens if the attack doesn’t accomplish its goals, an outcome predicted by virtually every military analyst? In that case, might the Israelis, facing a long, drawn out war, resort to the unthinkable: nuclear weapons?

Such questions almost seem bizarre at a time when Iran and negotiators from the P5+1—the U.S., China, Russia, Britain, France and Germany—appear to be making progress at resolving the dispute over Teheran’s nuclear program. And yet the very fact that a negotiated settlement seems possible may be the trigger for yet another war in the Middle East.

A dangerous new alliance is forming in the region, joining Israel with Saudi Arabia and the monarchies of the Gulf Cooperation Council, thus merging the almost bottomless wealth of the Arab oil kings with the powerful and sophisticated Israeli army. Divided by religion and history, this confederacy of strange bedfellows is united by its implacable hostility to Iran. Reducing tensions is an anathema to those who want to isolate Teheran and dream of war as a midwife for regime change in Iran.

How serious this drive toward war is depends on how you interpret several closely related events over the past three months.

First was the announcement of the new alliance that also includes the military government in Egypt. That was followed by the news that Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) were stocking up on $10.8 billion worth of U.S. missiles and bunker busters. Then, in mid-October, Israel held war games that included air-to-air refueling of warplanes, essential to any long-range bombing attack. And lastly, the magazine Der Spiegel revealed that Israel is arming its German-supplied, Dolphin-class submarines with nuclear tipped cruise missiles.

Saber rattling? Maybe. Certainly a substantial part of the Israeli military and intelligence community is opposed to a war, although less so if it included the U.S. as an ally.

Opponents of a strike on Iran include Uzi Arad, former director of the National Security Council and a Mossad leader; Gabi Ashkenazi, former Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) chief of staff; Ami Ayalon and Yuval Diskin, former heads of Shin Bet; Uzi Even, a former senior scientist in Israel’s nuclear program; Ephraim Halevy, former Mossad head; Amnon Lipkin-Shahak, and Shaul Mofaz, former IDF chiefs of staff; Simon Peres, Israeli president; Uri Sagi, former chief of military intelligence; and Meir Dagan, former head of Mossad, who bluntly calls the proposal to attack Iran “The stupidest thing I ever heard.”

Mossad is Israel’s external intelligence agency, much like the American CIA. Shin Bet is responsible for internal security, as with the FBI and the Home Security Department.

However, an Israeli attack on Iran does have support in the U.S. Congress, and from many former officials in the Bush administration. Ex-Vice-President Dick Cheney says war is “inevitable.”

But U.S. hawks have few supporters among the American military. Former defense secretary Robert Gates says “such an attack would make a nuclear armed Iran inevitable” and “prove catastrophic, haunting us for generations in that part of the world.” Former Joint Chief of Staff vice-chair Gen. James Cartwright told Congress that the U.S. would have to occupy Iran if it wanted to end the country’s nuclear program, a task virtually everyone agrees would be impossible.

In interviews last fall, reporter and author Mark Perry found that U.S. intelligence had pretty much worked out the various options the Israelis might use in an attack. None of them were likely to derail Iran’s nuclear program for more than a year or two.

Israel simply doesn’t have the wherewithal for a war with Iran. It might be able to knock out three or four nuclear sites—the betting is those would include the heavy water plant at Arak, enrichment centers at Fordow and Natanz, and the Isfahan uranium-conversion plant—but much of Iran’s nuclear industry is widely dispersed. And Israel’s bunker busters are not be up to job of destroying deeply placed and strongly reinforced sites.

Israel would not be able to sustain a long-term bombing campaign because it doesn’t have enough planes, or the right kind.  Most of its air force is American made F-15 fighters and F-16 fighter-bombers, aircraft that are too fragile to maintain a long bombing campaign and too small to carry really heavy ordinance.

Of course, Israel could also use its medium and long-range Jericho II and Jericho III missiles, plus submarine-fired cruise missiles, but those weapons are expensive and in limited supply. They all, however, can carry nuclear warheads.

But as one U.S. Central Command officer told Perry, “They’ll [the Israelis] have one shot, one time. That’s one time out and one time back. And that’s it.” Central Command, or Centcom, controls U.S. military forces in the Middle East.

A number of U.S. military officers think the Israelis already know they can’t take out the Iranians, but once the bullets start flying Israel calculates that the U.S. will join in. “All this stuff about ‘red lines’ and deadlines is just Israel’s way of trying to get us to say that when they start shooting, we’ll start shooting,” retired Admiral Bobby Ray Inman told Perry. Inman specialized in intelligence during his 30 years in the Navy.

There is current legislation before the Congress urging exactly that, and Obama did say that the U.S. had “Israel’s back.” But does that mean U.S. forces would get directly involved? If it was up to the American military, the answer would be “no.” Lt. Gen. Robert Gard told Perry that, while the U.S. military is committed to Israel, that commitment is not a blank check. U.S. support is “so they can defend themselves. Not so they can start World War III.”

Polls indicate that, while most Americans have a favorable view of Israel and unfavorable one of Iran, they are opposed to joining an Israeli assault on Iran.

That might change if the Iranians tried to shut down the strategic Straits of Hormuz through which most Middle East oil passes, but Iran knows that would draw in the U.S., and for all its own bombast, Teheran has never demonstrated a penchant for committing suicide. On top of which, Iran needs those straits for its own oil exports. According to most U.S. military analysts, even if the U.S. did join in it would only put off an Iranian bomb by about five years.

What happens if Israel attacks—maybe with some small contributions by the Saudi and UAE air forces—and Iran digs in like it did after Iraq invaded it in 1980? That war dragged on for eight long years.

Iran could probably not stop an initial assault, because the Israelis can pretty easily overwhelm Iranian anti-aircraft, and their air force would make short work of any Iranian fighters foolish enough to contest them.

But Teheran would figure a way to strike back, maybe with long range missile attacks on Israeli population centers or key energy facilities in the Gulf. Israel could hit Iranian cities as well, but its planes are not configured for that kind of mission. In any case, bombing has never made a country surrender, as the allied and axis powers found out in World War II, and the Vietnamese and Laotians demonstrated to the U.S.

The best the Israelis could get is a stalemate and the hope that the international community would intervene. But there is no guarantee that Iran would accept a ceasefire after being bloodied, nor that there would be unanimity in the UN Security Council to act. NATO might try to get involved, but that alliance is deeply wounded by the Afghanistan experience, and the European public is sharply divided about a war with Iran.

A long war would eventually wear down Israel’s economy, not to mention its armed forces and civilian population. If that scenario developed, might Israel be tempted to use its ultimate weapon? Most people recoil from even the thought of nuclear weapons, but militaries consider them simply another arrow in the quiver. India and Pakistan have come to the edge of using them on at least one occasion.

It is even possible that Israel—lacking the proper bunker busting weapons—might decide to use small, low-yield nuclear weapons in an initial assault, but that seems unlikely. The line drawn in August 1945 at Hiroshima and Nagasaki has held for more than 60 years. But if Israel concluded that it was enmeshed in a forever war that could threaten the viability of the state, might it be tempted to cross that line?

Condemnation would be virtually universal, but it would not be the first time that Israel’s siege mentality led it to ignore what the rest of the world thought.

A war with Iran would be catastrophic. Adding nuclear weapons to it would put the final nail into the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Within a decade dozens of countries will have nuclear weapons. It is a scary world to contemplate.

Major Israel-US rift over Washington planl to let Tehran continue enriching uranium with sanctions relief.

Israel rejects US proposal for nuclear Iran

Israel announced early Thursday, Nov. 7, that it is utterly opposed to the new proposal for Iran’s nuclear program which  the United States plans to put before the two-day Geneva conference beginning later today .

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, when he met US Secretary of State John Kerry in Jerusalem Wednesday night, bitterly accused the Obama administration of yielding to the Russian-backed Iranian position. Should Tehran renege on the deal, the US proposal leaves it with the capacity for enriching enough weapons-grade uranium in 10 days to build several nuclear weapons.
This US proposal calls for Iran to halt enrichment of uranium up to 20-percent grade (a short jump to weapons-grade) and slow construction on the Arak heavy water plant for plutonium production. In return, the US offers a start on selective sanctions relief. This proposal is likely to be approved by the six powers at the Geneva conference.

Kerry was reminded of his pledge that “no deal is better than a bad deal.” This deal is bad, Israel says because it leaves Iran wth all the stocks it has already built up of 20-percent enriched uranium and the ability to continue the production of low 5-percent grade unrestricted.

debkafile’s sources report that the Palestinian issue did not come up in either of the two conversations Kerry held with Netanyahu Wednesday. Both were dominated by the Iranian row and ended with differences as wide as ever.
Israel accused Washington of capitulating to the plan Moscow and Tehran handed in to President Barack Obama last week. That plan, according to our sources, entails suspending the work of 10,000 centrifuges on all grades of enrichment (3, 5 and 20 percent). However, Iran has a total of 19,000 machines of which only 9,000 are active anyway. Therefore, the offer to freeze 10,000 already idle centrifuges was a subterfuge. It is nonetheless being presented by the Russians – and now by the Americans, too – as a major Iranian concession.

The truth is that Iran is being allowed to keep its full stock of centrifuges intact, operational and available for use at any time.
This means that if Tehran decides tomorrow to renege on its deal with Washington and the world powers – after its approval in Geneva – it will retain the capacity to restart centrifuge operations in full and within 10 days accumulate enough weapons-grade material to build several nuclear bombs or warheads.

By the time Washington or the nuclear watchdog catch on, it will be too late: Iran will have The Bomb.
Last week, Moscow claimed that Iran had agreed to “restrain the weaponization processes.” This admission alone belied Tehran’s insistence that its entire nuclear program was peaceful and exposed as false Moscow’s denials of proofs that Iran was engaged in developing nuclear arms.

According to our sources, the “restraint” on offer refers only to the process of miniaturizing a nuclear bomb for use in a missile warhead or dropped from an airplane.

In sum, therefore, the US president has agreed in essence to “photograph” Iran’s nuclear program and freeze it as it stands now. Tehran would place nuclear development in suspension without, however, relinquishing a single component of its program.

The new American proposal broke surface Wednesday, as the seven delegations gathered in Geneva for the morrow’s session.A nameless US spokesman told reporters that America was now proposing that Iran, as a first step, stop its nuclear program advancing any further and start rolling parts of it back. In return, Washington offered “very limited, temporary, reversible sanctions relief.”

The spokesman said: “This phase must involve levels of Iran’s uranium enrichment, its stockpiles of the material as well as international monitoring.”

Israel is not buying this plan.

Suspicions Syria is concealing chemical arms, raising fears in region for Iran deal | JPost | Israel News.

If Russian-brokered agreement with Syria’s current President Bashar Assad is ultimately ineffective, the US’s credibility is likely to suffer in their handling of Iran’s nuclear issue.

A US official and the American representative to the United Nations suggested on Tuesday that Syria may be trying to hide some of its chemical weapons, raising more fears among US allies in the region that America is not standing up strongly enough for them.

US allies – such as Israel and the Gulf states – that oppose the Iran-Syria-Hezbollah axis are further worried what kind of precedent this situation will set for a possible deal with Iran.

The Russian-brokered deal to which the US and Syria agreed called for the complete dismantlement of the latter regime’s chemical weapons. If it turns out that some weapons were secretly retained, it would be a blow to US credibility in the region and likely affect its handling of the Iran nuclear file.

Prof. Eyal Zisser, an expert on Syria from the Moshe Dayan Center at Tel Aviv University, told The Jerusalem Post in an interview Wednesday evening that for Syrian President Bashar Assad, the deal was a good one because not only did it enable him to stay in power, it granted him a kind of immunity from being attacked by the West.

For the US administration, it was a good deal politically, because America did not want to get involved militarily in Syria but did want to show some sign that it cared about the humanitarian catastrophe occurring there, he said.

Asked if there was a connection between the Syrian agreement and a possible deal with Iran, Zisser maintained that “Iran is one thing and Syria is another. But clearly what connects them is a lack of will in America to get involved in the region.”

Zisser believes it is unlikely that the Syrian leader is hiding chemical weapons, because it would be “too risky for Assad,” and the US could ultimately find weapons that he tried to hide. Furthermore, Zisser added, Assad does not even need them; he has conventional military means to continue fighting the opposition.

Meanwhile, it seems that any deal that Iran would be willing to sign would not be good enough for Israel or the Gulf states, which are demanding a complete stop to the country’s nuclear program.

Many analysts see a partial deal allowing Iran to retain some enrichment capability as more likely.

Elias Harfoush, writing Tuesday in the popular London-based daily Al-Hayat, expressed many Sunni Arab states’ frustrations with the US administration when he said that “Tehran is aware of [US President] Barack Obama’s weakness” and that he “must not surrender to his adversaries” – a reference to Iran, Syria and Hezbollah.

He concluded by quoting Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei: Every population or state that trusted America ended up receiving a blow from it.

The news that Assad is cheating is, of course, predictable, noted Tony Badran, a research fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

However, the way the US administration has prematurely credited him and praised the deal, deriding skeptics, naturally raises questions and concerns about whether it will repeat this performance with the Iranians, passing off a bad deal as a diplomatic victory.

Badran told the Post that US allies were already frustrated at the administration’s decision to make a deal with Syria over chemical weapons instead of attacking Assad and enforcing Obama’s redline.

US allies in the region see these recent developments as a “battleground against Iranian regional designs, where the US is refusing to back them and the rebels against Tehran,” Badran said. “This is already causing these allies to question the reliability of the US. The chemical weapons farce will weaken US credibility that much more.”

In addition, he went on, the failure to convene the Syrian peace talks in Geneva demonstrates “that the US doesn’t have a strategy in Syria.”

Chuck Freilich, a senior fellow at the Belfer Center of Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government and a former deputy national security adviser in Israel, told the Post that he saw the process of destroying Syria’s chemical arms as continuing successfully despite some reports that the country may be hiding some weapons.

Even if those reports turn out to be true, he went on, it was a possibility that many had already considered.

In any event, “the overall outcome would be far better than could have been achieved by a military attack, which was to be limited in nature to begin with and not even focused on the chemical weapons, but simply a form of punishment for Syria’s use of chemical weapons,” he said.

Regarding the precedent for Iran, he added, “no one approaches this with any sense of trust toward the Iranians.”

A deal with Iran – considering that it calls for conditions such as limiting the levels of enrichment, transferring its uranium stockpiles out of the country, closing some facilities, and intrusive inspections – would be more a case of “verify” rather than “trust,” he said.

He further pointed out that the deal with Syria “is far from hollow, and given the fact that we have no better alternatives in terms of Iran – a completely successful military strike will not achieve more than a twoto- three-year postponement of the nuclear program and will have significant consequences, both in terms of the American response and Iran- Hezbollah’s military responses against Israel – we should fully support the American effort to reach a reasonable deal with Iran.”

He added that anyone who thought Iran would have to close down its nuclear program in its entirety was being unrealistic.

“We have to ensure – and I believe that there is basic agreement with the US on this – that a compromise agreement leaves Iran a few years away from a nuclear capability, thereby hopefully providing both the international community and Israel with sufficient time to deal with the threat if it reemerges,” he said.

Iranian Nobel laureate pans Rouhani’s rights record | The Times of Israel.

Peace prize winner Shirin Ebadi notes that despite reform-minded president, 40 Iranians have been executed in just 10 days

By Edith M. Lederer November 6, 2013, 11:17 pm

Dr. Shirin Ebadi participate in the World Summit of Nobel Peace Laureates, in Chicago. in an interview Tuesday, Nov. 5, 2013 with The Associated Press, Iranian Nobel Peace laureate Shirin Ebadi strongly criticized the human rights record of President Hassan Rouhani, citing a dramatic increase in executions since he took office this year and accusing the government of lying about the release of political prisoners. (photo credit: AP/Charles Rex Arbogast)

NEW YORK (AP) — Iranian Nobel Peace laureate Shirin Ebadi strongly criticized the human rights record of President Hassan Rouhani, citing a dramatic increase in executions since he took office this year and accusing the government of lying about the release of political prisoners.

She also pointed to spreading support for a hunger strike by human rights lawyer Abdolfattah Soltani and three others in a Tehran prison to protest inadequate medical care, which was joined Monday by about 80 prisoners at another prison west of the capital.

Ebadi, a US-based human rights lawyer who since 2009 has lived outside Iran in self-exile, said in an interview Tuesday with The Associated Press that Rouhani may have the reputation of a moderate reformer, but so far “we get bad signals” from the new government when it comes to human rights. Ebadi won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2003 for her efforts to promote democracy, becoming the first Iranian and first Muslim woman to win the prize.

The comments by Ebadi were mostly directed at Rouhani. They also underscore Iran’s internal tensions between Rouhani’s government and hard-liners opposing diplomatic initiatives that include groundbreaking overtures to Washington. After Rouhani and President Barack Obama held an historic phone call during the Iranian leader’s September trip to the United Nations in New York, Iran’s top leader hinted that he disapproved, though he reiterated his crucial support for Rouhani’s general policy of outreach to the West.

Ebadi’s criticism further points out the limitations of Iran’s presidency, which has little control of security or judiciary affairs that are under the sway of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and the ruling clerics, as well as the powerful Revolutionary Guard.

Ebadi pointed to Tehran’s largest anti-US rally in years on Monday — the anniversary of the takeover of the US Embassy in 1979 following the Iranian revolution — where tens of thousands of demonstrators chanted “death to America” and burned an American flag.

“How do they want to have a rapprochement with America when they do that?” she asked. “Therefore, I think it’s too early to judge whether the relations between Iran and America will improve or not.”

Ebadi also expressed outrage at the retaliation that followed the death of 14 border guards in a clash with government opponents on Oct. 25 near the town of Saravan near the frontier with Pakistan.

The semiofficial Fars news agency reported that 16 “rebels” were hanged hours later in revenge for the attack. But Ebadi said the prosecutor for the province went on television soon after the attack and announced that 16 prisoners arrested previously — who had nothing to do with the attack — had been executed in retaliation.

She said the government cracks down on human rights because of “fear, but they use religion or abuse religion in order to justify it.”

And those executions weren’t the only ones, she said.

In the last 10 days, 40 people have been executed, including some political prisoners, Ebadi said, and since Rouhani was inaugurated in August, the number of executions has doubled compared with a year ago.

Ebadi said government propaganda claims that dozens of political prisoners have been released.

“This is a big lie,” she said. “Twelve or thirteen people have been released but these are people who had served their time.” Top opposition figures, Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mahdi Karroubi, remain under house arrest.

Ebadi said the only political prisoner released early was prominent human rights lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh, winner of the 2012 Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought. She is still barred from leaving Iran, Ebadi said.

In another rights crackdown, she said, the editor of the reformist newspaper Bahar was jailed last week for publishing an article on Shiite Islam deemed offensive by authorities in the Islamic Republic, a predominantly Shiite nation. He was released on “hefty” bail after two days but the paper remains closed, she said

Ebadi, 66, left Iran just before the disputed 2009 election which gave Rouhani’s predecessor, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a second term.

She said she will return when she can carry out human rights activities and her colleagues are released from prison.

Ebadi expressed hope that nuclear negotiations between Iran and six world powers, which are set to resume Thursday, will lead to the end of US-led sanctions and a settlement of the stalemate with the West over Tehran’s nuclear program.

“But I have doubts,” she quickly added, “and I think it’s too early to be optimistic.”

Instead of economic sanctions that impoverish Iranians, Ebadi urged the United States and Europe to block satellite access for Iranian “propaganda” broadcasts in 16 non-Persian languages, including English, Arabic and Spanish.

Copyright 2013 The Associated Press.

Hagel: US to maintain robust presence in the Gulf | The Times of Israel.

Speaking to CSIS, defense secretary cites need to deter Iran, protect allies in the region

By JTA November 7, 2013, 4:33 am

US Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel (photo credit: AP/Wong Maye-E/File)

WASHINGTON — The United States will maintain a robust military presence in the Persian Gulf to deter Iran, US Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel said, although military action would be a last resort to keep Iran from getting a nuclear bomb.

Hagel in a speech Tuesday to the influential Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank described renewed efforts to get Iran to end its suspected nuclear weapons program through diplomacy.

“The United States is clear-eyed about the challenges and uncertainties that lie ahead on this path, and the need for Iran to demonstrate its seriousness through actions,” Hagel said. “We will maintain a strong and ready military presence in the Persian Gulf, and the broader Middle East, to deter Iran’s destabilizing activities, and to work with and protect our allies and our interests.”

Israel, lawmakers in Congress, and pro-Israel groups have urged the United States not to relieve any pressure on Iran during negotiations as long as Iran does not take concrete steps to reduce its nuclear capability.

Hagel also said, describing US policies toward Iran and Syria, where a civil war continues to rage, that a US military option would be a “last resort.”

“Military force must always remain an option – but it should be an option of last resort,” he said. “The military should always play a supporting role, not the leading role, in America’s foreign policy.

US Secretary of State John Kerry said he was reassuring US allies in the region, including Israel and Saudi Arabia, that the United States would only settle for concrete steps by Iran to end its suspected nuclear weapons program. Iran insists its nuclear program is peaceful.

“It is only specific actions on which countries will be able to measure an outcome,” Kerry said in Riyadh Monday, where he met with his Saudi counterpart, Saud al Faisal, “and the outcome must be one that allows all of us to know that every day that we wake up we know that what is happening in Iran is a peaceful program and not one where they can be secretly moving towards a weapon that could threaten the stability of this region.”

Kerry headed from Riyadh to Israel and the Palestinian Authority on Tuesday and Wednesday.
He said negotiations with Iran, renewed last month after Iran’s new president, Hassan Rouhani, a relative moderate, expressed interest in such talks, could take months.

Israeli and Saudi Arabian leaders have expressed wariness of extended talks, saying that Iran must not be given time to advance its nuclear program under the pretext of negotiations.