WarSclerotic

A nuclear deal amid crisis in Iraq, Israel Hayom, June 29, 2014

Publicly, the Iranians have adamantly rejected all of the West’s demands, and now it is a matter of who blinks first — unless the crisis in Iraq brings about an extreme change of circumstance.

As July 20 draws near and with it a potential nuclear deal between the West and Iran, the chances of such an agreement being reached seem low, unless the unrest in Iraq brings about a last-minute change that would force the parties to elasticize their positions and work together.

The Americans and their allies are fed up with Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif’s polite diversion tactics, and they have decided to make it clear to him that his proposed outline for the agreement falls vastly short of meeting their demands.

Israel is an important — albeit absent — part of the West’s negotiations with Iran. It is not for nothing that U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Bill Burns has recently seen fit to stress that Washington means to ensure talks with Tehran would involve “zero surprises.”

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has had a very important, perhaps even vital, contribution to formulating the desired parameters for any nuclear deal with Iran; but it appears that the U.S.’ pledge for “zero surprises” excluded the possibility that it might be willing to elasticize its position on Iran’s nuclear armament in exchange for the latter’s cooperation against the radical forces of the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant, which are threatening to overrun Iraq.

Those privy to the Geneva negotiations even hedged that last week’s meeting between U.S. Undersecretary for Political Affairs Wendy Sherman and Deputy Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi included the two discussing the potential practicalities of collaboration in Iraq.

Washington was quick to deny this and American diplomats were made to underscore, again, that the Iranian position on several key points — such as the number of centrifuges and amount of enriched uranium — was far from the West’s position on those matters. Only time will tell if the Americans would hold their ground on these issues, or whether the growing criticism of U.S. President Barack Obama’s foreign policy within the U.S. will erode his demands from Iran.

So far, however, the Americans seem steadfast in their demands, making sure to inform Iran that while the West is willing to abide 1,000 centrifuges at the Natanz uranium enrichment facility, such allowances do not extend to any hidden facilities; and that uranium enrichment could be performed only up to five percent — not to the fissile concentration of 20 percent.

The U.S. has also made several other demands of Iran, such as slowing down the plutonium production at the heavy-water reactor in Arak, but it is unclear whether the Americans’ demands extend to the Iranian ballistic missiles program, which endangers Europe as well as Israel (and in the long run, the United States), or whether the U.S. has demanded that Iran also cease all terrorist activity.

Publicly, the Iranians have adamantly rejected all of the West’s demands, and now it is a matter of who blinks first — unless the crisis in Iraq brings about an extreme change of circumstance.

Israeli media was quick to decry the alleged “unprecedented low-point” in Israel-U.S. relations, but this “low” has nothing to do with the security issues. Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Middle East Policy Matthew Spence, who spoke at the Herzliya Conference two weeks ago, stressed that Israel-U.S. security ties were strong, and that there was a clear American interest in bolstering them further.

As the Sunni jihadist threat looms over the Middle East, the cooperation between Israel and the U.S. mandates full transparency and zero surprises both on Jerusalem and on Washington’s part, on the Iranian issue as well as regarding the jihadist threat.

Jordanian Bedouin hoist Al Qaeda flag in Ma’an – 104 km from Eilat. US, Israeli forces on the ready, DEBKAfile, June 29, 2014

Ma’an raises ISIS flag of revolt

“Ma’an is the Falluja of Jordan!” shouted thousands of Bedouin Saturday, June 28, in the southern Jordanian town of Ma’an. This legend was inscribed on the placards and flags they bore aloft with one hand in the name of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS). In the other, they waved automatic rifles.

Ma’an (pop: 50,000) is in a sensitive location:  218 km south of Amman, it also lies 104 km from the Israeli port town of Eilat and some 60 km from the main artery cutting south from northern Israel to the south.

But although pro-Al Qaeda riots have been going on for days in Ma’an, capital of the southern province of the Kingdom of Jordan, military and security personnel have not been seen in its vicinity.

The town has a history of violent unrest. It has in the past suffered curfew and was even, when the rioting got out of hand, stormed by soldiers firing live rounds and leaving dozens dead.

For now, King Abdullah is conferring urgently with his army and intelligence chiefs on how to suppress the Islamist revolt in Ma’an without it spilling over into other Jordanian towns, especially Salt, Irbid and Zerka, which have large clusters of Al Qaeda followers.

There was anxious talk in Washington Sunday about the prospect of Abdullah’s throne being rocked by an Islamist revolt, in which case the Obama administration would have no option but to approve the intervention of American and Israeli special operations forces to defend the king,  and push back against an Al Qaeda-ISIS invasion. However the domestic Islamist peril may be more immediate and acute than the external one.

A US military source consulted by DEBKAfile revealed that the Jordanian army is now concentrated in three sectors: The Syrian border in the north, the Iraqi border in the east and the capital.

In the first case, Jordanian troops are ranged to head off a possible incursion by ISIS forces concentrated in eastern Syria. They are also prepared to withstand a possible Syrian army assault to dampen Jordan’s military support for the Syrian rebels operating in southern Syria in defense of the Jordanian and Israeli borders.

In the second case, the Jordanian army is deployed directly opposite the ISIS forces which have seized control of most of Iraq’s Anbar province adjacent to the Jordanian border.

The army’s third sector is the capital, Amman, where it acts as the guardian of the royal regime.

Should the Islamist conflagration spread from Ma’an to other corners of the kingdom, its army will be short of fighting manpower for simultaneous defense against internal and external threats.

Our Washington sources report that Brig. Gen. Dennis McKean, commander of the joint US-Jordanian-Israeli underground Centcom-Forward war room established near Amman, has already received instructions to place the 12,000 US soldiers and USAF F-16 fighter squadron positioned in Jordan on the ready.

They also disclose that Brig. McKean is in direct communication with Israel’s Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz, the commander of Israel’s Deep Operations command, Maj. Gen. Shay Avital and Israel Air Force chief Maj. Gen. .Amir Eshel.

The Deep Operations command was established in case it was necessary to launch operations against Iran or the Lebanese Hizballah in alien territory. This unit may find itself operating against Al Qaeda’s ISIS in Jordan instead

Washington, Jerusalem and Amman are mulling over whether to wait for the trouble in Jordan to escalate further before intervening, or to act preemptively before matters get out of hand by punching hard at ISIS forces concentrated along the Iraqi-Jordanian border. In the latter case, there would have to be a second decision as to which army would inflict the punch, its location and a forward estimate of the potential repercussions on Jordan’s internal security.

ISIS declares creation of Islamic state in Middle East, ‘new era of international jihad’, RT, June 29, 2014

A fighter of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) holds an ISIL flag and a weapon on a street in the city of Mosul (Reuters / Stringer)

The jihadist group has . . . claimed that they are now a legitimate state.

ISIS jihadists have declared the captured territories from Iraq’s Diyala province to Syria’s Aleppo a new Islamic State – a ‘caliphate.’ They removed ‘Iraq and the Levant’ from their name and urged other radical Sunni groups to pledge their allegiance.

ISIS announced that it should now be called ‘The Islamic State’ and declared its chief, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, as “the caliph” of the new state and “leader for Muslims everywhere,” the radical Sunni militant group said in an audio recording distributed online on Sunday.

This is the first time since the fall of the Ottoman Empire in 1923 that a Caliph – which means a political successor to Prophet Muhammad – has been declared. The decision was made following the group’s Shura Council meeting on Sunday, according to ISIS spokesman Abu Mohammed al-Adnani.

The new Islamic State has marked its borders, spanning the territory captured by the group in a bloody rampage, from Iraq’s volatile Diyala province to Syria’s war-torn Aleppo.

The jihadist group has also claimed that they are now a legitimate state.

The Islamic State has called on Al-Qaeda and other radical Sunni militants in the region to immediately pledge their allegiance, ushering in “a new era of international jihad.”

“The Shura [Council] of the Islamic State met and discussed this issue…The Islamic State decided to establish an Islamic caliphate and to designate a caliph for the state of the Muslims,” said group spokesman Adnani.

He described the establishment of the caliphate as “the dream in all the Muslims” and “the hope of all jihadists.”

The militant group, notorious for its brutal violence, separated from Al-Qaeda in early 2014. It has seized major areas of western and northern Iraq in recent weeks, committing mass murders of opposing Shia Muslims in the region.

ISIS previously made statements vowing to siege the Iraqi capital Baghdad and to march and capture the holy Shia sites of Najaf and Karbala.

Without allies against ISIS, US finds itself in the same camp as Iran, its sworn enemy | JPost | Israel News.

by ZVI MAZEL

LAST UPDATED: 06/29/2014 14:08

An extremist Islamic state is coming into being in the heart of the Mideast. It will become a bastion of terrorism unleashing its attacks against neighbors and sending its faithful on operations in Europe and the US.

Israel sends emergency delegation to US – Israel News, Ynetnews.

Diplomatic mission to US, headed by Minister Steinitz, will demand that nuclear deal be based on model of disarmament rather than proposed monitoring model and includes Tehran’s missile program.

Itamar Eichner

A high-ranking Israeli delegation will leave Sunday morning for urgent talks in Washington as negotiations between world powers and Iran enter their final stages.

The delegation is headed by Intelligence Minister Yuval Steinitz and includes members such as National Security Advisor Yossi Cohen, deputy director general for strategic affairs in the Foreign Ministry Jeremy Issacharoff, head of the strategic division of the Strategic Affairs Ministry Dr. Sima Shine and representatives of the Atomic Energy Commission, the Mossad and the Military Intelligence Directorate.

Washington agreed to attend the meeting, despite the short notice from Israel that issued the request to meet with the Americans only on last Tuesday

The delegation will meet, among others, Under Secretary of State Wendy Sherman and US Deputy Secretary of State Bill Burns.

The last-minute delegation was brought together due to fear in Jerusalem that the world powers will overly compromise with the Iranians in order to reach a permanent agreement. Major rifts remain between the world powers and Iran in regards to several different fields and the parties have yet to draft the permanent agreement.

However, Israel has voiced concern that the powers are willing to let Iran retain its enrichment capability beyond the minimum required for peaceful uses.

Israel insists that the agreement should strive for a “zero enrichment” option – and that if Iran is allowed to enrich uranium, it can only be at low levels of 3.5%, as to prolong the time it would take the country to produce a nuclear bomb from months to years.

Israel will also clarify to the Americans that the agreement must be based on the model of disarmament that will be implemented both in the case of Iran and in the case of Syria, rather than the proposed monitoring model. Israeli sources further believe that the agreement should also refer to Iran’s missile program.

Israel maintains a dialogue with the world powers, particularly with the Americans, the French, the British and the Germans.

Several days ago, Britain’s lead negotiator in talks on Iran’s nuclear program Simon Gass met with Steinitz.

The Intelligence Minister also spoke recently with France and England’s chief nuclear negotiators. Steinitz said on Saturday that “the fact that the Americans were willing to meet with the Israeli delegation on such a short notice is deeply appreciated.”

The world powers and Iran agreed to reach a permanent agreement July 20, but Israel estimates that the talks will be prolonged by several weeks. At the same time, Israeli officials believe that the Americans are determined to reach an agreement.

IDF preparing for possible Gaza offensive – Israel News, Ynetnews.

Armored brigades have been instructed to prepare for the possibility of being transferred to the Gaza Division, while the Air Force has deployed additional Iron Dome batteries.

Yoav Zitun

The IDF is preparing for a possible significant offensive in Gaza, a year and a half after Operation Pillar of Defense. Armored Corps brigades have been instructed to prepare for the possibility of being transferred to the Gaza Division, while the Air Force has deployed additional Iron Dome batteries.

More than 40 rockets were fired from the Gaza Strip at Israel since the beginning of Operation Brother’s Keeper to find three Israeli teenagers who have been abducted some two weeks ago. 24 of them fell inside Israel, out of which 11 were fired over the weekend. The Iron Dome missile defense system intercepted seven of the rockets.

The IDF believes the success of the Hamas terror cell in Hebron in heating up the Strip as well, encouraging rouge terror groups to open a second front against Israel.

The IAF attacked three hidden rocket launchers in the central Gaza Strip on Saturday night in response to four rockets fired at southern Israel, one of them hitting a factory that caught fire and was burned to the ground.

The military wing of the Popular Resistance Committees took responsibility for the rocket fire, saying it was a response to the IAF’s targeted killing of two of its operatives on Friday.

The army was expected to continue responding to the rocket fire throughout the night.

So far, the IAF has struck some 30 terror targets, mostly identified with Islamic Jihad or Hamas, the latter Israel sees as responsible for everything that happens in the Strip.

Despite the fact the past two weeks have seen the most rockets fired from the Strip since Operation Pillar of Defense, rocket fire has yet to reached beyond the Gaza border communities. Ashdod and Beersheba have not yet been hit, and Hamas is careful not to join the rocket launching.

Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon spoke to Sderot Mayor Alon Davidi on Saturday night after a rocket hit a factory in the city.

Ya’alon told Davidi that the IDF was “working to restore the calm to the south of Israel. We will not tolerate attempts by terror organizations in the Strip to disrupt the daily lives of the South’s residents. As we have done in the past few days, we will continue acting with a heavy hand and attack terror elements firing at Israel, and strike them with a painful blow.”

The defense minister added that “at these very moments, the IDF and security forces are working, and will continue to chase and catch terror elements that are trying to hurt us. You, the mayors of cities and regional councils, are showing true leadership and responsibility in situations like these. The residents, who unfortunately have a lot of experience with these kinds of events, are also showing responsibility and a strong stance. You allow us to do our best to restore the calm to the area.

Desperately seeking moderate Syrian rebels, Long War Journal, Lisa Lundquist, June 28, 2014

As the most powerful of the Islamic Front’s constituencies, Ahrar al Sham would likely be free to take any supplies it wanted from those given to other factions within the Islamic Front.

[I]f you have been following the war in Syria closely, you probably . . . recognize that indeed, there are no significant independent, moderate fighting groups in Syria to support at present. Those that do exist must coexist with the prevailing Islamist forces, with all that entails.

Following the news that the Obama administration, in a sudden about-face, is asking Congress for $500 million to train and equip “vetted” members of the “moderate” Syrian opposition, The Associated Press yesterday published a list, headlined “Syrian rebels likely to receive US aid.” The list raises more questions than it answers — two of the listed groups have been designated by the US as terrorist organizations.

The five groups listed as potential recipients of the additional US military aid are, in the order in which they appear: the Free Syrian Army’s Supreme Military Council; breakaway factions such as Harakat Hazm, the Syrian Revolutionaries Front led by Jamal Maarouf a. k.a. Abu Khaled, and the Islamic Army headed by Zahran Alloush; the Islamic Front; the Al Nusrah Front; and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Sham (ISIS).

We can breathe a sigh of relief as at least, according to the AP article, the US won’t be giving the aid to Al Nusrah, or, although the article doesn’t expressly say so, to the ISIS. But that relief is short-lived if you look at the rest of the list.

The Free Syrian Army has been in considerable disarray for months, and yesterday The Telegraph reported that Syrian National Coalition head Ahmad Tomeh announced that the SNC has “decided to disband the Supreme Military Council and refer its members to the government’s financial and administration committee for investigation.” Brigadier General Abdelilah al-Bashir, the FSA’s chief-of-staff, has been sacked, and the SNC has called for its “revolutionary forces on the ground” to thoroughly revamp the FSA’s command structure.

As for breakaway groups such as Harakat Hazm, Syrian Revolutionaries Front, and Islamic Army, all of which are fairly recent creations arguably established in part to put a more “moderate” face on the Syrian rebels, there is no evidence that they can be relied upon to operate independently of, or avoid sharing arms and supplies with, the hardcore Islamist forces that dominate the rebel ranks on the battlefields.

And there is evidence to the contrary. The Harakat Hazm works with the Syrian Revolutionaries Front, whose leader, Jamal Marouf, has admitted to sharing weapons with Al Nusrah and said that fighting al Qaeda is “not our problem.” [See LWJ report, The shadowy flow of US weapons into Syria, and Threat Matrix report, Chief of Syrian Revolutionaries Front says al Qaeda is ‘not our problem.’] Zahran Alloush, a Salafist leader in the Islamic Front whose forces have flown the black flag of al Qaeda, is not known as a moderate. His Army of Islam faction participated with Al Nusrah in the sectarian attack on Adra in December, in which as many as 40 civilians were massacred.

And finally, with regard to the Islamic Front, described by AP as “an alliance of seven powerful conservative and ultraconservative rebel groups that merged in late November,” the article states that some of the aid could go to factions within the Islamic front, but likely “not to ultraconservative factions such as Ahrar al-Sham.”

The problem with wishful distinctions like this is that they ignore the realities on the ground. As the most powerful of the Islamic Front’s constituencies, Ahrar al Sham would likely be free to take any supplies it wanted from those given to other factions within the Islamic Front. And similarly, but in a larger sense, the battlefield alliances of the Islamic Front, which fights in all of Syria’s provinces, are both fluid and varied, embracing both FSA rebels and uncompromising Islamist fighters from groups such as Al Nusrah, with which it frequently partners. Indeed, the only group with which the Islamic Front seldom, if ever, collaborates is the ISIS.

Perhaps you read to the end of the AP article with the wistful hope that some other deserving groups might appear on a subsequent page. But that was the end of the list.

And if you have been following the war in Syria closely, you probably also recognize that indeed, there are no significant independent, moderate fighting groups in Syria to support at present. Those that do exist must coexist with the prevailing Islamist forces, with all that entails.