Here’s the most critical part of Iran’s nuclear program that nobody is talking about, Business Insider, Michael Eisenstadt, The Washington Institute For Near East Policy, July 7, 2015
(Please see also, Iran’s Rafsanjani Reiterates ‘Israel Will Be Wiped Off The Map.’ — DM)
Atta Kenare/AFP/Getty Images. Missiles are displayed during ‘Sacred Defense Week,’ to commemorate the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war. Photo taken on Sept. 28, 2014 at a park in northern Tehran.
Early in the P5+1 negotiations, US officials stated that “every issue,” including the missile program, would be on the table. In February 2014, however, Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Wendy Sherman stated, “If we are successful in assuring ourselves and the world community that Iran cannot obtain a nuclear weapon,” then that “makes delivery systems … almost irrelevant.”
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According to the latest reports stemming from the P5+1 talks, Iran is now insisting that UN sanctions on its ballistic missile program be lifted as part of a long-term nuclear accord.
In addition to further complicating already fraught negotiations, this development highlights the importance Tehran attaches to its missile arsenal, as well as the need to answer unresolved questions about possible links between its missile and nuclear programs.
Iran is believed to have the largest strategic missile force in the Middle East, producing short- and medium-range ballistic missiles, a long-range cruise missile, and long-range rockets. Although all of its missiles are conventionally armed at present, its medium-range ballistic missiles could deliver a nuclear weapon if Iran were to build such a device.
Early in the P5+1 negotiations, US officials stated that “every issue,” including the missile program, would be on the table. In February 2014, however, Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Wendy Sherman stated, “If we are successful in assuring ourselves and the world community that Iran cannot obtain a nuclear weapon,” then that “makes delivery systems … almost irrelevant.”
Yet many observers remain concerned that personnel and facilities tied to Iran’s missile program were, and may still be, engaged in work related to possible military dimensions (PMD) of the nuclear program. These concerns underscore the need to effectively address the missile issue as part of the UN Security Council resolution that will backstop the long-term nuclear accord now being negotiated, if it will not be dealt with in the accord itself.
Estimated Range of Iranian Long-Range Missile Forces
Deterrence, warfighting, and propaganda
The Iran-Iraq War convinced Tehran that a strong missile force is critical to the country’s security, and it has given the highest priority to procuring and developing various types of missiles and rockets. Missiles played an important role throughout that war and a decisive role in its denouement.
During the February-April 1988 “War of the Cities,” Iraq was able to hit Tehran with extended-range missiles for the first time. Iranian morale was devastated: more than a quarter of Tehran’s population fled the city, contributing to the leadership’s decision to end the war.
Since then, missiles have been central to Iran’s “way of war,” which emphasizes the need to avoid or deter conventional conflict while advancing its anti-status quo agenda via proxy operations and propaganda activities.
Iran’s deterrence triad rests on its ability to (1) threaten navigation through the Strait of Hormuz, (2) undertake terrorist attacks on multiple continents, and (3) conduct long-range strikes, primarily by missiles (or with rockets owned by proxies such as Hezbollah).
REUTERS/Fars News/Hamed Jafarnejad. Iranian military personnel participate in the Velayat-90 war game in unknown location near the Strait of Hormuz in southern Iran December 30, 2011.
Yet the first two options carry limitations.
Closing the strait would be a last resort because nearly all of Iran’s oil exports go through it and Tehran’s ability to wage terror has atrophied in recent years (as demonstrated by a series of bungled attacks on Israeli targets in February 2012). Therefore, Iran’s missile force is the backbone of its strategic deterrent.
Missiles enable Iran to mass fires against civilian population centers and undermine enemy morale. If their accuracy increases in the future, they could further stress enemy defenses (as every incoming missile would have to be intercepted) and enable Iran to target military facilities and critical infrastructure.
Although terrorist attacks afford a degree of standoff and deniability, missiles permit a quicker, more flexible response in a rapidly moving crisis — for example, after an initial series of preplanned terrorist attacks, Tehran or its proxies might need weeks to organize follow-on operations. Missile salvos can also generate greater cumulative effects in a shorter period than terrorist attacks.
Indeed, missiles are ideally suited to Iran’s “resistance doctrine,” which states that achieving victory entails demoralizing one’s enemies by bleeding their civilian population and denying them success on the battlefield. In this context, rockets are as important as missiles, since they yield the same psychological effect on the targeted population.
The manner in which Hezbollah and Hamas used rockets in their recent wars with Israel provides a useful template for understanding the role of conventionally armed missiles in Iran’s warfighting doctrine.
Israel Defense Forces via Wikimedia Commons. An apartment building in the town of Kiryat Malachi, damaged as a result of rockets fired from Hamas.
Missiles are also Iran’s most potent psychological weapon. They are a central fixture of just about every regime military parade, frequently dressed with banners calling for “death to America” and declaring that “Israel should be wiped off the map.”
They are used as symbols of Iran’s growing military power and reach. And as the delivery system of choice for nuclear weapons states, they are a key element of Iran’s nascent doctrine of nuclear ambiguity and its attempts at “nuclear intimidation without the bomb.”
Finally, while most nuclear weapons states created their missile forces years after joining the “nuclear club” (due to the significant R&D challenges involved), Iran will already have a sophisticated missile force and infrastructure in place if or when it opts to go that route.
This ensures that a nuclear breakout would produce a dramatic and rapid transformation in Iran’s military stature and capabilities.
Iran’s missle force
Iran has a large, capable missile force, with a likely inventory of more than 800 short- and medium-range ballistic missiles.
These include single-stage liquid-fuel missiles such as the Shahab-1 (300 km range), Shahab-2 (500 km), Qiam (500-750 km), Shahab-3 (1,000-1,300 km), and Qadr (1,500-2,000 km).
Nearly all of them can reach US military targets in the Persian Gulf, and the latter two can reach Israel. These missiles, which include several subvariants, are believed to be conventionally armed with unitary high-explosive or submunition (cluster) warheads.
Khalij Fars missile on a transporter.
Additionally, Iran has tested a two-stage solid-fuel missile, the Sejjil-2, whose range of over 2,000 km would allow it to target southeastern Europe — though it is apparently still not operational. In a June 28, 2011, press statement, Tehran claimed that it was capping the range of its missiles at 2,000 km (sufficient to reach Israel but not Western Europe), implicitly eschewing the development of intercontinental ballistic missiles in a presumed bid to deflect US and European concerns.
Yet its Safir launch vehicle, which has put four satellites into orbit since 2009, could provide the experience and knowhow needed to build an ICBM. (According to a May 2010 report by the International Institute for Strategic Studies, the Safir struggled to put a very small satellite into low-earth orbit and has probably reached the outer limits of its performance envelope, so it could not serve as an ICBM itself.) In 2010, Iran displayed a mockup of a larger two-stage satellite launch vehicle, the Simorgh, which it has not yet flown.
Tehran has also claimed an antiship ballistic missile capability that it probably intends for potential use against U.S. aircraft carriers: the Khalij-e Fars and its derivatives, the Hormuz-1/2, each with a claimed range of 300 km. Yet it is not clear that these systems are sufficiently accurate or effective to pose a credible threat to U.S. surface elements in the Gulf.
In addition, Iran recently unveiled the Soumar land-attack cruise missile, which is reportedly a reverse-engineered version of the Russian Raduga Kh-55. It has a claimed range of 2,500-3,000 km, though it may not be operational yet.
The Kh-55 was the Soviet air force’s primary nuclear delivery system.
Iran also fields a very large number of rockets, including the Noor 122 mm (with a range of 20 km), the Fajr-3 and -5 (45 and 75 km), and the Zelzal-1, -2, and -3 (with claimed ranges of 125 to 400 km). During the Iran-Iraq War, rockets played a major role in bombarding Iraqi cities along the border, and they are central to the “way of war” of Iranian proxies and allies such as Hezbollah and Hamas.
Tehran has built this massive inventory so that it can saturate and thereby overwhelm enemy missile defenses in any conflict. It would likely use such tactics whether its missile force remains conventional or becomes nuclear-armed, since conventional missiles could serve as decoys that enable nuclear missiles to penetrate defenses. Numbers would also enable Iran to achieve cumulative strategic effects on enemy morale and staying power by conventional means.
AP Photo/Iranian Defense Ministry. To outwork missile defense systems, Iran would use a high volume of missiles.
Finally, many of Iran’s missiles are mounted on mobile launchers, and a growing number are based in silo fields located mainly in the northwest and toward the frontier with Iraq.
This mix of launch options is likely intended to impede preemptive enemy targeting of its missile force. The resources invested in this effort are unprecedented for a conventionally armed force, which indicates that at least some of these missiles would likely be nuclear armed if Iran eventually goes that route.
Nuclear connections
In the annex of a November 8, 2011, report regarding the nuclear program’s possible military dimensions, the International Atomic Energy Agency said it possessed credible information and documents connecting Iran’s missile and nuclear programs. These indicated that, prior to the end of 2003, Iran had:
Moreover, in 2004, Iran began deploying triconic (or “stepped”) RVs — a design almost exclusively associated with nuclear missiles — on its Shahab variants.
Some experts (including Uzi Rubin and Michael Elleman) believe that Iran may have deployed the triconic RV to enhance the stability and thus the accuracy of its conventional warheads, and perhaps to achieve higher terminal velocities that could reduce reaction time for missile defenses.
But if Iran were able to build a miniaturized nuclear device, its experience in designing, testing, and operating missiles with triconic RVs could expedite deployment of this weapon. Indeed, David Albright claimed in his 2010 book Peddling Peril that members of the A. Q. Khan nuclear smuggling network possessed plans for smaller, more advanced nuclear weapon designs that might have found their way to Iran, though most experts doubt the regime’s ability to build such a compact device at this time.
Desmond Boylan/Reuter
Could Iran have smuggled in a nuclear bomb?
These reports underscore why Washington and its partners must insist that Tehran respond to the IAEA’s questions about past engineering studies, design work, tests, and other elements of the PMD file prior to the lifting of sanctions.
They also highlight the need for a UN Security Council resolution (as called for in the Lausanne parameters) that would impose limitations on Iran’s missile R&D work and threaten real consequences for those who assist Iran’s missile program.
Failure to do so would signal tacit acceptance of activities that could enable Iran to deploy its first nuclear weapon atop a medium-range missile — an achievement that took most nuclear weapons states, including the United States and Soviet Union, about a decade to accomplish.
This development would in turn magnify the destabilizing impact of an Iranian breakout, while incentivizing other regional states to either take preventive action or move toward nuclear capabilities of their own before Iran crosses that threshold.
The No Deal Deal
Here’s why…
by Michael Ledeen
via The No Deal Deal | Faster, Please!.
I don’t want to be the sole bearer of bad news for Ben Rhodes and his fellow gurus, but here it is: the Iranians at Vienna won’t sign anything, per their instructions from Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.
Full credit for this diplomatic accomplishment goes to President Obama, Secretary of State Kerry, Guru Rhodes and the rest of the administration strategists. Their constant offer of more–more money, more gold, more limits on annoying inspections, more cooperation in the air and on the ground with Iranian forces, etcetera etcetera–solidified Khamenei’s conviction that there is no reason for him to approve a hated deal with the devil. It’s much better to keep talking until all the sanctions are gone, and Iran’s “right” to pursue its nuclear projects is fully recognized.
Keep reminding yourself that Khamenei has two fixed principles: no “new relationship” with the Great Satan, and relentless pursuit of the atomic bomb.
Obama/Kerry/Rhodes won’t take “no” for a definitive answer, so we’re probably going to see a new form of creative appeasement. Short version: It will be a “no deal deal.” Iran promises to try really really hard to be nice and we pay for it. Everyone agrees to commit to a “real” agreement by the end of the year. Iran gets money–the continuation of the monthly payoff, and under-the-table arrangements like the gold shipment the South Africans delivered to Khamenei–and we get smiles.
There is no deal, per se–nobody signs anything–but we get the worst of it any how. If John Kerry thinks that’s enough for a Nobel Peace Prize, he’s got an even lower opinion of the judgment of the Oslo crowd than I do. And he may be right. Chamberlain was widely praised as a great peacemaker for a while, and Carter was greatly admired when he proclaimed we had given up our “inordinate fear of Communism.” And we’ll keep talking, won’t we? And Obama just reiterated–at the Pentagon no less–that guns don’t defeat ideologies, only good ideas do.
If I were a Pentagon official and I heard the president say that, I’d have resigned on the spot.
There are some interesting political consequences to the “no deal deal,” and if I have it right, our Congressional warriors seem to have been mooted. They voted themselves the right to be heard on any Iran deal, but does that apply to this arrangement? Are they entitled to insist that current sanctions be vigorously enforced? The White House doesn’t want any such thing, since that would throw a real spanner into the works of the various payoffs to Tehran. The “international community” doesn’t much want that either; we’ve read a lot about “Western” businessmen/government officials lining up at the entrances to Persian bazaars. Some of them will press on. That includes our own wheelers. I am told that Iran’s fleet of Boeing jets–you know, the “civilian” aircraft that had been grounded for decades–have been refurbished.
What will Corker/Menendez et al do? Kredo has reported that the White House is whipping the Dems into a pliable herd to ensure Congress can’t/won’t stop the appeasement of the evil murderers around Ali Khamenei. If they succed, as any serious gambler would wage, then the Islamic Republic will continue to slaughter Syrians, Kurds, Yeminis, Saudis…you know the list…until they finally get on with the mission assigned them by the 12th Imam: destroy us.
If the next president is paying attention, he/she will take names, and campaign against the appeasers. Then fire all those pathetic “military leaders” who stood at attention as Obama proclaimed them irrelevant to the great global war of our time.
Dr. Khalid Alnowaiser (Yep, an Arab) Published — Saturday 28 May 2011 (Many years ago) Via Arab News
The easy way out. [Source: Unknown]
(Pardon me while I release a little steam. – LS)
We are still the prisoners of a culture of conspiracy and inferiority.
I AM a proud and loyal Saudi citizen, but I am tired of hearing constant criticism from most Arabs of everything the United States does in its relations with other countries and how it responds to global crises. No nation is perfect, and certainly America has made its share of mistakes such as Vietnam, Cuba and Iraq. I am fully aware of what happened when the atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the unprecedented abuses at Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib. However, what would we do if America simply disappeared from the face of the earth such as what happened to the Soviet Union and ancient superpowers like the Roman and Greek empires? These concerns keep me up day and night. It’s frustrating to hear this constant drumbeat of blame directed toward the United States for everything that is going wrong in the world. Who else do we think of to blame for our problems and failures? Do we take personal responsibility for the great issues that affect the security and prosperity of Arab countries? No, we look to America for leadership and then sit back and blame it when we don’t approve of the actions and solutions it proposes or takes.
For instance, if a dictator seizes and holds power such as Egypt’s Mubarak and Libya’s Qaddafi, fingers are pointed only at America for supporting these repressive leaders. If the people overthrow a dictator, fingers are pointed at America for not having done enough to support the protestors. If a nation fails to provide its people with minimum living standards, fingers are pointed at America. If a child dies in an African jungle, America is criticized for not providing necessary aid. If someone somewhere sneezes, fingers are pointed at America. Many other examples exist, too numerous to mention.
I am not pro-American nor am I anti-Arab, but I am worried that unless we wake up, the Arab world will never break out of this vicious and unproductive cycle of blaming America. We must face the truth: Sadly, we are still the prisoners of a culture of conspiracy and cultural inferiority. We have laid the blame on America for all our mistakes, for every failure, for every harm or damage we cause to ourselves. The US has become our scapegoat upon whom our aggression and failures can be placed. We accuse America of interfering in all our affairs and deciding our fate, although we know very well that this is not the case as no superpower can impose its will upon us and control every aspect of our lives. We must acknowledge that every nation, no matter how powerful, has its limitations.
Moreover, we conveniently forget that America’s role is one of national self-interest, not to act as a Mother Teresa. Every great nation throughout history has used its power and gained ascendancy in order to serve its own strategic interests. America is not just its foreign policy. We must not forget who promoted education and respected learning, who took on research as a way to discovery, who made the airplane that carries us to our destination and the luxurious car we want to own, who created the Internet and developed social media that has transformed the way we do business and interact with one another, who conducted the scientific research that has saved lives and treated cancer, renal failure, AIDS, malaria, poliomyelitis, and who discovered genetic engineering. When man walked on the Moon, it was an American. Who did Japan turn to for help after the devastating earthquake and tsunami? America that led and organized the international relief effort of the Red Cross. Who do people turn to for support when their leaders seek to brutalize them? Who organized NATO air cover and saved the Libyan city of Benghazi from certain destruction by Qaddafi’s brutal armed forces?
Anyone who is a student of history knows that America is simply doing what all other civilizations before it have done for thousands of years, which is to protect and further its own self-interest. The Greek civilization could not have lasted had it not served its own interests, and the same applies to the Persian, Roman, and Chinese civilizations. All of these civilizations put their own welfare before all others, and by doing so, they strived to achieve great things. The truth is that no nation can ever become great without understanding this reality. Indeed, the Islamic civilization has been through horrible and cruel phases. Hideous events that send goose bumps up one’s spine can be extracted from Islamic history, such as that of As-Saffah (The Shedder of Blood), founder of the Abbasid Caliphate, who took out the remains of the caliphs of Bani Umayyah, one after the other, but found nothing but the tip of a nose from the remains of Hisham Bin Abdul Malak. He took him out and whipped him. He then crucified and burned him and sprinkled his ashes in the wind, without mercy, oblivious to any religious or moral restraints.
There are many other similar examples. But does this mean that Islam is unholy? Of course not. Does this imply that Islamic civilization only had Saffahs? Absolutely not. Islamic civilization has given the world brilliant examples in the areas of art and education and promoted a culture of forgiveness, peace and love. However, today, we as people, not Islam, are in desperate need of an intellectual earthquake, a cultural tsunami to get us back on track, to revive Islam’s cultural intellect and combat our undeniable inferiority complex.
The Holy Qur’an states Allah will not change the condition of a people until they change what is in themselves. He has the power to change them, but He prefers that they change with their own will power which He respects.
What we are seeing now in the Arab streets is a new hope and a step forward to change what is in ourselves. I remain very optimistic because we have now begun to realize that simply blaming the United States for our problems will not help us progress toward great personal freedoms. Our enemy is not America but an inferiority complex from which I am sure the Arab world with its rich culture and history will eventually recover.
— Dr. Khalid Alnowaiser is a columnist and a Saudi attorney with offices in Riyadh and Jeddah. He can be reached at: Khalid@lfkan.com and/or Twitter (kalnowaiser).
Israel’s ISIS Option
Why an ISIS Gaza might help end terrorism.
July 7, 2015
Daniel Greenfield
via Israel’s ISIS Option | Frontpage Mag.
Daniel Greenfield, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the Freedom Center, is a New York writer focusing on radical Islam.
Long after the PLO had outlived its role as an even halfway plausible peace partner; Israel was forced to keep the terrorist group on life support as a bulwark against Hamas.
PLO leaders posture about having the UN declare a state, but not only would that state instantly be more bankrupt than ten Greek economies piled on top of each other, but its collection of terrorists who are great at running drugs and shaking down West Bank storekeepers for protection money would last all of 5 seconds in a grudge match with Hamas.
We know that last one is true because that was how it went when the PLO tried to take on Hamas in Gaza. The PLO had American weapons, training and support. Its illegal military slash police force had been nurtured by the United States and the European Union. They still lost fast and they lost hard.
The PLO’s crack troops, who were experts at sniper attacks on Jewish babies or drive-by attacks on Israeli families headed home from weddings, ran away faster than an Iraqi army division.
The billion dollars in security assistance lavished on the Palestinian Authority forces bought nothing except panicking PLO terrorists fleeing Gaza; some of whom had to be evacuated by Israel. That year, the US had promised around $50 million in security assistance to PLO boss Abbas’ 4,700 member elite “presidential guard”. $3 million was to be sent to terror boss Mohammed Dahlan who has been accused of trying to undermine Hamas by funding Al Qaeda groups in Gaza. Those groups are now turning to ISIS.
By trying to find moderate Islamic terrorists to fight extreme Islamic terrorists, the US helped create ISIS in Gaza. The second best way to stop Islamic terrorism is to stop supporting moderate terrorists.
The PLO pretended to run the first Palestinian state in the West Bank while disavowing such legal niceties as elections and Hamas ran its second Palestinian state in Gaza. Despite all the PLO’s rants about Israel, if Israel ever stepped aside, Hamas could take the West Bank with a few hundred gunmen. The PLO has gambled all along that Israel would never actually let Hamas win.
The PLO was the only alternative to Hamas. And Hamas’ terrorists were the real “extremists”.
Now with the rise of ISIS, Hamas is being passed off as the bulwark against the Islamic State and Iran. The old extremists are the new moderates. The Saudis and Egypt want to polish up Hamas, put it on a shelf and offer it a lot of goodies in exchange for cutting its ties with Iran. Israel is supposed to go along.
Hamas is committed to wiping out the Jews and taking over Egypt, but for the moment it’s a cheap way to keep ISIS out of Gaza. Just like the PLO was supposed to keep Hamas out of Gaza.
And even those who know better will mumble, ”What’s the alternative?” No one wants ISIS taking over Gaza do they? Just think, if ISIS controlled Gaza, it might fire rockets into major Israeli cities and drag opponents around main streets face down tethered to motorcycles.
You know, the sorts of things that Hamas does.
If Hamas, a genocidal terrorist group that is part of the Muslim Brotherhood’s world terror network bent on global conquest, is a reasonable moderate alternative to ISIS, then can’t ISIS one day come to seem like a reasonable alternative to some even more horrifying Islamic terror group?
ISIS is a chip of the old block of the Al Qaeda network and Al Qaeda is a splinter group of the Muslim Brotherhood.
A splinter group of ISIS that will be even more dementedly vicious than it is an almost certain development. One day we’ll look back on its beheadings, drowning and auto-da-fés as relics of a simpler time before terrorists from SuperDuperJihad or IslamAwayAllInfidels weren’t engaging in ritual cannibalism and child rape on camera. And that ISIS state in the Sinai will be considered moderate.
It’s not clear that the Islamic State taking over Gaza would be any worse for Israel. It might even be a good deal better if Gaza were run by an Islamic terrorist group that couldn’t count on weapons from Iran and support from the Democratic Party’s Code Pink donors. Even they might actually draw the line at ISIS, if only because the Free Gaza activists would be beheaded as soon as their boat landed.
Protecting the PLO from Hamas has improved Israel’s security situation in the short term, while worsening its overall situation in the long term as the PLO and Hamas trade off diplomatic and terrorist attacks. Protecting Hamas from ISIS would be an even bigger disaster. If this madness goes on, Israel will have to protect ISIS from SuperDuperJihad while absorbing terrorist attacks from the greater and lesser evils.
The Israeli strategy after the collapse of Oslo was to prove that the PLO does not want peace. That strategy has failed for the same reason that politicians won’t stop calling Islam the religion of peace or insisting that ISIS is un-Islamic. It’s easier to simplify and ‘niceify’ problems than to deal with reality.
Believing that you can prove a point to anyone using reason and logic is a notorious Jewish weakness. In the Talmud any issue can be resolved using a complex set of proofs. In real life most issues are resolved with fait accomplis. In one of the first diplomatic exchanges, the biblical judge Jephthah dispatched a missive to the King of Ammon laying out a claim to the land based on history, religion and logic tying reason and emotion together into an irrefutable argument. The King of Ammon invaded anyway.
If American liberals have a weakness for wishful thinking, Netanyahu has a weakness for reasoned argument. These arguments will fail because they lack the seductiveness of Obama’s promises.
The current efforts at drawing Hamas into some sort of anti-ISIS and anti-Iran coalition may be in the interests of the Saudis and Egypt, but they are not in Israel’s interests. And despite the unbridled enthusiasm among some in the pro-Israel camp over these new ties, both countries continue to consider Israel a useful enemy. This is the same old attitude that they have had before.
Israelis should know by now better than anyone else that Islamic terrorists cannot be defanged.
The Islamic State is a threat to Israel, but less so than Hamas or the PLO. ISIS is an opportunity because it is undisguised Islamic terrorism. ISIS not only refuses to deal with Israel, but with any of the enablers of Hamas and PLO terrorism in Europe and America. Whatever strengths it has, it is incapable of exploiting the greatest strategic weakness of its enemies for appeasement.
If ISIS were to take over Gaza, Israel would have no choice except to fight it. And no one in the world would be able to offer any other options. There would be no last minute diplomatic rescues for ISIS, the way that there were for Hamas and the PLO. Israel would not be forced to tolerate the bombing of its cities due to worthless accords rammed through by Washington D.C. and Cairo.
The destabilization of the Middle East threatens the rest of the region far more than it does Israel. The unweaving of tribal and religious ties among Muslims can’t take down Israel the way that it could Egypt, Syria and Jordan. While having terrorists on every border would be a serious threat, every one of Israel’s neighbors has already been providing sanctuary to terrorists targeting Israel.
If they want Israel’s help keeping ISIS away, then instead of letting them aid Hamas, Israel should make ending their support for terrorism into the price for its aid.
If they want secure borders, Israel should be able to expect secure borders in return.
Israel has spent too long protecting the PLO and Jordan from their neighbors. Expecting it to protect Hamas from ISIS is simply insane. It might be time for Israel to step back and let the natural course of terrorism have its way. The end result will be ugly, but it will end Israel’s obligation to nurture its foes.
The Jewish State has tried its best to find a middle ground that works. It’s time to let the “moderate” terrorists and their foreign appeasers live with the consequences of their terrorism.
When reason can’t win the argument, reality eventually wins the debate.
Israel merges IDF elite units to form the new Commando Brigade tailored to combat ISIS, DEBKAfile, July 7, 2015
Israel Special Operations Forces
The new Commando Brigade is designed for quiet, bold, covert and effective action against terrorist groups posing a threat from the Sinai Desert to Egyptian sovereignty and Israel’s southern border. Such action would be coordinated closely between Israeli and Egyptian military and intelligence arms.
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While US president Barack Obama coined his approach to the struggle against the Islamic State with the words: “Ideologies are not defeated by guns. They’re defeated with better ideas.” – Israel and its military leaders are taking no chances against a declared enemy.
Last Friday, July 3, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant’s Sinai branch fired three Grad missiles across the border into the Israeli Eshkol district, while it was in mid-offensive against the Egyptian army in North Sinai. Large parts of southern Israel next door had already been declared closed military areas in consequence of that offensive.
ISIS and its affiliates, while currently preoccupied with snatching up territory from countries neighboring Israel, make no secret of their intention, confirmed by military intelligence, to reach Israel’s northern, eastern and southern borders before long.
Monday, July 6, IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Gady Eisenkott unveiled Israel’s answer to the coming challenge. It is a unique, multi-purpose commando ground force, especially tailored to fight ISIS and provide the “boots on the ground” which the US-led coalition has kept back from the Islamists’ constantly expanding warfront.
It will be trained and armed for extraordinary missions outside routine military tasks.
The revelation was something of a wake-up call for the general Israeli population. The new force’s short term tasks are to guard southern and northern Israel against hostile rocket fire and attempts by Islamist groups riding captured armored carriers to storm the border. This happened once before on Aug. 6, 2012, when Ansar Beit Al-Maqdis Islamists (who later joined ISIS) broke through the Egyptian-Israeli Kerem Shalom border crossing from Sinai. Their APCs had driven almost up to a military base before they were wiped out by Israeli warplanes.
The new Commando Brigade is designed for quiet, bold, covert and effective action against terrorist groups posing a threat from the Sinai Desert to Egyptian sovereignty and Israel’s southern border. Such action would be coordinated closely between Israeli and Egyptian military and intelligence arms.
Similar operations would also be staged if necessary from Israel’s northern border – against Hizballah or any threat from Syria.
The new outfit brings together the different skills and the high, focused fire power rendered by the four elite units’ assorted weaponry. In this sense, these units, all highly adept in different aspects of covert and stealth operations deep behind enemy lines, complement one another. This amalgam that may be loosely likened to a unique combination of US Delta, Seals, Rangers, and airborne commandoes all rolled in one.
The elite units merged into the new commando brigade are:
1. Meglan, which specializes in destroying enemy systems with the accent on armored units. Its members are equipped with intelligence technology for gathering data and its transmission in real time.
2. Duvdevan‘s tasks are to liquidate targeted terrorists and round up suspects. Its members operate under cover by blending into a hostile population in disguise. They are trained for single combat in the heart of enemy terrain.
3. Egoz commandos employ guerilla tactics borrowed from the books of terrorist organizations.
4. Rimon commandos also blend into a hostile population disguised as locals for the purpose of spotting and foiling terrorist operations in difficult and complex areas.
The commander of the new combined brigade is Col. David Zinni who defers to the 98th (Esh) Division.
Gen. Eisenkott has brought the four elite units together from the Paratroops, Golani and Givati brigades, among which they were formerly distributed. His action capped the reassessment of the IDF’s war doctrine which he found essential for dealing with the new volatile and constantly moving enemy.
The four elite units in combination offer a synergetic combination. They will train together in air, sea and tactics for missions to meet unorthodox intelligence demands. They will also be set apart from the conventional military by their special weapons, secret high-tech equipment, and separate guidelines and logistics.
The swiftness of ISIS’s climb to highest ranks of Israel’s foes caused Gen. Eisenkott to override the most recent innovation of his predecessor, Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz: the Depth Command. The Commando Brigade has made the Depth Command redundant.
US: Iran nuclear talks extended to Friday
Officials confirms additional extension of talks with Iran in Vienna, says ‘substantial progress’ has been made; Mogherini: We interpret the deadline as ‘flexible.’
Reuters
Latest Update: 07.07.15, 15:41 / Israel
via US: Iran nuclear talks extended to Friday – Israel News, Ynetnews.
Iran and major powers will continue negotiations on an historic nuclear deal to Friday, July 10, past a deadline for a long-term agreement, which is set to expire later on Tuesday, State Department spokesperson Marie Harf confirmed.
Harf also said that talks had made “substantial progress. We’re frankly more concerned about the quality of the deal than we are about the clock, though we also know that difficult decisions won’t get any easier with time – that is why we are continuing to negotiate.”
Harf’s comments came just minutes after EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini announced, “We are continuing to negotiate for the next couple of days.”
The deal under discussion between Iran, Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia and the United States is aimed at curbing Tehran’s most sensitive nuclear work for a decade or more, in exchange for relief from sanctions that have slashed Iran’s oil exports and crippled its economy.
“We might see some ministers leaving in the next hours and then (be) ready to come back,” Mogherini said.
“We are interpreting in a flexible way our deadline, which means that we are taking the time, the days we still need, to finalize the agreement,” she said, adding that there remained several difficult issues to resolve.
The negotiators missed a June 30 deadline for a final agreement and then gave themselves until Tuesday.
| First Published: | 07.07.15, 15:01 |
Iran’s Expediency Council head says Israel, an “alien presence” will be “wiped off the map” some day.
By: Hana Levi Julian
Published: July 7th, 2015
via The Jewish Press » » Iran’s Rafsanjani Reiterates ‘Israel Will Be Wiped Off The Map’.
Once again, a top Iranian leader is speaking out and vowing the Jewish State will be obliterated. However, in the meantime the West makes a lot of money by taking advantage of its existence, he says.
“The presence of the Israeli regime is temporary,” Iranian Ayatollah Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani assured the Hezbollah-linked Al Ahd news website in an interview on Monday.
“Eventually one day this alien forged existence that has been forced into the body of an ancient nation and an historical region will be wiped off the map.”
Rafsanjani is a former ‘centrist’ Iranian president and is the current head of the country’s Expediency Discernment Council, the advisory body to Iran’s Supreme Leader. He is known to be a longtime friend of current President Hassan Rouhani.
Rafsanjani told the interviewer that “even Tel Aviv knows well that Iran is not after acquiring nuclear weapons,” the Iranian state news service IRNA reported.
However, he said, by preventing an accord between Iran and the West, “the Zionists wish to keep Iran engaged in problems permanently, knowing that the Islamic Republic’s political, economic, cultural and propagation status will all improve after such an agreement.”
Rafsanjani said he believes that one day “the forged and temporary Israeli entity, which is an alien existence forged into the body of a nation and region,” will be “wiped off the map.
“Now when, and how that will happen, depends on the conditions which are rapidly changing. Those conditions can be provided very soon if the usefulness period of Israel will expire,” he said. “It might as well take very long, as both Israel and its supporters are trying their best to extend its existence period till a very remote future.”
He also said, however, that because Israel is a “multipurpose stronghold” those who protect Israel can benefit greatly.
“Of course they spend a lot for protecting Israel, but they are still gaining greater benefits from its existence. One way to be benefited from Israel is that the West is selling arms to the Arab world on that pretext very easily, and pretending it is doing them a great favor,” he said.
Obama to Pentagon: We can’t defeat ISIS w/guns, Front Page Magazine, Daniel Greenfield, July 6, 2015
How can we possibly stop this man with a mere gun?
The Failure-in-Chief would like to remind all the people at the Pentagon that what they’re doing is hopeless because guns don’t work. Guns are bad. We all know the idea that it takes a good guy with a gun to stop a bad guy with a gun is crazy NRA propaganda.
We can’t win wars with guns either. Remember how we tried and failed to defeat the Nazis with guns, and the war didn’t stop until we appeased them? No war in history has ever been won with guns. Why should this one be any different.
On Monday afternoon, President Obama spoke at the Pentagon about the Islamic State, or ISIS, a terrorist organization in Syria and Iraq.
Obama stressed all elements of American power were going toward fighting the organization. “Altogether, ISIL has lost over a quarter of the populated areas it had seized in Iraq,” the President said, using an alternative name for the terrorist group. “ISIL’s strategic weaknesses are real.”
Obama said the terrorist organization is doing their best to recruit from “Muslim communities around the world.”
“In order for us to defeat terrorist groups like ISIL and al-Qaeda, we must discredit their ideology. This broader challenge of countering violent extremism,” Obama said. “Ideologies are not defeated with guns, they are defeated by better ideas. We will never be at war with Islam,” Obama added, stressing that ISIS distorts Islam.
To summarize, we’re defeating ISIS, it has strategic weaknesses, but we can’t possibly defeat it with icky guns. Instead we must make more hashtags. Foreign Policy really suggested that gay marriage can defeat ISIS. That’s a plan alright.
How much territory has ISIS lost due to hashtags? Not so much as an inch. ISIS is winning the war of ideas among Muslims. That doesn’t mean that it can’t be defeated militarily.
When the USSR cut a deal with Hitler, their useful idiots in America began claiming that Nazism was an “ism” and couldn’t be defeated by force. Then when their German boyfriend stabbed Uncle Joe in the back, they began shrilly demanding the use of force. And once America won the war, they spent the rest of the time claiming that Uncle Joe Stalin really won the war.
Nazism couldn’t be defeated with guns back when the Germans were massacring Jews and helping the USSR carve up its own piece of Eastern Europe. But when the Huns showed up in the homeland of Socialism, suddenly they discovered that guns worked really well on Nazis.
Somehow, I suspect that if ISIS were pounding targets that Obama really cared about and beheading people he cared about, suddenly all those bombing raids would involve actually striking ISIS no matter where they are and without worrying about the collateral damage.
All those many branches of the Federal government have their own SWAT teams because clearly liberals believe that enemies of the EPA or the FDA can be defeated with guns. They just don’t believe that ideologies like ISIS, which after all don’t really want a Caliphate, but are upset about our foreign policy, can be defeated with guns.
And that says it all.
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