WarSclerotic

Iran’s strategy may enable it to make an end-run around diplomatic and military actions which could stop it from developing nuclear weapons, two experts said on Sunday.

Three years after the Iran nuclear deal’s “Implementation Day,” former Israel Atomic Energy Official and current INSS expert as well as INSS Arms Control Director Emily Landau warned in a report that Tehran so far has been successful in sidestepping all attempts to fully halt its nuclear program.

“Empowered by ongoing efforts in the missile realm and diplomatic maneuvering to ensure that Trump is regarded as the outsider in his approach to Iran, Iran might yet prove successful in surviving the pressure campaign against it waged by the administration,” wrote the experts.

They said that, “If the present trends of ignoring Iran’s past activities in the nuclear realm persist, including the IAEA’s current unwillingness or inability to ascertain past and present nuclear activities, there will be severe repercussions.”

“At that point, it could be too late for any diplomatic or military actions to stop Iran from ultimately developing nuclear weapons and restoring a measure of stability to the Middle East,” they cautioned.

Questioned about why the window for a military strike could be thinner in the future then it is now, Landau told the Jerusalem Post that down-the-road, “breakout times for a weapon could really be shortened considerably.”

More specifically, she pointed out Iran’s continued experimentation with advanced centrifuges, which is even permitted under the deal.

She recalled that a substantial amount of time after the deal was already operating, it emerged that the International Atomic Energy Agency had made secret guarantees to the Islamic Republic that it could start significantly expanding its use of advanced centrifuges 11 years after the deal was inked.

Some say that a sufficient number of advanced centrifuges could drop Iran’s breakout time to a nuclear weapon from a year to a few months to even weeks.

Her biggest concern if Tehran’s time for developing a nuclear weapon got shortened would be that it could cross the nuclear finish line “clandestinely, especially if the world continues, other than the US administration with the overall sentiment of…this deal is working.”

“If that continues, it means that international actors are not working to stop this now, Iran could reach the stage where it could get there clandestinely because the world is not paying attention to what is going on,” she said.

She said that if Iran “already had nuclear weapons, then we don’t really have a military option. If the world was vigilant and everyone was watching Iran the way Israel is watching, there could be more room,” to catch any clandestine nuclear efforts by Tehran.

Exhibit A of the international community, the IAEA and arms control community’s lack of keeping guard on the issue is its giving Iran a pass on the nuclear archives that were removed by the Mossad from the heart of Tehran in January 2018.

The two experts listed off that Iran’s secret nuclear files mentioned “specific plans for developing five nuclear bombs…specific locations where Iran has been advancing its military nuclear program, and evidence that Iran lied to the IAEA.”

“Yet although it received this information, the IAEA has yet to inspect any of these facilities or confront Iran with the evidence of deceit,” wrote Asculai and Landau.

Landau also noted a report last week by the Institute for Science and International Security which said that, “according to senior Israeli officials interviewed in November 2018…Israel was unaware that” a site discovered in the secret files “was connected to the Amad [nuclear weapons] effort, until it saw these documents from the archive.”

The report said that “because this site was a production-scale facility, it reinforces the view that Iran is capable of building nuclear weapons more quickly than previously thought.”

They also leveled some criticism at the US saying that, “although it is the largest financial contributor to the IAEA…it has not as yet exerted its influence to bring about the necessary changes to IAEA activities and to improve its reporting culture since implementation of the JCPOA.”

Next, the report notes Iran’s recent test of a medium-range missile that can reach the entire Middle East and parts of Europe, and can carry a nuclear warhead.

The authors wrote that to avoid shaking the boat with Iran, the EU continues to “emphasize that Iran’s test is not a clear violation of UNSC resolution 2231, which only ‘calls upon’ Iran to cease such activities.

Many countries only started sounding the warning, she said, when Iran recently launched satellites, carrying out actions which could help it launch long-range missiles that could strike all of Europe and the US.

Islamic State militants are “living their final moments” in the last enclave they hold near the Iraqi border, where US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) are attacking them, an SDF official said on Sunday.

A defeat of the jihadists in the enclave would wipe out Islamic State’s territorial foothold on the eastern bank of the Euphrates River.

The SDF, a coalition of militias led by the Kurdish YPG, have driven Islamic State from a swathe of northern and eastern Syria with the help of the US-led coalition over the last four years.

Mustafa Bali, head of the SDF media office, said its fighters had stepped up attacks in the last two days and taken control of the area between the Islamic State enclave and the Iraqi border, cutting an escape route.

“They are living their final moments and realize that this battle is the battle to eliminate them,” he said.

US President Donald Trump last month announced he would withdraw US forces from Syria, declaring they had succeeded in their mission to defeat Islamic State and were no longer needed.

Since then, US officials have given mixed messages. On Friday, the US-led coalition said it had started the pullout, but officials later said it involved only equipment, not troops.

Colonel Sean Ryan, the coalition spokesman, said: “The SDF is making great progress and continues to liberate more territory once held by ISIS (Islamic State), but the fight continues.

“The lasting defeat of ISIS is still the mission and they still present a very real threat to the long-term stability in this region, so it is not over yet.”

The US decision has injected new uncertainty into the eight-year-old Syrian war and spurred a flurry of contacts over how the security vacuum will be filled in the swathe of northern and eastern Syria where the US forces are now stationed.

While Turkey aims to pursue the Kurdish forces allied with the United States, the Russia- and Iran-backed Syrian government sees a chance to recover extensive territory.

On Sunday, Trump said Turkey would suffer economically if it attacked the Kurds, but did not say how. He also said he did not want the Kurds to provoke Ankara.

“Starting the long overdue pullout from Syria while hitting the little remaining ISIS territorial caliphate hard, and from many directions. Will attack again from existing nearby base if it reforms,” Trump said on Twitter. “Will devastate Turkey economically if they hit Kurds. Create 20 mile safe zone … Likewise, do not want the Kurds to provoke Turkey.”

Russia, Iran and Syria had been the biggest beneficiaries of the long term US policy of destroying Islamic State in Syria, Trump said.

“We also benefit but it is now time to bring our troops back home. Stop the ENDLESS WARS!” he tweeted. It was not immediately clear what he meant by a 20-mile safe zone.

US national security adviser John Bolton suggested last week that protection for Washington’s Kurdish allies would be a precondition of the US withdrawal. Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan called those comments “a serious mistake”.

Islamic State still holds territory on the western bank of the Euphrates, between areas controlled by the Syrian government and its Russian and Iranian-backed allies.

Up until this weekend, the drill in Syria has been pretty predictable.

Explosions would be heard somewhere in Damascus, or in air bases or other locations throughout the country. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights would report a missile strike or other explosion. Accusatory fingers would naturally be pointed at Israel, and Jerusalem would remain quiet, neither confirming, nor denying.

In this way, the IDF hit scores of targets since escalating its campaign in Syria in 2017, when the Iranians seriously stepped up their involvement in the country. Outgoing Chief-of-Staff Lt.-Gen. Gadi Eisenkot said as much in an interview with the New York Times over the weekend, saying “we struck thousands of targets without claiming responsibility or asking for credit.”

Eisenkot’s admission to thousands of attacks, and his saying that in 2018 alone Israel dropped 2,000 bombs in Syria, represented a break in this policy of ambiguity.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu took this break to a further level on Sunday, telling the cabinet that over the last 36 hours the IAF hit an Iranian arms warehouse at the Damascus International Airport.

If Eisenkot spoke in general terms — perhaps interested in some credit before leaving his position — Netanyahu suddenly brought it down to the specifics. And although this was not the first time Israel has taken responsibility – it did so in September when attacks near Damascus led to Syria’s downing of a Russian intelligence plane – this was decidedly not ambiguity.

Why? What is to be gained?

Before answering, it is important to take careful note of Netanyahu’s exact words at the cabinet meeting.

“Just in the last 36 hours the air force attacked Iranian warehouses with Iranian weapons at the international airport in Damascus. The accumulated number of recent attacks proves that we are determined more than ever to act against Iran in Syria,” he said.

He was very specific. Israel did not attack Syrian positions, but rather Iranian warehouses with Iranian weapons. This was a message to Russia, who has an interest in the survival of Assad, that its actions were not aimed at Assad or at weakening him – Israel was not looking to harm Russian interests – but rather at the Iranians, whom Jerusalem has made clear it would not allow to entrench itself militarily inside Syria.

Netanyahu’s comments were made at a cabinet meeting when the government took leave of Eisenkot. He stressed that he and Eisenkot worked against varied threats in order to reinforce the country’s security.

“We worked with impressive success to block Iran’s military entrenchment in Syria,” he said, stressing the “we.”

“We worked together against the manufacture of precision weapons in Lebanon. We worked to dismantle Hezbollah’s tunnels weapon in Lebanon, in Operation Northern Shield. We took action against Hamas tunnels on the Gaza border. We thwarted hundreds of terrorist attacks in Judea and Samaria and we carried out many many other actions, open and covert.”

If the inclination of the public, reading and listening to Eisenkot’s parting interviews, was perhaps to credit him for the IDF’s impressive achievements, Netanyahu came along at the cabinet meeting and underlined that it was not Eisenkot, it was a team – it was ”we.”

This plays well into the hand of those who believe that Netanyahu’s breaking the policy of ambiguity is tied to the April 9 elections. Labor MK Ayelet Nahmias-Verbin, a member of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, championed this school of thought when she slammed Netanyahu for admitting Israel carried out the attacks Saturday, saying he is “harming the army’s maneuverability, preferring his own political interest over security interests.”

And Netanyahu’s political interest in taking responsibility for successful attacks is clear.

But not all agree with this interpretation.

Former Foreign Ministry director general Dore Gold said that there are always military operations around elections, “and now given the nature of the threat it is certainly reasonable that those military operations that have started already a couple of years ago will continue.”

He said that those attributing political considerations to Netanyahu going public now with the attacks would be on stronger ground “if these military operations just started now.” But, he said, “considering this is a continuation of past policy as articulated by the outgoing chief of staff, I think these arguments lose ground.”

Gold said that when Israel takes credit for an operation of this sort, “it becomes part of its deterrence posture – there is no longer a doubt, and it is now clear that Israel will do what is necessary to prevent the buildup of an Iranian military presence on Syrian soil.”

Taking responsibility, he said, “adds credibility to Israel’s statements about not allowing Iran to convert Syria into a satellite state.”

The timing, he said, is not connected to the elections, but rather to the US intention to remove its forces from Syria.

“I think the discussion of a US withdrawal has perhaps given the Iranians a sense that they now can just take over Syria.,” he said. Israel’s taking responsibility for attacks there sends them a clear message that they cannot. It also sends a message that even with the lingering tensions with Moscow over the spy plane incident, Jerusalem will not be deterred from taking action in Syria when it deems it necessary.

Jacob Nagel, who formerly served under Netanyahu as his national security advisor, also mentioned the withdrawal of the US troops as one of the reasons to take credit now.

He said that Israel has spelled out its red lines in Syria for a long time: that it will not allow a terrorist presence on the Golan border, that it will not allow the transfer of precision arms from Iran to Hezbollah, and that it will not allow an Iranian military buildup in the country.

Nagel said regarding the reason for taking responsibility for the attacks now: “Israel wants to make clear to everyone who will listen that we are determined, and will not allow our red lines be crossed.”