WarSclerotic

Russia’s top national security adviser spoke out on behalf of Iran during trilateral meetings with his Israeli and American counterparts in Jerusalem on Tuesday, backing Tehran’s claims against the United States and supporting its ongoing military presence in Syria, which Israel sees as a threat to its security.

The trilateral conference of Israeli, Russian, and US national security advisers is the first event of its kind to be held in Jerusalem and, according to Israel, is aimed specifically at countering Iran, including both its nuclear aspirations and its influence throughout the Middle East.

The meeting comes amid escalating tensions between Washington and Tehran, following US President Donald Trump’s decision to pull out of the Iran nuclear deal last year and put in place a series of crushing economic sanctions. The Islamic Republic has retaliated by stepping up its uranium enrichment to levels beyond those permitted under the 2015 accord, allegedly carrying out a number of attacks on petroleum facilities around the Middle East, and shooting down a sophisticated US drone last week.

Russia, which maintains close ties to both Israel and Iran, is seen as a potential interlocutor between the West and Tehran. But comments made by its representative at the summit, security adviser Nikolai Patrushev, indicated that Moscow was siding with the Islamic Republic.

In press conferences on Tuesday, Patrushev rejected the view held by the US and Israel that Iran represents “the main threat to regional security” and said Israeli airstrikes in Syria against Iranian forces and its proxies were “undesirable.”

Commenting on the downing of a US drone by Iran last week, Patrushev said the Russian Defense Ministry had determined that the aircraft had entered Iranian airspace, as Tehran claims. The US maintains that the drone was flying in international airspace when it was downed.

“We have not seen any proof otherwise,” Patrushev said.

Secretary of the Russian Security Council Nikolai Patrushev speaks at a trilateral summit with Israel and the United States at the Orient Hotel in Jerusalem on June 25, 2019. (Noam Revkin Fenton\Flash90)

Patrushev also lauded Iran’s ongoing presence in Syria — which Israel sees as an unacceptable threat. The Russian official said Iran was “contributing a lot to fighting terrorists on Syrian soil and stabilizing the situation there.”

He said Moscow was aware of Israel’s concerns regarding Iran’s military presence in Syria and was working to address the issue with Tehran.

“We pay special attention to ensuring Israel’s security,” he said, calling it “a special interest of ours because here in Israel live a little less than about two million of our countrymen. Israel supports us in several channels, including at the UN. The prime minister [Netanyahu] has already said that we share the same views on the issue of the struggle against falsifying the history of World War II.”

According to a Central Bureau of Statistics report in 2016, as of five years ago, there were 985,000 immigrants from the former Soviet Union living in Israel.

US National Security Adviser John Bolton, seen as a longtime hawk on Iranian issues, threatened Tuesday that the White House would step up the sanctions and other measures against Iran if it exceeded the uranium enrichment levels of the nuclear deal, saying such a move would be a “very serious mistake” by Tehran.

Tehran had announced on May 8 that it was suspending two of its 2015 pledges and gave Europe, China and Russia a two-month ultimatum to help Iran circumvent US sanctions and sell its oil or it would abandon two more commitments. Bolton spoke a day after the US imposed fresh sanctions against Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

“They’ll either get the point or as the president said, we will enhance the maximum pressure campaign further,” he said at a press conference, adding that “all options are on the table.”

In his press conference, Bolton disputed Patrushev’s positive view of Iranian troops in Syria, saying he did not believe this was the true stance of Russia and that Moscow also hopes to see Tehran’s forces and proxies leave Syria.

“The Russians have said repeatedly that they would like to see Iranian forces leave,” he said, citing comments made by Russian President Vladimir Putin in a recent meeting in Moscow.

Bolton said that despite this desire, Russia has thus far been unable to achieve this goal but that with the summit in Jerusalem the three countries were working to “find a way to make it happen.”

Israel has long sought Russian backing for its demand that Iranian forces leave Syria upon the conclusion of the country’s civil war.

Earlier this year, the Israeli military said the Iran-backed Hezbollah terror group had established a new base of operations in southern Syria along the border with Israel.

Earlier in the day, Bolton said that Trump, while imposing “significant new sanctions” on Iranian leaders on Monday, “has held the door open to real negotiations to completely and verifiably eliminate Iran’s nuclear weapons program, its pursuit of ballistic missile delivery systems, its support for international terrorism, and its other malign behavior worldwide.

This file photo provided on Friday October 20, 2017 by the government-controlled Syrian Central Military Media shows Iran’s army chief of staff Maj. Gen. Mohammad Bagheri, left, looking at a map with senior officers from the Iranian military as they visit a front line position in the northern province of Aleppo, Syria. (Syrian Central Military Media, via AP)

“All that Iran needs to do is to walk through that open door,” he said.

In his press conference on Tuesday afternoon, Bolton stressed that the White House was not seeking regime change in the Islamic Republic. “That’s not the policy of the United States,” he said, acknowledging that as a private citizen he had called for this in the past.

Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani said that new US sanctions against senior Iranian officials including top diplomat Mohammad Javad Zarif showed Washington was “lying” about offering to negotiate.

Agencies contributed to this report.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told Russian President Vladimir Putin’s top security adviser on Monday that Israel will do “anything it takes” to ensure Iran does not obtain nuclear weapons.

“I’m certain that Russia understands what it means for us when a regime calls for our annihilation, and acts on a daily basis to achieve that aim,” Netanyahu said in a meeting at his Jerusalem office with Russia’s National Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev.

“Israel won’t allow an Iran that calls for our annihilation to entrench itself on our border, and we will do anything it takes to prevent it from obtaining nuclear weapons,” the prime minister said.

The meeting comes ahead of a first-ever trilateral summit Tuesday between the Russian, Israeli and American national security advisers — Patrushev, Meir Ben-Shabbat and John Bolton, respectively.

“The security cooperation between Russia and Israel has already contributed a great deal to the security and stability of our region, and has profoundly changed the regional situation,” Netanyahu said.

Syrian and Russian soldiers at the entrance of the Wafideen Camp in Syria, on April 12, 2018. (AFP Photo/Youssef Karwashan)

In a statement to reporters, Patrushev said Monday that the following day’s summit would focus on “the regional situation, especially Syria,” and place special emphasis on Israel’s security concerns.

“We pay special attention to ensuring Israel’s security,” he said, calling it “a special interest of ours because here in Israel live a little less than about two million of our countrymen. Israel supports us in several channels, including at the UN. The prime minister [Netanyahu] has already said that we share the same views on the issue of the struggle against falsifying the history of World War II.”

Among the issues that will be discussed with Bolton, Patrushev added, were “several ideas about how to reach peace in your region. And once we reach agreement, we should add other states in the region to this format.”

US National Security Adviser John Bolton, left, meets with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the Prime Minister’s Office in Jerusalem, June 23, 2019. (Haim Zach/GPO)

Earlier Monday, during a meeting of the cabinet, Netanyahu called the upcoming trilateral gathering “an unprecedented summit between two great powers, the United States and Russia, and Israel — here in Israel.

“The very fact that this summit is happening here is more evidence of the special standing of Israel among the nations of the world at this time,” he said.

Iran’s efforts to entrench itself militarily in Syria and the escalating tensions between Tehran and Washington are expected to top the agenda.

Patrushev has tried to navigate the regional struggle between Israel and Iran without upending Russia’s relationship with either.

Last week, he said Moscow would back Iran’s interests at the trilateral meeting.

“Iran is in Syria at the invitation of the legitimate government and is actively involved in fighting terrorism. Therefore, of course, we will have to take into account the interests of Iran,” Patrushev said.

US National Security Adviser John Bolton, left, is greeted by Russian Security Council chairman Nikolai Patrushev in Moscow, Russia, October 22, 2018. (Press Service of the Russian Security Council via AP)

Earlier this month, a senior US official said Washington would use the meeting to tell Moscow that Iran should withdraw from Syria, and ask for Russia’s suggestions on how to counter Tehran’s influence in the region. The unnamed official said that the US supported Israel’s actions against Iranian entrenchment in Syria.

“We would hope to make the point in conjunction with the Israelis that we don’t see any positive role for the Iranians — and that would extend beyond Syria, to Lebanon, to Iraq, to Yemen — other places where they’re active,” the official said, according to a Reuters report.

He added that Washington was sure that the summit, with Israel hosting both Russia and the US in Jerusalem, would irk Iranian leadership, and said that the fact that Russia was participating was a positive sign.

“The fact that the Russians see value in these conversations, that they’re willing to do it publicly, I think is in and of itself quite significant,” the official said.

Russian President Vladimir Putin, right, meets troops alongside Syrian President Bashar Assad on a visit to the Hmeimim air base in Syria, December 11, 2017. (Mikhail Klimentyev, Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP)

According to a report by the Kan public broadcaster, Israel and the US will offer Russia incentives for an effort to curb Iranian influence in Syria, which could include legitimizing the continued leadership of Syrian President Bashar Assad. It was unclear what Washington and Jerusalem would offer Moscow in return.

Moscow is a close ally of Tehran and Damascus, while Jerusalem and Washington are seen by the Iranian regime as archenemies.

Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani said Tuesday that new US sanctions against senior Iranian officials including top diplomat Mohammad Javad Zarif showed Washington is “lying” about offering to negotiate.

“At the same time as you call for negotiations you seek to sanction the foreign minister? It’s obvious that you’re lying,” Rouhani said in a meeting with ministers broadcast live on TV.

He also said the White House is “afflicted by mental retardation.”

His comments came as US National Security Adviser John Bolton said in Jerusalem that Washington had “held the door open to real negotiations” but that “in response, Iran’s silence has been deafening.”

Iran’s Foreign Ministry said the sanctions on its leaders represent the “permanent closure” of diplomacy with Washington.

“Imposing fruitless sanctions against Iran’s supreme leader and the commander of Iran’s diplomacy is the permanent closure of the path to diplomacy with Trump’s desperate government,” ministry spokesman Abbas Mousavi said in a tweet.

Iranian supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei speaks in a ceremony marking the 30th death anniversary of the late revolutionary founder Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, at his mausoleum just outside Tehran, Iran, June 4, 2019. (Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader via AP)

Washington imposed new sanctions against supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei Monday as well as blacklisting Foreign Minister Zarif, its latest salvo in a tense standoff that has raised fears of a regional conflict.

“Trump’s government is destroying all established international mechanisms for keeping global peace and security,” Mousavi added.

Zarif responded Monday to the sanctions, saying that leaders in Israel, Saudi Arabia and the US “despise diplomacy and thirst for war.”

US President Donald Trump also imposed new sanctions Monday against top Iranian military chiefs, pressuring the country it has threatened with “obliteration” if a war breaks out.

Washington’s move came after Iran shot down a US spy drone last week and Trump authorized a retaliatory strike but canceled it at the last minute.

That follows a series of attacks on ships in sensitive Gulf waters that the US has blamed on Iran — allegations hotly denied by Tehran. The incidents came a year after Trump unilaterally withdrew from a multilateral pact with Iran over its nuclear program.

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif arrives to meet his Japanese counterpart in Tehran on June 12, 2019. (Atta Kenare/AFP)

US media have also reported Trump secretly authorized cyberattacks against Iran’s missile defense systems and a spy network, but Tehran says no damage was done.

Trump called the punitive measures “a strong and proportionate response to Iran’s increasingly provocative actions.”

Tehran and Washington broke off diplomatic relations in 1980 over the hostage crisis at the US embassy in Tehran following Iran’s Islamic Revolution.

US President Donald Trump’s top national security adviser urged Iran on Tuesday to step back from its “malign behavior” and enter into “real negotiations” over its nuclear weapons program, ballistic missile development, and backing for international terror groups.

Speaking at a summit meeting between Israel’s, Russia’s and America’s national security advisers in Jerusalem, John Bolton slammed Iran as the “source of belligerence and aggression” in the Middle East.

He accused Tehran of supporting violence throughout the region — from Hezbollah in Lebanon to the Assad regime in Syria, as well as Shiite militias in Iraq, Yemen’s Houthi rebels, and terror attacks on US forces in Afghanistan — and of threatening Middle Eastern oil supplies.

He also charged that the Islamic Republic was still pursuing nuclear weapons, saying, “There’s simply no evidence that Iran has made the strategic decision to renounce nuclear weapons and open realistic discussions to demonstrate that decision.

“In just a few days,” he noted, “Iran has threatened to exceed the key limits imposed by the inadequate 2015 Iran nuclear deal, exposing once again the fatal deficiencies of that failed agreement.”

He said Trump, while imposing “significant new sanctions” on Iranian leaders on Monday, “has held the door open to real negotiations to completely and verifiably eliminate Iran’s nuclear weapons program, its pursuit of ballistic missile delivery systems, its support for international terrorism, and its other malign behavior worldwide.

“All that Iran needs to do is to walk through that open door,” he said.

Meanwhile on Tuesday, Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani said that new US sanctions against senior Iranian officials including top diplomat Mohammad Javad Zarif showed Washington was “lying” about offering to negotiate.

A ‘historic’ gathering in Jerusalem

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, speaking to the three countries’ delegations, which met at Jerusalem’s Orient Hotel, said the “historic” gathering signaled the sides’ “common objective” of ensuring the withdrawal of all foreign forces from Syria.

Israel has long sought Russian backing for its demand that Iranian forces leave Syria upon the conclusion of the country’s civil war.

In this photo released by an official website of the office of the Iranian Presidency, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani speaks in a ceremony at Imam Khomeini International Airport some 25 miles (40 kilometers) south of the capital Tehran, Iran, June 18, 2019. (Iranian Presidency Office via AP)

“There’s a wider basis for cooperation between the three of us than many believe…. We have a common objective: that no foreign forces that arrived in Syria after 2011 remain in Syria. We think there are also ways to achieve this common goal. We look forward to discussing concrete ways to achieve this goal,” he said.

Sounding a different tone on Iran, the Russian national security adviser, Nikolia Patrushev, insisted that Tehran was aiding in the battle against Islamist terrorists in Syria. “We work together and listen to each other. We’re aware of Israel’s concerns and hope the threats will be lifted,” he said.

The meeting between the three nations’ national security advisers — Bolton, Patrushev, and Israel’s Meir Ben-Shabbat — was the first-ever such trilateral summit.

Iran’s efforts to entrench itself militarily in Syria and the escalating tensions between Tehran and Washington were expected to top the agenda.

On Monday, Netanyahu told Patrushev that Israel would do “anything it takes” to ensure Iran does not obtain nuclear weapons.

In a statement to reporters Monday, Patrushev said the summit would focus on “the regional situation, especially Syria,” and place special emphasis on Israel’s security concerns.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, second right, US National Security Adviser John Bolton, second left, Russian National Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev, right, and Israeli National Security Adviser Meir Ben-Shabbat, left, take part in a trilateral summit in Jerusalem on June 25, 2019. (Menahem Kahana/AFP)

“We pay special attention to ensuring Israel’s security,” he said, calling it “a special interest of ours because here in Israel live a little less than about two million of our countrymen. Israel supports us in several channels, including at the UN. The prime minister [Netanyahu] has already said that we share the same views on the issue of the struggle against falsifying the history of World War II.”

Among the issues that will be discussed with Bolton, Patrushev added, were “several ideas about how to reach peace in your region. And once we reach agreement, we should add other states in the region to this format.”

Earlier Monday, during a meeting of the cabinet, Netanyahu called the trilateral gathering “an unprecedented summit between two great powers, the United States and Russia, and Israel — here in Israel.

“The very fact that this summit is happening here is more evidence of the special standing of Israel among the nations of the world at this time,” he said.

Agencies contributed to this report.

An Iranian minister said Monday that the US was unsuccessful in its cyber attacks against Iran this week after Tehran downed an American surveillance drone.

“They try hard, but have not carried out a successful attack,” said Mohammad Javad Azari Jahromi, Iran’s minister for information and communications technology, according to the Reuters news agency.

“Media asked if the claimed cyber attacks against Iran are true,” he said. “Last year we neutralized 33 million attacks with the [national] firewall.”

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On Sunday the New York Times reported US military and intelligence officials are drafting plans for additional cyber attacks against Iranian targets.

Current and former officials told the Times the White House is drafting a wide range of covert operations that include disabling Iranian boats used to conduct shipping attacks in and around the Strait of Hormuz, as well as unspecified efforts to stoke unrest inside the Islamic Republic. The White House may also be exploring ways weaken Iranian proxy groups in the region, the officials said.

A former US military commander told the Times that if the Pentagon or Central Intelligence Agency pursued one of the options, there would not be “crystal-clear attribution” the US was responsible.

Tensions between Washington and Tehran have flared since Iran on Thursday shot down the US drone. Iran said the drone violated its airspace — a claim the US denies — near the strategic Strait of Hormuz.

Iranian Navy chief Rear Admiral Hossein Khanzadi on Monday warned the country could carry out similar actions in the future. “This firm response can be repeated, and the enemy knows it,” he said, according to a report in the Tasnim news agency translated by Reuters.

Head of the Revolutionary Guard’s aerospace division Brig. Gen. Amir Ali Hajizadeh looks at debris from what the division describes as the US drone which was shot down by Iran, seen here in Tehran, Iran, June 21, 2019 (Meghdad Madadi/Tasnim News Agency/via AP)

In response to the drone’s destruction, the US was ready to carry out a military strike against Iran but US President Donald Trump said he called it off at the last minute after being told some 150 people could die.

The aborted attack was the closest the US has come to a direct military strike on Iran in the year since the administration pulled out of the 2015 international agreement intended to curb the Iranian nuclear program and launched a campaign of increasing economic pressure against the Islamic Republic.

But after the drone’s downing, Trump secretly authorized US Cyber Command to carry out a retaliatory cyber attack on Iran, The Washington Post reported Saturday.

The attack crippled computers used to control rocket and missile launches, according to the Post, which cited people familiar with the matter.

Yahoo cited two former intelligence officials as saying the US targeted a spying group responsible for tracking ships in the strategic Strait of Hormuz, where Washington has blamed Iran for two recent mine attacks on oil tankers.

An oil tanker is on fire in the sea of Oman, June 13, 2019. (AP Photo/ISNA)

The Post said the cyber strikes, which caused no casualties, had been planned for weeks and were first proposed as a response to the tanker attacks. US defense officials refused to confirm the reports.

Azari Jahromi said the attacks on Iranian computer networks over the weekend were “cyber-terrorism, like Stuxnet,” referring to a virus discovered in 2010 which is believed to have been engineered by Israel and the US to damage nuclear facilities in Iran.

Iranian technicians work at the Bushehr nuclear power plant in 2010 (photo credit: AP/IIPA, Ebrahim Norouzi)

Tehran is believed to have stepped up its own cyber capabilities in the face of US efforts to isolate the Islamic Republic.

Trump last year left a multinational accord curbing Iran’s nuclear ambition. His administration has instead imposed a robust slate of punitive economic sanctions designed to choke off Iranian oil sales and cripple its economy.

On Saturday, Trump said the US would put “major” new sanctions on Iran on Monday.

Meanwhile, Iran has denied responsibility for attacks on tankers in Gulf waters, and a top military official on Saturday pledged to “set fire to the interests of America and its allies” if the US attacks.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani on Sunday said the international community must react to the “intrusion” of the US drone, and Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif accused allies and advisers of the US president, including US National Security Adviser John Bolton, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, of being “moments away from trapping Donald Trump into a war.”