WarSclerotic

Iran: We’ll ‘cut off Israel’s feet’ if it attacks Syria – Haaretz – Israel News.

Iranian Vice President Mohammad Rida Rahimi warned on Friday that Iran would “cut off Israel’s feet” if it attacked Syria, French news agency AFP reported.

“We will stand alongside Syria against any [Israeli] threat,” Rahimi told reporters during a news conference with Syrian Prime Minister Mohammad Naji Otri in Damascus, adding that “If those who have violated Palestinian land want to try anything we will cut off their feet.”

According to AFP, the Iranian vice president said that “[Syria is a] strong country that is ready to confront any threat,” adding that Tehran “will back Syria with all its means and strength.”

On Thursday, United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton referred to the recent torrent of allegations that Syria had transferred Scud missiles to the Hezbollah in Lebanon, and said that the Syrian President Bashar Assad was pursuing dangerous policies that could unleash war on the Middle East.

“We have spoken out forcefully about the grave dangers of Syria’s transfer of weapons to Hizbollah,” Clinton said. “We condemn this in the strongest possible terms and have expressed our concerns directly to the Syrian government.”

She added: “Transferring weapons to these terrorists – especially longer-range missiles – would pose a serious threat to the security of Israel.

It would have a profoundly destabilizing effect on the region.

“All states must stop supplying weapons to terrorist groups such as Hizbollah and Hamas. Every rocket smuggled into southern Lebanon or Gaza sets back the cause of peace.”

Clinton’s reference to long-range weapons follows reports that Syria supplied Hezbollah with advanced Scud missiles capable of inflicting sever damage on Israel’s major cities – a charge Damascus denies.

She said: “President Assad is making decisions that could mean war or peace for the region.”

Clinton went on to defend America’s recent decision to return an ambassador to Syria after a five-year absence.

“We know [Assad is] hearing from Iran, Hezbollah and Hamas, she said. “It is crucial that he also hear directly from us, so that the potential consequences of his actions are clear. That’s why we are sending an ambassador back to Syria.

“There should be no mistake, either in Damascus or anywhere else: The United States is not reengaging with Syria as a reward or a concession. Engagement is a tool that can give us added leverage and insight, and a greater ability to convey strong and clear messages aimed at changing Syria’s behavior.”

DEBKAfile, Political Analysis, Espionage, Terrorism, Security.

Iranian Navy

Iran announced the firing of five new types of homemade shore-to-sea and sea-to-sea missiles Sunday, April 25 on the third and last day of its “Great Prophet 5” maneuvers in the Persian Gulf and Strait of Hormuz. The Revolutionary Guards Navy’s commander of the exercise claimed all five were fired and all struck a single target simultaneously – a major feat for the Islamic Republic of Iran. Only two of the missiles tested were identified as Noor (Light) and Nasr (Victory) missiles. The third was described as having a range of 300 kilometers, but given no name.
However, American intelligence sources, working from US satellite and aerial recon which photographed the entire exercise, say that none of the five “new” missiles was new; they were all old weapons which have been around for a long time and were simply repainted with new colors and given new names. An attempt was made to upgrade some of them, but these alterations were described as “minor and unimportant” in terms of their operational capabilities.
DEBKA-Net-Weekly‘s military sources reports that US and Israeli intelligence analysts decided to take a closer look at Iran’s “successfully” tested missiles after an excited Iranian broadcaster described the huge missiles on display on giant trucks at a military parade in Tehran on April 18 as “more advanced than the Russian S-300 interceptor” which Moscow continues to withhold from Tehran. The announcer said the Islamic Republic no longer needs Russian favors since it is capable of manufacturing its own superior product.
But then, a sharp examination of the vaunted missiles trundling by revealed cardboard cones or empty canisters freshly painted in military colors.

The Shehab-3 ballistic missile is stuck in its early development

An American missile expert who has been monitoring the Iranian nuclear program told DEBKA-Net-Weekly‘s sources that not since 1960s, when Gemal Abdel Nasser‘s Egyptian Army was wont to parade fake weapons, has any power gone in for displaying phony weapons – that is until the Islamic Republic of Iran tried this out today.
The Shihab-3 ballistic missiles are another case in point. Vaunted by Tehran as its weapon of choice for striking back at US forces and Israel if attacked, and designated to carry Iran’s first nuclear warheads, photos taken in the last two years of the Shihab-3 in parades, war games and at Iranian military facilities, reveal long delays in development. Their domestic industry has not managed to produce a warhead capable of carrying more than a half-ton to one-ton of explosives.
US intelligence analysts rechecked this finding with comparisons of the Shehab-3 displayed farther back than two years, only to find that the program is essentially “running in place.”
According to our Washington sources, Iran owes its lack of progress primarily to Beijing’s promise to President George W. Bush, extended for President Barack Obama, to withhold from Iran advanced Chinese technology for advanced ballistic and medium range missiles. Iran has proved unequal to the task of filling the gap on its own and has to be satisfied with Chinese short-range missile data.

So how has Iran come up with solid-fuel missiles?

But China is only one source, our military sources note: North Korea, whose relations with Iran are kept under tight wraps, is a major supplier of missiles and technology, so too are the black markets in arms trade of the former Soviet republics.
In 2001, Ukraine exported to Iran a dozen 18 x 55 cruise missiles (also known as kh-55 or AS-15) complete with ready-made nuclear warhead casings. The X-55 has a range of 3,000 kilometers.
So, is Tehran running a clandestine parallel program for developing and manufacturing missiles which are never displayed in public parades or war games?
None of the Western officials tracking the Iranian missile program can answer this with much confidence.
But clearly, Tehran is not putting all its ballistic achievements on show. It is a fact that Iran has in the past two years produced missiles that run on solid fuel, such as the Samen-Ghadr-10-1 tactical solid propellant ballistic missile, which has a range of 1,000 kilometers; the Sejil, a 2-stage missile with a range of 2,000-2,500 kilometers; and the Ghadr-110A/Ashura, with a range of 3,500 kilometers.
On February 3, Iran’s Kavoshgar-3 boosted into earth orbit a space capsule carrying a mouse, two turtles and some worms.
It is therefore clear that not all is what it seems in Iran’s missile industry.

DEBKAfile, Political Analysis, Espionage, Terrorism, Security.

Ehud Barak, Robert Gates and Admiral Mike Mullen

“Syria and Iran are providing Hizballah with rockets and missiles of ever-increasing capability,” US Defense Secretary Robert Gates told a news conference which he addressed jointly with Israeli Defense minister Ehud Barak on Tuesday, April 27. “And we’re at a point now, where Hizballah has far more rockets and missiles than most governments in the world,” Gates went on to say, “and this is obviously destabilizing for the whole region and we’re watching it very carefully.”
Barak then said: We (Israel) do not intend to provoke any kind of major collision in Lebanon or with Syria, but are watching these developments closely.”
However, DEBKA-Net-Weekly’s intelligence and military sources report that neither defense chiefs represented the true state of affairs governing the ever-precarious Israeli-Syrian-Lebanese border triangle. According to intelligence reaching Washington from Iranian sources last week, Tehran is reckoned by some to have resolved to ignite a Middle East war within the next three months – May, June or July. Obama administration leaders and the Israeli defense minister, who spent the whole week in Washington, agreed that August may be the date-of-no-return for hostilities to erupt and judge Tehran has opted for this course for five reasons:

To pre-empt a US/Israel strike

1. To preempt a possible US or Israeli military strike on its nuclear facilities, by throwing their military preparations awry.
2. To pre-stage its first military clash with the US and/or Israel in an arena far from home – preferably in Syria or Lebanon, if possible.
3. To distract Iranian and world public attention from the threat of sanctions. A Hizballah attack on Israel, after some days or weeks of bloodshed, would put Tehran in a good jockeying position to parlay a ceasefire for the West’s consent to drop sanctions.
4. A war in foreign lands would give Iran time to attain its nuclear objectives undisturbed.
5. Sheer opportunism: Tehran’s war planners find the current international climate conducive to holding Israel responsible for violent hostilities regardless of the real aggressor. They cite the unhappy state of relations between the Obama administration and the Netanyahu government, the cracks in the close partnership between the Binyamin Netanyahu and his defense minister, Ehud Barak and the open rift between Barak and Chief of General Staff Gabi Ashkenazi – all of which, the Iranians judge, have brought Israel to its lowest point, domestically, internationally and militarily.

Syrian troops moved from Turkish to Israeli border

This line of thinking was laid out at length in a secret phone conversation Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad held with Syrian president Bashar Assad before dawn on Thursday, April 22, which several Western intelligence organizations in the Middle East were able to intercept.
It was echoed in a remark by Syrian Vice President Lt-Gen. Hasan Turkmani Wednesday, April 28, when he inspected the ground maneuvers held jointly by the Syrian and Turkish armies along the northern Syrian border. He lauded the deepening of military ties between Ankara and Damascus because, he said, they made it possible to transfer substantial numbers of Syrian troops from the Turkish border to Syria’s border with Israel in readiness for a military confrontation between them.
The talks at the Pentagon between Gates and Barak this week therefore revolved around two main questions:
A. Israel’s response to certain credible scenarios: A clash with Hizballah which the Syrian president decides to expand by pushing into Lebanon the advanced weapons systems standing ready on the Syrian side of the border, the most dangerous of which are Scud ground missile batteries and mobile Igla-S or SA-18 anti-aircraft missiles; or a Hizballah terrorist outrage against an Israel target at home or overseas in Africa, Central Asia or Europe.
Barak informed Gates that Israel would view any one of these acts of aggression as a casus belli.
B. How to keep this armed conflict from expanding into all-out regional war against Iran or, alternatively, the conditions in which a Middle East war would require America or Israel to attack Iran, separately or together.

Work at feverish pace to prepare logistic base on Diego Garcia

At this time DEBKA-Net-Weekly’s military sources do not have reliable information on what was agreed by Gates and Barak with regard to military cooperation. Those sources have, however, obtained a good picture of the Obama administration’s next steps with regard to the Middle East, the Persian Gulf and the Indian Ocean, having gained new impetus from Iran’s war planning:

• A phased US Navy buildup off Iranian shores.
  US fleets will be expanded in the Persian Gulf and Arabian Sea. The single aircraft carrier in the Gulf, USS Dwight D. Eisenhower, will be joined by two more carriers and their assault forces taking up position opposite Iran by the end of July.
• Diego Garcia prepared as logistical base
  Work is going ahead at a feverish pace to ready the US air and naval installations of Camp Justice, on the Indian Ocean island of Diego Garcia, some 1,000 miles south of the southern Indian and Iranian coasts, to serve as logistical base for a potential US military action against Iran. These island-bases are out of effective range for Iran’s missiles, aircraft and the ships, which makes it possible to deploy there already the American warplanes for a possible air strike, along with ordnance such as bunker-buster bombs.
  The transfer of all this hardware and troops to the Indian Ocean has been rushed forward in recent days.
• In war, Qatari base becomes off-limits US territory
  Washington has privately warned Qatar ruler Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani that in the event of an outbreak of hostilities in the region, its contractual restrictions on the American use of the Al Udeid Air Base, the largest outside America, will be suspended and the facility wil revert to its status during the US invasion of Iraq in 2003.
• US undercover operations in Iran make inroads
  American clandestine agencies have intensified their covert activity inside Iran, believing they have acquired very good sources in the country which they did not have a year or two ago.
  Iran’s intelligence agencies seem to share this evaluation and act as though they feel uncomfortably exposed to a more capable alien surveillance.
  So pleased are America’s spymasters with their improved capabilities that , on Monday, April 26, the Washington Post quoted senior US officials as saying openly: “Iran’s political turmoil has prompted a growing number of the country’s officials to defect or leak information to the West, creating a new flow of intelligence about its secretive nuclear program.”
  A former government official commented: “There is a wealth of information-sharing going on, and it reflects enormous discontent among Iranian technocrats.” He added that among senior technocrats in the nuclear program and other fields, “the morale is very low.”
  That same day, an Iranian nuclear scientist was reported by the Israeli media as having recently defected and requested political asylum – the sort of event that rarely sees the light of day.
• US envoys to brief Arab rulers
  Special US administration envoys are due over the coming weekend and next week to start fanning out through Middle East and Arab Gulf capitals to brief local rulers in person on the new policy the Obama administration is developing for Iran.

DEBKAfile, Political Analysis, Espionage, Terrorism, Security.

The Watchword of His Secret PPD Is “Prevention”

President Barack Obama

“Prevention” rather than “containment” was the watchword of the secret Presidential Policy Directive (PPD) on Iran, which President Barack Obama signed in the second week of April, White House circles familiar with its contents have told DEBKA-Net-Weekly‘s sources.
But by affixing his signature to this directive and endorsing this course, Obama did not put an end to the internal debate n the administration and the military and intelligence communities over its content. They are not clear about the meaning of “prevention.” Does it mean preventing Iran developing and acquiring a working nuclear weapon? Or preventing Iran crossing the threshold from the accumulation of the parts and materials for assembling the bomb by holding the tangible threat of American or Israel attack over its head for crossing that threshold?
The object of “prevention” is therefore no more than a punctuation mark before the next stage of the jostling over America’s policy for Iran. When circles close to the president are asked how it should work, their reply comes in two parts.
Part One, they say, will be the imposition of tough American-European sanctions against the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, their affiliates and elements active in the IRGC-supervised nuclear program.
Vice President Joe Biden got it almost right Thursday, April 22, when he said: “I expect new UN sanctions on Iran by late April or early May.”

US sanctions first, UN sanctions next

(Biden also dismissed the notion that Israel might attack the Islamic Republic before first allowing sanctions to take their course. A comment relating to a Middle East war this summer is addressed in another article in this issue.)
Sources in the White House say that the vice president should have said US sanctions, since a UN Security Council sanctions resolution is not expected by the most optimistic Washington sources to become feasible before August or September. They believe there is a good chance that by then, Moscow and also Beijing will come aboard. In fact, Tuesday, April 27, Russian President Dmitri Medvedev made his most condemnatory and unequivocal comment yet by any Russian about the need to impose penalties on Tehran:
“Iran so far does not show proper understanding or behave responsibly enough,” he said. “This is all sad of course. Therefore, if this situation continues, we exclude nothing – and sanctions as well,” Medvedev told the Danish Broadcasting Corporation ahead of his official visit to Denmark.
Another encouraging sign for Washington came from the remarks of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad himself. On Monday, April 26, he attacked the veto prerogative held by the five permanent members of the Security Council as “oppressing and destroying the true nature of mankind and…satanic tools.” Washington took this to mean that Iran’s leaders already know Beijing will not wield its veto on their behalf to block new sanctions.

What if sanctions don’t work – even with Moscow and Beijing aboard?

Not only is China slipping away from Tehran but, according to our Washington and Gulf sources, the most important West European powers have given the nod to new American sanctions and all the Gulf and Arab states, barring Syria, Lebanon and Yemen, have quietly promised to cooperate in their implementation. Even the United Arab Emirates (UAE), a large part of whose economy relies on trade with Iran, has agreed to pull its weight.
Our Middle Eastern sources reveal that Washington took advantage this week of a trip to Beijing this week by the Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas to relay a message to the Chinese leadership on behalf of all the main Arab rulers: They asked him to convey a clear message that preventing Iran’s acquisition of a nuclear weapons capability is not just a vital Western or Israeli interest, but is shared equally by the Arabs and the Palestinians.
Part One of the Obama administration’s strategy of prevention is therefore directed at holding Iran back from the critical stage from which it can develop a nuclear weapon.
Part Two supposedly scripts a What Next? scenario, should this objective fail and Iran’s leaders defy sanctions and international opprobrium to order the masters of their nuclear program to cross the threshold and start assembling nuclear bombs and warheads in earnest.
On this eventuality, the president’s close advisers break down into three factions:

Group No. 1: A second PPD is needed

National Security Advisor General James Jones, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Deputy Chairman of the Joint Chiefs General James Cartwright lead the group which holds that this situation would call for a follow-up PPD to be signed by the president and determine whether he is prepared to accept a nuclear-armed Iran or abort it by military action. They argue that a choice between the two options was not laid out in the April PPD, which was only a step towards that decision without going all the way.

Group No. 2: Obama has decided to attack

Aside from White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, this group is composed almost entirely of influential people outside the administration who are very close to the president, including statesmen, former military personnel, personal friends who influence the president’s important political decisions, and some regular golfing companions.
This group says no new Presidential Policy Directive is necessary because Obama has already made up his mind about what to do if Iran develops a nuke, without however confiding in any of his close circle: He will attack. “I have no doubt, that when the moment of reckoning arrives, the president will order an attack on Iran,” one of these close associates told DEBKA-Net-Weekly‘s sources in Washington this week.
Tehran appears to have come to the same conclusion.
Tuesday, April 27, the influential Washington Web site Politico published a piece by Flynt Leverett & Hillary Mann Leverett, who reputedly run a private American lobby on behalf of Iran, under the title “The Slippery Slope to Strikes on Iran.”
This was the farthest Politico was prepared to go to signal that President Obama’s policy is heading towards a single destination – a strike on Iran.

Group No. 3: No more time to play around

This group includes Defense Secretary Robert Gates, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen, Deputy National Security Advisor Tom Donilon, and senior NSC Central Region Director Dennis Ross. They share the view that the president has not yet made up his mind how to handle Iran’s assembly of a nuclear weapon, but are pressing him to decide right now. They say time is running out for the necessary preparations in the event US military action against Iran’s nuclear facilities is decided on. If American and other Western intelligence evaluations are correct, Iran may be in a position to build a nuclear weapon by August or September, should it choose to do so. That time frame is too close for any delay in making preparations.
The pullback of American troops from Iraq on schedule and the start of endgame negotiations for winding down the Afghan war would free up US military resources for any necessary attacks on Iran. But Tehran is fully aware of the pressures on the White House and is adjusting its own tactics and momentum to making sure that by the time Washington’s hands are free for action, it will have missed the “prevention” boat.
Certain US military and diplomatic steps are nevertheless in hand, accelerated by Tehran’s military plans to beat the US and Israel to the military draw. Both are outlined in the next articles.

Newsmax – PrintTemplate.

By: Jim Meyers

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The Barack Obama administration is demonstrating a “fundamental misreading” of Iran and its nuclear ambitions by not pushing for stronger sanctions, Sen. John McCain says in an interview with Newsmax.TV.

The Islamic Republic could be within a year of developing a nuclear weapon. Why then is Obama not pushing to make sanctions stronger and setting a deadline for Iranian cooperation, the Arizona Republican was asked.

“I don’t know,” he concedes. “There’s been this continuous outreach to the Islamic Republic of Iran. We have pending sanctions in the Congress that obviously the administration is holding up.

“They continue to chase this illusion that the Chinese and Russians will cooperate with us on meaningful sanctions. They haven’t. They won’t.

“It’s a fundamental misreading of the nature of the Iranian regime. We have to speak out on behalf of the human rights of the Iranian people, and understand that this regime is bent on the acquisition of nuclear weapons.”

McCain adds that Israel is faced with “two terribly difficult choices” regarding the Iranian nuclear program.

“One is to allow the Iranians to continue and thereby proliferate the Middle East with nuclear weapons, and sooner or later a terrorist organization will get a nuclear weapon. Second, to attack unilaterally, and that of course brings the whole world down on them.

“If we could act on really tough sanctions, I think there is still an opportunity” Israel won’t have to face those choices.

Iran rivalry behind Cairo’s Hizbullah tension.

Congress moves ahead on sanctions.

Legislators weigh White House reservations over banning Iranian gas.

Ahmadinejad likely to get US visa.

“We have certain responsibilities as UN’s host,” says State Dept.

WASHINGTON – Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is on track to receive a US visa to attend next week’s UN meeting on the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, though it is very unlikely that US officials would meet with him or other members of his delegation.

“The visas for the Iranian delegation are still being processed,” US State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said Thursday, referring to applications made this week.

Ahmadinejad and other Iranians have been given visas to attend UN meetings several times in the past, and Crowley noted earlier that “we have certain responsibilities as the host of the UN. Any foreign official who’s coming to the UN for official business is normally granted a visa.”

While US officials expect that the visa arrangements will be made in time for the Iranians to participate at the conference opening next Monday, they indicated that the venue would not be used to further the administration’s engagement strategy with Iran.

After representatives of the countries met earlier this year and brokered a compromise on the Iranian nuclear program that never came to fruition, the US has not met with Iranians and top officials have said the approach didn’t work.

In terms of the upcoming NPT meeting, which will stretch over many days, Crowley said Thursday that “a face-to-face meeting between a US diplomat and an Iranian diplomat is highly unlikely.”

Israel’s best intentions may not be enough to avert war in Lebanon – Haaretz – Israel News.

Yesterday, Lebanon marked five years since the last Syrian troops left the country. Next month, it will mark 10 years since Israel withdrew from south Lebanon. But despite these important anniversaries of events that ostensibly bolstered Lebanon’s independence, the Lebanese are apprehensive.

Not a day has passed in recent weeks without a Lebanese or foreign Arab media outlet bringing up the fear that Israel intends to launch a war against Hezbollah this summer. Yesterday, Barak Ravid reported here that Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit left Beirut with the impression that Lebanon was in “complete panic” over the prospect of an Israeli attack.

Damascus is also tense: The Syrians have raised and lowered their alert level several times recently, thinking Israel might attack. The Syrian moves were prompted mostly by statements from Israeli officials, including Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, Defense Minister Ehud Barak and Likud MK Yossi Peled, a former GOC Northern Command. But the tension on that side of the Israel-Syria-Lebanon triangle has eased a bit recently.

To put it bluntly, Israel’s main challenge is that it’s very difficult to calm a paranoiac. The Arab world’s approach to Israel is fraught with suspicion, and any attempt to alleviate it tends to have the opposite effect.

The starkest example yet came in the summer of 2007. Israel and Syria both raised their alert levels and expanded military exercises. Jerusalem said it had no intention of attacking, Military Intelligence said it feared a war might break out because of a “miscalculation.”

The rest is history: The Israel Air Force (so foreign reports say) bombed a nuclear facility in Syria. And the paranoid became convinced they really were after him – even though this time, Damascus decided not to respond.

An analysis of the current situation, including through conversations with senior Israel Defense Forces officers, indicates that this time, Arab anxiety is somewhat exaggerated, although the possibility of war this summer still exists. Exploring the interests of the various parties doesn’t lead to the conclusion that anyone has much interest in a conflict in the near future.

Despite reports of the delivery of Scud missiles from Syria to Hezbollah, Israel decided not to attack the arms convoys. The threat that concerns Israel most is the Iranian one, where any progress still awaits a sanctions resolution by the UN Security Council.

Syria certainly has no wish to start a war. And Hezbollah, though it recently finished repairing the damage it sustained in 2006, will need to think twice before starting a new conflict and once again being blamed for the destruction Israel would wreak on Lebanon.

The Lebanese remember only too well how Hezbollah dragged them into an unnecessary war four years ago. Websites affiliated with the former standard bearer of the anti-Syrian camp, the March 14 Alliance, warn that Hezbollah will once again spark a conflict with Israel for the sake of foreign countries.

But even the Iranians, who frequently get the blame for ramping up tensions in the region, don’t seem to desire an immediate conflagration – at least not while the international community is still stuttering on the sanctions issue and allowing them to advance their nuclear program.

So what can go wrong? There’s still the issue of Hezbollah’s rearmament. The Scuds, it turns out, were not Israel’s point of no return, but a delivery of more accurate rockets to Hezbollah might well elicit an entirely different reaction. This is what lies behind the recent warnings by Aboul Gheit, Lieberman and U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who this week said Hezbollah has a missile arsenal bigger than that of most countries.

The other possibility concerns Hezbollah’s quest to avenge the assassination of senior operative Imad Mughniyeh. If Hezbollah scores a massive success – like blowing up an Israeli embassy, downing an Israeli plane or assassinating a senior official – the IDF would have to respond, and it will respond in Lebanon. From there, the situation could escalate to a new war on the northern front.

Posted by Avi Issacharoff on April 30, 2010

Hezbollah: Israel should be wary of war against Lebanon – Haaretz – Israel News.
Israel would be taking a big risk if it decided to open war on Lebanon or on any of the other countries in the Middle East, Hezbollah chief Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah said Thursday, advising Israeli politicians and generals to stay cautious regarding such a possibility.

Speaking to a Kuwait-based news channel, Nasrallah, referring to recent tensions between Israel and its neighbors to the north, said that “any war started by Israel against Lebanon or anywhere in the region would be taking a very dangerous risk on its part.”

“That kind of war would change every parameter in the Middle East,” the Hezbollah chief said, adding that his organization was not “frightened by the threat or by Israel’s psychological warfare.”

The Hezbollah added that he knew that “Israeli politicians and generals, past and present, are very worried and very cautious and we would like them to stay that way,” saying that “the blood of Imad Mughniyeh would haunt them everywhere.”

The militant organization has vowed vengeance against Israel ever since Mughniyeh’s 2008 assassination, which it blames on Israel.

“I cannot say that it is close. Myself and brothers in Hezbollah see that all this intimidation does not hide behind it a war. On the contrary, if there was silence and quietness, then everyone must be vigilant,” Nasrallah said.

“But when you see all this American and Israeli noise, this means they want to use this noise to achieve political, psychological and certain security advantages without resorting to the step of war,” Nasrallah added.

Referring to an alleged long-range surface-to-surface- missile deal, reported by Israel to have taken place between Syria and Hezbollah, Nasrallah said that the “Israeli allegations on the transfer of Scud missiles from Syria to Hezbollah, in spite of Syrian denials and the quiet from the organization only strengthens Lebanon’s confidence in itself and in the ability of the resistance to defend Lebanon.”

“My comments from a month ago speaking of how we will reach anywhere in Israel are supported in the eyes of the Lebanese and Arab peoples when Israel and the United States discuss the transfer of Scud missiles from Syria to Hezbollah,” Nasrallah said.

On whether such a deal took place, the Hezbollah leader said: “Today it’s Scuds, yesterday other kinds of rockets … the aim is one, and that is to intimidate Lebanon, to intimidate Syria and to put pressure on Lebanon, Syria, the resistance movement and the Lebanese and Syrian people,” Nasrallah said.

“Regardless of whether Syria gave Hezbollah this type of rockets … of course Syria denied, and Hezbollah as usual does not comment.