WarSclerotic

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DEBKAfile Special Report April 21, 2010, 5:41 PM (GMT+02:00)

Tags: Iran nuclear US-Iran

US Dep. Defense Secretary Michele Flournoy

The internal debate in the Obama administration flared openly Wednesday, April 21, when US deputy defense secretary Michele Flournoy said: “The US has ruled out a military strike against Iran’s nuclear program any time soon ” – only to be contradicted a few hours later by the Pentagon spokesman, who said the United States had never dropped its military option against Iran’s nuclear program. She had had clearly told a news conference in Singapore: “Military force is an option of last resort, it’s off the table in the near term.” Instead, said Flournoy, the US is hoping that “negotiations and United Nations sanctions will prevent the Middle East nation from developing nuclear weapons.”
This exchange gave the impression of indecision and confusion at the top of the Obama administration on its Iran policy. While president Barack Obama, defense secretary Robert Gates and the chairman of the joint Chiefs of staff Adm. Mike Mullen, insist that all options are on the table if Iran fails to curb its current nuclear activities, the opposite view came from Deputy Secretary Flournoy, who is regarded as a senior, serious and responsible Pentagon official and too experienced to go out on a limb with a key policy statement without the highest authority.
This reversal was first seen in Tehran as a beckoning finger at America’s open door for Iran to return to the negotiating table – Monday and Tuesday, April 19-20, Iran’s foreign minister Manouchehr Mottaki announced his government is willing to go back to talks with the United States and other powers on a deal for its enriched uranium.

But then, Iranian officialdom decided that the storm of controversy in the Obama administration was a trick to put them to sleep. They claim, mainly on the strength of Russian intelligence sources, that a gradual US military buildup is taking place in Persian Gulf waters that will reach its peak in June and early July. This suspicion dictated the mission set the Revolutionary Guards for its large-scale naval exercise which began Thursday, April 22, of defending Iran from seaborne attack.
But if the Obama administration opts for negotiations, it will find Iran’s position on its nuclear program has hardened since the first round of negotiations ended in nothing, and the next round is likely to waste more precious months and end the same way.
Tehran’s only object in seeking to discuss an agreed outcome for the nuclear controversy is to buy time and push away Washington’s drive for tough sanctions. This the Iranians have now achieved.
Fourney’s statement that the United States is counting on UN sanctions to deter Iran likewise plays into Tehran’s hands, because it removes the second bludgeon hanging over Iran’s heads, that of US penalties outside the world body. This is the only remaining option since most of the informed sources quoted by US media in the past week view the administration’s hopes of Russia and China coming around to tough UN sanctions as non-starters.

This wholesale US retreat on Iran leaves Israel as the only country still holding to a military option for putting the brakes on Iran’s progress toward a nuclear bomb.
However, Wednesday, the Wall Street Journal reported that Israel’s political and military leaders are divided on the wisdom of executing this option and attacking Iran without US support.

DEBKAfile, Political Analysis, Espionage, Terrorism, Security.

Robert Gates and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

The statements on Iran made by senior US officials in the last ten days convey so much muddle that one US paper could be forgiven for commenting, “If allies and adversaries are presently confused, that would be understandable.”
At worst, the muddle may be the external symptom of an administration at sea about how to handle the intractable Iranian nuclear issue. Its heads may have come to terms with a nuclear Iran but don’t know how to break the bad news to the American public or its Gulf and Middle East allies, who have been waiting with bated breath for America to do something.
At best, President Barack Obama has not yet decided what to do and is being buffeted here and there by opposing forces.
The week began with the leaked classified memo from Defense Secretary Robert Gates to the White House, reported in the New York Times on Sunday, April 18, in which he pointed out that the U.S. lacks an effective long-term strategy for dealing with Iran’s nuclear progress.
Gates quickly rushed in to set the record straight, saying his memo had been designed to “contribute to an orderly and timely decision making process.”
But as the week wore on, the White House showed no orderly or timely decision-making on Iran.
Addressing a Columbia University forum on April 18, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen, said that a United States strike against Iran would go “a long way” toward delaying Tehran’s nuclear program.
This comment broke away from what senior administration officials had been saying all along, that a military operation would only hold Iran’s nuclear program back by a year or two, at most.

An outpouring of contradictions

Mullen’s comment also contradicted what his deputy, General James Cartwright, one of America’s top uniformed officers, said this week. In his Senate testimony, Cartwright admitted that if Iran decides to go for nuclear weapons, the U.S. may not be able to permanently stop this from happening unless it is willing to occupy the country.
Senator Jack Reed, a Democrat from Rhode Island, then asked the general “whether the military approach was a magic wand.” Cartwright, the vice-chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, acknowledged it was not, adding that military action alone was unlikely to be decisive.
The White House then outdid itself in sowing confusion Wednesday, April 21, when U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense for Policy Planning Michele Flournoy told reporters in Singapore that the U.S. has ruled out a military strike against Iran’s nuclear program “any time soon.”
The administration, said Flournoy, is “hoping instead that negotiations and UN sanctions will prevent the Middle East nation from developing nuclear weapons. Military force is an option of last resort and it’s off the table in the near term.”
Just a few hours later, Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell tried to resolve the glaring contradictions by saying, “I don’t think that’s anything new. It clearly is not our preference to go to war with Iran, to engage militarily with Iran. Nobody wishes to do that, but she also makes it clear it’s not off the table.”
DEBKA-Net-Weekly‘s Washington sources say that Michele Flournoy is a steady, reputable, serious official with valuable experience in leading America’s covert contacts with such parties as North Korea and Iran on the most delicate issues. It is hard to see her talking out of the top of her head on the Iranian nuclear issue without authority from her department head, i.e. Gates.

So how about a cold war against Iran?

By week’s end, the talk about tough sanctions for Iran and Russia and China coming on board had gone up in smoke. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton put the uncertainty on record when she said in an interview with the Financial Times last week, “Can I sit here and tell you exactly what will happen, assuming we are able to get the kind of sanctions we are looking for? No… [We are] trying to work toward some better outcome among some really difficult and not very satisfying choices.”
So, what is left? Is there an Obama administration policy on Iran? If so, what is it?
On Thursday, April 22, the first voices were heard in Washington suggesting that America’s best course would be a policy of containment against Iran, meaning diplomatic isolation backed by the supply of US defense systems to its Persian Gulf allies – some kind of cold war.
These flip-flops are keenly watched by Iran, Saudi Arabia and Israel. The first two have drawn the same lesson – Exploit the indecision and confusion in Washington to further boost their nuclear efforts and shorten the distance to a bomb capability.
The third party – Israel – sees itself driven down the only path left open, which is a military operation to stall Iran’s nuclear program.

DEBKAfile, Political Analysis, Espionage, Terrorism, Security.

King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia

Arab rulers were not listening when U.S. President Barack Obama, Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen declared last week that a Middle East nuclear arms race must be prevented. With the Saudis leading the pack, they were too busy working on their response to the evolving Iranian nuclear threat, which they see no world power curbing.
According to DEBKA-Net-Weekly‘s military and intelligence sources, as far back as the fall of 2009, King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia decided the oil kingdom had better make its own arrangements and develop an independent program as fast as possible against the day that Iran attains its goal of a nuclear weapon.
On Tuesday, April 13, when President Obama warned the 47 world leaders attending his nuclear security summit that the biggest threat facing the United States and the world was a nuclear-armed terrorist organization or loner, the heads of the Saudi royal family were getting down to the nuts and bolts of their own military nuclear program. Assuming Iran was already in possession of the materials and components for assembling a bomb, the Saudis set aside funding to speed the program and reach the finishing line as soon as possible after Iran. Riyadh would then counter-balance Tehran as a nuclear power.
This decision was a victory for Saudi Arabia’s pro-nuclear hawks, defense minister Prince Sultan, who has fought for an independent Saudi nuclear capability since late 2005, and foreign minister Prince Saud al-Faisal, who is against Riyadh’s dependence on external nuclear protectors, like the US or Pakistan.

Obama promises to help Saudi nuclear program

Our sources in Washington say President Obama was not unaware of Riyadh’s decision. The king made sure to keep him au fait of his plans by sending the director of Saudi General Intelligence Prince Muqrin Bin Abdul Aziz to Washington at the head of the Saudi delegation to the nuclear security conference last week.
Muqrin briefed the US president and assured him that King Abdullah stood by his promise to Secretary Gates – when they talked at the royal ranch outside Riyadh on March 10 – to continue to coordinate Saudi nuclear policy with the United States on the basis of a four-point understanding:

1. U.S. assistance will be extended to the Saudi nuclear weapons program. The principle was established, but our sources report that Washington and Riyadh are still working on its nature, substance and scope and are not yet agreed on an acceptable format.
2. When a small Saudi nuclear arsenal is in hand, the United States will provide missiles and aircraft as vehicles for their delivery. The Saudi arsenal contains only an outdated, inaccurate CSS-2 medium-range ballistic missile system purchased from China in 1986, which was not designed to carry a nuclear warhead more than 1,500 miles.
The Obama administration showed it meant business by staging the launch of a Trident ballistic missile, which is capable of carrying fissile nuclear warheads, from an American submarine in Saudi territorial waters in the last week of March.
(See the DEBKA-Net-Weekly 439 of April 2, 2010: US Spreads Nuclear Umbrella over Saudi Gulf).
3. Washington will help Saudi Arabia shroud its program in ambiguity, as it does for Israel.
4. Intelligence-sharing between the US and Saudi Arabia will ensure that no Gulf or Arab nation other than Saudi Arabia acquires nuclear hardware. The Saudi program will frustrate Tehran’s ambition to become the supreme nuclear power representing Middle East Shiites and Sunnis combined by stepping forward as the sole Arab-Sunni power.

Plans for ambiguity, evading IAEA inspections

None of these plans deterred Prince Muqrin from standing up before the nuclear summit and calling for “a Middle East region that should be free from all weapons of mass destruction, especially nuclear weapons.”
With regard to Iran, the Saudi prince stated: “Our brothers in Iran should be aware of the danger of the situation and deal with it very seriously. If they do not have anything to hide regarding their nuclear program, they should give the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) the opportunity to inspect their program and demonstrate it is for peaceful purposes.”
He thus laid out the future Saudi position, apparently endorsed by Washington, that its military nuclear facilities will not be open to IAEA inspection as long as Tehran denies international monitors full access.
In Riyadh, the official Saudi Gazette, Sunday, April 18, published a royal decree by King Abdullah, Custodian of the two Holy Mosques, establishing a scientific center for civilian nuclear and renewable energy to meet rising demand for power and desalinated water. It will be called the King Abdullah City of Atomic and Renewable Energy.
DEBKA-Net-Weekly‘s intelligence sources point out that this grand title refers in practice to a cluster of scientific institutes with the tasks of coordinating national nuclear research and acting as a repository for nuclear talent.
This is exactly what Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad did in 2005. After the newly elected president promised supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to oversee Iran’s development of a nuclear bomb, he set about reorganizing Iran’s nuclear energy agency. By separating the covert military program from civilian projects, he enabled Tehran to claim to this day that its nuclear program is peaceful. In fact, the civilian agency serves the bomb program as its research mainspring and skilled manpower pool. It also provides the experts for analyzing the plans and blueprints for the military facilities’ projects and is there to repair technical glitches.
Riyadh has adopted Iran’s nuclear infrastructure format for its own program.

The King and defense establishment hold executive control

The Royal Decree includes appointments.
Dr. Hashem Bin Abdullah Yamani is named the president of the King Abdullah City of Atomic and Renewable Energy; Dr. Walid Bin Hussein Abu Al-Faraj, vice-president, and Dr. Khaled Bin Muhammad Al-Sulaiman vice-president for Renewable Energy Affairs.
The City’s goal is defined as contributing to “sustainable development in the Kingdom by using science, research and industry-related renewable atomic energy for peaceful purposes.”
The concluding sentence is: “The City will support scientific research and development” – the same sort of catchall measure used by the Iranians for permitting civilian research organizations to furnish their military program with scientific and research support, including manpower.
The king himself has undertaken to directly oversee the new center in his name.
This is made clear in his decree, which assigns the King Abdullah City of Atomic and Renewable Energy the status of an independent legal entity administratively linked to the prime minister (who in Saudi Arabia is the reigning monarch). Its headquarters will be located in Riyadh with branches, offices and research centers within the Kingdom.
The City will also represent the Kingdom at the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and other relevant organizations.
The nascent nuclear organization will have a supreme council headed by the prime minister and most of his cabinet, the deputy premier, defense and aviation minister and inspector general, as well as the ministers for foreign affairs, higher education, petroleum and mineral resources, finance, commerce and industry, water and electricity, agriculture and health.

Links with Washington will go through Bahrain

There is no hint of any separate military program – except for the figure who is to be directly responsible to the royal house, Prince Khaled bin Sultan, assistant minister of defense and aviation for military affairs, and the son of Crown Prince Sultan.
Sunday, April 18, the day after the king issued his Royal Decree, Abdullah accompanied by Princes Saud al-Faisal and Muqrin paid a two day visit to the Bahraini ruler Shaikh Isa bin Salman Al Khalifa – the first since Abdullah ascended the throne in Riyadh in 2005.
DEBKA-Net-Weekly‘s intelligence sources report that this visit was closely tied to Saudi Arabia’s nuclear plans and understandings with Washington. Abdullah used the occasion to announce that Saudi Arabia is donating 2 billion riyals ($266.6 million) to build a medical city in Bahrain.
According to our sources, the medical city will be the back-door channel for Saudi military nuclear liaison with US military headquarters in the Persian Gulf.

DEBKAfile, Political Analysis, Espionage, Terrorism, Security.

US Dep. Defense Secretary Michele Flournoy

US deputy defense secretary Michele Flournoy said Wednesday, April 21: “The US has ruled out a military strike against Iran’s nuclear program any time soon.”  This is the first time a senior administration official has publicly admitted that America has dropped its military option against Iran. Instead, said Flournoy, the US is hoping that “negotiations and United Nations sanctions will prevent the Middle East nation from developing nuclear weapons.”
Addressing a news conference in Singapore, she said clearly: “Military force is an option of last resort, it’s off the table in the near term.”

A few hours later, the Pentagon spokesman denied that a military strike against Iran was off the table, indicating confusion and polarization at the top of the Obama administration on its Iran policy.
debkafile‘s military sources report that Flournoy’s statement contradicts every public assertion by president Barack Obama, defense secretary Robert Gates and the chairman of the joint Chiefs of staff Adm. Mike Mullen, all of whom have insisted that all options are on the table if Iran fails to curb its current nuclear activities. Deputy Secretary Flournoy is regarded as a senior, serious and responsible Pentagon official who is too experienced to go out on a limb with a key policy statement to reporters without the highest authority.
The policy reversal amounts to a beckoning finger at America’s open door for Iran to return to the negotiating table.
Monday and Tuesday, April 19-20, Iran’s foreign minister Manouchehr Mottaki announced his government is willing to go back to talks with the United States and other powers on a deal for its enriched uranium. Turkey has offered its services as broker between Washington and Tehran.
But if anything, Iran’s position on its nuclear program has hardened since the first round of negotiations ended in nothing, and the next round is likely to waste more precious months and end the same way. Tehran’s only object in seeking to discuss an agreed outcome for the nuclear controversy is to buy time and push away Washington’s drive for tough sanctions. This the Iranians have now achieved.
Fourney’s statement that the United States is counting on UN sanctions to deter Iran likewise plays into Tehran’s hands, because it removes the second bludgeon hanging over Iran’s heads, that of US penalties outside the world body. This is the only remaining option since most of the informed sources quoted by US media in the past week view the administration’s hopes of Russia and China coming around to tough UN sanctions as non-starters.

This wholesale US retreat on Iran leaves Israel as the only country still holding to a military option for putting the brakes on Iran’s progress toward a nuclear bomb.
However, Wednesday, the Wall Street Journal reported that Israel’s political and military leaders are divided on the wisdom of executing this option and attacking Iran without US support.

Iran tests speed boats in major Gulf war games | Reuters.

Members of Iran’s Revolutionary guards stand in front of the Revolutionary guards’ ground forces headquarters October 20, 2009.

Credit: Reuters/Morteza Nikoubazl

TEHRAN (Reuters) – Iran’s Revolutionary Guards successfully deployed a new speed boat capable of destroying enemy ships as war games began on Thursday in a waterway crucial for global oil supplies, Iranian media reported.

World

The Islamic Republic, which is locked in a dispute with the West over its nuclear activities, often announces advances in its military capabilities in an apparent bid to show its readiness for any attack by Israel or the United States.

On Wednesday, the Pentagon said U.S. military action against Iran remained an option even as Washington pursues diplomacy and sanctions to halt the country’s atomic activities.

Iranian media said naval, air and ground units of the elite Guards force would take part in the three-day exercise in the Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz. About 40 percent of the world’s traded oil leaves the Gulf region through the strategic narrows.

Western military analysts say Iran may resort to “asymmetric warfare” if it comes under attack, for example by deploying swarms of speed boats to disrupt enemy operations in the Gulf.

State broadcaster IRIB said the Guard put into operation for the first time its “smart and unique” Ya Mahdi vessel.

“The radar-evading, high-speed Ya Mahdi vessel is able to track and target the enemy’s surface vessels in a smart way and destroy them,” it said, adding it was now being mass produced.

A spokesman for the maneuvers, Ali-Reza Tangsiri, said Ya Mahdi was a remote-controlled vessel whose missiles could blow 7-meter holes in any enemy ship.

US SANCTIONS PUSH

State Press TV said the Guards’ exercise in the Gulf would show off Iran’s defensive capabilities and its determination to maintain security in the region.

The ILNA news agency said more than 300 various high-speed vessels took part in the drill, equipped with missiles and rockets and carrying Guards commandos.

“These vessels are regarded as the enemy’s nightmare,” ILNA said.

A hypothetical enemy war ship which had entered Iran’s territorial waters was targeted, seized and destroyed, it said.

Theodore Karasik, research director at the Institute for Near East and Gulf Military Analysis, said the use of swarms of speedboats can be an “effective tool” against the enemy.

“It plays to their strengths. What they are trying to do (in case of conflict) is deny and deter access to the strait and surrounding areas,” Karasik told Reuters in Dubai.

“However, the U.S. and other navies know how to counter this,” he said.

The drills coincided with rising tension between Iran and the West, which fears Tehran’s nuclear program is aimed at developing bombs. Iran denies the charge.

The United States is pushing for a fourth round of U.N. sanctions on Tehran over its refusal to halt sensitive nuclear activities as demanded by the U.N. Security Council, including proposed moves against members of the Guards.

Israel, widely believed to have the Middle East’s only atomic arsenal, has described Iran’s nuclear program as a threat to its existence.

Iran, a predominantly Shi’ite Muslim state, has said it would respond to any attack by targeting U.S. interests in the region and Israel, as well as closing the Strait of Hormuz.

NTI: Global Security Newswire – Israel Mulls U.S. Stance on Unilateral Iran Strike.

Two rockets fired from Jordan at Eilat – Haaretz – Israel News.

Two Katyusha rockets were fired from Jordan toward the southern Israeli city of Eilat on Thursday.

One of the rockets struck an open field near the Jordanian city of Aqaba, while the other exploded in the waters off the coast. There was no word of damages or casualties.

The defense establishment and the Jordanian circumstances were investigating the incident.

A similar incident occurred some five years ago, when militant linked to Al-Qaida launched a rocket at southern Israel.

It was not yet clear who was responsible for the rocket fired on Thursday

U.S.: Israel-Palestinian peace failures strengthening Iran – Haaretz – Israel News.

U.S. President Barack Obama’s administration said on Wednesday that progress toward Middle East peace would help thwart Iran’s ambitions by preventing it from “cynically” using the conflict to divert attention from its nuclear program.

Drawing an explicit link between Israeli-Palestinian peace efforts and Washington’s drive to isolate Iran, Obama’s national security adviser, Jim Jones, urged bold steps to revive long-stalled Middle East negotiations.

U.S. officials hope that shared Arab-Israeli concerns about Iran can be exploited to spur old foes to help advance Israeli-Palestinian peace and restrain Tehran’s nuclear activities and rising influence in the region.

Jones coupled an appeal to Israel and its Arab neighbors to take risks for peace with a warning to Iran that it would face “real consequences” for its nuclear defiance. Obama is leading a push to tighten UN sanctions on Tehran.

“One of the ways that Iran exerts influence in the Middle East is by exploiting the ongoing Arab-Israeli conflict,” Jones told the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

“Advancing this peace would … help prevent Iran from cynically shifting attention away from its failures to meet its obligations,” he said.

The Israeli government, locked in a dispute with the United States over Jewish settlement policy, has made clear it sees confronting Iran as more of a security priority for Washington, and Middle East peace should be handled on a separate track.

Jones – while voicing disappointment over the failure to jumpstart U.S.-sponsored indirect peace talks – insisted progress toward peace is a U.S. interest as well.

That seemed to echo Obama’s assertion last week that a two-state solution to the decades-old conflict was “a vital national security interest”, adding to speculation that he was considering his own broad peace proposal

Syria-Hezbollah ‘Scud deal’ taking center stage in Arab world – Haaretz – Israel News.

Syria’s alleged delivery of Scud missiles to Hezbollah, first reported by a Kuwaiti newspaper some two weeks ago, continues to evoke contradictory responses.

After President Shimon Peres publicly accused Syria of delivering the missiles came denials from Syria and Lebanon, and several confused statements from the American administration.

The leaders of Egypt and Syria are expected to meet sometime in the next weeks in Sharm el-Sheikh, according to the Al-Hayyat newspaper. Commentators in the Arab media say the Scud missiles will be one of the gathering’s central issues, due to Egypt’s fear that the arms delivery harbingers an impending conflagration between Israel and Hezbollah.

Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri said Wednesday that Israel was deliberately spreading lies about the missile delivery, with the intent of using them to predicate a war against Lebanon. Hariri compared the Scud missile report to claims about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, which had not been found after the American invasion in 2003.

This is Hariri’s official position. Privately, Hariri understands the Scud missiles could foreshadow Lebanon getting entangled in another flare-up.

If the meeting between between Syrian President Bashar Assad and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak will take place, Assad will hear Egyptian fears about the danger Damascus is bringing upon the region by bringing Scud missiles into Lebanon. When the Second Lebanon War erupted, Saudi Arabia and Egypt launched an attack on Hezbollah for dragging the region into a risky, uncalculated escapade.

Perhaps this is the purpose of the Syrian and Egyptian talks after four years of no meetings between the two leaders – avoiding an unnecessary risky undertaking.

Meanwhile, Washington has not presented a clear position. Since the beginning of the week Pentagon and State Department spokesmen have issued various comments from which it was not clear whether the United States is certain of the arms delivery or merely suspects it had taken place.

United States Senator Dianne Feinstein from California, a Democrat who serves as head of the Senate Intelligence Committee, has a clearer view of the issue. Feinstein told AFP on Tuesday “I believe there is a likelihood there are Scuds that Hezbollah has in Lebanon,” she said. “This is a real point of danger for Israel.

Then she added, “There’s only one thing that’s going to solve it, and that’s a two-state solution.”

Should these two issues necessarily be connected? Apparently only Obama’s administration knows for sure.

The Israel Defense Forces General Staff is following the commotion caused by the Kuwaiti report with some satisfaction. This is the first time since the exposure of the Syrian nuclear device in 2007 that Syrian President Bashar Assad has been caught in such a patently problematic activity, a senior officer told Haaretz.

The Syrians appear upset about the exposure, among other things because the U.S. in response delayed the return of its ambassador to Damascus.

“They knew about the missiles and the Western intelligence services knew. Now the world knows too. It proves that while Assad presents himself to Europe as a peace seeker, he is adhering to his strategic alliance with Iran and Hezbollah,” the officer said.

Israel sees the missiles as symbolically significant rather than practically important. Some of Hezbollah’s rockets are more accurate and their warheads could be almost as deadly.

Iran announced on Tuesday it was launching a three-day drill in the Hormuz Straits area, involving Revolutionary Guards’ naval, air and ground forces. The drill’s purpose is to “preserve security in the Persian Gulf and straits,” Iran said.

Iran has been flexing its military muscles a lot in the past weeks, probably among other things due to conjectures that the United States would advance a UN resolution to impose sanctions on the Islamic Republic in June.

Earlier this week Iran displayed in a military parade in Tehran what it described as a local version of the Russian S-300 surface-to-air missile system. As far as Israel is concerned, the delivery of S-300 missiles to Iran, which Russia has held up so far, would be worrying as it would somewhat restrict the ability to attack Iran’s nuclear sites from the air.

Israeli weapons experts who looked at the pictures coming out of Tehran thought at first the Iranians were exhibiting fake missiles to deceive and deter the world. But after further examination researchers Tal Inbar of the Fisher Brothers Institute for Air and Space Strategic Studies, and Uzi Rubin discerned a vehicle carrying a radar.

The radar is very similar to the Chinese and Russian made S-10, another edition of the S-300. If this is indeed what it is, the Iranians have either received the radar indirectly from the Russians or their weapons development is more advanced than Israel has believed it to be.

Obama must stop demanding the impossible from Israel – Haaretz – Israel News.

Will war break out in the summer? In Israel, people still want to believe that the powers stabilizing the Middle East are stronger than the powers destabilizing it. They believe in the ostensible deterrence achieved in the north and south during the Second Lebanon War and Operation Cast Lead. However, Jordan’s King Abdullah is not the only one warning about war in the summer. Other international figures who know the region well fear a sudden military escalation. We can’t know when the next war will break out, they say. We also can’t know where, but the Middle East has become a powder keg. Between the summers of 2010 and 2011, that keg can catch fire.

The main war scenario is that of a conflict with Iran. If next year the United States or Israel uses force against Iran, Iran will strike back. The Iranian attack will be both direct and indirect. The indirect strike will be by Hezbollah. When Israel responds, Syria might not stand idly by. War between Israel, Iran, Syria and Hezbollah will not resemble any war we have known in the past. Hundreds of missiles will land on Tel Aviv. Thousands of people will be killed. Hundreds of missiles will hit air force bases and Israel Defense Forces command centers. Hundreds of soldiers will be killed. The crushing Israeli counterstrike will demolish Beirut and Damascus. Israel will win, but the victory will be painful and costly.

The second war scenario is that of a reconciliation with Iran. If next year U.S. President Barack Obama acts toward Iran the way George W. Bush acted toward North Korea, Iran will go nuclear. If Obama prevents Israel from acting against Iran and does not act itself, Iran will become a leading power in the Middle East. The outcome will be a loss of respect in the Sunni world for the United States and a loss of inhibitions in the Shi’ite and radical world vis-a-vis Israel. A serious conflict could then break out between Israel and Hamas, Israel and Hezbollah and perhaps even Israel and Syria. A violent deterioration could also occur between Israel and other neighbors.

A loss of U.S. strategic hegemony would mean that opponents of the West will shake up the Middle East. A loss of Israel’s strategic monopoly would result in attacks on it by old and new enemies. The age of relative quiet that has typified Israeli-Arab relations for the past 35 years will be over forever.

The conclusion is clear: The essential task now in the Middle East is the prevention of war. That’s not the same as pursuing peace. Sometimes it’s precisely the attempt to achieve an unattainable peace that ignites a war. In the current sensitive situation, there must be no illusions and no mistakes. Political correctness must not be allowed to cause a historic disaster. And when the glasses of political correctness are taken off, a clear picture emerges. To prevent war in the Middle East, the United States and Israel must show strength and generosity, deterrence and moderation. Together they must promote a cautious and gradual diplomatic process that will weaken the region’s extremists, strengthen its moderates and curb Iran. They must maintain the democratic alliance that has stabilized western Asia for two generations.

The main responsibility now rests with the United States. The Netanyahu government has made many mistakes over the past year, but so has the Obama administration. The latter has wasted 15 precious months in dialogue with Iran without imposing any sanctions and maintaining the illusion of an immediate Israeli-Palestinian peace. The open, unilateral pressure Washington has exerted on Jerusalem has both distanced peace and brought war closer. Therefore, if the Obama administration does not want the next war to be named after it, it must urgently change its policies. It must demand the possible from Israel, not the imaginary. It must demand what is essential from Iran. It must show determined and sober leadership that will prevent war now and lead to peace tomorrow.

The volcano that erupted last week in Iceland will be nothing compared to the volcano that could erupt in the near future in the Middle East. But the volcano here is a human one. People are stoking it and people can also cool it down. The lives of hundreds of millions now depend on the wisdom and careful consideration of one man: Barack Obama.