WarSclerotic

David Ignatius – Obama weighs new peace plan for the Middle East.

Wednesday, April 7, 2010

Despite recent turbulence in U.S. relations with Israel, President Obama is “seriously considering” proposing an American peace plan to resolve the Palestinian conflict, according to two top administration officials.

“Everyone knows the basic outlines of a peace deal,” said one of the senior officials, citing the agreement that was nearly reached at Camp David in 2000 and in subsequent negotiations. He said that an American plan, if launched, would build upon past progress on such issues as borders, the “right of return” for Palestinian refugees and the status of Jerusalem. The second senior official said that “90 percent of the map would look the same” as what has been agreed in previous bargaining.

The American peace plan would be linked with the issue of confronting Iran, which is Israel’s top priority, explained the second senior official. He described the issues as two halves of a single strategic problem: “We want to get the debate away from settlements and East Jerusalem and take it to a 30,000-feet level that can involve Jordan, Syria and other countries in the region,” as well as the Israelis and Palestinians.

“Incrementalism hasn’t worked,” continued the second official, explaining that the United States cannot allow the Palestinian problem to keep festering — providing fodder for Iran and other extremists. “As a global power with global responsibilities, we have to do something.” He said the plan would “take on the absolute requirements of Israeli security and the requirements of Palestinian sovereignty in a way that makes sense.”

The White House is considering detailed interagency talks to frame the strategy and form a political consensus for it. The second official likened the process to the review that produced Obama’s strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan. He said the administration could formally launch the Middle East initiative by this fall.

White House interest in proposing a peace plan has been growing in recent months, but it accelerated after the blow-up that followed the March 9 Israeli announcement, during Vice President Biden’s visit, that Israel would build 1,600 housing units in East Jerusalem. U.S. officials began searching for bolder ways to address Israeli and Palestinian concerns, rather than continuing the same stale debates.

Obama’s attention was focused by a March 24 meeting at the White House with six former national security advisers. The group has been meeting privately every few months at the request of Gen. Jim Jones, who currently holds the job. In the session two weeks ago, the group had been talking about global issues for perhaps an hour when Obama walked in and asked what was on people’s minds.

Brent Scowcroft, who served as national security adviser for presidents Gerald Ford and George H.W. Bush, spoke up first, according to a senior administration official. He urged Obama to launch a peace initiative based on past areas of agreement; he was followed by Zbigniew Brzezinski, the national security adviser for Jimmy Carter, who described some of the strategic parameters of such a plan.

Support for a new approach was also said to have been expressed by Sandy Berger and Colin Powell, who served as national security advisers for presidents Bill Clinton and Ronald Reagan, respectively. The consensus view was apparently shared by the other two attendees, Frank Carlucci and Robert C. McFarlane from the Reagan years.

Obama’s embrace of a peace plan would reverse the administration’s initial strategy, which was to try to coax concessions from the Israelis and Palestinians, with the United States offering “bridging proposals” later. This step-by-step process was favored by George Mitchell, the president’s special representative for the Middle East, who believed a similar approach had laid the groundwork for his breakthrough in Northern Ireland peace talks.

The fact that Obama is weighing the peace plan marks his growing confidence in Jones, who has been considering this approach for the past year. But the real strategist in chief is Obama himself. If he decides to launch a peace plan, it would mark a return to the ambitious themes the president sounded in his June 2009 speech in Cairo.

A political battle royal is likely to begin soon, with Israeli officials and their supporters in the United States protesting what they fear would be an American attempt to impose a settlement and arguing to focus instead on Iran. The White House rejoinder is expressed this way by one of the senior officials: “It’s not either Iran or the Middle East peace process. You have to do both.”

ANALYSIS: Israel’s main interest at Obama’s summit: Stop Iran – Monsters and Critics.

Jerusalem – With just days remaining until Washington’s nuclear security summit, Israel on Tuesday still had not decided who it would send.

That’s because for Israel, nuclear security has one meaning above all else – stopping Iran from acquiring atomic weapons.

Thus, the ranking of the delegation Israel ends up sending to US President Barack Obama’s gathering on Monday and Tuesday of more than 40 world leaders will likely indicate Israel’s expectations that this goal can or cannot be met.

A high-level delegation – led possibly by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu – would mean Israel expects the summit will adopt ‘practical measures and resolutions’ to halt Tehran’s drive to acquiring nuclear arms, a senior Israeli official said.

But a lower ranking representation would indicate scepticism as to whether the Israeli expectations can be met, the official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told the German Press Agency dpa.

The focus of the Washington gathering – the largest summit in decades in the US capital – is specifically on keeping nuclear material used in weapons and in other fields like power generation out of the hands of rogue criminals and terrorists.

But it is likely there will be talks on the sidelines about other issues, including the ongoing efforts to force Iran to stop its nuclear enrichment programme that the international community suspects will lead to nuclear weapons. And there are signs that Russia and China – both of whose leaders are coming next week – are softening to the idea of a new round of UN sanctions talks.

Israeli leaders have repeatedly pushed for international action to halt Tehran’s nuclear ambitions, for ‘sanctions that bite,’ in the oft-expressed words of Israeli spokesmen.

‘Israel expects the international community to act swiftly and decisively to thwart this danger,’ Netanyahu told last month’s conference of the America-Israel Public Affairs committee.

‘The biggest danger is the indecisiveness of the international community,’ Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman told Der Spiegel, also in March.

For Israel, the dangers posed by Tehran’s nuclear drive are heightened by statements, by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and other Iranian leaders, that the Jewish state should be wiped off the map, and by the support, including arms deliveries, Iran gives to Islamic organizations, such as Hamas, or the Lebanese Hezbollah, which reject any peaceful accommodation with Israel.

Israel leaders also make it clear they think time is running out to stop Iran.

‘I think that it’s a crucial time,’ Lieberman told EU Foreign Affairs supremo Catherine Ashton in mid-March.

‘It is now the time for a new Churchill policy, not the time for a Chamberlain policy, and that’s our expectation,’ he said.

Assuming effective sanctions are put in place against Iran, Israel will likely wait to see what effect, if any, they have, before deciding on further courses of action.

Despite Russian President Dimitry Medvedev’s statement that he has received assurances from Israeli President Shimon Peres that Israel does not intend to strike Iran, other Israeli leaders have been more ambiguous on the possibility of a military strike against Tehran.

‘We will always reserve the right to self-defence,’ Netanyahu told the AIPAC conference.

‘We are not taking any options off the table,’ Lieberman told Der Spiegel.

Whether Israel would use the military option, however is another question.

It is likely that Israel’s ambiguity is intended as a deterrent, aimed at adding weight to international pressure on Tehran, for fear of the ramifications of any Israeli military action.

Admiral Michael Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, made it clear during a recent visit to Israel that he is concerned by the ‘unexpected consequences’ an Israeli strike on Iran will have.

In addition, any unilateral Israeli military action against Iran would serve to turn the issue into an Iranian-Israeli conflict, and not a problem for the world.

And, given the statements by Israeli leaders that Iran poses a threat not just to the Jewish state, but to the region and the world, this is exactly what Israel wants to avoid

A Nuclear Iran and the Futility of Sanctions | FrontPage Magazine.

Fars News Agency :: DM: Israel Too Weak to Attack Iran.

DM: Israel Too Weak to Attack Iran TEHRAN (FNA)- Iranian Defense Minister Brigadier General Ahmad Vahidi rejected the speculations that Israel might launch an attack against the country, warning that any aggression by the regime will be reciprocated by a crushing response causing its annihilation.

“…the Zionist regime is too weak to start a war with Iran,” Vahidi told reporters, adding that think tanks and research centers of the regime have advised it not to even think about attacking Iran.

Asked about Iran’s response to any possible aggression by Israel, he underlined, “We have given their response before and if something like that happens, nothing will likely be left of the illegitimate Zionist regime.”

Vahidi also dismissed the possibility for a US attack against Iran’s nuclear installations, and said, “We assume that Americans are wise enough to stay away from such a dangerous move and they themselves have announced this.”

Speculation that Israel could bomb Iran mounted since a big Israeli air drill in 2008. In the first week of June, 2008, 100 Israeli F-16 and F-15 fighters reportedly took part in an exercise over the eastern Mediterranean and Greece, which was interpreted as a dress rehearsal for a possible attack on Iran’s nuclear installations.

Iran has warned that in case of an attack by either the US or Israel, it will target 32 American bases in the Middle East and close the strategic Strait of Hormoz.

An estimated 40 percent of the world’s oil supply passes through the waterway.

Israel and its close ally the United States accuse Iran of seeking a nuclear weapon, while they have never presented any corroborative document to substantiate their allegations. Both Washington and Tel Aviv possess advanced weapons of mass destruction, including nuclear warheads.

Iran vehemently denies the charges, insisting that its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes only. Tehran stresses that the country has always pursued a civilian path to provide power to the growing number of Iranian population, whose fossil fuel would eventually run dry.

Meantime, a recent study by the Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS), a prestigious American think tank, has found that a military strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities “is unlikely” to delay the country’s program.

In a Sep. 11, 2008 report, the Washington Institute for the Near East Policy also said that in the two decades since the Iran-Iraq War, the Islamic Republic has excelled in naval capabilities and is able to wage unique asymmetric warfare against larger naval forces.

According to the report, the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps Navy (IRGCN) has been transformed into a highly motivated, well-equipped, and well-financed force and is effectively in control of the world’s oil lifeline, the Strait of Hormuz.

The study says that if Washington takes military action against the Islamic Republic, the scale of Iran’s response would likely be proportional to the scale of the damage inflicted on Iranian assets.

Lowry: America’s giant charade over Iran’s N-weapons – Salt Lake Tribune.

The rules of the great Iranian nuclear charade are simple: We pretend to punish the Iranians for the nuclear-weapons program that they pretend doesn’t exist.

The Obama administration is about to go to the United Nations Security Council for a fourth round of sanctions. Remember the first three rounds? Models of collective international action, they passed unanimously (with the exception of an abstention by Indonesia in 2008) while Iran spun ever-more centrifuges and enriched ever-more uranium.

It’s a two-track process. On one track, the West feels as though it’s doing something; on the other, the Iranians advance the nuclear program the West is purportedly doing something about. In the 1930s, when the Italians invaded Abyssinia, opposition leader David Lloyd George remarked of the British government’s belated sanctions: “They came too late to save Abyssinia, but they are just in the nick of time to save the government.” A whiff of the same self-serving ineffectuality pervades sanctions on Iran.

The Obama administration will tout any action by the Security Council as a success. Its reset-hitting diplomacy will have overcome resistance by veto- wielding permanent Security Council members Russia and China. But at the predictable price of gutting the sanctions it has waited more than a year to get around to moving.

The sanctions won’t be “crippling,” the Obama administration’s old standard, and will hardly even have “bite,” Hillary Clinton’s latest promise. They will be carefully “targeted,” U.N.-speak for limited to the point of meaninglessness.

Sanctions against Iran have had an unhappy career. Foreign companies that do proscribed business with Iran employ a variety of ruses — new names, the use of shell companies — to evade bans on trading with U.S. companies, according to a Wall Street Journal account. The New York Times found that foreign and multinational American companies trading with Iran have fattened on a stunning $107 billion in contracts, grants and benefits from the U.S. government during the past decade.

Barack Obama entered office laboring under the misapprehension that only George W. Bush’s belligerence blocked progress with Iran.

If we reached out, the mullahs might realize that we meant them no harm and talk in good faith. Failing that, advertising our good intentions for the world would ease the way for those “crippling” sanctions.

For all the time Obama spent in 2008 defending talking with our enemies, he didn’t seem to count on our enemies not necessarily wanting to talk to us. Nor to realize that demonstrating our niceness wouldn’t lull other countries into abandoning their strategic and economic interests.

Even Brazil, a significant exporter of food to Iran that covets a role as an international mediator, has balked at tough measures at the U.N.

The upshot is that Obama has adopted a version of the Bush approach of wheel-spinning negotiations and occasional sanctions, producing the same result: futility.

The fact is that sanctions are an unwieldy instrument and often fail to achieve their intended goal. All that they may be good for is distracting us from the inevitable. Absent a revolution, there are two ways for the charade to end — with a nuclear Iran, or an Israeli or American military strike. Everything else is commentary.

Alalam.

Wed, 07 Apr 2010 09:44:13 GMT

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has reacted angrily to the US president over threats to take extreme measures against Iran and North Korea.

During a speech in Iran’s Western Azerbaijan Province on Wednesday, Ahmadinejad warned the President Barack Obama not to follow in the footsteps of his predecessor and not make the past mistakes.

The remarks came after the US unveiled limits on the nation’s nuclear arsenal on Tuesday, saying it would only use atomic weapons in “extreme circumstances” and would not attack non-nuclear states.

However, Obama warned exceptions could be made for “outliers” such as Iran and North Korea.

Ahmadinejad warned his US counterpart of a “tooth-breaking” response in case he resorted to military measures.

In the televised speech, Ahmadinejad said: “I hope these published comments are not true… he (Obama) has threatened with nuclear and chemical weapons those nations which do not submit to the greed of the United States.”

The Iranian president also called on foreign forces to withdraw from the region.

He said: “People will cut off the wrong hands if they do not stop their aggressive policies.”

Ahmadinejad also dismissed threats of military strikes by the occupying regime of Israel and urges Tel Aviv’s allies to cease support.

Iran says oil sanctions threat a joke | Reuters.

Gas flares from an oil production platform at the Soroush oil fields with an Iranian flag in the foreground in the Persian Gulf, 1,250 km (776 miles) south of the capital Tehran, July 25, 2005

(Reuters) – The idea of international sanctions on Iranian oil exports is a joke, a senior Iranian official said on Tuesday, adding Iran would not abandon its disputed nuclear work despite mounting international pressure.

U.S. President Barack Obama is pushing for new U.N. sanctions in the coming weeks to pressure Iran to stop its sensitive nuclear activities, which Washington and its European allies believe is a cover to develop bombs.

Iran’s foreign ministry spokesman said restricting Iran’s oil and gas exports — an idea not included in the latest proposals agreed by Western powers — was “illogical” and that all sanctions would fail.

“Countries need oil to guarantee their economic growth … talking about imposing sanctions on Iran’s oil sector is like a joke,” Ramin Mehmanparast told a weekly news conference. “Such a move would hurt other (importer) countries.

“Imposing sanctions on Iran is illogical and a politically-motivated measure … Iran will never abandon its nuclear activities because of sanctions.”

The United States already bans imports of Iranian energy, but the world’s fifth biggest oil exporter has willing buyers around the world. Crude hit an 18-month high near $87 on Monday, reflecting growing confidence of an economic upturn.

A senior executive at the National Iranian Oil Company said on Monday sanctions that disrupted the supply of crude oil would “lead to the intensification and prolongation of the economic recession (in consumer countries).”

The latest draft proposals agreed by the United States, Britain, France and Germany include restrictions on new Iranian banks established abroad and on insurance of cargo shipments to and from Iran.

Commenting on potential restrictions on Iran’s petroleum imports, Oil Minister Masoud Mirkazemi said the country had the refining capacity to avoid that being a massive blow.

“Iran has the capability to produce fuel in case of emergency,” he was quoted as telling Iranian state radio.

OBAMA WANTS “BITE”

In an interview in Tuesday’s New York Times, Obama said he wanted a U.N. sanctions resolution “that has bite” to pressure Iranians over a nuclear program he said “would provide them with nuclear weapons capabilities.”

Announcing new limits on the conditions under which the United States could use nuclear weapons, Obama said it would not apply to “outliers like Iran and North Korea.”

Iran denies it is trying to make nuclear weapons and says it is developing purely peaceful nuclear technologies. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has said he is still open to negotiate with foreign powers, but under strict conditions.

Mehmanparast said he hoped Russia would fulfill an Iranian order for a missile defense system which Israel and the United States do not want it to have.

Analysts say the S-300 could help Iran thwart any attempt by Israel or the United States — which have refused to rule out military action if diplomacy fails to resolve the atomic row — to bomb its nuclear facilities.

Mehmanparast accused Washington of kidnapping an Iranian nuclear scientist who, according to U.S. media, chose to defect.

ABC News reported last week that nuclear physicist Shahram Amiri, who disappeared during a pilgrimage to Mecca in June, had defected to the United States and was helping the CIA.

“America’s connection with Amiri proves what we said in the past, that American intelligence services were involved in this kidnapping,” Mehmanparast said.

Obama resigned to Iranian nukes.

By Stan Goodenough
April 06, 2010

US President Barack Obama acknowledged Monday that the Islamic Republic of Iran – which has repeatedly voiced its intention to see Israel wiped off the map – is on course to obtain nuclear weapons after all.

Speaking to the New York Times, Obama said he was convinced “the current course they [the Iranian leadership] are on would provide them with nuclear weapons capabilities.”

As a consequence of Obama’s appeasement approach to Tehran, America can do nothing to prevent it.

The American’s admission comes after a year during which his administration barely stopped short of public threats to prevent Israel from self-defensively destroying Iran’s nuclear facilities.

Most recently, behind-closed-door coercive tactics were employed during successive visits by Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, Joint Chiefs off Staff Chairman Admiral Mike Mullen and Vice President Joe Biden in order to keep pressure on Israel not to attack.

For his part Obama inherited – and fully embraced – the attitude adopted by the Bush administration in 2004.

According to Assistant Editor to The Jerusalem Post, Caroline Glick: “From 2004, the Bush administration sought to appease Iran into giving up its nuclear program – first indirectly through the negotiations that France, Britain and Germany conducted with Tehran. Then in 2006, the administration began direct negotiations with the mullahs. Bush personally rejected repeated Israeli requests to purchase refueling aircraft and bunker buster bombs necessary for attacking Iran’s hardened nuclear facilities. And he refused to back Israeli plans to attack Iran’s nuclear installations. So too, Bush stopped calling for regime change in Iran.

“After the November 2007 publication of the falsified National Intelligence Estimate on Iran’s nuclear program,” Glick wrote, “Bush discarded the possibility of a US military strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities altogether.” (“Exploiting the Crisis,” by Caroline Glick, The Jerusalem Post, April 2, 2010)

As far back as January 2006, then Prime Minister Ehud Olmert declared that, “under no circumstances, and at no point, can Israel allow anyone with these kinds of malicious designs against us [to] have control of weapons of destruction that can threaten our existence.”

In November of the same year, then opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu sounded a clarion call that went largely dismissed by the rest of the world:

“It’s 1938 and Iran is Germany. And Iran is racing to arm itself with atomic bombs,” Netanyahu starkly warned the United Jewish Communities General Assembly. “Believe [Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad] and stop him,” he continued. “This is what we must do. Everything else pales before this.”

A frequent question posed Jerusalem Newswire by visiting groups is what the Israelis are going to do about the Iranian threat. Notwithstanding international efforts to wear down Israel’s resolve on this issue, the government in Jerusalem remains resolved to not permit Tehran to acquire nuclear weapons.

The Israel Defense Forces are believed to be in constant training for an attack on Iran. It is understood that the result of Obama’s resigned attitude towards the burgeoning threat in the east will leave Israel with no choice but to act on its own.

Scant decades after the Holocaust saw two-thirds of European Jewry washed away, Israel’s leaders are not about to sit back and allow the threat of another act of anti-Jewish genocide to be perpetrated against their people.

Israeli Security-Is Israel Facing War with Hizbullah and Syria?.

Vol. 9, No. 22    6 April 2010

Is Israel Facing War with Hizbullah and Syria?

David Schenker

• Concerns about Israeli hostilities with Hizbullah are nothing new, but based on recent pronouncements from Syria, if the situation degenerates, fighting could take on a regional dimension not seen since 1973.

• On February 26, Syrian President Bashar Assad hosted Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Hizbullah leader Hassan Nasrallah in Damascus. Afterward, Hizbullah’s online magazine Al Intiqad suggested that war with Israel was on the horizon.

• Raising tensions further are reports that Syria has provided Hizbullah with the advanced, Russian-made, shoulder-fired, Igla-S anti-aircraft missile, which could inhibit Israeli air operations over Lebanon in a future conflict. The transfer of this equipment had previously been defined by Israeli officials as a “red line.”

• In the summer of 2006, Syria sat on the sidelines as Hizbullah fought Israel to a standstill. After the war, Assad, who during the fighting received public assurances from then-Prime Minister Olmert that Syria would not be targeted, took credit for the “divine victory.”

• Damascus’ support for “resistance” was on full display at the Arab Summit in Libya in late March 2010, where Assad urged Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas to abandon U.S.-supported negotiations and “take up arms against Israel.”

• After years of diplomatic isolation, Damascus has finally broken the code to Europe, and appears to be on the verge of doing so with the Obama administration as well. Currently, Syria appears to be in a position where it can cultivate its ties with the West without sacrificing its support for terrorism.

In February 2010, tensions spiked between Israel and its northern neighbors. First, Syrian and Israeli officials engaged in a war of words, complete with dueling threats of regime change and targeting civilian populations. Weeks later, Hizbullah leader Hassan Nasrallah pledged to go toe-to-toe with Israel in the next war.¹ Then, toward the end of the month, Israel began military maneuvers in the north. Finally, on February 26, Syrian President Bashar Assad hosted Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Nasrallah for an unprecedented dinner meeting in Damascus.

Concerns about Israeli hostilities with Hizbullah are nothing new, but based on recent pronouncements from Damascus, if the situation degenerates, fighting could take on a regional dimension not seen since 1973. In January and February, Syrian officials indicated that, unlike during the 2006 fighting in Lebanon, Damascus would not “sit idly by” in the next war.² While these statements may be bravado, it’s not difficult to imagine Syria being drawn into the conflict.

The Israeli government has taken steps to alleviate tensions, including, most prominently, Prime Minister Netanyahu issuing a gag order forbidding his ministers to discuss Syria.³ Still, the situation in the north remains volatile. Within a three-day span in mid-March: the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) fired at Israeli jets violating Lebanese airspace;⁴ four Lebanese nationals were charged with spying for Israel against Hizbullah;⁵ and Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi told the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee that the Shiite militia was “building up its forces north of the Litani (river).” Currently, according to Ashkenazi, the border was calm, “but this can change.”⁶

It’s easy to see how the situation could deteriorate. Hizbullah retaliation against Israel for the 2008 assassination of its military leader Imad Mugniyyeh could spark a war. So could Hizbullah firing missiles in retribution for an Israeli strike against Iranian nuclear facilities. The transfer of sensitive Syrian technology to the Shiite militia could also prompt an Israeli strike. Regrettably, even if Israel continues to try and diffuse tensions in the north, given the central role Tehran has in determining Hizbullah policy, a third Lebanon war may be inevitable.

Martyrs Month Pronouncements

In mid-February, Hizbullah held the annual commemoration for its pantheon of heroes, a week of celebrations marking the organization’s top three martyrs – founding father Ragheb Harb, Secretary General Abbas Mussawi, and military leader Imad Mugniyyeh. On February 16 – Martyred Leaders Day – Nasrallah gave a speech where he defined a new, more aggressive posture toward Israel, upping the ante in the militia’s longstanding “balance of terror” strategy. Promising parity with Israeli strikes on Lebanon, Nasrallah threatened:

If you [Israel] bomb Rafik Hariri international airport in Beirut, we will bomb Ben-Gurion airport in Tel Aviv. If you bomb our docks, we will bomb your docks. If you bomb our oil refineries, we will bomb your oil refineries. If you bomb our factories, we will bomb your factories. And if you bomb our power plants, we will bomb your power plants.⁷

With current estimates suggesting that Hizbullah now possesses in excess of 40,000 missiles and rockets, Nasrallah’s threats have some resonance. Raising tensions further are reports that Syria has provided Hizbullah with the advanced, Russian-made, shoulder-fired, Igla-S anti-aircraft missile, which could inhibit Israeli air operations over Lebanon in a future conflict.⁸ The transfer of this equipment had previously been defined by Israeli officials as a “red line.”⁹ It is unclear whether such a transgression remains a casus belli.

In addition to laying out Hizbullah’s new targeting strategy, Nasrallah also discussed his yet unfulfilled pledge to retaliate against Israel for the 2008 killing of Mugniyyeh. Two years ago, immediately after the assassination, Nasrallah declared an “open war” against Israel, swearing vengeance for the group’s martyred leader. However, to date, the militia’s attempts to strike Israeli targets – in Azerbaijan and Turkey – have failed.¹⁰ During his speech, Nasrallah reiterated Hizbullah’s commitment to retaliate. “Our options are open and we have all the time in the world,” he said, adding, “What we want is a revenge that rises to the level of Imad Mugniyyeh.”¹¹

The Damascus “Resistance” Summit

In recent years, meetings between Assad and Ahmadinejad have been routine occurrences. It has also been customary for senior Syrian and Iranian officials to visit their respective capitals – and to sign defense or economic agreements – immediately following meetings between the Assad regime and U.S. officials. So it came as little surprise that Ahmadinejad arrived in Damascus just days after Undersecretary of State William Burns departed the Syrian capital. The surprising part about his visit was that Hassan Nasrallah joined the presidents for dinner.

On the day before Nasrallah’s visit, Assad and Ahmadinejad made great efforts to demonstrate that Washington’s transparent efforts to drive a wedge between the thirty-year strategic allies had failed. In a press conference on February 25, Assad famously mocked U.S. Secretary of State Hilary Clinton and the administration’s gambit to split Syria from Iran, announced the end of visa requirements for travel between the two states, and described “support for the resistance [a]s a moral and national duty in every nation, and also a [religious] legal duty.”¹² He also said that he discussed with his Iranian counterpart “how to confront Israeli terrorism.”

While the Syria-Iran bilateral meeting and subsequent press conference was described in some detail by Assad regime insider Ibrahim Humaydi in the pan-Arab daily Al Hayat, far less is known about what Assad, Ahmadinejad, and Nasrallah discussed during their dinner meeting the next day. According to the account in Hizbullah’s online magazine Al Intiqad, the meeting was about “the escalating strategic response of the axis of the confrontationist, rejectionist, and resistance states” to the U.S.-Israeli threat.¹³ Significantly, this article also suggested that war with Israel was on the horizon.

Resorting to the most extreme decision – that is, launching and setting a war on its path – will decide the final results. In any case, if reasonable calculations prevail, they will lead to producing comprehensive and specific [Israeli] compromises or it will lead to postponing the war which still waits for its most appropriate time for everyone.¹⁴

Based on its analysis of the trilateral summit in Damascus, this Hizbullah organ seems to be suggesting that a war, while not imminent, is inevitable.

The Weak Link

In the summer of 2006, Syria sat on the sidelines as Hizbullah fought Israel to a standstill. After the war, Assad, who during the fighting received public assurances from then-Prime Minister Olmert that Syria would not be targeted, took credit for the “divine victory.”¹⁵ Since then, Syria has upgraded its rhetorical and materiel support for the Shiite militia.¹⁶ Damascus has helped Hizbullah to fully rearm, reportedly providing the militia with cutting-edge Russian weaponry from its own stocks. In this context, Syrian officials have been increasingly trumpeting their support for, and loyalty to, the resistance, so much so that the official government-controlled Syrian press now proclaims that “Syrian foreign policy depends on supporting the resistance.”¹⁷

Damascus’ support for “resistance” was on full display at the Arab Summit in Libya in late March 2010. According to reports, at the meeting Assad urged Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to abandon U.S.-supported negotiations and “take up arms against Israel,” imparting his own experience that “the price of resistance is not higher than the price of peace.”¹⁸ During his speech before his fellow Arab leaders, Assad was equally hard-line in his prescriptions. At a minimum, he said, Arab states should cut off their relations with Israel. The “maximum” – and presumably preferable – policy option, he said, would be to support the resistance.¹⁹

Despite the rhetoric, however, it’s not clear that Syria is presently itching for a fight with Israel. After years of diplomatic isolation, Damascus has finally broken the code to Europe, and appears to be on the verge of doing so with the Obama administration, which recently announced the posting of a new ambassador and indicated a willingness to revise sanctions and modify U.S. economic pressures on Damascus.²⁰ Currently, Syria appears to be in a position where it can cultivate its ties with the West without sacrificing its support for terrorism.

War would change this comfortable dynamic. In the event of an Israel-Hizbullah conflagration, pressures on Syria to participate would be intense. Furthermore, could Syria really watch an Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities without responding? After so much crowing about its support for Hizbullah and its regional ilk, could Syria sit out yet another fight?

Conclusion

While it’s too early to predict the timing or the trigger, on Israel’s northern border there appears to be a growing sense that war is coming. Iran may have an interest in maintaining Hizbullah’s arsenal until an Israeli strike. Likewise, for Hizbullah, which lately has been playing up its Lebanese identity in an effort to improve its image at home, waging war on Israel on behalf of Iran could be problematic. In any event, it is all but assured that a war on Israel’s northern front will be determined, at least in part, by Tehran.

In early February, Israeli Minister of Defense Ehud Barak told the IDF: “In the absence of an arrangement with Syria, we are liable to enter a belligerent clash with it that could reach the point of an all-out, regional war.”²¹ Regrettably, regardless of what happens between Syria and Israel in the coming months, the decision of war or peace with Hizbullah may be out of Israel’s hands.

*     *     *

Notes

* The author would like to thank his research assistant Cole Bunzel for his excellent assistance in the preparation of this article.

1. “Full Text of H.E. Sayyed Nasrallah Speech on Day of Martyred Leaders,” http://english.moqawama.org/essaydetails.php?eid=10225&cid=214.

2. “Syria Will Back Hizbullah Against IDF,” Jerusalem Post, January 6, 2010. Foreign Minister Walid Mouallem echoed this threat in February 2010; see “Al-Mouallem at Press Conference with Moratinos,” SANA, February 4, 2010. http://www.sana.sy/eng/21/2010/02/04/270781.htm.

3. Attila Somfalvi, “Bibi Tells Ministers to Keep Mum on Syria,” Ynet, February 4, 2010, http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3844619,00.html. Netanyahu also reassured Syria that Israel remained interested in peace.

4. “Lebanese Army Fires on Israeli Warplanes,” AFP, March 21, 2010, http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/breakingnews/world/view/20100321-260030/Lebanese-army-fires-on-Israeli-warplanes.

5. “Lebanon Charges Four with Spying for Israel,” Press TV, March 20, 2010, http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=121274§ionid=351020203.

6. Amnon Meranda, “Ashkenazi: Hamas Doesn’t Want a Flareup,” Ynet, March 23, 2010, http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3866883,00.html.

7. “Nasrallah Speech on Day of Martyred Leaders.”

8. See, for example, Barak Ravid, “Israel Warns Hizbullah: We Won’t Tolerate Arms Smuggling,” Ha’aretz, October 12, 2008, http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1009384.html.

9. “Report: Hizbullah Trains on Missiles,” UPI, January 17, 2010, http://www.upi.com/Top_News/International/2010/01/17/Report-Hezbollah-trains-on-missiles/UPI-51221263741141/.

10. See Yossi Melman, “Hizbullah, Iran Plotted Bombing of Israeli Embassy in Azerbaijan,” Ha’aretz, May 31, 2009, http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1089204.html. Also Avi Isaacharoff, “Turkish Forces Foil Attack on Israeli Target,” Ha’aretz, December 9, 2009, http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1133747.html.

11. “Nasrallah Speech on Day of Martyred Leaders.”

12. Ibrahim Humaydi, “Al Asad: Ta‘ziz al-‘alaqat bayna duwal al-mintaqa tariq wahid li-l-qarar al mustaqill,” Al Hayat, February 26, 2010, http://international.daralhayat.com/internationalarticle/112984.

13. “Qimmat Nejad-Al-Asad-Nasrallah: Ayy hisabat ba‘daha?” http://www.alintiqad.com/essaydetails.php?eid=27878&cid=4.

14. Ibid.

15. “Speech of Bashar Asad at Journalist Union 4th Conference,” August 15, 2006,

http://www.golan67.net/NEWS/president%20Assad%20Speech%2015-8-6.htm.

16. In addition to the Igla-S anti-aircraft missile, some unconfirmed reports indicate that Syria may have transferred some of its Scud-D missiles – capable of delivering chemical warheads – to Hizbullah.

17. “Junblatt wa-l-Tariq ila Dimashq,” Al Watan, March 10, 2010, http://alwatan.sy/dindex.php?idn=75718. That support for resistance is central to Syrian foreign policy comes as little surprise: in 2009, Foreign Minister Walid Mouallem volunteered to join Hizbullah. See “Muallem Says He’s Ready to Join Hizbullah,” Gulf News, May 3, 2009, http://gulfnews.com/news/region/lebanon/muallem-says-ready-to-join-hezbollah-1.248887.

18. “Arab Leaders Support Peace Plan,” AP, March 28, 2010, http://www.jpost.com/middleeast/article.aspx?id=171981.

19. Ziyad Haydar, “Qimmat sirte infaddat ‘ala ‘ajal…wa bila za‘al,” As Safir, March 29, 2010, http://www.assafir.com/Article.aspx?ArticleId=3020&EditionId=1496&ChannelId=34736. In an interview following the summit, Syrian advisor Buthaina Sha‘ban declared victory for the Syrian position, saying that “an agreement took place among the Arab leaders in a closed session to support the resistance and reject normalization” with Israel.

20. Ibrahim Humaydi, “Washington tarfa‘ mu‘aradataha ‘udwiyat Suriya fi munazzimat al-tijara al-‘alamiya,” Al Hayat, February 24, 2010,. http://international.daralhayat.com/internationalarticle/112646.

21. Amos Harel, “Barak: Without Peace We Could Be Headed for All-Out War,” Ha’aretz, February 2, 2010, http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1146731.html.

Obama to limit U.S. use of nuclear arms, but not on Iran – Haaretz – Israel News.

The Obama administration will formally unveil a new policy on Tuesday restricting U.S. use of nuclear arms, renouncing development of new atomic weapons and heralding further cuts in America’s stockpile.

But even as President Barack Obama limits the conditions under which the United States would resort to a nuclear strike, he is making clear that nuclear-defiant states like Iran and North Korea will remain potential targets.

“I’m going to preserve all the tools that are necessary in order to make sure that the American people are safe and secure,” Obama told The New York Times in an interview that previewed his revamped nuclear strategy.

Obama insisted “outliers like Iran and North Korea” that have violated or renounced the treaty would not be protected.

The policy shift, calling for reduced U.S. reliance on its nuclear deterrent, could build momentum before Obama signs a landmark arms control treaty with Russia in Prague on Thursday and hosts a nuclear security summit in Washington next week.

But it is also likely to draw fire from conservative critics who say his approach is naive and compromises U.S. national security.

The Nuclear Posture Review is required by Congress from every U.S. administration but Obama set expectations high after he vowed to end “Cold War thinking” and won the Nobel Peace Prize in part for his vision of a nuclear-free world.

Under the new strategy, the United States would commit for the first time not to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear states that are in compliance with the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, even if it is attacked with biological or chemical weapons, according to The New York Times and a U.S. official who confirmed the details.

Those threats, Obama said, could be deterred with “a series of graded options” – a combination of old and newly designed conventional weapons.

Still, Obama is rolling back the Bush administration’s more hawkish policy set out in its 2002 review threatening the use of nuclear weapons to preempt or respond to chemical or biological attack, even from non-nuclear countries.

An exception under Obama’s plan would allow an option of reconsidering the use of nuclear retaliation against a biological attack if there is reason to believe the United States were vulnerable to a devastating attack.

To set an example for global arms control, Obama’s strategy – another departure from Bush-era policy – commits the United States to no new atomic arms development, U.S. officials said.

The United States will, however, increase investment in upgrading its weapons infrastructure, which one White House official said would “facilitate further nuclear reductions.”

Arms control experts see potential for significant cuts in the U.S. stockpile by upgrading weapons laboratories to weed out older, ineffective warheads.

Obama now faces the challenge of lending credibility to his arms control push while not alarming allies under the U.S. defense umbrella or limiting room to maneuver in dealing with emerging nuclear threats from Iran and North Korea.

The review is a test of Obama’s effort to make controlling nuclear arms worldwide a signature foreign policy initiative. It is also important because it will affect defense budgets and Weapons deployment and retirement for years to come.

The strategy was developed after a lengthy debate among Obama’s aides and military officials over whether to declare that the United States would never be the first to use nuclear weapons in a crisis but would act only in response to attack.

Obama appeared unlikely to go as far as forswearing the first-strike option, which will disappoint some liberals.

The review comes a day before Obama leaves for Prague, where he and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev will sign a new START pact to slash nuclear arsenals by a third.

The signing ceremony will occur nearly a year after Obama’s Prague speech laying out his vision for eventually ridding the world of nuclear weapons. Obama acknowledged it might not be completed in his lifetime.