WarSclerotic

Gül lets the cat out of the bag on Iran – Hurriyet Daily News and Economic Review.

US allows Iran its nuclear vision | The Australian.

US President Barack Obama has decided to abandon any serious effort to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. He is determined instead to live with a nuclear Iran, by containment and, if possible, negotiation.

This is the shifting tectonic plate in the Middle East.

This is the giant story of the past few weeks which the world has largely missed, distracted by the theatre of the absurd of Obama’s contrived and mock confrontation with Israel over 1600 apartments to be built in three years’ time in a Jewish suburb in East Jerusalem.

Iran is the only semi-intelligible explanation for Obama’s bizarre over-reaction against the Israelis.

In the Middle East, today, Iran is the story. It is the consideration behind all other considerations.

Obama has not explicitly announced his new position and he and his cabinet secretaries still make speeches saying they will try to prevent Iran acquiring nuclear weapons. But if you look at the statements closely you see a steady weakening of resolve, a steady removal of any threat of any consequence for Iran. Similarly, if you look at the actions of the administration, the sombre conclusion is inescapable.

Given Iran’s missile program, which has no conceivable military use except to carry nuclear weapons, and which can now reach Europe and in due course will have a longer range, the fundamental change in US policy has global security consequences.

It has global security consequences in other ways, as well. It profoundly undermines American strategic credibility, which is the bedrock of whatever global order this troubled planet enjoys.

The troubling realisation that the Americans have given up, or are in the process of giving up, the fight to prevent Iran going nuclear is backed by the best informed security sources in Washington, London, Jerusalem and Canberra.

The bust-up between Washington and Israel only makes sense in this context. Last week, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met Obama in the White House, and also met Secretary of State Hillary Clinton at the State Department. On both occasions, all photographers and all TV cameras were banned. This was a studied humiliation of Netanyahu and all, ostensibly, because Israel announced that in three years’ time 1600 apartments would be built in a Jewish neighbourhood in East Jerusalem. Yet the 10-month moratorium on new residential building in the West Bank which Netanyahu had announced in October to effusive US praise had specifically exempted East Jerusalem.

It is inconceivable that Obama would have treated any Arab or Muslim leader with the same considered contempt that he showed to Netanyahu. I speculated last week that Obama engaged in his furious over-reaction in order to pursue personal popularity in the Muslim world, and perhaps to force Israel to make so many concessions that the Palestinians would come back to negotiations. Although these negotiations would not produce a comprehensive peace deal, at least Obama could claim the talks themselves as a victory of sorts.

I still think these were important considerations but there was a much bigger strategic purpose, as well. In 2008, Israel told Washington it was planning to strike Iran’s nuclear facilities. Washington talked Jerusalem out of the move, not least by showing its own determination to stop the Iranians.

In those days, senior Americans from then-president George W. Bush down, often said that “all options are on the table” in their determination to stop Iran acquiring nukes. All options explicitly included an American military strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities. When Obama spoke to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee in 2008, he said he would use “all elements of American power to pressure Iran”.

He won a tumultuous standing ovation by using a repetition of a key word to emphasise his determination. He said: “I will do everything in my power to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon – everything in my power to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon – everything.” That was Obama’s equivalent to Bush’s “all options”.

Obama doesn’t talk anything like that any more. In his message to Iran on the Iranian new year a few weeks ago, he reiterated his determination not to meddle in Iran’s internal affairs and said the nuclear matter should still be negotiated.

Clinton, in her address to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee last week, spoke only briefly about Iran, repeating a pro-forma US determination to stop it going nuclear. But there was no mention of all options, everything the US could do, or all aspects of US power. Instead, she said that while sanctions were taking a long time to work out at the UN, it was time well spent, and they would show Iran that its actions had consequences.

But the bulk of her speech was all about the Israeli-Palestinian issue.

Presidential and Secretary of State speeches on subjects like this are given a level of attention that wouldn’t be out of place in the preparation of a papal encyclical. The sub-text of Obama and Clinton’s recent speeches can only be that they have decided that the battle against a nuclear-armed Iran is over.

One thing they are determined to do is to stop Israel from taking its own unilateral military action to stop or retard Iran’s nuclear program. Israel has taken this type of action twice before. In 1981, it destroyed Iraq’s nuclear reactor at Osirak. And in 2007, it bombed into obliteration a North Korean-supplied secret nuclear reactor in Syria.

It is impossible to know with absolute certainty what Israel’s intentions were, or are, for the Iranian nuclear program. But for several years the most senior US officials would agree that a nuclear-armed Iran represented an existential threat to Israel. Iran’s rulers, after all, not only deny the Holocaust but have made militant anti-Americanism, confrontation with Israel and even anti-Semitism, defining ideologies of the Iranian state. Iran’s President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has threatened to wipe Israel off the map. Most analysts believe that for all their extremism, the Iranian rulers are rational actors and would not actually use nuclear weapons. But this is a slender analytical thread to ask Israelis to hang their very lives on. And the danger of Iran proliferating some element of nuclear material or technology to terrorists is much more plausible.

This is where the Obama-Israel dust-up comes in. By so isolating Israel, by irresponsibly unleashing a global wave of anti-Israel sentiment, especially in nations which normally support Israel, Obama has made the possibility of Israel considering unilateral action against Iran much more unlikely. The Israelis would weigh such action very carefully. There are many pluses and minuses. By creating the impression of Israel as a besieged, isolated and reckless nation, which the wildly disproportionate reaction to the East Jerusalem apartments accomplished, Obama has made the potential cost to Israel of action against Iran much greater.

Is it fair to conclude definitively that Obama has decided to give up, except for symbolic and meaningless actions, the fight against a nuclear-armed Iran?

Obama might still change his mind – he is nothing, after all, if not flexible – but that is the inescapable conclusion of his actions so far.

He has set so many deadlines for Iran. Each of them has passed and nothing ever happens. There are never bad consequences for the US’s enemies in Obama world, it seems, only for its friends.

Remember, initially, that the Obama administration wanted to wait for the Iranian election in the middle of last year before it exhausted dialogue or went down the sanctions road? Remember then the deadline was September? Remember the proposal for Iran’s uranium to go to Russia for enrichment? Remember the revelation of Iran’s secret nuclear facility at Qom? Remember Iran’s announcement that it intended to enrich uranium up to 20 per cent, a vast leap on the technological road to weapons? Did you notice a couple of weeks ago Iran’s announcement that it would build new nuclear facilities?

And where are we today? Now it is April and Obama is still talking in his feckless way about possible UN sanctions. Anything that is passed by China and Russia at the UN Security Council will be weak and ineffective. A serious US administration would have built a critical mass of like-minded countries to impose crippling sanctions on Iran outside the Security Council.

The only explanation that fits with all the facts is that the US administration is no longer serious about stopping Iran from getting nuclear weapons. James Lindsay and Ray Takeyh, writing in this month’s Foreign Affairs, declare that: “If Iran’s nuclear program continues to progress at its current rate, Tehran could have the nuclear material needed to build a bomb before US President Barack Obama’s current term in office expires.” The Foreign Affairs article, After Iran Gets the Bomb, is important in another way. It demonstrates the drift in the serious discussion in the US. It is no longer a discussion of how to stop Iran getting the bomb, but how to cope with a nuclear-armed Iran.

Here’s something else you should know about Iran. US General David Petraeus, in written testimony to congress, has revealed that Iran is co-operating with al-Qa’ida in Afghanistan and Pakistan, facilitating the movement of its leaders. The Sunday Times of London recently carried interviews with Taliban leaders who were trained in Iran.

There is no chance Obama will produce a comprehensive Israeli-Palestinian peace deal in his first term in office, which is how he would like to be remembered by history. There is every chance history will remember him for something altogether different, as the American president on whose watch Iran became a nuclear-weapons state.

Obama: Evidence shows Iran is developing nukes – Haaretz – Israel News.

Evidence shows Iran is attempting to develop nuclear weapons, U.S. President Barack Obama told CBS on Friday, adding that he felt his administration should continue the pressure on Tehran to cooperate with the international community over its contentious nuclear program.

In an interview to “The Early Show” Friday, Obama said “all the evidence” indicates that Tehran is trying to get a nuclear weapons capacity.

(Watch interview HERE)

With such a capability, Obama said that Iran could “destabilize” life in the Mideast and trigger an arms race in the region, adding that, for that reason, he felt “the idea here is to keep on turning up the pressure.”

“We’re going to ratchet up the pressure and examine how they respond but we’re going to do so with a unified international community,” Obama said.

The U.S. president had said earlier this week he wanted new, stronger U.N. sanctions to be in place by late spring. The president also said he believes the country has become further isolated from the rest of the world since he took office.

Obama’s comment comes after, earlier Friday, Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili said after meeting China’s foreign minister and other officials in Beijing that Iran and China agreed during talks in Beijing that sanctions are “not effective.”

“In our talks with China it was agreed that tools such as sanctions have lost their effectiveness,” Jalili told a news conference in the Chinese capital, speaking via a Chinese translator.

Asked if China backs sanctions on Iran over its nuclear program, he said: “It’s up to China to answer that.”

Jalili also said that international sanctions would not prevent Iran from pursuing its nuclear activities. “Iranians are familiar with sanctions … We consider sanctions as opportunities … We will continue our [nuclear] path more decisively,” Jalili said.

The United States and Israel, meanwhile, have both been making efforts to engage China in pursuing harsh international sanctions against Iran over the latter’s contentious nuclear program.

The head of the Israel Defense Forces’ Planning Directorate, Maj. Gen. Amir Eshel, will make an official visit to China next week to meet senior officials in the defense establishment there.

Eshel, who is in charge of strategic planning and foreign affairs for the Israel Defense Forces, is hoping to present the Chinese with Israel’s view on Iran’s drive toward nuclear military capability.

U.S. President Barack Obama, meanwhile, held an hour-long telephone conversation with Chinese President Hu Jintao on Thursday, in which he “underscored the importance of working together to ensure that Iran lives up to its international obligations,” the White House said in a statement.

The head of Israel’s Military Intelligence, Maj. Gen. Amos Yadlin, recently traveled to China and relayed to his hosts details of the Iran’s progress toward nuclear arms.

The spokesman for the Chinese military, with a rank of brigadier general, visited Israel last week as a guest of his Israeli counterpart.

The Israel Defense Forces considers exchanges with China to be important in softening Beijing’s opposition to international sanctions against Iran – which is suspected of developing nuclear weapons.

Last week China announced for the first time that it would consider going along with sanctions against Iran, even though its final decision will be made following talks in the UN Security Council over the substance of the resolution that will be brought for a vote.

In conversations with Israelis in recent weeks, Chinese officers and officials have made it clear that they both oppose Iran’s drive to acquire nuclear arms, but also any military action to stop the Iranian program. The Chinese also said that they oppose targeting Iran’s nuclear program through sanctions.

The Chinese opposition to sanctions was presented as a point of principle and was justified by the historic experience of the Communist regime in China, which suffered in its early decades as a result of Western sanctions.

U.S. and Israeli efforts are focused on convincing Beijing that the best alternative to preventing a nuclear Iran and a military operation targeting it would be to agree to more severe sanctions – without actively supporting these.

A successful effort to convince Russia, another permanent member of the Security Council, to support the sanctions would result in four of the five members voting in favor of tightening sanctions against Tehran, while Beijing would abstain and not veto the resolution.

China sells arms, equipment and advanced technology to the Iranian military and the Revolutionary Guard, which also make their way to Hezbollah. These include an anti-shipping missile that struck the Israeli gunship Hanit in July 2006.

A U.S. intelligence report on the proliferation of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons and missiles in 2009 was delivered to Congress last week. The unclassified version concluded that the Chinese government has implemented, during the past two years, legislation that is meant to monitor the export of banned items, but enforcement is not complete.

“Chinese entities” continue to sell items “related to missiles” to many clients, including Iran, according to the report.

The improvement in IDF relations with China is striking in view of the cooling of ties between the U.S. and Chinese militaries during the past two months, as a result of the announcement of the Obama administration on January 30 of plans to sell arms worth $6.4 billion to Taiwan.

Even though the United States was careful to stress that the arms in the package are not offensive weapons – Blackhawk helicopters, Patriot air-defense missiles, and mine sweepers – the Chinese responded by freezing contacts between the militaries of the two powers.

The exchange of visits by senior officers from Beijing and Jerusalem also reflects the rebuilding of ties that were strained following the crisis over the cancelation of an early warning aircraft deal in 2000. The sale of the Phalcon radar that ELTA was to mount on a Russian-made Ilyushin IL-76 transport aircraft was vetoed by the Americans.

The U.S. concern then, as it is today, is that China will upgrade its military capabilities to operate far from home.

In recent years Israel has been careful to follow American guidelines and avoid exporting sensitive military equipment to China.

As a result of the cancelation of the deal, Israel was forced to pay China $350 million in compensation.

Talks with Chinese officers suggest that the effects of that crisis have been minimized but not entirely forgotten: One officer said that he was surprised to witness, on arrival at Ben-Gurion International airport, a test flight of the second of the three Phalcon early-warning aircraft that are being supplied to India. A $1.1 billion deal was signed in 2004 following the failed Chinese deal. The aircraft was delivered to India late last week

Israeli unveils tank-defense system of the future – News – World – bnd.com.

FILE – In this May 30, 2008 file photo, an Israeli Merkava tank drives from the Gaza Strip into Israel near the Sufa Crossing. Israel has begun to equip Merkava tanks with the new “Trophy” defense system: a miniature anti-missile system that detects incoming projectiles and shoots them down before they reach the armored vehicles. If successful, the “Trophy” system could radically alter the balance of power if the country goes to war again against Hezbollah guerrillas in neighboring Lebanon. Its performance could also have much wider implications as American troops and their Western allies battle insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan. – AP Photo

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Al Jazeera English – Americas – Obama calls Hu on Iran sanctions.

The US president has called his Chinese counterpart to talk about Iran’s controversial nuclear programme after Beijing agreed to join discussions on possible new sanctions against the country.

Barack Obama and Hu Jintao spoke for about one hour on Thursday, with the US president highlighting “the importance of working together to ensure that Iran lives up to its international obligations”.

Obama welcomed Hu’s attendance at the international summit on nuclear security to be held in Washington later this month.

He said it would be an “important opportunity for them to address their shared interest in stopping nuclear proliferation and protecting against nuclear terrorism”, according to the White House.

China has previously been opposed to a new round of UN sanctions, with senior Chinese diplomats to the UN repeatedly saying diplomacy was their preferred route.

Strained relations

The discussion came with relations between Beijing and Washington strained over a range of trade disputes, internet censorship, US arms sales to Taiwan and the US president’s decision to meet the Dalai Lama, Tibet’s spiritual leader.

Hu told Obama both sides should “respect each other’s core interests and major concerns and properly handle differences and sensitive issues”.

He said that China and the US should make “unremitting efforts towards co-operative, positive and comprehensive” ties, a Chinese foreign ministry statement said.

“Hu stressed the Taiwan and Tibet issues concern China’s sovereignty, territorial integrity, and China’s core interests, and properly dealing with these issues is key to ensuring the healthy and stable development of Sino-US relations.”

The telephone call came as Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator visited China.

In talks with Saeed Jalili in Beijing, Yang Jiechi, China’s foreign minister “urged all sides to enhance diplomatic efforts and demonstrate flexibility, and to create the conditions for resolving the Iran nuclear issue through dialogue and negotiations”.

Iran rejects Western charges that its atomic programme is aimed at developing bombs and insists that its nuclear programme is peaceful and intended only to generate electricity.

US officials said on Wednesday that diplomats from the five permanent members of the UN Security Council and Germany, known as the “P5+1” group, were unified on the issue of Iran sanctions.

Applying pressure

Bill Burton, the White House spokesman, said that the international community would seek to “put pressure” on Iran this spring.

“We’re going to continue that process and the president thinks that this spring we’re going to be able to be in a place where there’s an agreement of those nations to apply real pressure to Iran,” he said.

China’s support, or at least acquiescence, is crucial to securing a new round of sanctions as it is a permanent member of the Security Council with the power to veto any resolution.

But Al Jazeera’s Cath Turner, reporting from the UN headquarters in New York, said the major powers had only agreed to compile a list of possible sanctions to be discussed before a draft resolution is draw up and presented for vote at the security council.

“Looking very closely at what has been agreed on, there is a long way to go until China is supposed to be supporting a new draft resolution for sanctions on Iran,” she said.

“We need to be very careful that we don’t buy into the American language of optimism and trumpeting some kind of breakthrough when really, it’s only a very small step on a very long way to sanctions against Iran.”

Energy supplier

Some analysts say China will push to ensure any possible sanctions do not threaten its energy and trade ties with Iran.

In 2009 Iran was the third-biggest foreign supplier of crude oil to China, which is the world’s second-biggest consumer of oil after the US.

A US draft proposal agreed with its European allies and passed on to Russia and China a month ago will form the basis of discussions on new sanctions.

It targets Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, shipping and other firms, but not Iran’s oil and gas sectors.

Russia, like China, reluctantly backed three previous rounds of UN sanctions against Iran for refusing to halt uranium enrichment as demanded by five Security Council resolutions.

International push for Iran sanctions is too little, too late – Haaretz – Israel News.

A diplomatic turnaround – however cautious, slow and weak – was made Wednesday with U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s announcement that the five permanent members of the UN Security Council, including China, have agreed to discuss a new round of sanctions against Iran.

On Thursday a spokesman for the Chinese Foreign Ministry qualified that statement, noting that Beijing opposes Iran’s acquisition of nuclear weapons but did not give its approval for new sanctions.

Either way, the new sanctions have yet to be agreed upon or finalized, and the potential measures do not include the kind of tools that could affect a change in Iranian policy.

Iranian shipping companies will not be blacklisted nor the international assets of Iran frozen, and oil or gas shipments from the Islamic Republic will not be cut, after these proposals were all rejected by Russia or China. It is more accurate to characterize the potential sanctions as a comprehensive warning against doing business with Tehran.

Its omissions cannot come as consolation to those concerned about Iran’s development of nuclear technology that could produce weapons of mass destruction.

Still, Wednesday’s feat – which must still pass a Security Council vote – is significant in incorporating both Russia and China among those nations which see an Iranian nuclear weapon as a threat, and which are willing to cooperate on finding a solution. Months of negotiation and pressure led by Washington have resulted in a more unified international community even if there is not full consensus over how to confront Tehran.

The accord reached by the Security Council members should give the Barack Obama administration the support needed to impose further sanctions of its own against Iran, and possibly convince several European countries to join the effort, even if only partially.

On the other hand, the fact remains that Iran has been under sanctions for three decades and still managed to develop a formidable technological infrastructure for nuclear power. It’s doubtful another round of sanctions will persuade Iran to stop its project, viewed within the country as part of its national defense apparatus and the source of immense national pride.

Absent full agreement on implementing strict sanctions – and presuming that either an Israeli or U.S. military option is unrealistic – it is essential that alongside sanctions, pathways must be found for dialogue with Tehran. The U.S. president believes the window is still open, and he is willing to pursue negotiations at any time.

And Iran, despite the strident tone it takes against the West, has itself not forgone the principle of negotiation. It is possible that China and Russia joining the group of nations threatening sanctions could serve as a springboard to talks.

Having led the international awareness campaign over the Iranian nuclear threat, Israel should be pleased with the current turnaround, even if its results are significantly lower than what it had hoped. At the same time, Israel’s call for global cooperation against Iran requires it too act as part of the international community in its policies vis-a-vis the Palestinians and the peace process.

IDF trying to boost China ties ahead of Iran sanctions vote – Haaretz – Israel News.

The head of the army’s Planning Directorate, Maj. Gen. Amir Eshel, will make an official visit to China next week to meet senior officials in the defense establishment there. Eshel, who is in charge of strategic planning and foreign affairs for the Israel Defense Forces, is hoping to present the Chinese with Israel’s view on Iran’s drive toward nuclear military capability.

The head of Military Intelligence, Maj. Gen. Amos Yadlin, recently traveled to China and relayed to his hosts details of the Iran’s progress toward nuclear arms.

The spokesman for the Chinese military, with a rank of brigadier general, visited Israel last week as a guest of his Israeli counterpart.

The Israel Defense Forces considers exchanges with China to be important in softening Beijing’s opposition to international sanctions against Iran – which is suspected of developing nuclear weapons.

Last week China announced for the first time that it would consider going along with sanctions against Iran, even though its final decision will be made following talks in the UN Security Council over the substance of the resolution that will be brought for a vote.

In conversations with Israelis in recent weeks, Chinese officers and officials have made it clear that they both oppose Iran’s drive to acquire nuclear arms, but also any military action to stop the Iranian program. The Chinese also said that they oppose targeting Iran’s nuclear program through sanctions.

The Chinese opposition to sanctions was presented as a point of principle and was justified by the historic experience of the Communist regime in China, which suffered in its early decades as a result of Western sanctions.

U.S. and Israeli efforts are focused on convincing Beijing that the best alternative to preventing a nuclear Iran and a military operation targeting it would be to agree to more severe sanctions – without actively supporting these.

A successful effort to convince Russia, another permanent member of the Security Council, to support the sanctions would result in four of the five members voting in favor of tightening sanctions against Tehran, while Beijing would abstain and not veto the resolution.

China sells arms, equipment and advanced technology to the Iranian military and the Revolutionary Guard, which also make their way to Hezbollah. These include an anti-shipping missile that struck the Israeli gunship Hanit in July 2006.

A U.S. intelligence report on the proliferation of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons and missiles in 2009 was delivered to Congress last week. The unclassified version concluded that the Chinese government has implemented, during the past two years, legislation that is meant to monitor the export of banned items, but enforcement is not complete.

“Chinese entities” continue to sell items “related to missiles” to many clients, including Iran, according to the report.

The improvement in IDF relations with China is striking in view of the cooling of ties between the U.S. and Chinese militaries during the past two months, as a result of the announcement of the Obama administration on January 30 of plans to sell arms worth $6.4 billion to Taiwan.

Even though the United States was careful to stress that the arms in the package are not offensive weapons – Blackhawk helicopters, Patriot air-defense missiles, and mine sweepers – the Chinese responded by freezing contacts between the militaries of the two powers.

The exchange of visits by senior officers from Beijing and Jerusalem also reflects the rebuilding of ties that were strained following the crisis over the cancelation of an early warning aircraft deal in 2000. The sale of the Phalcon radar that ELTA was to mount on a Russian-made Ilyushin IL-76 transport aircraft was vetoed by the Americans.

The U.S. concern then, as it is today, is that China will upgrade its military capabilities to operate far from home.

In recent years Israel has been careful to follow American guidelines and avoid exporting sensitive military equipment to China.

As a result of the cancelation of the deal, Israel was forced to pay China $350 million in compensation.

Talks with Chinese officers suggest that the effects of that crisis have been minimized but not entirely forgotten: One officer said that he was surprised to witness, on arrival at Ben-Gurion International airport, a test flight of the second of the three Phalcon early-warning aircraft that are being supplied to India. A $1.1 billion deal was signed in 2004 following the failed Chinese deal. The aircraft was delivered to India late last week.

Submarine-based ballistic missile

On Wednesday, March 31, the dawn of April 1 in the Middle East, a Western military official in Riyadh reported an American submarine had test-fired a ballistic missile capable of carrying nuclear warheads from “Saudi territory.” It was part of a joint US-Saudi naval exercise last week-.
He reported that US Lt. Gen. Patrick O’Reilly, head of the Missile Defense Agency, attended the launch. It was the first time the region had ever seen the firing of a nuclear-capable multiple-warhead missile from Saudi territory aimed in the direction of the Persian Gulf and Iran.
The source did not reveal whether the submarine was nuclear or indicate the size of US and Saudi forces taking part in the exercise.
A few hours later, a US defense department spokesman in Washington denied the Trident launch or any other missile during the exercise. He said Lt. Gen. O’Reilly was in the region, but did not attend a missile launch.
DEBKA-Net-Weekly‘s Middle East sources report that the initial story was leaked from Riyadh which stands by it, but the implications of a Trident test-fire from Saudi Arabia are so wide-reaching that the US administration preferred to deny it for now – although it sounded confused.
DEBKA-Net-Weekly‘s military sources stress that whether the Trident was fired from the Red Sea or Saudi Persian Gulf bases was less relevant than the point the Obama administration made: An American nuclear umbrella has been spread over Saudi Arabia and the Gulf Arab principalities to protect them against Iranian nuclear attack. No matter from what direction or which angle it was fired, the US nuclear-capable missile’s trajectory would have brought it close to Iranian shores, either in the Persian Gulf or the Arabian Sea.

US reconciled to a nuclear-armed Iran

The first “Western source” called it part of a demonstration because the Saudis lack the military manpower and radar for handling ballistic missiles of the Trident type. But in late January, Washington rushed extra Patriot anti-missile batteries to Saudi Arabia and other Gulf allies.
Washington and Riyadh are now planning a joint air exercise soon, as Saudi deputy defense minister Prince Khaled bin Sultan announced Monday, March 29.
The Trident carried three more strategic messages in its passage towards Iranian shores:
The first message: President Barack Obama has come to terms with the reality of a nuclear-armed Iran some time soon and is deploying accordingly to show Tehran and its potential targets in the Persian Gulf that any military use Iran may make of its nuclear capabilities would be met not just with a military response, but a US nuclear comeback.
The test-fire was announced a few hours after the release of a new US Central Intelligence Agency report on Wednesday, March 31, which determined that Iran is forging ahead with its nuclear weapons program notwithstanding setbacks and international opposition.
“Iran continues to develop a range of capabilities that could be applied to producing nuclear weapons, if a decision is made to do so,” the report said. “Iran continued to expand its nuclear infrastructure and continued uranium enrichment and activities related to its heavy water research reactor…” the CIA report added.

Sanctions superseded

That same Wednesday, Admiral Mike Mullen, Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, said at a news conference in Kabul:
“Iran is working to increase its influence in the area. On the one hand, that’s not surprising, she is a neighbor state, a neighbor country. On the other hand, the influence I see is all too often negative. I was advised last night about a significant shipment of weapons from Iran into Kandahar, for example.”
This southern Afghan city has been marked out as the US-led coalition forces’ next major objective in June.
Mullen’s words confirmed the United States is on a collision course with Iran on all fronts – not just its nuclear activities and the Middle East.
The second message: Given that the US and Iran are already at odds and an American nuclear umbrella has been thrown over the Gulf Arab nations, Middle East rulers can stop their race for unilateral nuclear capabilities of their own and save the billions of dollars needed to embark on a nuclear arms race.
The third message: The ballistic missile test effectively outperforms and obviates any tough sanctions that might be imposed on Iran, which Obama administration realizes would anyway be impractical given the present makeup of the UN Security Council. With real international sanctions unworkable, Washington has resolved to focus on protecting US Gulf allies and the region’s oil resources from any Iranian threat.

Washington: An Israeli attack is now redundant

DEBKA-Net-Weekly‘s military sources report that the US nuclear missile test also fundamentally affected Israel’s military and diplomatic position in four ways:
1. As the Obama administration sees it, now that the United States is reconciled to Iran acquiring a nuclear weapon and has provided the Persian Gulf states with guaranteed nuclear protection, Israel has no further need to consider a military option against Iran’s nuclear facilities. The Israeli government will have no recourse but to line up behind the US administration like everyone else, including Saudi Arabia.
2. Obama has cut Israel and its defense forces out of the equation of military powers stacked against Iran. Until the Trident shot into the air, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States told American diplomats bluntly they were relying on Israel to eradicate the nuclear threat posed by Iran. This rationale has been swept away together with the prospect of Israel’s military involvement in the Gulf region.

Obama’s Mid East policy reorients from Israel to Gulf

3. Unlike the Persian Gulf states, Israel has no need of an American nuclear umbrella because it has its own secret arsenal. The only military assistance required from Washington is the means for its self-defense, in the administration’s view. Obama therefore has no intention of letting Israel have weaponry for a possible strike against Iran. In this policy, he follows precisely in the footsteps of four of his predecessors, Ronald Reagan, George Bush Sr., Bill Clinton and George W. Bush.
Where the incumbent differs from them is on the next crucial point.
4. By taking charge of Persian Gulf Arab defenses against potential Iranian nuclear attack, Washington is not only lining up with their capitals on shared military objectives but also with their diplomatic agenda.
American diplomatic weight in the region is thus reorienting itself from Israel to the Gulf nations, from Jerusalem to Riyadh.
This tectonic shift will show up strongly in Washington’s regional and international conduct; if until now, the United States often spoke for and supported Israel’s positions in Middle Eastern and international arenas that affinity will tilt increasingly towards the Gulf nations.
The US president used the private Passover Seder he attended with his Jewish staff and their families in the Old Family Dining Room of the White House on March 29 to underscore his new stance: “The enduring story of Exodus teaches us that wherever we live, there is oppression to be fought and freedom to be won.”
The president’s staff had no doubt he was referring to the Palestinian cause.

FOXNews.com – Obama Choosing to “Pass Over” Israel.

By Jon Kraushar – FOXNews.com

President Obama is plaguing Israel and placating its enemies for his own political gain.

Obama’s desire to out-do past presidents in achieving breakthroughs where his predecessors failed is a laudable goal except that, as with health care reform, Obama cares less about the consequences of his actions and more about his reputation as a “transformational” leader whose will justifies any way.

So strong is Obama’s desire to broker an historic formation of a Palestinian state that the president vilifies Israel over its plan to build 1,600 apartments in East Jerusalem—territory that Israel won in the 1967 Mideast war. In the Mexican-American War, ending in 1848, the United States won land that now comprises the states of California, Utah, and Nevada, as well as most of Arizona and New Mexico, and parts of Wyoming and Colorado. Is President Obama willing to give that land back to the Mexicans?

And since when has sacrificing “land for peace” resulted in anything other than sacrifices for Israel?

As Mario Loyola points out in the National Review online: “Israel withdrew from south Lebanon in the interest of peace and got a second Lebanon war instead. It withdrew from most of the West Bank, and was repaid with a thousand Israeli civilians dead. It withdrew from Gaza, forcibly uprooting thousands of Jewish settlers, and the response was thousands of rockets fired at its civilian population, attacks that continue to this day. Still, despite these horrifying object lessons in the flaws of the ‘peace process,’ the Obama administration acts as if the peace process has no flaws at all and if Israel would just make a few more concessions, everything would be okay.”

U.S. officials describe the president as “livid” with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu because of the East Jerusalem construction. Is Obama equally “livid” over the Iranians’ construction of nuclear weapons?

While Israel faces an existential threat from Iran and while the Palestinians persist in calling for Israel’s destruction, Obama repeatedly calls for Israel to make more “concessions” for the sake of a “peace process” while the Palestinians make no concessions. Last year the president warned Netanyahu not to surprise the U.S. with a military attack against Iran.

Put that together and Obama is asking Israel to meekly acquiesce to its sworn enemies and to make itself vulnerable to annihilation, which is completely contrary to Jews’ vows of “never again” after the Holocaust.

Two obligations of any nation and its government are to maintain the security of its people and the sovereignty of its borders. This is all Israel is asking for Obama to accept—not with rhetoric but with the realistic understanding that America should not ask Israel to endanger itself as America should not be endangered.

In the Haggadah, the prayer book used for the Passover Seder, Jews ask: “May we be spared sorrow and adversity, and may we never suffer shame or humiliation.”

In 2008, 78 percent of American Jews voted for Obama. Perhaps one lesson of this Passover should be “never again” to that.

JPost.com | BlogCentral | Double Standard Watch | The conflict between the US and Israel must end now!.

The apparently escalating conflict between the US and Israel did not have to occur. It must be resolved now, before it does irreparable harm to prospects for peace.

The conflict was largely contrived by people with agendas. The initial impetus for the brouhaha was an ill-timed announcement that permits had been issued for building 1,600 additional residences in a part of Jerusalem that had been captured by Israel in the 1967 war. The Netanyahu government had been praised by President Obama for agreeing to a freeze on building permits on the West Bank, despite the fact that the freeze did not extend to any part of Jerusalem. Thus the announcement of new building permits did not violate any agreement by Israel. Nonetheless, the timing of the announcement embarrassed Vice President Joe Biden, who was in Israel at the time.

The timing was neither an accident nor was it purposely done by Prime Minister Netanyahu to embarrass Biden. Many believe that the announcement was purposely timed by opponents of the peace process in order to embarrass Netanyahu. Whatever the motivation, the announcement deserved a rebuke from Vice President Biden. It also warranted an apology and explanation from the Israeli government, and Netanyahu immediately issued one. That should have ended the contretemps. But some in the Obama administration apparently decided that they too had an agenda beyond responding to the ill-timed announcement, and decided to take advantage of Israel’s gaffe. They began to pile on – and on, and on. Instead of it being a one-day story, the controversy continues to escalate and harden positions on all sides to this day, and perhaps beyond. The real victim is the peace process, and the winners are those – like Iran, Hamas and extremist Israelis – who oppose the two-state solution.

The building permits themselves were for residences not in east Jerusalem, but rather in north Jerusalem, and not in an Arab section, but rather in an entirely Jewish neighborhood. This neighborhood, Ramat Shlomo, is part of the area that everybody acknowledges should and will remain part of Israel even if an agreement for a two-state solution and the division of Jerusalem is eventually reached. In that respect, it is much like the ancient Jewish quarter of Jerusalem, which was illegally captured from the Jewish residents by the Jordanian army in the 1948 war. The Jordanians then desecrated Jewish holy places during its illegal occupation, and the Israelis legally recaptured it during the defensive war of 1967. No one in their right mind believes that Israel has any obligation to give up the Jewish quarter of Jerusalem, including the Western Wall, the holiest Jewish site in the world, despite the fact that it was recaptured during the 1967 war.

Because the Palestinians understand and acknowledge that these entirely Jewish areas of Jerusalem will remain part of the Jewish state even after an agreement, the ill-timed announcement of building permits during the Biden visit generated a relatively mild and routine complaint, rather than a bellicose response, from the Palestinian Authority leadership. The bellicose response came from the American leadership, which refused to let the issue go. Once this piling-on occurred, the Palestinian leadership had no choice but to join the chorus of condemnation, lest they be perceived as being less pro-Palestinian than the Obama administration.

Now positions have hardened on both sides, due largely to the public and persistent nature of the American condemnation. This rebuke culminated in the very public dissing of Prime Minister Netanyahu by President Obama during their recent White House meeting. Obama treated Netanyahu far worse than he treated Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who is corrupt to the core and who had invited Iranian dictator Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to deliver an anti-American tirade inside Afghanistan’s presidential palace. According to a high-ranking Afghan source, Karzai “invited Ahmadinejad to spite the Americans.” Nonetheless, President Obama flew to Afghanistan and had a very public dinner with Karzai, according him the red carpet treatment, thus granting him legitimacy following his fraudulent re-election.

Prime Minister Netanyahu, on the other hand, has been treated with disrespect in what many Israelis see as an effort to delegitimize him in the eyes of Israeli voters who know how important the US-Israeli relationship is in the Jewish state.

The shabby treatment accorded Israel’s duly elected leader has also stimulated an ugly campaign by some of Israel’s enemies to delegitimize the US-Israeli strategic relationship, and indeed the Jewish nation itself, in the eyes of American voters. The newest, and most dangerous, argument being offered by those who seek to damage the US-Israel alliance is that Israeli actions, such as issuing building permits in Jerusalem, endanger the lives of American troops fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan.

This phony argument – originally attributed to Vice President Biden and General David Petraeus but categorically denied by both of them – has now taken on a life of its own in the media. A CNN headline on the Rick Sanchez Show blared: “Israel a danger to US Troops.” Other headlines conveyed a similar message: “US Tells Israel: ‘You’re undermining America, endangering troops.'” Variations on this dangerous and false argument have been picked up by commentators such as Joe Klein in Time Magazine, Roger Cohen in The New York Times, DeWayne Wickham in USA Today and, not surprisingly, Patrick Buchanan and Professors Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer.

It is a dangerous and false argument. It is dangerous because its goal is to reduce support for Israel among mainstream Americans who understandably worry about our troops fighting abroad. This is ironic since the major pillar of Israel’s policy with regard to US troops is that Israel never wants to endanger our troops. That’s why it has never asked US soldiers to fight for Israel, as other allies have asked our soldiers to fight for them.  By seeking to scapegoat Israel for the death of American troops at the hands of Islamic terrorists, this argument blames those who love America for deaths caused by those who hate America.

Most of all, it is an entirely false argument. There is absolutely no correlation between Israeli actions and the safety of American troops – none.

No one has ever shown any relationship between what Israel does and the rate of American casualties, because there is no such relationship – none

Consider two significant time periods. The first is the end of 2000 and the beginning of 2001, when Israel offered the Palestinians virtually everything they could have wanted: a state on 100 percent of the Gaza Strip and 97% of the West Bank, a capital in a divided Jerusalem and a $35 billion reparation package for refugees. Virtually the entire Arab world urged Arafat to accept this generous offer, but he declined it. During the very months that Israel was doing everything possible to promote peace with the Palestinians, al-Qaida was planning its devastating attack on the World Trade Center. No correlation between Israeli actions and American casualties.

Then consider the end of 2008 and the beginning of 2009 when Israel was engaged in Operation Cast Lead, which caused significant Palestinian casualties. During that difficult period, there was no increase in American casualties. Again, no correlation.

Those offering up this phony empirical argument have an obligation to present evidence in support of this fallacious correlation, or else to stop making this bigoted argument.

The reason there is no correlation is because extremist Muslims who kill American troops are not outraged at what Israel does, but rather at what Israel is – a secular Jewish, democratic state. As long as Israel exists, there will be Islamic extremists who regard that fact as a provocation. The same is true of the United States: as long we continue to exist as a secular democracy with equal rights for women, Christians and Jews, the Osama Bin Ladens of the world will seek our destruction. Certainly as long as American troops remain in any part of the Arab world – whether it be Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Iraq or Afghanistan – Muslim fanatics will try to kill our soldiers. Blame for the murder of American troops should be placed on those who kill them, rather than on those who stand for the same values of democracy and equality as America does.

In considering the relationship between the United States and Israel, several points must be kept in mind. First and foremost, the US and Israel are on the same side in the continuing struggle against Islamic extremists who endanger the lives of American troops and American civilians. Second, Israel is one of America’s most important strategic allies, providing us with essential intelligence, research and development and other important assets. Third, there is nothing that Israel or the United States can do that will turn these extremist enemies into friends. It is what we are, rather than what we do, that enrages those who wish to turn the entire world into an Islamic caliphate and subject us all to Islamic sharia law. Fourth, any weakening of the alliance between the United States and Israel will make it far less likely that Israelis – who get to vote on these matters – will take significant risks for peace. Fifth, the Obama administration’s public attacks on Israel will harden Palestinian demand and make it less likely that they will accept a compromise peace. Sixth, if Israel’s enemies were to lay down their arms and stop terrorist and rocket attacks against Israel, there would be peace. Seventh, if Israel were to lay down its arms, there would be genocide. And eighth, when the Palestinian leadership and population want their own state more than they want there not to be a Jewish state, there will be a two-state solution.

It is in the best interest of the United States, of the peace process and of Israel for disagreements between allies to be resolved quietly and constructively, so that progress can be made toward achieving a two-state solution that assures Israel’s security and Palestinian statehood.