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North Korea’s Serious New Nuclear Missile Threat

June 11, 2015

North Korea’s Serious New Nuclear Missile Threat, The Gatestone Institute, Peter Huessy, June 11, 2015

China . . . seems to want to curry favor with Iran because of its vast oil and gas supplies, as well as to use North Korea to sell and transfer nuclear technology to both North Korea and Iran, as well as other states such as Pakistan. As Reed again explains, “China has catered to the nuclear ambitions of the Iranian ayatollahs in a blatant attempt to secure an ongoing supply of oil”.

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China continues to transfer, through its own territory, nuclear weapons technology involving both North Korea and Iran.
In April, North Korea launched a ballistic missile from a submerged platform. The North Korean underwater launch test was closely related to the further development of a missile-firing submarine capable of hitting the U.S. — “a first step,” according to Uzi Rubin, “in achieving a very serious and dangerous new military capability… it will take many years to build up the missile defenses, so we had better use the time wisely.”
Although the Chinese profess to be against nuclear proliferation, documented evidence illustrates just the opposite — as a means of asserting Chinese hegemony, complicating American security policy and undermining American influence.
Unfortunately, no matter how attractive a strategy of diplomatically ending North Korea’s nuclear program might look, it is painfully at odds with China’s established record of supporting nuclear proliferation with such collapsed or rogue states as Iran, Syria, Pakistan, North Korea and Libya.
China’s nuclear assistance to Pakistan did not stay just in Pakistan.

North Korea appears to have made significant progress in extending its capability as a nuclear-armed rogue nation, to where its missiles may become capable of hitting American cities with little or no warning.

What new evidence makes such a threat compelling?

North Korea claims to have nuclear warheads small enough to fit on their ballistic missiles andmissiles capable of being launched from a submerged platform such as a submarine.

Shortly after North Korea’s April 22, 2015 missile test, which heightened international concern about the military capabilities of North Korea, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry urged China and our regional allies to restart the 2003 “six-party talks” aimed at eliminating nuclear weapons from the Korean peninsula and reining in North Korea’s expanding nuclear missile program.

There are some “experts,” however, who believe that North Korea’s threat is highly exaggerated and poses no immediate danger to the United States. Consequently, many believe that, given China’s oft-repeated support for a “nuclear weapons free” Korean peninsula, time is on America’s side to get an agreement that will guarantee just such a full de-nuclearization.

But, if North Korea’s technical advances are substantive, its missiles, armed with small nuclear weapons, might soon be able to reach the continental United States — not just Hawaii and Alaska. Further, if such missile threats were to come from submarines near the U.S., North Korea would be able to launch a surprise nuclear-armed missile attack on an American city. In this view, time is not on the side of the U.S. Submarine-launched missiles come without a “return address” to indicate what country or terrorist organization fired the missile.

The implications for American security do not stop there. As North Korea is Iran’s primary missile-development partner, whatever North Korea can do with its missiles and nuclear warheads, Iran will presumably be able to do as well. One can assume the arrangement is reciprocal.

Given recent warnings that North Korea may have upwards of 20 nuclear warheads, the United States seems to be facing a critical new danger. Would renewed negotiations with China, Japan, South Korea and North Korea really be able to address this threat?

Two years ago, Andrew Tarantola and Brian Barrett said there was “no reason to panic;” that North Korea was “a long way off” — in fact “years” — before its missiles and nuclear weapons could be “put together in any meaningful way.”

At the same time, in April 2013, an official U.S. assessment by the Defense Intelligence Agency stated the U.S. had “moderate” confidence that “North Korea had indeed developed a nuclear device small enough to mount on a ballistic missile.”

That was followed up two years later, on April 7, 2015, when the commander of Northcom, Admiral Bill Gortney, one of the nation’s leading homeland security defenders, said the threat was considerably more serious. He noted that, “North Korea has deployed its new road-mobile KN-08 intercontinental ballistic missile and was capable of mounting a miniaturized nuclear warhead on it.”[1]

At a Pentagon press briefing in April, Admiral Cecil Haney, Commander of the US Strategic Command and America’s senior military expert on nuclear deterrence and missile defense, said it was important to take seriously reports that North Korea can now make small nuclear warheads and put them on their ballistic missiles.[2]

And sure enough, in April, North Korea launched a ballistic missile from a submerged platform. Media reaction to the North Korean test has been confused. Reuters, citing the analysis of two German “experts,” claimed the North Korean test was fake — a not-too-clever manipulation of video images.

The Wall Street Journal, on May 21, 2015, echoed this view, noting: “[F]or evidence of North Korea’s bending of reality to drum up fears about its military prowess,” one need look no further than a consensus that North Korea “doctored” pictures of an alleged missile test from a submarine. This, they claimed, was proof that the “technology developments” by North Korea were nothing more than elaborately faked fairy tales.

However, Israeli missile defense expert Uzi Rubin — widely known as the “father” of Israel’s successful Arrow missile defense program — explained to this author that previous North Korean missile developments, which have often been dismissed as nothing more than mocked-up missiles made of plywood, actually turned out to be the real thing — findings confirmed by subsequent intelligence assessments.

Rubin, as well as the South Korean Defense Ministry, insist that on April 22, the North Korean military did, in fact, launch a missile from a submerged platform.[3]

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Kim Jong Un, the “Supreme Leader” of North Korea, supervises the April 22 test-launch of a missile from a submerged platform. (Image source: KCNA)

What gave the “faked” test story some prominence were the misunderstood remarks of the Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral James Winnefeld. He had said, on May 19, that the North Korean missile launch was “not all” that North Korea said it was. He also mentioned that North Korea used clever video editors to “crop” the missile test-launch images. Apparently, that was exactly what the editors did. The Admiral, however, never claimed in his speech at the Center for Strategic and International Studies there had been no successful missile test.[4]

The same day, a high-ranking State Department official, Frank Rose — Assistant Secretary of State for Arms Control, Verification, and Compliance — told a Korean security seminar on Capitol Hill that North Korea had successfully conducted a “missile ejection” test, but from an underwater barge rather than a submarine.[5]

To confuse matters further, additional pictures were released by the South Korean media to illustrate stories about the North Korean test. Those pictures, however, were of American missiles, which use both solid and liquid propellant; as a result, one photo showed a U.S. missile with a solid propellant smoke trail and one, from a liquid propellant, without a smoke trail. These photographs apparently befuddled Reuters’ “experts,” who may have jumped to the conclusion that the photos of the North Korean test were “faked,” when they were simply of entirely different missile tests, and had been used only to “illustrate” ocean-going missile launches and not the actual North Korean test.[6]

According to Uzi Rubin, to achieve the capability to eject a missile from an underwater platform is a significant technological advancement. The accomplishment again illustrates “that rogue states such as North Korea can achieve military capabilities which pose a notable threat to the United States and its allies.”

Rubin also stated that the North Korean underwater launch test was closely related to the development of a missile-firing submarine, “a first step in achieving a very serious and dangerous new military capability.”[7]

Admiral Winnefeld and Secretary Rose, in their remarks, confirmed that the North Korean test was not the “dog and pony show” some have claimed. In other words, the U.S. government has officially confirmed that the North Koreans have made a serious step toward producing a sea-launched ballistic missile capability.

While such an operational capability may be “years away,” Rubin warns that “even many years eventually pass, and it will also take many years to build up the missile defenses, so we had better use the time wisely.”[8]

Will diplomacy succeed in stopping the North Korean threats? U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry seemed to think it worth a try; so he began the push to restart the old 2003 “six-party” talks between the United States, North Korea, Russia, China, South Korea and Japan, to bring North Korea’s nuclear weapons under some kind of international control and eventual elimination.

After all, supporters of such talks claim, similar talks with Iran appear to be leading to some kind of “deal” with Tehran, to corral its nuclear weapons program, so why not duplicate that effort and bring North Korea back into the non-nuclear fold?

What such a “deal,” if any, with Iran, will contain, is at this point unknown. Celebrations definitely seem premature. If the “deal” with North Korea is as “successful” as the P5+1’s efforts to rein in Iran’s illegal nuclear weapons program, the prognosis for the success of diplomacy could scarcely be more troubling.

Bloomberg’s defense writer, Tony Carpaccio, reflecting Washington’s conventional wisdom, recently wrote that of course China will rein in North Korea’s nuclear program: “What might be a bigger preventative will be the protestations of China, North Korea’s primary trade partner and only prominent international ally. Making China angry would put an already deeply impoverished, isolated North Korea in even more dire straits.”

Unfortunately, no matter how attractive a strategy of diplomatically ending North Korea’s nuclear program might look on the surface, it is painfully at odds with China’s established and documented track record in supporting and carrying out nuclear proliferation with such collapsed or rogue states as Iran, Syria, Pakistan, North Korea and Libya, as detailed by the 2009 book The Nuclear Express, by Tom C. Reed (former Secretary of the Air Force under President Gerald Ford and Special Assistant to the President of National Security Affairs during the Ronald Reagan administration) and Daniel Stillman (former Director of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory).

Far from being a potential partner in seeking a non-nuclear Korean peninsula, China, say the authors, has been and is actually actively pushing the spread of nuclear weapons to rogue states, as a means of asserting Chinese hegemony, complicating American security policy and undermining American influence.

The problem is not that China has little influence with North Korea, as China’s leadership repeatedly claims. The problem is that China has no interest in pushing North Korea away from its nuclear weapons path because the North Korean nuclear program serves China’s geostrategic purposes.

As Reed and Stillman write, “China has been using North Korea as the re-transfer point for the sale of nuclear and missile technology to Iran, Syria, Pakistan, Libya and Yemen”. They explain, “Chinese and North Korean military officers were in close communication prior to North Korea’s missile tests of 1998 and 2006”.

Thus, if China takes action to curtail North Korea’s nuclear program, China will likely be under pressure from the United States and its allies to take similar action against Iran and vice versa. China, however, seems to want to curry favor with Iran because of its vast oil and gas supplies, as well as to use North Korea to sell and transfer nuclear technology to both North Korea and Iran, as well as other states such as Pakistan. As Reed again explains, “China has catered to the nuclear ambitions of the Iranian ayatollahs in a blatant attempt to secure an ongoing supply of oil”.

North Korea is a partner with Iran in the missile and nuclear weapons development business, as Uzi Rubin has long documented. Thus, it is reasonable to believe that China may see any curtailment of North Korea’s nuclear program as also curtailing Iran’s access to the same nuclear technology being supplied by North Korea. Any curtailment would also harm the Chinese nuclear sales business to Iran and North Korea, especially if China continues to use the “North Korea to Iran route” as an indirect means of selling its own nuclear expertise and technology to Iran.

It is not as if Chinese nuclear proliferation is a recent development or a “one of a kind” activity. As far back as 1982, China gave nuclear warhead blueprints to Pakistan, according to Reed. These findings indicate that China’s nuclear weapons proliferation activities are over three decades old.[9]

Reed and Stillman also note that nearly a decade later, China tested a nuclear bomb “for Pakistan” on May 26, 1990, and that documents discovered in Libya when the George W. Bush administration shut down Libyan leader Muammar Kaddafi’s nuclear program revealed that China gave Pakistan the CHIC-4 nuclear weapon design.

Unfortunately, China’s nuclear assistance to Pakistan did not stay just in Pakistan. The nuclear technology made its way from Pakistan to North Korea. For example, high explosive craters, construction of a 50 megawatt nuclear reactor (finished in 1986) and a secret reprocessing facility begun in 1987 all were done in North Korea with major Pakistani help from the A.Q. Khan “Nukes R Us” smuggling group, as Reed and Stillman document in their book.

Reed and Stillman write that when, amid disclosures in 2003 of a major Libyan nuclear weapons program, the U.S. government sought help in shutting down the Khan nuclear smuggling ring, “Chinese authorities were totally unhelpful, to the point of stonewalling any investigation into Libya’s nuclear supply network.”

More recently, Chinese companies have now twice — in 2009 and 2011 — been indicted by the Attorney for the City of New York for trying to provide Iran with nuclear weapons technology.

The indictments document that Chinese companies were selling Iran steel for nuclear centrifuges and other banned technology. A leaked State Department cable, discussing the indictments at the time, revealed “details on China’s role as a supplier of materials for Iran’s nuclear program,” and that “China helped North Korea ship goods to Iran through Chinese airports.”

And more recently, in April 2015, the Czech government interdicted additional nuclear technology destined for Iran — the origin of which remains unknown — in violation of current sanctions against Iran.

From 1982 through at least the first part of 2015, the accumulation of documentary evidence on nuclear proliferation reveals two key facts:

First, despite literally hundreds of denials by Iran that it is seeking nuclear weapons, and amid current negotiations to end Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons, there is solid evidence that Iran still seeks nuclear weapons technology; and that North Korea has nuclear weapons and is advancing their capability.

Second, China continues to transfer, through its own territory, nuclear weapons technology involving both North Korea and Iran.

Although the Chinese profess to be against nuclear proliferation, their track record from the documented evidence illustrates just the opposite.

In summary, it is obvious North Korea’s nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles are a serious threat to America and its allies. And China, from its proliferation record for the past three decades, is making such a threat more widespread.

In this light, is dismissing North Korea’s advances in military technology and ignoring China’s record of advancing its neighbors’ nuclear weapons technology really best for U.S. interests?

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[1] The Washington Post, May 20, 2015, Anna Fifield, “North Korea says it has technology to make mini-nuclear weapons“; and Admiral Bill Gortney, US NORAD Commander, quoted in “NORAD commander: North Korean KN-08 Missile Operational“, by Jon Harper, in “Stars and Stripes”, of April 7, 2015; the Admiral said: “Our assessment is that they have the ability to put a nuclear weapon on a KN-08 and shoot it at the homeland.” He said “Yes sir” when asked if the U.S. thinks North Korea has succeeded in the complicated task of miniaturizing a warhead for use on such a missile. North Korea has conducted three nuclear tests since 2006.

[2] Department of Defense Press Briefing by Admiral Cecil Haney, Commander, U.S. Strategic Command, March 24, 2015.

[3] Personal communication with Uzi Rubin, President of Rubincon, May 21, 2015.

[4] Admiral James Winnefeld, Remarks at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) Briefing on Missile Defense, May 20, 2015.

[5] U.S. Department of State, Daily Digest Bulletin, Frank Rose, Remarks on “Missile Defense and the U.S. Response to the North Korean Ballistic Missile and WMD Threat”, May 20, 2015.

[6] Explanation provided by Israel missile expert Uzi Rubin, personal communication, May 20, 2015.

[7] Ibid.

[8] Ibid.

[9] According to Reed and Stillman, in “The Nuclear Express,” none of China’s nuclear help to Pakistan and Iran could have been possible without China’s transfer of the nuclear technology through Chinese airspace.

Categories: China, Foreign policy, Iran, Iran scam, Iranian missiles, Iranian nukes, Libya, North Korea, North Korean missiles, North Korean nukes, Oil, P5+1, Pakistan, Syria, Yemen
Tags: China, Foreign Policy, Iran, Iran Scam, Iranian missiles, Iranian nukes, Libya, North Korea, North Korean missiles, North Korean nukes, Oil, Pakistan, Syria, Yemen

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Iran satellite launches tied to ballistic missile program, UN experts say

June 10, 2015

Iran satellite launches tied to ballistic missile program, UN experts say, Fox News, George Russell, June 10, 2015

Both of those actions, the majority concluded in 2012, were violations of U.N. sanctions resolutions that explicitly forbade any Iranian activity “related to ballistic missiles capable of delivering nuclear weapons, including launches using ballistic missile technology.”

The experts’ more diffident reference to Iran’s renewed program of launches over the next year gives Iran much greater benefit of the doubt this time.

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EXCLUSIVE: Iran has launched a space satellite using technology that could “contribute to” the development of a ballistic missile capable of delivering nuclear weapons, according to a United Nations-appointed panel of experts monitoring the issue.

Tehran intends to launch more such satellites, the panel said.

The most recent launch came last February 15, the experts noted, adding that the Iranian government has already announced plans to conduct three additional satellite launches before March 2016.

The vehicle used in the February launch—from a military base in northern Iran– was based on a “space launch vehicle” that is variant of Iran’s Shahab-3 ballistic missile, which has a range of about 1,000 miles. The Shahab-3 is one of two Iranian missiles that the experts say “are believed to be potentially capable of delivery of nuclear weapons.”

The experts noted that the future satellites will be boosted aloft “from more powerful launchers and on the back of bigger carriers.”

Iran’s missile development—peaceful or not– is one of the murkier and more contentious issues surrounding the ongoing negotiations between the Islamic Republic and the world’s major powers—precisely because ballistic missiles have been shunted to the side of a potential deal centered on nuclear enrichment activities that the Obama Administration is pushing hard to conclude by June 30.

U.N. Security Council resolutions that have sanctioned Iran for its nuclear weapons development have also banned Iranian work on ballistic missile programs that could deliver the weapons. But missiles were not mentioned in the interim deal between Iran and the P5+1 powers struck last November, which has so far unfrozen billions in Iranian assets and which is supposed to be turned into a final agreement by June 30.

Last year, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei called any Western expectations that Iran would restrain its missile development program “stupid and idiotic,” and called for the country to mass produce such weapons.

Even so, a 7-member U.N. expert panel which is monitoring Iran’s behavior on the proliferation issue while negotiations continue noted in its June 1, 2015 report that Iran’s officials and news media “have not been reporting any new ballistic missile developments” such as the “unveiling or testing of new types of ballistic missiles,” or tests of medium-range missiles it is already known to possess.

Satellite launches, however, are another matter. The experts noted that the February 15 satellite payload weighed 110 lbs. and was designed for “collecting imagery.” It was only a limited success: the satellite fell back into the earth’s atmosphere after just 23 days, even though it was apparently intended to stay aloft for 18 months.

CLICK HERE FOR THE EXPERT REPORT

Nonetheless, the experts added, it was Iran’s first satellite launch since two failures in 2012. They also observed cryptically that “the details of this case present similarities with the launch of another satellite by a Safir space launch vehicle in 2011” and analyzed in one of their previous reports.

And according to that earlier document, a majority of the expert panel concluded that “the satellite launch was related to ballistic missiles capable of delivering nuclear weapons,” and the Safir satellite launch vehicle itself “made use of ballistic missile technology.”

Both of those actions, the majority concluded in 2012, were violations of U.N. sanctions resolutions that explicitly forbade any Iranian activity “related to ballistic missiles capable of delivering nuclear weapons, including launches using ballistic missile technology.”

CLICK HERE FOR THE 2012 REPORT

The experts’ more diffident reference to Iran’s renewed program of launches over the next year gives Iran much greater benefit of the doubt this time.

Categories: Diplomacy, Foreign policy, Ideology, Iran, Iran scam, Iranian missiles, Obama, P5+1
Tags: Foreign Policy, Ideology, Iran, Iran Scam, Iranian missiles, Obama

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France, Iran and the “Peace Process”

June 10, 2015

France, Iran and the “Peace Process,” The Gatestone Institute, Shoshana Bryen, June 10, 2015

The French draft corresponds with President Obama’s own — strongly held — belief that Israel has to ascribe to the President’s view, despite just having elected a Prime Minster who disagrees.
The air is poisoned. The CEO of the French cell phone company Orange declared his desire to boycott Israel, while Orange rakes in money from its operation in the Republic of Congo, a major human rights violator.
Smash the two stories together and you get an American President supporting France in its efforts to be a major player in the Middle East in exchange for French support for the P5+1 deal with Iran.

Sometimes, if you smash two stories together, you end up with something interesting; sometimes you get something worrisome. This is one of the latter.

The first story is about France, a member of the P5+1 negotiating a deal with Iran on nuclear capabilities. The French government has expressed increasing concern that the emerging deal is flawed — perhaps fatally. Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius reportedly told the French Parliament, “France will not accept [a deal] if it is not clear that inspections can be done at all Iranian installations, including military sites.” He added, “Yes to an agreement, but not to an agreement that will enable Iran to have the atomic bomb. That is the position of France, which is independent and peaceful.”

The French Ambassador to the United States, Gerard Araud, told an American audience “the most worrying aspect of the agreement” is that Iran will become a “one-year breakout state.” He expressed concern that if Iran becomes a nuclear state, other countries in the region will also seek to become nuclear powers.

The French position creates a problem for President Obama because the deal has to be agreed on by the P5+1, not the “P4+1-with-one-vote-in-opposition.”

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Is President Obama supporting France in its efforts to be a major player in the Middle East, in exchange for French support for the P5+1 deal with Iran? Above, Secretary of State John Kerry (left) is pictured meeting French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius, on February 27, 2013. (Image source: U.S. State Dept.)

The second story is also about France. With historic ties to the Middle East, but extremely limited military capabilities there (or anywhere), France is trying to be a diplomatic power broker. Christian Makarian, deputy editor of L’Express, wrote recently that after Assad used chemical weapons against his people, France wanted to intervene in Syria but was dissuaded by President Obama. “Hollande and… Fabius frequently made reference to last year’s backtracking on military intervention in Syria, which they consider one of their greater policy failings.” This, he postulates, accounts for French willingness to support military action in Iraq.

Influence can come from arms sales, and here the French excel. From 2005-2010, France was the third largest supplier of arms to the Middle East/North Africa (MENA) region, after the U.S. and Russia. MENA now accounts for nearly half the orders from the French military. Saudi Arabia, Morocco, UAE, Qatar, Oman, Tunisia and Algeria are clients, and this year, 5.2 billion euros in orders from Egypt. It amounts to a 17.3 percent increase in total arms sales abroad for 2014 over 2013.

Influence also comes from diplomacy — and this is where the stories begin to collide.

France, Britain and Germany had drafted a UN Security Council Resolution late last year to set parameters for establishing a Palestinian State and “ending the conflict.” It was not submitted because of the impending Israeli election. France is prepared to try now with a draft that would “solve” the problem by using the 1949 Armistice Line as a reference point for a Palestinian state with a shared capital in Jerusalem, a “fair” solution for refugees, and possible land swaps. It would also require that the Palestinians recognize Israel as a “Jewish State.”

Fabius, speaking in New York, said, “these parameters have to be defined and recognized by the Security Council and that obviously the two parties have to discuss, but the discussion will be accompanied by an international effort.”

A French official called it a “backdoor” for negotiations, explaining in a press report that “all actors including the Americans now realize that all other ways have been explored, without success.”

The U.S. has historically opposed “internationalizing” the conflict. Giving the UN authority to establish requirements for the parties violates the Oslo Accords, something Israel opposes and the Palestinians support.

In early May, President Obama indicated that he intended to veto the French proposal, saying “a big overarching deal” is probably not “possible in the next year, given the makeup of the Netanyahu government, given the challenges I think that exist for President Abbas.” In the same interview, he suggested “confidence-building measures” that would have an impact on the economic and social lives of Palestinians and Israelis.

However, the President appears to have moved toward the French position. He recently told Israeli television:

If in fact, there’s no prospect of an actual peace process, if nobody believes there’s a peace process, then it becomes more difficult to argue with those who are concerned about settlement construction, those who are concerned about the current situation, it’s more difficult for me to say to them, ‘Be patient. Wait, because we have a process here.'”

His own expressed skepticism about the achievability of an Israeli-Palestinian agreement appears to have given way to the French notion that “all other ways have been explored,” and that it is time to let the UN determine parameters for a “big overarching deal.” And, as it happens, the French draft corresponds with the President Obama’s own — strongly held — belief that Israel has to ascribe to the President’s view, despite having just elected a Prime Minister who disagrees:

The most important thing, I think, that we can do right now in strengthening Israel’s position is to describe very clearly why I have believed that a two-state solution is the best security plan for Israel over the long term… but also, at the end of the day, to say to any Israeli prime minister that it will require some risks in order to achieve peace.

The “risks” sound ominously like Secretary of State Kerry’s 2013 “warning” that Israel might face a “third intifada” if it didn’t toe the then-American, now-French line. “I mean does Israel want a third Intifada?” he asked. “I’ve got news for you. Today’s status quo will not be tomorrow’s.”

In Washington this week, Ambassador Araud used extraordinarily tough language against Israel in a series of Twitter exchanges with American supporters of Israel, culminating in the “blocking” of one of them. Silly kids’ stuff, but the air is poisoned. The CEO of the French cell phone company Orange declared his desire to boycott Israel, while Orange rakes in money from its operation in the Democratic Republic of Congo, a major human rights violator.

Smash the two stories together, you get an American president supporting France in its efforts to be a major player in the Middle East in exchange for French support of the P5+1 deal with Iran.

In both cases, guess who pays the price: Israel.

Categories: Diplomacy, Foreign policy, France, IAEA, Iran nuke inspections, Iranian military sites, Iranian missiles, Iranian nukes, Israel, Netanyahu, Obama, P5+1, Palestinian Authority, Palestinians, Peace process, Two state solution
Tags: Foreign Policy, France, IAEA, Iran nuke inspections, Iranian military sites, Iranian missiles, Iranian nukes, Israel, Netanyahu, Obama, Palestinian Authority, Palestinians, Peace Process, Two state solution

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Op-Ed: Core Synergies in Israel’s Strategic Planning

June 9, 2015

Op-Ed: Core Synergies in Israel’s Strategic Planning, Harvard Law School National Security Journal via Israel National News, Prof. Louis René Beres, June 9, 2016

(Rather “high brow,” but well worth considering seriously. — DM)

Significantly, the most insidious synergy of all could involve a rudimentary failure to understand that belligerent enemy intentions ultimately depend for their efficacy upon confused, partial, or inadequately thoughtful Israeli responses.

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To best serve Israel, the country’s strategic studies community should favor more conceptual or “molecular” assessments of expected security perils. Going forward therefore, it will not suffice for this community to operate in ways that are roughly comparable to the purely reportorial activities of journalists and pundits, that is, of ordinary observers who focus exclusively on current personalities and events. With this timely warning in mind, the following brief essay explains and argues for a specifically enhanced Israeli consideration of enemy “synergies.”

For the most part, the concept of synergy is already familiar to capable scientists and scholars. It signifies, above all, that the usually binding axioms of geometry can sometimes be overridden by various intersecting phenomena. Applied to Israel, this concept suggests that certain identifiable threats to the Jewish State should no longer be considered as wholly separate or discrete, but instead, as more-or-less interpenetrating and mutually-reinforcing.

The most obvious and portentous example of pertinent synergy for Jerusalem is represented by Iranian nuclear weapons and Palestinian statehood.[1]

At first, any such talk of “synergy” may sound needlessly pretentious, or at least more contrived, concocted, or complicated than is really the case. In medicine, after all, it would already seem plain that the dangers of smoking cigarettes and drinking alcohol together must exceed either one behavior without the other. This is because the synergistic effect is presumptively much greater than those consequences ascertained by merely adding these two injurious activities together.

For Israeli planners, the still-widely-unrecognized synergy between Iranian nuclearization and “Palestine” should finally be treated with a more emphatic intellectual regard.[2] Notwithstanding the declared assumptions of virtually all acknowledged national strategists, Iran and Palestine,[3] as “negative force multipliers,”[4] do not represent thoroughly separate or unrelated hazards to Israel. To continue to assess each one independently of the other would be a serious conceptual error. It would be to consciously obscure what is potentially most revealing and most ominous.

Israel’s main security policies must involve carefully nuanced considerations of active defense, as well as of deterrence, preemption, and war-fighting. The country’s multilayered missile defenses are central to national survival. As long as incoming rocket aggressions from Gaza, West Bank, and/or Lebanon (Hezbollah) were to remain “only” conventional, the inevitable leakage could still be tolerable. But once these rockets were fitted with chemical and/or biological materials, such porosity could quickly prove “unacceptable.“[5] This means, among other things, that the projected harms of rocket attacks upon Israel would depend not only upon the inherent dangers posed by a particular weapon system, but also upon the ways in which these individual harms would intersect.[6]

Once facing Iranian nuclear missiles, Israel’s “Arrow” ballistic missile defense system would require a fully 100% reliability of interception. To achieve any such level of reliability, however, would be impossible. Now, assuming that the prime minister has already abandoned any residual hopes for a cost-effective eleventh-hour preemption against pertinent Iranian nuclear assets , this means that Israeli defense planners must prepare instead, and longer-term, for stable deterrence.[7]

Theory is a net. Only those who cast, can catch.[8] Because of the expectedly corrosive interactive effects involving Iranian nuclear weapons and Palestinian statehood, for example, Israel will need to update and refine its existing theories of deterrence.

Looking ahead, there are various antecedent issues of theoretical concern. For one, Israel’s leaders will have to accept that certain more-or-less identifiable leaders of prospectively overlapping enemies might not necessarily satisfy the complex criteria of rational behavior in world politics. In such partially improbable but still conceivable circumstances, assorted Jihadist adversaries in Palestine, Iran, Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, or elsewhere might sometime refuse to renounce certain still-contemplated aggressions against Israel.[9]

By definition, these irrational enemies could exhibit such more-or-less plausible refusals even in anticipation of fully devastating Israeli reprisals. But, would they still remain subject to alternative threats or forms of deterrence? And might an entire state sometime exhibit such non-rational orientations, thereby becoming, in essence, a suicide terrorist writ large?

These utterly core questions can no longer be ignored. Sooner rather than later, and facing new and prospectively incalculable synergies from Iranian and Palestinian aggressions, Israel will need to take appropriate steps to assure that: (1) it does not become the object of any non-conventional attacks from these enemies; and (2) it can successfully deter all possible forms of non-conventional conflict. To meet this ambitious but indispensable goal, Jerusalem, inter alia, absolutely must retain its recognizably far-reaching conventional superiority in pertinent weapons and capable manpower, including effective tactical/operational control over the Jordan Valley.

In this connection, a Palestinian state could make Israeli military and civilian targets more opportune for Iranian rockets. It could simultaneously undermine the Jewish State’s critical early-warning systems.

Maintaining a qualitative edge in conventional war-fighting capacity could reduce Israel’s overall likelihood of ever actually having to enter into a chemical, biological, or even nuclear exchange with regional adversaries. Correspondingly, Israel should plan to begin to move incrementally beyond its increasingly perilous posture of “deliberate nuclear ambiguity.”[10] By preparing to shift toward prudently selective and partial kinds of “nuclear disclosure” – in other words, by getting ready to take its “bomb” out of the “basement,” but in carefully controlled phases[11] – Israel could best ensure that its relevant enemies will remain sufficiently subject to Israeli nuclear deterrence.

In matters of defense strategy, truth may emerge through paradox. Israeli planners, it follows, may soon have to acknowledge that the efficacy and credibility of their country’s nuclear deterrence posture could sometime vary inversely with enemy perceptions of Israeli nuclear destructiveness. However ironic or counter-intuitive, enemy views of a too-large or too-destructive Israeli nuclear deterrent force, or of an Israeli force that is not sufficiently invulnerable to first-strike attacks,[12] could substantially undermine this deterrence posture.

Here, too, carving “Palestine” out of the still-living body of Israel (whatamounts to the unhidden Palestinian Authority plan for a “one state solution”), could impact the Iranian nuclear threat, and vice-versa. Once again, Israel’s defense planning must account for possible and prospectively prohibitive synergies.

Also critical, of course, is that Israel’s current and future adversaries will always acknowledge the Jewish State’s nuclear retaliatory forces as “penetration capable.” This suggests forces that will seem “assuredly capable” of penetrating any Arab or Iranian aggressor’s active defenses. Naturally, a new state of Palestine would be non-nuclear itself, but it could still present a new “nuclear danger” to Israel by its probable impact upon the prevailing regional “correlation of forces.”[13] Palestine, therefore, could represent an indirect but nonetheless markedly serious nuclear threat to Israel. Here, yet again, is an example of the need for Israeli planners to think synergistically.

More remains to be done. Israel should continue to strengthen its active defenses, but Jerusalem must also do everything possible to improve each critical and interpenetrating component of its nuanced deterrence posture. In this bewilderingly complex and dialectical[14] process of strategic dissuasion, the Israeli task may require more incrementally explicit disclosures of nuclear targeting doctrine, and, accordingly, a steadily expanding role for cyber-defense and cyber-war.

Even before undertaking such delicately important refinements, Israel will need to more systematically differentiate between adversaries that are presumably rational,[15] irrational, or “mad.”[16]

Overall, the success of Israel’s national deterrence strategies will be contingent, inter alia, upon an informed prior awareness of enemy preferences, and of specific enemy hierarchies of preferences. In this connection, altogether new and open-minded attention will need to be focused on the seeming emergence of “Cold War II” between Russia and the United States. Any such emergence, of course, could have meaningful effects upon both Israeli and adversarial military postures.[17]

If, within a pattern of “Cold War II,” a newly-formalized state of Palestine does not find itself in the same ideological orbit as Iran, the net hazard to Decision-makers will then need to explore and acknowledge what amounts, paradoxically, to a geometry of chaos. Israel could still exceed the sum of relevant intersecting threats. While attempting to survive amid growing regional disorder, therefore, Israel’s leaders should learn to understand the profound strategic limits of normal “geometry”—where, quite mundanely, the whole is always expected to equal to the sum of its parts—and to augment an enhanced understanding with certain new geometric orthodoxies. In essence, these decision-makers will then need to explore and acknowledge what amounts, paradoxically, to a geometry of chaos.

Still, even this long-hidden geometry could reveal a discernible sense of symmetry and form, including the precise shape of certain critically interwoven enemy threats. Wherever the belligerent whole might add up to more than the sum of its constituent parts, Israel’s leaders could discover lethal hazards of adversarial synergies. Significantly, the most insidious synergy of all could involve a rudimentary failure to understand that belligerent enemy intentions ultimately depend for their efficacy upon confused, partial, or inadequately thoughtful Israeli responses.

When Pericles delivered his famous Funeral Oration, with its meticulously elaborate praise of Athenian civilization, his geostrategic perspective was applicable to more than the particular struggle at hand. Recorded by Thucydides, Pericles had expressed confidence in a military victory for Athens (a confidence, of course, that turned out to be misplaced), but also grave concern for any self-imposed limitations along the way: “What I fear more than the strategies of our enemies,” he had warned, “is our own mistakes.” However unforeseen, there is a vital lesson here for present-day Israel: In observing enemy preparations for war and terror, never forget that the ultimate success of these preparations will depend upon Israel’s selected responses.

There exists an overarching or determinative synergy between certain individual or intersecting enemy preparations and Israel’s own prepared policies and reactions.

In all world politics, but especially in the Middle East, we are present at the gradual unveiling of a “big picture,” but the nucleus of meaning—the essential truth of what is taking place—involves what is left out. For the foreseeable future, Israel’s enemies will continue with their ardent preparations for every form of war and terrorism. Unaffected by any civilizing expectations of international law of comity, these calculated preparations will proceed largely on their own track, culminating, if left suitably unobstructed, in new and ever more serious aggressions against Israel. The Jewish State must remain vigilant of such an emergent “big picture,” but also of every imaginable intersection or pattern of intersections between its component parts.

Always, Israel’s leaders and planners must reflect, core dangers to national security are profoundly synergistic.

Always, Israeli policy must recall, these fundamental dangers are potentially much greater than the additive sum of their respective parts.

Always, Jerusalem must insightfully recognize, even a bewildering geometry of chaos has potentially meaningful sense and form.

Always, it must be Israel’s consuming task, to discover this synergistic truth.

Sources:

[1] There are other still more complex synergies that need to be examined. These concern, especially, the intersecting roles of ISIS and al-Qaeda, including pertinent sub/state-state relationships with Syria, Iran, Libya, Lebanon, Yemen, and Saudi Arabia. Also worth exploring, in this connection, is the plausible escalation of “Cold War II,” a broadly transforming context of world politics that could create a “synergy of synergies.” Although all such bewildering hypotheticals may be intimidating or annoying to scholars and policy-makers, there remains no reasonable explanatory alternative to taking them into account.

[2] Rabbi Eleazar quoted Rabbi Hanina, who said: “Scholars build the structure of peace in the world.” See: The Babylonian Talmud, Order Zera’im, Tractate Berakoth, and IX.

[3] Once a Palestinian state were created, it would more likely become subject to destruction by assorted Arab forces, than by Israel. Plausibly, in this connection, ISIS forces fighting their way westward across Jordan could quickly arrive at the West Bank (Judea/Samaria), and make fast work of any now indigenous Hamas/PA national “army.” In such dire circumstances, the citizens of “Palestine” would assuredly rue the day of their recently-declared “independence.”

[4] This is a term that will likely be favored by the generals, over synergy.

[5] See, on this issue: Louis René Beres and (Major-General/IDF/Res.) Isaac Ben-Israel, “Think Anticipatory Self-Defense,” The Jerusalem Post, October 22, 2007; Professor Beres and MG Ben-Israel, “The Limits of Deterrence,” Washington Times, November 21, 2007; Professor Beres and MG Ben-Israel, “Deterring Iran,”Washington Times, June 10, 2007; Professor Beres and MG Ben-Israel, “Deterring Iranian Nuclear Attack,” Washington Times, January 27, 2009; and Professor Beres and MG Ben-Israel, “Defending Israel from Iranian Nuclear Attack,” The Jewish Press, March 13, 2013. See also: Louis René Beres and (General/USAF/ret.) John T. Chain, “Could Israel Safely Deter a Nuclear Iran?” The Atlantic, August 9, 2012; Professor Beres and General Chain, “Living With Iran,” BESA Center for Strategic Studies, Israel, May 2014; and Louis René Beres and (Lt.General/USAF/ret.) Thomas McInerney, “Obama’s Inconceivable, Undesirable, Nuclear-Free Dream,” U.S. News & World Report, August 29, 2013.

[6] Here, it warrants mention that Palestinian statehood could represent an enlarged set of risks to Israel’s Dimona nuclear reactor. Already, in 1991 and 2014, this small reactor came under missile and rocket attack from Iraqi and Hamas aggressions respectively. For authoritative assessments of these attacks and related risks, see: Bennett Ramberg, “Should Israel Close Dimona? The Radiological Consequences of a Military Strike on Israel’s Plutonium-Production Reactor,” Arms Control Today, May 2008, pp. 6-13.

[7] With particular reference to nuclear deterrence, the primary function of Israel’s nuclear forces must always be dissuasion ex ante, rather than revenge ex post.

[8] This convenient metaphor is generally attributed to Novalis, the late 18th-century German poet and scholar. See, for example, introductory citation by Karl R. Popper, in his The Logic of Scientific Discovery (1959). Ironically, perhaps, Novalis’ fellow German poet, Goethe, had declared, in his early Faust fragment (Urfaust): “All theory, dear friend, is grey. But the golden tree of life is green.” (Grau, theurer Freund, ist alle Theorie, Und grűn des Lebens goldner Baum.)

[9] See, on this point: Louis René Beres, “Religious Extremism and International Legal Norms: Perfidy, Preemption, and Irrationality,” Case Western Reserve Journal of International Law, Vol. 39, No.3., 2007-2008, pp. 709-730.

[10] See: Louis René Beres, “Like Two Scorpions in a Bottle: Could Israel and a Nuclear Iran Coexist in the Middle East,” The Israel Journal of Foreign Affairs, Vol. 8, No. 1., 2014, pp. 23-32; Louis René Beres, “Facing Myriad Enemies: Core Elements of Israeli Nuclear Deterrence,” The Brown Journal of World Affairs, Vol. XX, Issue 1., Fall/Winter 2013, pp. 17-30; Louis René Beres, “Lessons for Israel from Ancient Chinese Military Thought: Facing Iranian Nuclearization with Sun-Tzu,”Harvard National Security Journal, 2013; Louis René Beres, “Striking Hezbollah-Bound Weapons in Syria: Israel’s Actions Under International Law,” Harvard National Security Journal, 2013; Louis René Beres, “Looking Ahead: Revising Israel’s Nuclear Ambiguity in the Middle East,” Herzliya Conference presentation, 2013; March 2013; IDC, Herzliya; Louis René Beres and (General/USAF/ret) John T. Chain, “Could Israel Safely Deter a Nuclear Iran?” The Atlantic, 2012.

[11] On identifying alternative nuclear disclosure options, see: Louis René Beres, “Israel’s Strategic Doctrine: Updating Intelligence Community Responsibilities,”International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence, Vol. 28, No. 1, Spring, 2015, pp. 89-104.

[12] On Israeli submarine basing measures, see: Louis René Beres and (Admiral/USN/ret.) Leon “Bud” Edney, “Israel’s Nuclear Strategy: A Larger Role for Submarine-Basing,” The Jerusalem Post, August 17, 2014; and Professor Beres and Admiral Edney, “A Sea-Based Nuclear Deterrent for Israel,” Washington Times, September 5, 2014.

[13] See: Louis René Beres, “Understanding the Correlation of Forces in the Middle East: Israel’s Urgent Strategic Imperative,” The Israel Journal of Foreign Affairs,Vol. IV, No. 1 (2010).

[14] Dialectic formally originated in the fifth century BCE, as Zeno, author of the Paradoxes, had been acknowledged by Aristotle as its inventor. In the middle dialogues of Plato, dialectic emerges as the supreme form of philosophical/analytic method. Here, Plato describes the dialectician as one who knows best how to ask and answer questions. This particular knowledge – how to ask, and to answer questions, sequentially – should now be insistently transposed to the organized study of Israeli security issues.

[15] Israelis, like Americans, are inclined to project their own dominant sense of rationality upon adversaries. Acknowledging that western philosophy has always oscillated between Plato and Nietzsche, between rationalism and irrationalism, we have all routinely cast our psychological lot with the Greek thinkers and their inheritors. Significantly, however, Israel is now up against a steadily transforming ordering of the geostrategic universe; now, Israel’s strategists might sometimes be better advised to read Dostoyevsky and Kafka, than to dwell too fixedly on Platonic rationalism.

[16] “Do you know what it means to find yourselves face to face with a madman,” inquires Luigi Pirandello, “with one who shakes the foundations of all you have built up in yourselves, your logic, and the logic of all your constructions? Madmen, lucky folk, construct without logic, or rather, with a logic that flies like a feather.”

[17] On this point, see: Louis René Beres, “Staying Strong: Enhancing Israel’s Essential Strategic Options,” Harvard National Security Journal, Harvard Law School, June 13, 2014.

Categories: Arab nations, Cognitive dissonance, Fatah, Gaza, Golan, Hamas, Insurgents, Iran, Iran scam, Iranian missiles, Iranian nukes, Iranian proxies, Islamic jihad, Islamic State, Islamism, Israel, Mad Mullahs, Middle East, P5+1, Palestinians, Peace process, Rocket attack, Terrorism
Tags: Arab nations, Cognitive dissonance, Fatah, Gaza, Golan, Hamas, Insurgence, Iran, Iran Scam, Iranian missiles, Iranian nukes, Iranian proxies, Islamic Jihad, Islamic State, Islamism, Israel, Mad Mullahs, Middle East, Palestinians, Peace Process, Rocket attacks, Terrorism

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Leaked Information: Khamenei’s Lies Exposed

June 9, 2015

Leaked Information: Khamenei’s Lies Exposed, Front Page Magazine, Dr. Majid Rafizadeh, June 9, 2015

(?????????????????? — DM)

1.29.13-Ayatollah-Ali-Khamenei-431x350

[W]hat the ayatollah is announcing to the media — that basically the Islamic Republic does not desire to seal a final nuclear deal with the six world powers — is not the truth. The leaked information (in Persian language) indicates that the Supreme Leader has already instructed the nuclear negotiating team and his advisors to ignore his public statements and seal the final nuclear deal.

******************

Iran’s paramount religious leader can be described as one of the longest-ruling dictators in the Middle East who still enjoys the throne. An ideologue and a Shiite Islamist, he is also a shrewd Machiavellian politician.

Although he attempts to project himself to the Muslim world as a united religious leader who pursues truth, faith, and honesty, his double-faced character can easily be detected in the discrepancies among his statements and policies.

When Khamenei came to power, he lacked the charisma of his predecessor, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. To rule, he continued the major policies of his predecessor, relying on hard power and hardliners to suppress domestic opposition, making different statements to the public than in private, and funding Shiite or non-Shiite extremists groups in the region such as Hezbollah and the Houthis.

In addition, he created the Office of the Supreme Leader, comprised of close advisors and excluding the presidential and other major offices in order to further consolidate his power and prevent the leaking of information. The Islamic Republic’s major domestic and foreign policy decisions are made in the small gilded circle of his office and he is the final decision-maker of the country.

To rule, the ayatollah began wielding power without being held accountable. In order to do so, his government pre-select a handful of candidates to become president. Presidents do not have any actual power, but would be held accountable, blamed for any gaffes such as economic mismanagements and failure in nuclear talks, among other things. This system has so far worked for the ayatollah.

His predecessor and founder of the Islamic Republic came to power by promising people that oil revenues will be distributed among the population and that people do not have to pay for major bills such as electricity or water (in a speech that he gave in Behesht e Zahra). The videos and audios of that speech were removed from public access. Now, one can even be punished or executed by the Islamic Republic if the government finds that particular speech in one’s possession. Ayatollah Khamenei also continued this dual policy of deceiving the public.

Most recently, with regards to the marathon nuclear negotiations, Mr. Khamenei’s double standards have become more obvious due to leaked information.

In less than a month, the six world powers (known as the P5+1; the United States, China, Germany, United Kingdom, France, and Russia) and the Islamic Republic will be reaching the deadline for their marathon nuclear talks, marking one the lengthiest international negotiations of our generation.

The position and opinion of the Islamic Republic’s paramount leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, on the nuclear negotiations and the terms of the final nuclear deal can be characterized as the most crucial factor in determining whether a final deal will be reached by the end of June or not.

Khamenei recently stated, “We will never yield to pressure… We will not accept unreasonable demands… Iran will not give access to its (nuclear) scientists,” he added, “They say we should let them interview our nuclear scientists. This means interrogation… I will not let foreigners talk to our scientists and to interrogate our dear children… who brought us this extensive (nuclear) knowledge… We will not allow the privacy of our nuclear scientists or any other important issue to be violated.”

Nevertheless, what the ayatollah is announcing to the media — that basically the Islamic Republic does not desire to seal a final nuclear deal with the six world powers — is not the truth. The leaked information (in Persian language) indicates that the Supreme Leader has already instructed the nuclear negotiating team and his advisors to ignore his public statements and seal the final nuclear deal.

The Supreme Leader’s double-standards and the difference in what he states publicly and what he instructs behind the scenes, indicate that he indeed needs the final nuclear deal and he will be more likely willing to allow inspections in order to obtain the deal. Ayatollah Khamenei is cognizant of the fact that the final nuclear deal is geopolitically, economically, and ideologically a win for him. Iran’s nuclear infrastructure will not be dismantled, Iran’s break-time to become a nuclear state will shrink from one year to zero in the next few years, Iran’s economy will be strengthened, and the US will likely ignore Iran’s increasing influence and their proxy wars in the region because of the nuclear deal.

Khamenei is being disingenuous with the public and other nations for several reasons. First of all, The fact that Iran’s negotiating team are continuing with the talks, sitting at the same table with Obama administration’s diplomats, and the fact that there is contradiction between what the Supreme Leader and his advisors stated publicly and behind the scenes indicates that Khamenei is giving a green light to the nuclear team to get a nuclear agreement from the White House, the major player in the talks. Secondly, by showing that Iran is not in need of such a deal, Khamenei is giving leverage to the Iranian negotiating team to obtain more concessions from the West.

Khamenei attempts to publicly show that he is a strong religious and nationalistic leader who is totally against foreign inspection and monitoring of his country. Finally, he desires to project the picture that he is not desperate for the final nuclear deal in order to get as many concessions as he can from the Obama’s administration. And so far, his tactics and dual policies have worked for him in further strengthening his throne and power.

Categories: Diplomacy, Foreign policy, Iran - underground sites, Iran nuke inspections, Iran scam, Iranian missiles, Iranian proxies, Khamenei, Obama, P5+1, Sanctions
Tags: Foreign Policy, Iran - underground sites, Iran nuke inspections, Iran Scam, Iranian missiles, Iranian proxies, Khamenei, Obama, Sanctions

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IDF Rehearsing for Nightmare Scenario: 4,000 Killed in Days

June 7, 2015

IDF Rehearsing for Nightmare Scenario: 4,000 Killed in Days, Israel National News, Gil Ronen, June 7, 2015

Security forces are currently rehearsing and preparing for a scenario in which Israel’s enemies launch a “carpet” missile attack that Iron Dome will be unable to counter, due to the sheer number of missiles involved, Arutz Sheva has learned from knowledgeable sources that wish to remain anonymous.

In this scenario, up to 4,000 Israelis will be killed in the first days of the attack, which could happen as early as this summer.

“Iran is seeking to cover Israel with intense fire,” Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu warned in a special briefing for journalists at the week’s end.

“In Lebanon, the Iranians are inserting the most advanced weapons in the world, and strengthening Hezbollah, so that it can hit any spot in Israel,” Netanyahu was quoted as saying in the daily Makor Rishon. “They are trying to build a second front in the Golan, and of course, in Gaza.”

‘Earth-shaking shock’

Former prime minister and defense minister Ehud Barak also sounded dire warnings last week, regarding Hezbollah’s ability to deal a heavy blow to Israel, and Israel’s unpreparedness for this.

“Our rival is serious, and we have no room for smugness on any front,” he said. “We must not be smug and take our superiority as something that is self-evident and supposedly God-given. Superiority is the result of serious work. We have not really dealt with 100,000 rockets, and we have not started to deal with the matter of their accuracy. When the rockets are accurate, it is not more of the same thing. It is something completely different.”

“The country has no choice but to reach conclusions,” Barak warned. “One cannot deal with this challenge by deploying in all of the places, from which [anti-missile] missiles can be fired. These things are very expensive: Iron Dome and Magic Wand, Arrow and Super-Arrow are expensive projects.

“One cannot exaggerate the importance of safeguarding security,” he added, “and one cannot exaggerate the earth-shaking shock that can take place when it turns out that we did not prepare and we did not understand the urgency and practicality of challenges of this sort, and the need to translate clear thought to conclusions, and we will find ourselves [in a situation where] citizens suddenly discover that one cannot walk slowly and lackadaisically to the bomb shelters, knowing that nothing can happen, as we did in during Operation Protective Edge. These things must be done now, we must not wait.”

Categories: Air strikes, Ehud Barak, Fatah, Foreign policy, Gaza, Golan, Hamas, Hezbollah, Insurgents, Iran, Iranian missiles, Iranian proxies, Islamic State, Israel, Lebanon, Middle East, Netanyahu, Palestinians, Rocket attack, Terrorists
Tags: Air strikes, Ehud Barak, Fatah, Foreign Policy, Gaza, Golan, Hamas, Hezbollah, Insurgents, Iran, Iranian missiles, Iranian proxies, Islamic State, Israel, Lebanon, Middle East, Netanyahu, Palestinians, Rocket attack, Terrorists

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Forfeiting America’s Military Leverage

June 6, 2015

Forfeiting America’s Military Leverage, American Thinker, Abraham Katsman, June 6, 2015

International diplomacy, it is said, is the art of letting the other party have your way. While there are numerous diplomatic strategies to accomplish that, one of history’s more effective means of pursuing foreign policy goals was for a superior power to conspicuously display naval forces in the waters of the weaker power, posing a military threat until satisfactory terms with the weaker nation could be reached. Such “gunboat diplomacy” could be remarkably persuasive.

But if there is such a thing as the opposite of gunboat diplomacy, we are witnessing it in the nuclear negotiations with Iran. There will be repercussions.

The United States and other leading nations taking part in the negotiations have military capabilities that dwarf those of Iran, at best a second-rate power. Yet, in spite of the huge military advantages — not to mention the moral gulf between the U.S and Iran, or the huge stakes of allowing Iran to go nuclear — negotiations have proceeded as if between equals.

U.S. military spending is greater than that of the next seven countries combined. Superpower America has a near-monopoly on those gunboats, as well as military aircraft and cruise missiles. But that power is only useful if there is a willingness to use it — or, more precisely, if America’s enemies believe that that there is such a willingness.

If there were ever thoughts that the U.S. under Obama would lay down the law with Iran and order, under overt military threat, the “voluntary” dismantling of the mullah’s nuclear program, they have passed quietly. Sure, President Obama occasionally makes some perfunctory mention that the military option is still on the table, but no one takes his half-hearted warning seriously, least of all the Iranians.

It doesn’t help matters when Obama says, as he did on Israeli TV this week, “A military solution will not fix [the Iranian nuclear problem]. Even if the United States participates, it would temporarily slow down an Iranian nuclear program but it will not eliminate it.”

Obama has effectively forfeited America’s military leverage. He has taken the position that the only alternative to his Iranian appeasement approach is war, and that war is not an outcome acceptable to him under any circumstances.

No Iranian misconduct disrupts Obama’s pacifism. Against American interests and those of America’s allies, Iran has expanded its reach into Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, and Yemen, ethnically cleansing Sunni communities in Iraq. It has seized a cargo ship under U.S. protection, and holds several Americans hostage (complete with an ongoing farcical “trial” against Washington Post reporter Jason Rezaian for espionage). It has increased its nuclear stockpile and violated its existing international agreements, including regarding type and number of centrifuges it may operate, and announced that it will build additional reactors with the help of China and Russia.

In fact, America’s gunboats notwithstanding, it is Iran that has been dictating the terms of a prospective agreement. Iran’s intransigence in the nuclear negotiations has been rewarded: the U.S. has already backed off demands regarding Iranian nuclear enrichment, centrifuges, missile technology, and duration of the prospective agreement — and gotten nothing in return.

Not only is the United States administration going along with all this, but it has released some $11 billion in cash assets to the Islamic Republic. On top of that, it is offering a “signing bonus” of tens of billions of additional dollars to Iran for coming to a nuclear agreement, irrespective of Iranian behavior, support for terror or holding Americans prisoners.

In this context, with no credible American military threat on the table, we should not be surprised that Iran is getting everything it wants from the negotiations at no cost and no risk. As a bonus, it gets to show the world how unserious its American arch-enemy has become.

For the last century, the United States has asserted a global foreign policy, the core of which is being ready, willing, and able to impose its military might to protect its vital interests. Is there a more compelling current American interest than to keep nuclear weapons out of the reach of a rabidly anti-American, anti-Semitic, destabilizing, theocratic, apocalyptic regime, which also threatens the world’s major oil suppliers and is the world’s greatest supporter of terror? If Obama cannot even consider the military protection of that interest, he has rendered American foreign policy impotent, and its military capabilities irrelevant.

That abandonment of longstanding American projection of military power to protect global interests does not go unnoticed, by either friend or foe. The American military’s deterrent effect has been eroded; its security umbrella to its allies looks a lot less secure. The effect on alliances both current and future is corrosive.

From Riyadh to Taipei to Jerusalem, from Moscow to Beijing to Pyongyang, the world is paying close attention. As much as these nuclear negotiations are about Iran, they are even more about America.

Categories: Diplomacy, Foreign policy, Free world, Gun boat diplomacy, Iran, Iran - underground sites, Iran nuke inspections, Iran scam, Iranian military sites, Iranian missiles, Iranian nukes, Mad Mullahs, Middle East, Obama, Obama's America, P5+1, Red Lines, Sanctions
Tags: Foreign Policy, Free world, Iran, Iran - underground sites, Iran nuke inspections, Iran Scam, Iranian military sites, Iranian missiles, Iranian nukes, Mad Mullahs, Middle East, Obama, Obama's America, Red Lines, Sanctions

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Iran Will Walk

June 5, 2015

Iran Will Walk, The Gatestone Institute, Lawrence A. Franklin, June 5, 2015

(What if the article is otherwise correct but Obama agrees to a “deal” anyway? — DM)

The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), the Praetorian Guard of Iran’s regime, controls most of the economy, as well as the black-market, alternative economy. The IRGC therefore actually benefits from sanctions; it is private firms, such as those involved in international commerce, that suffer. Why would IRGC operatives want to see the playing field made more level by private investment, transparency and a competitive economy?
Sanctions never hurt the regime’s ruling class; lifting them only helped the regime solidify its power over its people.
The objective of these two demands [an immediate lifting of all sanctions and no, or severely limited, inspections] is either to have them accepted, or to render it untenable for the Obama administration to offer Congress any deal that could be accepted – thereby shifting blame for the collapse of the talks to the U.S.
The U.S should also be on guard against the mullahs’ belief that the Obama administration is weak both politically and its aversion to using force. The mullahs might find great pleasure in humiliating Obama, as they did President Jimmy Carter, by dragging out hostage crisis negotiations by running out the clock until his term was over. They clearly believe that the Obama administration, simply to say it got “a deal,” is ready to sign anything.

From Washington to Riyadh, not to mention Jerusalem, statesmen are gritting their teeth at the possibility of a U.S.-Iran nuclear deal that seems overly generous to the theocratic-terror state of the Islamic Republic.

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Representatives of the P5+1 countries pose with Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif after nuclear negotiations in Lausanne, Switzerland on April 2, 2015. (Image source: U.S. State Department)

Most intelligence analysts and journalists assume that because Iran’s leadership endorsed the negotiations and has been the beneficiary of several key concessions by the P5+1 (the five permanent members of the UN Security Council, plus Germany), that an agreement is imminent. Forecasters have been predicting what the likely consequences of such a deal would be: negative.

But what if the Iranians walk?

Sanctions never hurt the regime’s ruling class; lifting them only helped the regime to solidify its power over its people.

A nuclear deal combined with an improvement in the commercial and business relations with the West would be inimical to IRGC interests.

The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), the Praetorian Guard of the regime, controls most of the economy as well as the black-market, alternative economy. IRGC-controlled conglomerates operate outside the law and reap huge profits through their control of the black market. The IRGC therefore actually benefits by sanctions; it is the private firms, such as those involved in international commerce, that suffer.

Furthermore, IRCG naval vessels, and private ships under their control, have been engaging in sanctions-breaking deliveries of imports across Persian Gulf waters to Dubai. The IRGC then sells the products at a profit by filtering them through the many foundations they control in Iran.

The most recent example of IRGC’s skirting of sanctions involved the illegal acquisition of aircraft through front-organizations with offices in both Europe and the Arabian Peninsula. Mahan Air, an IRGC front, was able to purchase 15 used commercial aircraft for $300 million. Another front, al-Naser Air, was about to purchase two more aircraft, this time from a U.S. owner. Israeli intelligence, however, passed details of the planned sale to the U.S. government, and on May 21, the deal was scuttled by the Office of Export Enforcement of the Department of Commerce.

Why would IRGC operatives want to see the playing field made more level by private investment, transparency and a competitive economy?

Moreover, if a nuclear deal indicated improved relations with the United States, Iranian hardliners, whether clerical revolutionaries or intelligence operatives, might fear seeing their ideological legitimacy erode. The Iranian regime’s only remaining fig leaf of legitimacy is its anti-American animus, with its accompanying pledge to “protect” Iran’s interests against the U.S.-Israel-Sunni “alliance.”

Improved relations with Washington might raise false hopes among Iran’s citizens that the regime may ultimately improve its woeful record on human rights. There remains only a thin patina of clerical control over Iranian society; if the hoped-for social and political reforms were not implemented, the result could produce a destabilizing political environment, harmful to the interests of the regime.

Another fallacy embraced by many “inside-the-beltway” analysts is that, as the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei endorsed the negotiations, a legitimate deal is now probable.

The once all-powerful Office of the Supreme Leader no longer calls all the shots. The current Iranian regime resembles a military junta or a security state as much as a theocracy. While the reach of Ayatollah Khamenei, through his network of representatives, still penetrates all dimensions of Iranian society, he does not have the final decision on key security matters. The regime’s strategic assets, for instance, such as its ballistic missile programs, are firmly under the control of the IRGC. Decisions related to Iran’s expansionist presence in the region are made by IRGC Quds Force Commander Qasem Soleimani. The role of Khamenei’s representative to the IRGC resembles more that of a handler than of an action officer.

The principal task for the regime is to find a way to back out of the negotiations while avoiding the blame. Iran’s efforts at disengagement may already have been underway for the past few weeks; the pace of decoupling from the talks seems to be accelerating. Iran has been increasing its demands apparently in the hope that they will either be accepted, or else rejected like the “poison pills” they are — such as inspectors no longer being allowed on its military sites.[1]

Another way to make the talks no longer palatable for the Obama administration was to create a hostile incident with the United States in the Persian Gulf, as it has tried to do by aggressively tailing American warships. Iranian ships affiliated with the IRGC Navy also seized a commercial ship, the Maersk Tigris, in the Strait of Hormuz, and temporarily detained both vessel and crew. Then, on May 14, IRGC boats fired several shots across the bow of a Singapore flagged vessel, but it escaped unharmed.

By this type of reckless comportment, the IRGC Navy appears intent on producing a clash with American naval vessels in the Gulf waters. Western negotiators have only to recall the presidency of Mohammad Khatami, when the IRGC and Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security operated independently after they felt that the reformers had gone too far, thus threatening hard-liner control of the regime. The IRGC may have decided that Rouhani along with his American-educated Foreign Minister Zarif have reached a similar tipping point. This independent IRGC initiative is being executed even though a deal would release Iranian monetary assets that would in turn boost the sagging economy.[2]

Iran’s combative posture in Gulf waters against international shipping is also a direct challenge to international maritime law, which guarantees freedom of navigation through the world’s shipping lanes such as the Strait of Hormuz. A key principle of U.S. foreign policy is to enforce this freedom of navigation, if it is challenged by any foreign power, as one also hopes the U.S. will do in the South China Sea.

Iranian military and political spokesmen have also raised the temperature of their anti-American and anti-Israeli rhetoric of late. Leading members of the regime, including its Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, keep repeating, “Death to America” as well as its theological “obligation” to destroy Israel. While the Obama administration has alleged that these threats are just for “internal consumption,” an old Persian saying goes: “They spit in his eye and he calls it rain.”

Mojtaba Zolnour, Ayatollah Khamenei’s Deputy Representative to the IRGC, stated that the Islamic Republic of Iran, “has the divine permission to destroy Israel.” This media assault on Israel was designed to widen the divergence between the Obama administration and the Israeli government regarding the efficacy of the framework of a nuclear agreement negotiated so far.

Additionally, various Iranian principals have drawn “lines in the sand” designed to cause the Americans to disengage from the talks, such as the assertion that Iran will never accept inspection of its declared military sites. Another is Tehran’s repeated statement that it will not accept a gradual lifting of sanctions. Iranian leaders have insisted on immediate and irreversible lifting of all sanctions immediately after a nuclear deal is signed. The objective of these two demands is either to have them accepted, or to render it untenable for the Obama administration to offer Congress any deal that could be accepted — thereby shifting the blame for the collapse of the talks to the U.S.

Regime hard-line representatives to the majlis [Iranian Parliament] have already been mobilizing members to denounce the talks as detrimental to Iran’s national sovereignty. Eighty majlismembers signed a petition on May 12, calling upon the regime to suspend the nuclear talks until Washington halts its rhetorical threats against Iran. Hardliners in the majlis and elsewhere within the regime’s bureaucracy will likely continue to lobby against any deal.

Western analysts should be looking for the Iranian regime’s hard-line media outlets to increase domestic commentary condemning alleged U.S. deception in the negotiations as a reason to abandon the talks.

The death knell for the nuclear negotiations could come from newspapers such as Kayhan, a pro-regime newspaper run by Hossein Shariatmadari, and often characterized as a Khamenei mouthpiece.

The regime’s Friday-prayer Imams in key Iranian cities might also start opposing the talks. The themes of their noonday khutbahs [sermons] are likely to appeal to Iranian people’s patriotism, and suggest that it is more important for Iran to endure continued sanctions rather than submit to intrusive monitoring that offends Iran’s sovereignty.

Finally, hardliners who oppose any possibility of Iran’s improved relations with the U.S. may launch personal attacks on Iran’s negotiators to the nuclear talks, and, in an effort to discredit them, challenge their loyalty to the Iranian revolution. Their point of attack on Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif’s loyalty might be his alleged obsequious behavior to Secretary of State John Kerry. Zarif, on account of his many years of residency and education in the United States, can be depicted as an Americanized Iranian.

The United States should also be on guard against the mullahs’ belief that the Obama administration is weak — both politically and in its reluctance to use force. The mullahs might find great pleasure in humiliating Obama as they did President Jimmy Carter, when they dragged out hostage crisis negotiations by running out the clock until his term was over. They clearly believe that the Obama administration, simply to say it got “a deal,” is ready to sign anything.

[1] “Iran’s powerful Guard rejects inspection of military sites” by Ali Akhbar Dareini, Associated Press, 19 April 2015. Deputy Chief of the IRGC General Hossein Salami is quoted and several more statements by IRGC officials since have repeated the same prohibitive statements regarding Iran’s military sites.

[2] “U.S. to Award Iran $11.9 Billion Through End of Nuke Talks,” Washington Free Beacon, 21 January 2015. In the first of many subsequent denunciations, Senator Mark Clark of Illinois attacked the Obama administration’s plan to free Iran’s frozen assets if nuclear deal is reached.

Categories: Diplomacy, Foreign policy, Iran nuke inspections, Iran scam, Iranian missiles, Iranian nukes, Iranian proxies, Israel, Obama, Obama's America, P5+1, Soleimani, Theocracy, U.S. Congress
Tags: Ayatollah Khamenei, Foreign Policy, Iran nuke inspections, Iran Scam, Iranian missiles, Iranian nukes, Iranian proxies, IRGC, Israel, Obama, Obama's America, Soleimani, Theocracy, U.S. Congress

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Iran’s cooperation with North Korea includes nuclear warhead technology

June 3, 2015

Iran’s cooperation with North Korea includes nuclear warhead technology, The Hill, Alireza Jafarzadeh, June 5, 2015

(The author of the article,

Jafarzadeh, the deputy director of the Washington office of the National Council of Resistance of Iran, is credited with exposing Iranian nuclear sites in Natanz and Arak in 2002, triggering International Atomic Energy Agency inspections. He is the author of “The Iran Threat” (Palgrave MacMillan: 2008).

— DM)

For years, the conventional wisdom has been that Iran and North Korea have long cooperated in missile technology, giving the perception of not so dangerous of an alliance. That was until last week. In yet another groundbreaking revelation, Iran’s main opposition movement, the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK) provided information that Iran and North Korea have been engaged in extensive exchange of information and visits by experts on nuclear weapons and nuclear warhead design, as recently as April 2015.

The MEK, based on information obtained by its network inside Iran, provided a detailed account of a visit to North Korea in 2013 by Tehran’s top nuclear weapons experts headed by elusive Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, who was present during the last nuclear test conducted by North Korea.

A seven-member North Korean delegation, comprised of experts in nuclear warhead design and various parts of ballistic missiles including guidance systems, spent the last week of April in Iran. This was the third such nuclear and missile team to visit Iran in 2015. The next delegation is scheduled to secretly arrive in Iran in June and will be comprised of nine experts, according to the same MEK sources.

That Tehran continues to closely engage with North Korea, a country that cheated its way into making a nuclear weapon, all the while pledging that it would not do so, should be an additional cause for alarm. It should be a red flag for the P5+1 countries as they continue their negotiations with Iran in Vienna and Geneva with only days left before the June 30 deadline to sign an agreement.

The Iran-North Korea nuclear cooperation is in sharp contrast to what the Iranian regime leaders are telling the world. It also explains why the Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei rejects IAEA inspections of military sites, snap inspection of all sites, and interviews with nuclear scientists.

Tehran has so far managed to largely push its missile program out of the nuclear agreement requirements, and with it its extensive nuclear cooperation with North Korea—something that was kept under the radar for years.

The North Korean nuclear experts who traveled to Iran in April stayed in a secret guesthouse, a cordoned-off eight-story building, near a Hemmat Industrial Group site in the Khojir area, northeast of Tehran. Named “Imam Khomeini Complex,” and also known as 2000 units, the site is controlled by the Ministry of Defense (MoD).

The Korean delegation’s needs were met by Center for Research and Design of New Aerospace Technology, one of seven sections of the Organization of Defensive Innovation and Research (SPND). Dr. Aref Bali Lashak, who personally dealt with the Korean delegation, heads this section.

The North Korean delegation dealt with this section of SPND whose responsibility is electronics area of research and manufacturing interior parts of nuclear warhead. The visit’s arrangements were made by the Directorate of Coordination of the Iranian Ministry of Defense (MoD), headed by Brigadier General Nassorllah Ezati and the Directorate of Inspections of the MoD headed by IRGC Brigadier General Alireza Tamizi.

While there were earlier reports about Fakhrizadeh’s presence during the North Korean’s 2013 nuclear test, a two-year investigation by the Iranian opposition shows that Fakhrizadeh had gone to North Korea for the nuclear test through China under the alias “Dr. Hassan Mohseni.”

Fakhrizadeh, the head of SPND and the key figure in activities concerning the military dimensions of the regime’s nuclear program, is a Brigadier General of the IRGC, with whom the IAEA has repeatedly requested interviews, but to no avail.

The MEK first exposed the formation of SPND in July 2011 and the State Department placed it on its sanctions list in August 2014.

According to the Iranian opposition reports, during the North Korean visit, Fakhrizadeh, accompanied by two other SPND nuclear experts, stayed in Hotel Koryo in Pyongyang and spent only two hours at the Iranian regime’s embassy. To keep his visit a secret, Mansour Chavoshi, Tehran’s Ambassador to Pyongyang, personally welcomed Fakhrizadeh and facilitated his communications and exchanges with North Korean officials.

The stunning detailed information provided by the MEK is further indication that the drive to acquire nuclear weapons remains at the core of the Iranian regime’s program as nuclear negotiations continue.

North Korea’s nefarious connection once again proves that after three decades of concealment and deception, adding six or nine months to the nuclear breakout time as a result of the P5+1 negotiations will not lead to a lasting solution. Washington needs to rethink its strategy in dealing with the Iranian regime; a strategy that would eliminate, not delay, the regime’s ability to build the bomb, because Tehran consistently shows that it must not be trusted. Any nuclear agreement with Tehran, which would leave open a pathway to the nuclear bomb, must be rejected. To that end, Congress might have its biggest role to play.

Categories: Foreign policy, Iran nuke inspections, Iran scam, Iranian military sites, Iranian missiles, Iranian nukes, North Korea, North Korean missiles, North Korean nukes, Obama, P5+1
Tags: Foreign Policy, Iran nuke inspections, Iran Scam, Iranian missile sites, Iranian missiles, Iranian nukes, North Korea, North Korean missiles, North Korean nukes, Obama

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Iran Short Film Series – 3. Believe Them!

June 2, 2015

Iran Short Film Series – 3. Believe Them! Clarion Project, via You Tube, June 1, 2015

(But to believe what Iranian leaders say, repeatedly, would be Islamophobic. Or something. — DM)

Categories: Foreign policy, Iran, Iran nuke inspections, Iran scam, Iranian military sites, Iranian missiles, Iranian nukes, Iranian proxies, Khamenei, Munich, Nukes, Obama, P5+1, Red Lines
Tags: Foreign Policy, Iran, Iran nuke inspections, Iran Scam, Iranian military sites, Iranian missiles, Iranian nukes, Iranian proxies, Khamenei, Munich, Nukes, Obama, Red Lines

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