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Signs of concern in Tehran

September 14, 2014

Signs of concern in Tehran, Israel Hayom, Boaz Bismuth, September 14, 2014

Nearly a year into Hassan Rouhani’s first term as president, the Iranians understand the cards have been re-dealt in the Middle East and that they suddenly also have a lot to lose.

The Iranians like the existing situation, which allows them to buy time (the target date for reaching an agreement on the nuclear issue is Nov. 24) until they can finally acquire their bomb. They know that war is a fluid proposition, and that someone along the way may find it appropriate to take out their nuclear program along with ISIS.

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Only a few days have passed since U.S. President Barack Obama’s declaration of war — without much of a choice — against the Islamic State (ISIS), and with every passing day the U.S. is realizing how difficult the job will be. Two important regional players will not stand at its side in Iraq and Syria: Turkey won’t help, and Iran, not surprisingly, will be a bother.

The campaign against ISIS cannot be won from the air alone. It is hard to expect the coalition’s jets to be effective against the Sunni terrorists hunkered down in Mosul and Tikrit. Obama’s coalition cannot accommodate too much harm to Muslim civilians.

Even before the onset of the war, the president’s advisers understood there would be few if any partners among the countries in the region eager for a ground offensive. Even the Kurds are not rushing to fight outside their autonomous region, even though they would be the primary benefactors of the war against ISIS: An independent state awaits them, perhaps right around the corner.

And this is precisely what concerns Iran these days. Nearly a year into Hassan Rouhani’s first term as president, the Iranians understand the cards have been re-dealt in the Middle East and that they suddenly also have a lot to lose.

The campaign against ISIS is bringing the United States back to the region. The Iranians were unhappy about it in 2003, and they don’t like it today either. Then, incidentally, it froze their nuclear project. We can only hope that this time the Americans will use their return to terminate it once and for all.

Additionally, Baghdad will have to reappoint Sunnis to key government positions, after they were kept out during the era of Nouri al-Maliki, who considered Iran his central ally. The Iraqi Sunnis have different plans. Moreover, the establishment of an independent Kurdish state has never appealed to Iran — not only because such a development could spark the aspirations of the Kurdish minority living in Iran itself, but because a future Kurdish state is expected to have good relations with Israel and the United States.

The Iranians also know Obama’s coalition will put Bashar Assad’s regime in Syria at greater risk. While the war could, on the one hand, solidify him as a recognized, albeit negative player in the region, it could also become an opportunity to eliminate him along with ISIS and crown someone else in his stead.

The Iranians like the existing situation, which allows them to buy time (the target date for reaching an agreement on the nuclear issue is Nov. 24) until they can finally acquire their bomb. They know that war is a fluid proposition, and that someone along the way may find it appropriate to take out their nuclear program along with ISIS.

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Iran may end up the winner in Iraq

September 12, 2014

Iran may end up the winner in Iraq, Blackfive, September 11, 2014

The only winner that comes out of this in the short-term is Iran.  Shiite factions get defended in Iraq, Iran basically gets a free pass, and we (the west) end up doing the dirty work.  How is this beneficial to us?

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I read thru the statement that President Obama made last night regarding his plan to address ISIS (which he kept calling ISIL) and I’d like to address some of the problems we will face with this.

As someone who’s actually developed the plans to address problems in Iraq and Syria, and had to brief them to senior leaders, I have a hard time understanding why it has taken so long for him to address this, and why he’s picking the ‘strategy’ that he has.  I have agreed, up to now, with the cautious approach- that ‘picking sides’ in Syria is fraught with huge problems.  NONE of the groups fighting in Syria are in any way trustworthy- it would be like trying to pick one Mafia family in NY to help clean up crime problems.  No one you work with would benefit you in the end.  And ultimately, you may end up with a result you still don’t like.

Syria plans had an especially troubling problem- we had ZERO guidance from above on exactly what the end state was to be- we ended up having to develop multiple plans based on assumptions that no senior leader had given guidance on.  No, the CENTCOM commander wasn’t the problem- HE wasn’t getting guidance either.  Neither Mattis nor Austin either one knew what we really wanted to end up with.  So, we built plans based on minimal intervention all the way thru full-on ops.  From humanitarian assistance missions thru ‘BOG’ ops.  From containment thru air power only, to SOF-only training assistance.  And then we went back and re-did them.  Several times.   We had no choice- we could only assume, based on our collective experience, on what the end state could be.  We used Bosnia, Iraq, AFG, DS-1, and a few others as ‘models’.  Plus, we considered different types of UN missions that may be used as approaches, in case we had to support only those.

What we also had to contend with was the fact that, at the time, Iraq was in NO WAY to be a part of the mission set.  We had zero troops there; we had no presence, and even tho our own intel told us that the border area of Iraq and Syria was the real ‘hot zone’ developing, we could not address any activity there.  All of our effort was to ‘contain’ within the borders of Syria, and try to prevent further refugee problems into Lebannon and Jordan.  Especially Jordan.  Pay SPECIAL attention to the Jordanian issue should we start hitting Syria hard- there are going to be real problems along that border as people flee areas of Syria and Iraq.  AQ and ISIS may use that as a ‘distraction’ to force our hand there, and really end up with problems we haven’t prepared for.  Remember, there are hundreds of thousands of refugees along the border, and its a complete powder keg readly to go up in flames at the slightest provocation.

Now that Iraq territory has to be worked into the mix, at least we will have areas of ‘safe zones’ working with the Kurds that allow us some help.  Erbil airport is a good backup location, and I’m assuming they will use that as a potential staging area.  It’s new, it’s got a HUGE runway, and it’s close-by.  Fueling will be the most logical, if we can secure it further.

As someone who worked ops in Yemen and SOM and other areas, using these as ‘models’ for what we intend to do in Iraq is fraught with enormous issues- these are missions that are very very different than what is needed to address ISIS (if you want a very good rundown of this, go to Bill Roggio’s column here.)  We have ‘advisors’ deep into these missions, and the end-states are very very different.  In fact, end-states in Syria and Iraq are completely different- so addressing ISIS across them is NOT going to be simple.  Air power alone isn’t going to do it, and you are not going to get Kurds or Iraqi’s to chase ISIS into Syria to combat them- and that’s exactly what ISIS is going to do.

The one issue that remains to be seen is how ISIS-supporting factions take on Baghdad; this is the nightmare scenario that could very well develop as a counter to US-centered actions.  The fact that Baghdad becomes a focus is a very real fear; it would force the Iraqi gov’t and forces to abandon northern Iraq to concentrate on securing that area alone, leaving the Kurds as the only support we’d have up north.  And that ain’t enough.

Another problem we could not solve internally was this issue of ‘sharing intel’ with anyone.  How the HELL do we share intel with these guys?  We can’t even legally brief the mayor of NYC (deBlasio) because he doesn’t have a clearance; there is NO such thing as ‘REL YEMEN’ or ‘REL IRAQ’ or ‘REL SYRIA’ for classified, useful intel info.  So we’d be breaking the law to even attempt it.  And we’ve been working with the Yems for years.

The only winner that comes out of this in the short-term is Iran.  Shiite factions get defended in Iraq, Iran basically gets a free pass, and we (the west) end up doing the dirty work.  How is this beneficial to us?

Let me ask all of you this- and leave your estimates in the comments- how big of a force do you think this is going to take to support?  PBO said 475 additional will be sent; that’s basically a company, and that ain’t gonna do it.  If we use air power alone, how many do you THINK that will take?  I’ll look at your estimates and let you know in a few days how close you are.

Wolf

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US airstrikes in Amerli supported deadly Shia terror group

September 2, 2014

US airstrikes in Amerli supported deadly Shia terror group, The Long War Journal, Bill Roggio, September 2, 2014

While helping Iraqi forces to break the Islamic State’s siege of Amerli, the US Air Force supported a deadly Shia militia that is responsible for killing hundreds of US soldiers. The Shia militia, known as Asaib al Haq, or the League of the Righteous, has also captured and executed US soldiers and British citizens in the past.

Iraqi forces, supported by “paramilitary forces” such as the League of the Righteous, advanced on Amerli late last week and reached the town by Aug. 31, The Washington Post reported. By Sept. 1, the siege, which lasted for more than two months, was lifted.

Na’im al Aboudi, the spokesman for the League of the Righteous, confirmed that his group is operating in Amerli and in surrounding villages.

As of Aug. 31, the US military launched four airstrikes against Islamic State forces in Amerli, according to US Central Command, or CENTCOM.

“At the request of the Government of Iraq, the US military conducted airstrikes in support of an operation to deliver humanitarian assistance to address the humanitarian crisis and protect the civilians trapped in Amerli, Iraq at approximately 8:30 p.m. EDT today [Aug. 30],” CENTCOM reported. Three airstrikes and a humanitarian aid drop were conducted on Aug. 30, and another on Aug. 31.

A seasoned Shia terror group

The League of the Righteous is not a newly-formed Shia militia that rose up in the wake of the Islamic State’s takeover of much of Western, central, and northern Iraq this year. The League of the Righteous was formed in 2006 as an offshoot of Muqtada al Sadr’s Mahdi Army. The militia was the largest and most powerful of what the US military called the Special Groups, or Shia militias backed by Iran. The group was at the forefront in using EFPs, or explosively formed penetrators, the deadly landmines that can penetrate US armored vehicles. Hundreds of US soldiers were killed in EFP attacks.

Asaib al Haq was directly implicated by General David Petraeus in the January 2007 attack on the Provincial Joint Coordination Center in Karbala. Five US soldiers were killed during the Karbala attack and subsequent kidnapping attempt. The US soldiers were executed by League of the Righteous fighters after US and Iraqi security forces closed in on the assault team.

The attack on the Karbala Provincial Joint Coordination Center was a complex, sophisticated operation. The assault team, led by tactical commander Azhar al Dulaimi, was trained in a mock-up of the center that was built in Iran. The unit had excellent intelligence and received equipment that made them appear to be US soldiers. Some of the members of the assault team are said to have spoken English.

Two months after the attack in Karbala, Qais Qazali, who leads the League of the Righteous, his brother Laith, and a senior Hezbollah military commander known as Musa Ali Daqduq were all captured during a raid in Basra. Qais and Laith were freed by the US in 2009 along with hundreds of members of the Asaib al Haq, in exchange for Peter Moore, a captured British hostage, and the remains of four Brits who were kidnapped and subsequently executed by the group. The US justified their release by claiming that the League of the Righteous was reconciling with the Iraqi government. After his release, Qais threatened to attack US interests in Iraq.

Trained by Iran, Hezbollah

Daqduq, who previously served as the head of Hezbollah’s special forces as well as the commander of Hassan Nasrallah’s guard, was listed by the US as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist in November 2012, less than a year after he was released from US custody. Daqduq was released to Iraqi custody in December 2011 as the US withdrew from Iraq with the promise that he would be tried for his war crimes. But in 2012, he was freed by the Iraqi government. US intelligence officials contacted by The Long War Journal said that Daqduq is involved with supporting Iraqi militias who are fighting in Syria.

In its designation of Daqduq as a global terrorist in November 2012, the US Treasury Department said that sometime in 2005, “Iran asked Hezbollah to form a group to train Iraqis to fight Coalition Forces in Iraq.” The designation stated: “In response, Hassan Nasrallah [Hezbollah’s leader] established a covert Hezbollah unit to train and advise Iraqi militants in Jaish al Mahdi (JAM) [or Mahdi Army] and JAM Special Groups, now known as Asaib Ahl al Haq [the League of the Righteous],” a Mahdi Army faction.

“As of 2006, Daqduq had been ordered by Hezbollah to work with IRGC-QF [Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps-Qods Force] to provide training and equipment to JAM Special Groups to augment their ability to inflict damage against US troops,” Treasury continued.

Three top leaders of the League of the Righteous are also on the US’ list of Specially Designated Global Terrorists.

Abu Dura, whose real name is Ismail Hafiz al Lami, is known as the “Shia Zarqawi” for his propensity to torture his captives. He was listed as a global terrorist in January 2008along with Ahmad Foruzandeh, the former commander of the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Qods Force, for supporting the Iraqi insurgency.

Also designated with Abu Dura and Foruzandeh was Mustafa al Sheibani, who led the so-called Sheibani Network, which is part of the League of the Righteous.

Both Abu Dura and Sheibani are believed to have returned to Iraq in the summer of 2010. [See LWJ reports, Iran sends another dangerous Shia terror commander back to Iraq and ‘Shiite Zarqawi’ returns to Baghdad from Iran: report.]

Akram Abbas al Kabi, the current military commander of the League of the Righteous who served as the group’s leader while Qazali was in US custody, was added to the list of global terrorists in September 2008. Also designated with Kabi was Abdul Reza Shahlai, a deputy commander in Iran’s Qods Force who was involved in the planning and execution of the attack on the Karbala Joint Provincial Coordination Center. [ See LWJ report, US sanctions Iranian general for aiding Iraqi terror groups.]

Kabi directed attacks against US and Iraqi forces during the so-called Mahdi cease-fire imposed by Sadr in the spring of 2008. He provided weapons “for large-scale military operations against Coalition Forces” in early 2008. Kabi likely aided the Mahdi Army and other Shia terror groups in attacking US and Iraqi troops as they built the security barrier around a large segment of Sadr City. More than 1,000 Mahdi Army fighters were killed during the fighting in Baghdad from April until the Mahdi Army quit the fight in June of that year.

The Iraqi government, which targeted the Special Groups, including the League of the Righteous, in military operations from 2007 to 2009, began to soften its stance on the Iranian-backed groups as the US government and military began disengaging from Iraq. Then as the Syrian civil war heated up and the Islamic State of Iraq began regaining its strength, the government began to rely on the Shia militias to provide security in Shia areas. And as the Iraqi military melted away in the Islamic State’s June offensive in Ninewa, Salahaddin, and Diyala provinces, the Shia militias, including League of the Righteous, were critical in propping up Iraq’s security forces.

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Israel and the U.S.-Qatari Axis

September 1, 2014

Israel and the U.S.-Qatari Axis, Front Page Magazine, , September 1, 2014

US-Turkey

When considering the geo-political map of the current Middle East, not everything is negative or alarming, at least from an Israeli point of view. Although the Middle East is more splintered today than ever before, Israel’s political and diplomatic isolation in the region has faded. The Middle East is now composed of three main blocs and Israel is a partner with one major bloc, which also happens to be its immediate neighbors, or the inner circle of moderate-Sunni and hitherto pro-American Arab states: Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and the Emirates.  However, what is counter-intuitive is the Obama administration’s choice of partners in the region. It is not the moderate Sunni-Muslim states and Israel that Washington sought out as mediators for a Hamas-Israel cease-fire, but the Muslim Brotherhood bloc of Turkey and Qatar.

David Ben Gurion, Israel’s first Prime Minister and one of the founding fathers of the Jewish State recognized early on that the State of Israel had no chance to develop friendly relations with its neighboring Arab states. Pan-Arab leaders such as Egypt’s president Gamal Abdul Nasser fanned the flames of hatred and revenge against the Jewish state, as did fellow Arab dictators in Syria and elsewhere. As a result, Israel’s leadership sought to develop friendly relations with its outer-circle non-Arab states such as Iran, Ethiopia, and Turkey.

The rise of the Islamic Republic in Iran under Khomeini following the Iranian revolution in 1979, and the departure of the Israel-friendly Shah of Iran ended Israeli-Iranian relations. Iran became the arms supplier of Israel’s Palestinian enemies and Hezbollah in Lebanon, and with its nuclear ambition, it constitutes an existential threat to the Jewish State.

Turkey was the only Muslim state to have a steady and rather friendly relationship with the Jewish state. Until the electoral triumph of the AK Party (Justice and Development Party) in 2002, Israel’s trade and military cooperation with Turkey was significant to both countries. The AK Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan changed all of that. His hostility to Israel intensified with each successive electoral victory. Following his second parliamentary victory in 2007, he began tangling with Israel. In late May 2010, Erdogan gave the green light to a Gaza flotilla headed by the Mavi Marmara. It was a deliberate provocation by Erdogan to break through the Israeli blocade. The subsequent AK victory in the 2011 parliamentary elections increased Erdogan’s arrogance and simultaneously his anti-Israel and anti-Semitic outbursts. His latest 2014 presidential victory and his unmitigated support for Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood severed the special relations Israel has had with Turkey.

Turkey is, in fact, part of the radical Sunni, pro-Muslim Brotherhood bloc, that includes Qatar and Hamas.

The radical Shia bloc led by Iran, which includes Shiite Iraq, the Assad regime in Syria, and the Hezbollah in Lebanon, comprise the third bloc.

The puzzling question is why Washington chose to align itself with the Sunni radical Muslim Brotherhood bloc (Qatar and Turkey), and not with the more moderate bloc led by Egypt and Saudi Arabia? Both the Egyptian regime under President Abdel Abdel Fattah el-Sisi and the Saudi royals are upset with the Obama administration. Cairo resents Washington’s support for the deposed Muslim Brotherhood President Mohammad Morsi. Washington withheld arms delivery to Egypt because it considered Morsi’s removal illegitimate, albeit, over 30 million Egyptians demanded Morsi’s removal because of his gross mismanagement of the economy, his authoritarian style, his promotion of sectorial Brotherhood ideals and the erosion of civil liberties.

The Saudis resent the Obama administration rapprochement with Iran, and its November 24, 2013 nuclear agreement with Iran signed in Geneva.  Israelis are also uncomfortable with the Geneva Agreement, albeit they are more skeptical than resentful. The U.S. “Red Line” against the Assad regimes use of chemical weapons that was never put into force has added to the Saudis sense of betrayal.  Riyadh blames the U.S. for turning Iraq into an

Iranian Shiite satellite, and abandoning the Sunnis. The Saudis are also upset with Obama’s treatment of el-Sisi’s Egypt, whom they support.

The U.S. administration’s reasoning is hard to understand but for the fact that in 2003 Combat Air Operations Center for the Middle East moved from Prince Sultan Airbase in Saudi Arabia to Qatar’s Al Udeid airbase near its capital of Doha. Qatar currently serves as the host to major U.S. military facilities. The Al Udeid base and other facilities in Qatar serve as the logistics, command and control, and hub for the U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) area of operations. Al Jazeera (the Qatari regime mouthpiece) reported on July 15, 2014 that “The United States has signed an agreement with Qatar to sell Apache attack helicopters and Patriot and Javelin air-defense systems valued at $11bn.” Qatar also has the third largest proven natural gas reserves in the world, and is the largest exporter of liquefied natural gas, benefitting mainly the Europeans.

America stands for more than multi-billion-dollar defense contracts. Its core values include human rights, religious freedom and democracy for all. The 2012 U.S. State Department Country Report on Human Rights in Qatar has concluded that “Inability of citizens to change their government peacefully, restrictions on fundamental civil liberties, and pervasive denial of expatriate workers rights” are just some of the human rights abuses by the Qatari regime. Political parties are not allowed to exist and forced labor is pervasive in Qatar, particularly in the construction and domestic labor sectors. Qatar serves as host to Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, the radical Muslim Brotherhood ideologue that the Anti-Defamation League has called “theologian of terror,” and has provided a home base to Khaled Mashal, the Hamas political chief.

Particularly worrisome are the Qatari elites, including the ruling family, who support Al Qaeda and other extremist and violent Islamist groups. Additionally, Qatar’s embrace of Iran as well as Hamas and Hezbollah, deemed by Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf states as terrorist organizations, requires a great deal of scrutiny by the U.S.  Reuters reported (March 9, 2014) that “Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has accused Saudi Arabia and Qatar of openly funding the Sunni Muslim insurgents (ISIS) his troops are battling in western Anbar province.” Lebanon’s Daily Star (August 14, 2014) quoted Hezbollah’s Chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah as saying “Turkey and Qatar are supporting ISIS (also known as Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant and most recently as the Islamic State.), and I am convinced that Saudi Arabia fears it.”

Qatar, the hub of CENTCOM, and the recipient of top-notch U.S. weaponry, is the same state that enables Hamas’ terror against Israel by providing it with donations to buy its arms from Iran. Therefore, it was a surprise for the Israelis that Secretary of State John Kerry chose to adopt the pro-Hamas track offered by the foreign ministers of Turkey and Qatar. He ignored both the interests of Israel and Egypt who border the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip.

Al-Monitor (July 29, 2014) summed up the divergence of interests between Israel, the U.S’s only democratic and most reliable ally in the region and the U.S.–Qatar axis. “The Israeli leadership estimates that the cease-fire initiative (regarding the Hamas-Israeli war in Gaza-JP) of U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry responds well to the interests of Qatar, Turkey, Hamas, and its own interests with Qatar – but hardly addresses Israel’s security needs.”

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Syrian civil war death toll rises to more than 191,300, according to UN

August 22, 2014

Syrian civil war death toll rises to more than 191,300, according to UN Human rights office says figure includes additional killings from earlier periods as well as deaths since last report in July 2013

Associated Press in Geneva theguardian.com, Friday 22 August 2014 11.22 BST

via Syrian civil war death toll rises to more than 191,300, according to UN | World news | theguardian.com.

 

A Syrian man cries as he sits oamong the rubble of a building
following a reported barrel-bomb attack by Assad forces in Aleppo
earlier this month Photograph: Baraa Al-Halabi/AFP/Getty Images
 

The death toll from Syria‘s civil war has risen to more than 191,300 people, the United Nations has said.

The figures for March 2011 to April 2014 are the first to issued by the UN’s human rights office since July 2013, when it documented more than 100,000 killed.

The UN’s top human rights official, Navi Pillay, who oversees the Geneva-based office, said the figures are so much higher because they include additional killings from earlier periods, as well as deaths since the last report. The exact figure of confirmed deaths is 191,369, Pillay said.

“As the report explains, tragically it is probably an underestimate of the real total number of people killed during the first three years of this murderous conflict,” she said.

Pillay, the UN high commissioner for human rights, criticised what she described as the world’s “paralysis” over the fighting in Syria, which “has dropped off the international radar” in the face of so many other armed conflicts.

In January, her office said it had stopped updating the death toll, blaming a lack of access in Syria and its inability to verify source material. It was unclear why it has released new figures now.

The UN also would not endorse anyone else’s count, including the widely quoted figures from the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which has closely counted the deaths since Syria’s crisis began in March 2011. On Thursday, the observatory said the number of deaths has reached 180,000.

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Allying With Iran Is Putin’s Ace in the Hole

August 19, 2014

Allying With Iran Is Putin’s Ace in the Hole, The Moscow Times, Josh Cohen, August 19, 2014

5437-Web-cohen

[P]erhaps the most damaging step Putin could take against Western interests would be to undermine the P5+1 [the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council plus Germany] negotiations aimed at limiting Iran’s nuclear program.

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As Moscow considers new ways of responding to Western sanctions, both existing and potential, the Kremlin has a range of economic and political options at its fingertips.

In addition to its current ban on importing U.S. and EU foodstuffs, a ban on the import of foreign cars may also be in the works. President Vladimir Putin could also retaliate by prolonging Ukraine’s gas cutoff and ratcheting up tensions in other states with substantial ethnic Russian populations such as Estonia and Latvia.

But perhaps the most damaging step Putin could take against Western interests would be to undermine the P5+1 [the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council plus Germany] negotiations aimed at limiting Iran’s nuclear program.

Six months of dialogue between Iran and the West recently failed to yield any agreement, and despite the fact that negotiations with Iran were extended until November, the two sides remain distant.

The West’s major leverage against Tehran stems from its sanctions, which have cut Iran off from the global financial system and inflicted severe hardship on the Iranian economy and its people. Sanctions were instrumental in bringing the ayatollahs to the negotiating table, and these sanctions have remained largely in place during the ongoing P5+1 Iranian nuclear negotiations.

But Russia has never been fully on board with the move to isolate Iran, and Moscow has already warned the West that it could play the “Iran card.”

Speaking in March about Western sanctions after a P5+1 meeting in Geneva, Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said: “We wouldn’t like to use these talks as an element of the game of raising the stakes … but if they force us into that, we will take retaliatory measures here as well.”

Ryabkov’s subsequent statement that the “reunification of Crimea with Russia is incomparable to what we are dealing with in the Iranian issue” only emphasizes how differently the West and Russia evaluate the danger of a nuclear-armed Iran.

The Iranians are well aware that the Ukraine crisis could strengthen Iran’s negotiating position. Hossein Mousavian, a former spokesman for Iran’s nuclear negotiators, recently wrote: “Logic follows that Russia will play Iran’s nuclear card [against the West]. Great economic rewards may also result from Russia cultivating closer relations with Iran.”

Moscow has now taken concrete steps to play Mousavian’s “nuclear card,” signing a memorandum of understanding with Tehran to implement a $20 billion “oil for goods” accord.

While the details of the memorandum are still vague, previous reports noted that Iran would supply Russia up to 500,000 barrels a day of Iranian oil, and in exchange Iran would import Russian power and pump equipment, steel products such as pipes, machinery for its leather and textile industries, wood, wheat, pulses, oilseeds and meat.

Cliff Kupchan, a Russia specialist at the Eurasia Group, noted in Time magazine that the oil-for-goods accord “gives Iran momentum and confidence to adopt a harder position at the talks. Hard-liners now have a more plausible argument that Iran can survive economically if talks fail.”

The U.S. has already responded to Moscow’s oil-for goods deal with alarm. David Cohen, the Treasury Department’s undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, has threatened additional sanctions against Russia should Moscow move forward in implementing the deal, saying: “It is almost certain that any entity involved in the deal would open themselves up to certainly U.S. sanctions and possibly others.”

The oil-for-goods deal is not the only way Russia could undermine Western interests in Iran. Russia and Iran have had ongoing discussions about the construction of additional nuclear reactors for Iran by Rosatom, the Russian state energy company. This pact strengthens Iran’s case against the West that it should be permitted to enrich more uranium on its own soil, as the construction of additional reactors would increase the amount of fuel Iran needs.

And while the oil-for-goods deal and the construction of additional reactors certainly has the potential to strengthen Iranian hard-liners opposed to a deal with the West, Russia holds one card in reserve that trumps even these.

In 2007, Russia signed a contract with Iran to supply it with its sophisticated S-300 anti-aircraft missiles. Described by the International Assessment and Strategy Center as “one of the most lethal, if not the most lethal, all altitude area defense SAM systems in service,” it can be deployed within minutes, track 100 aircraft approaching from 300 kilometers away, fire two missiles every three seconds and engage up to 36 planes simultaneously.

Although Russia suspended the delivery of the S-300 systems to Iran in 2010 in response to U.S. pressure, Putin could retaliate against the West by allowing the sale to go through — a decision that could change the balance of power in the Middle East.

In a speech before the UN General Assembly last year, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel could never accept a nuclear-armed Iran, and the Jewish state has made clear that it will act on its own against Iran’s nuclear program if necessary. Israel’s vaunted air force — the IAF — would be the lead actor in an Israeli strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities.

But according to Kupchan, the S-300 “is the one card that they [the Russians] have. … The S-300 can be a game changer; it would reduce Israel’s ability to attack Iran.”

If Russia were on the cusp of delivering S-300s to Iran, it is very possible that Israel would choose to strike Iran before the missile system were installed. Tehran could retaliate by taking any number of steps, from mining the Straits of Hormuz to launching missiles at the oil fields of U.S. allies such as Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. The Middle East — if not the world — would be thrown into economic turmoil.

The S-300s thus represent Putin’s ultimate ace in the hole, should he wish to retaliate asymmetrically against Western sanctions. Would Putin actually risk such an outcome?

The Russian president has proven to be nothing if not unpredictable, and if the pressure from the West against Russia continues to mount, the West may find that Putin has his own trump card to play.

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Fmr. Israel Navy Chief: A Gaza Seaport Would Be an Iranian Seaport

August 18, 2014

Fmr. Israel Navy Chief: A Gaza Seaport Would Be an Iranian Seaport

VIDEO August 17, 2014 11:29 am

via Fmr. Israel Navy Chief: A Gaza Seaport Would Be an Iranian Seaport VIDEO | Jewish & Israel News Algemeiner.com.

 

F.r Israel Navy chief, Vice Admiral (Ret.)
Eliezer Marom Photo: Wikipedia
 

Allowing Hamas to open a Gaza seaport would only serve to allow Iran direct access to rearm the Islamic terror group, the former chief of the Israeli Navy told Israeli Army radio Sunday.

“Let’s say an Iranian ship docked at Gaza Port for a visit. We know that Iranian military vessels smuggle munitions nearly every time they hoist anchor. But, because this is a military craft, we can’t inspect it,” Vice Admiral (Ret.) Eliezer Marom, stressed.

“And thus, without even noticing, we’ve established an Iranian port two hours away from Ashdod,” Marom said, and pointed out that, “Israel security doctrine is that we are responsible for security on all crossings…”

“The security challenge would be immense, and it would be very difficult for us to keep an eye on things,” he said.

However, Hamas representatives to indirect talks with Israel in Cairo over extending a cease-fire set to end at midnight Monday night, demanded a seaport, “or the talks were off,” Army radio reported.

Noting that the issue of securing such a port has been in discussion for two decades, Marom pointed out that he was in the original team that was tasked with offering the government solutions to the thorny issue, but said at the time that “we had very few answers.”

Also on Sunday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told cabinet members that “security needs of the State of Israel,” were paramount for representatives at indirect talks with Hamas in Cairo.

“Only if there is a clear response to our security needs will we agree to reach understandings. In the past month Hamas has taken a severe military blow,” the PM said.

“We destroyed its network of tunnels that it took years to dig. We intercepted the rockets that it had massed in order to carry out thousands of deadly strikes against the Israeli home front. And we foiled the terrorist attacks that it tried to perpetrate against Israeli civilians – by land, sea and air,” according to Netanyahu.

Watch a recent interview with Marom, in which he discusses Israel’s chief maritime threats, including from underwater vehicles:

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Obama’s Hubris is His Undoing

August 18, 2014

Contentions Obama’s Hubris is His Undoing

Jonathan S. Tobin | @tobincommentary 08.17.2014 – 8:00 PM

via Obama’s Hubris is His Undoing « Commentary Magazine.

 

Historians will have the rest of the century to unravel the mess that is the Barack Obama presidency. While they can explore these years of foreign policy disaster and domestic malaise at leisure, the rest of us have 29 more months to see just how awful things can get before he slides off to a lucrative retirement. But those who want to start the post-mortem on this historic presidency would do well to read Jackson Diehl’s most recent Washington Post column in which he identifies Obama’s hubris as the key element in his undoing.

As our Pete Wehner wrote earlier today, the president’s reactions to what even Chuck Hagel, his less-than-brilliant secretary of defense, has rightly called a world that is “exploding all over” by blaming it all on forces that he is powerless to control. As Pete correctly pointed out, no one is arguing that the president of the United States is all-powerful and has the capacity to fix everything in the world that is out of order. But the problem is not so much the steep odds against which the administration is currently struggling, as its utter incapacity to look honestly at the mistakes it has made in the past five and half years and to come to the conclusion that sometimes you’ve got to change course in order to avoid catastrophes.

As has been pointed out several times here at COMMENTARY in the last month and is again highlighted by Diehl in his column, Obama’s efforts to absolve himself of all responsibility for the collapse in Iraq is completely disingenuous. The man who spent the last few years bragging about how he “ended the war in Iraq” now professes to have no responsibility for the fact that the U.S. pulled out all of its troops from the conflict.

Nor is he willing to second guess his dithering over intervention in Syria. The administration spent the last week pushing back hard against Hillary Clinton’s correct, if transparently insincere, criticisms of the administration in which she served, for having stood by and watched helplessly there instead of taking the limited actions that might well have prevented much of that country — and much of Iraq — from falling into the hands of ISIS terrorists.

The same lack of honesty characterizes the administration’s approach to the Israel-Palestinian conflict and the nuclear negotiations with Iran, two topics that Diehl chose not to highlight in his piece.

Obama wasted much of his first term pointlessly quarreling with Israel’s government and then resumed that feud this year after an intermission for a re-election year Jewish charm offensive. This distancing from Israel and the reckless pursuit of an agreement when none was possible helped set up this summer’s fighting. The result is not only an alliance that is at its low point since the presidency of the elder George Bush but a situation in which the U.S. now finds itself pushing the Israelis to make concessions to Hamas as well as the Palestinian Authority, a state of affairs that guarantees more fighting in the future and a further diminishment of U.S. interests in the region.

On Iran, Obama wasted years on feckless engagement efforts before finally accepting the need for tough sanctions on that nation to stop its nuclear threat. But the president tossed the advantage he worked so hard to build by foolishly pursuing détente with Tehran and loosening sanctions just at the moment when the Iranians looked to be in trouble.

On both the Palestinian and the Iranian front, an improvement in the current grim prospects for U.S. strategy is not impossible. But, as with the situation in Iraq, it will require the kind of grim soul-searching that, as Diehl points out, George W. Bush underwent in 2006 before changing both strategy and personnel in order to pursue the surge that changed the course of the Iraq War. Sadly, Obama threw away the victory he inherited from Bush. If he is to recover in this final two years in office the way Bush did, it will require the same sort of honesty and introspection.

But, unfortunately, that seems to be exactly the qualities that are absent from this otherwise brilliant politician. Obama is a great campaigner — a talent that is still on display every time he takes to the road to blame Republicans for the problems he created — and is still personally liked by much of the electorate (even if his charms are largely lost on conservative critics such as myself). But he seems incapable of ever admitting error, especially on big issues. At the heart of this problem is a self-regard and a contempt for critics that is so great that it renders him incapable of focusing his otherwise formidable intellect on the shortcomings in his own thinking or challenging the premises on which he has based his policies.

Saying you’re wrong is not easy for any of us and has to be especially hard for a man who has been celebrated as a groundbreaking transformational figure in our history. But that is exactly what is required if the exploding world that Obama has helped set in motion is to be kept from careening even further out of control before his presidency ends. The president may think he’s just having an unlucky streak that he can’t do a thing about. While it is true that America’s options are now limited (largely due to his mistakes) in Syria and Iraq, there is plenty he can do to prevent things from getting worse there. It is also largely up to him whether Iran gets a nuclear weapon or Hamas is able to launch yet another war in the near future rather than being isolated. But in order to do the right things on these fronts, he will have to first admit that his previous decisions were wrong. Until he shed the hubris that prevents him from doing so, it will be impossible.

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Iran tells UN nuclear chief no talks on missiles

August 17, 2014

Iran tells UN nuclear chief no talks on missiles

Head of IAEA meet with Iranian FM Zarif, President Rouhani to push for progress in a long-running investigation into suspected atomic bomb research

by Tehran.News Agencies Latest Update: 08.17.14, 16:19 / Israel News

via Iran tells UN nuclear chief no talks on missiles – Israel News, Ynetnews.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani told the visiting head of the UN nuclear watchdog on Sunday that Tehran will not discuss its long-range missile program as part of talks aimed at resolving a decade-long nuclear dispute, official media reported.

UN nuclear agency chief Yukiya Amano said Sunday’s visit to Tehran was useful and that he was very glad to hear a firm commitment from Iran to resolve all outstanding issues through cooperation between the two sides.

Amano’s trip came ahead of an Aug. 25 deadline for Iran to provide information relevant to the International Atomic Energy Agency’s (IAEA) inquiry into what it calls the possible military dimensions of the country’s disputed nuclear programme.

“Iran’s missile power is not negotiable in any level under any pretext,” Rouhani told Amano, the official IRNA news service reported.

The president added, however, that Iran is prepared to cooperate with the IAEA’s probe into whether its civilian nuclear program has a military component, “since there is no room for using a weapon of mass destruction in Iran’s defense doctrine.”

“This has been a short visit, but a useful one,” Amano said in Tehran after talks with President Hassan Rouhani and other senior Iranian officials, according to a statement issued by the IAEA in Vienna.

The state TV report Sunday said Amano landed in Tehran late Saturday. It said Amano also will visit with Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif and the head of its own nuclear agency.

Amano’s visit comes as world powers continue to negotiate with the Islamic Republic for a permanent deal over its contested nuclear program. Those talks face a November deadline after an interim deal was struck last year.

The West fears Iran’s nuclear program could allow it to build nuclear weapons. Iran says its program is for peaceful purposes.

The visit – announced by the IAEA on Friday – will be Amano’s first to Iran this year and the third since 2012.

Western officials say Iranian clarifications of the IAEA’s concerns would also advance efforts by six world powers to negotiate an end to a decade-old standoff over Tehran’s atomic activities, suggesting some sanctions relief may depend on it.

With major gaps remaining over the permissible future scope of Iran’s uranium enrichment programme, the talks between Iran and the United States, France, Germany, China, Britain and Russia were in mid-July extended until Nov. 24.

Iran says it is enriching uranium to generate electricity, and not to accumulate fissile material for a potential atomic bomb, as the West suspects.

Tehran rejects such suspicions as based on false and fabricated information from its enemies but has promised, since pragmatist Hassan Rouhani became president in mid-2013, to work with the Vienna-based UN agency to clear them up.

Under a phased cooperation pact hammered out late last year, an attempt to jumpstart the long-stalled IAEA investigation, Iran agreed in May to implement five nuclear transparency measures by Aug. 25, two of which directly dealt with the nuclear bomb inquiry.

However, so far there have been no public indications of any movement by Iran on the agreed steps.

A brief statement issued by the U.N. agency on Friday said, without elaborating: “The director general of the IAEA … will visit Iran for meetings on Aug. 17 with Iranian leaders and senior officials. The visit is part of the efforts to advance dialogue and cooperation between the agency and Iran.”

Nuclear intelligence

Diplomatic sources told Reuters in late July that the IAEA – which is tasked with preventing the spread of nuclear weapons in the world – was concerned about Iran’s lack of engagement with the investigation.

They said there was still time for Iran to meet its commitments, noting that Tehran had occasionally waited until the last minute to make concessions in the past.

But the slow pace of cooperation may reinforce an impression in the West about continuing Iranian reluctance to give the IAEA the information and access to sites and people that it says it needs for its investigation.

“Unless Iran addresses the IAEA’s concerns … the chance is reduced of successfully negotiating a long term nuclear agreement between the (six powers) and Iran,” the Institute for Science and International Security think-tank said this month.

After years of what the West saw as Iranian stonewalling, Iran as a first step in May gave the IAEA information it had requested about its reasons for developing Exploding Bridge Wire detonators. These can be used to set off an atomic explosive device but Iran says they are for civilian use.

Tehran agreed to clarify two other issues by late August – concerning alleged work on explosives and computer studies related to calculating nuclear explosive yields.

They were among 12 specific areas listed in an IAEA report issued in 2011 with a trove of intelligence indicating a concerted weapons programme that was halted in 2003 – when Iran came under increased international pressure. The intelligence also suggested some activities may later have resumed.

The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report

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ISIS Threatening a New Jewish Holocaust

July 6, 2014

ISIS Threatening a New Jewish Holocaust”

The Real Zionist Holocaust is Predicted in the Hadiths!

The Hour [resurrection] will not take place until the Muslims fight the Jews and the Muslims kill them.”

7.4.2014 Israel RevoltJeff Dunetz

via ISIS Threatening a New Jewish Holocaust | Truth Revolt.

 

SIS, the terrorist group controlling parts of Syria and Iraq, is using social media to promise another Holocaust against the Jews. The group’s supporter placed a post on Twitter quoting Muslim Hadith (traditionally a statements or action of Muhammad) that says in part, “The Real Zionist Holocaust is Predicted in the Hadiths! The Hour [resurrection] will not take place until the Muslims fight the Jews and the Muslims kill them.”

An English translation of speech by ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was posted on the internet Tuesday. In the oration, al-Baghdadi launched into an anti-Semitic diatribe:

So listen, O ummah of Islam. Listen and comprehend. Stand up and rise. For the time has come for you to free yourself from the shackles of weakness, and stand in the face of tyranny, against the treacherous rulers – the agents of the crusaders and the atheists, and the guards of the Jews.

O ummah of Islam, indeed the world today has been divided into two camps and two trenches, with no third camp present: The camp of Islam and faith, and the camp of kufr (disbelief) and hypocrisy – the camp of the Muslims and the mujahidin everywhere, and the camp of the Jews, the crusaders, their allies, and with them the rest of the nations and religions of kufr, all being led by America and Russia, and being mobilized by the Jews.

A ISIS video posted on June 2 (above) encourages violence against Christians and Jews, writing, “Break the crosses and destroy the lin­eage of the grand­sons of mon­keys [Jews].”

Many Americans who argue against any U.S. action against ISIS claim that we have no stake against the terrorist group. However ISIS’s own propaganda demonstrates their violent intentions extend beyond Syria and Iraq and into Jewish and Christian communities across the world.

(H/T IPT)

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