WAR 07/30 to 06/05 ****THE****WINDS****OF****WAR****

For links see article source....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.cnn.com/2012/07/30/world/meast/syria-unrest/

Syrian rebels push to grab territory outside Aleppo
From Ivan Watson, CNN
updated 4:24 PM EDT, Mon July 30, 2012

Watch this video
STORY HIGHLIGHTS

NEW: Rebels use seized army tanks to attack a military base, a commander says
NEW: At least 85 people are killed in violence across Syria, opposition activists say
An Al Jazeera correspondent is wounded during fighting in Aleppo, his co-workers say
Syria's top diplomat in London has left his post, according to British officials

Are you in Syria? Share your stories, videos and photos with the world on CNN iReport.

Northern Syria (CNN) -- Rebels pushed to grab territory around Aleppo on Monday as fighting raged within the northern city.

Hours after capturing a government military base on the outskirts of Aleppo, Syrian rebels said they were using tanks they seized in earlier fighting to attack a military airfield north of the hotly contested metropolis, which has seen more than a week of bloody clashes.

Free Syrian Army Cmdr. Ahmed Afesh told CNN rebels were using tanks they confiscated from the Syrian army to shell the air base outside Azaz. The border town is about 25 miles (40 kilometers) north of Aleppo.

Rebels were also securing control of the main highway that runs to Turkey from Aleppo, the commercial center of the country.

Battle scars were clear along the road. Near the military base that rebels seized -- a former restaurant -- the wreckage of an armored personnel carrier was smoldering. Inside, there were shell casings and abandoned army uniforms. Rebels were moving out cases of ammunition they had seized.

New heavy equipment captured during the battle for the base -- including four tanks in good condition -- was a boost for rebels, who have said that their weapons have been outmatched by the Syrian army's.

As the relentless battle for Syria's largest city continued Monday, Al Jazeera correspondent Omar Khashram was wounded during heavy fighting in a central Aleppo neighborhood. A cameraman and driver working with Khashram, who was being treated in a hospital in Turkey, told CNN that shrapnel from a shell penetrated gaps in the correspondent's flak jacket in Aleppo's Salahuddin neighborhood.

U.N. observers have reported a surge in violence in Aleppo, with helicopters, tanks and artillery being used, mission head Lt. Gen. Babacar Gaye said Monday.

Regime forces launched missiles and shelled from attack helicopters, opposition activists said.

Aleppo, Syria's commercial and cultural hub, has seen a mass exodus amid the violence. About 200,000 people in and around the city have fled shelling and heavy weapon fire in the past two days, Valerie Amos, the U.N.'s under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs, said Sunday.

In several neighborhoods, those who remained were left without phone, Internet or electricity service as tanks shelled the city, according to Deama, an activist in Aleppo. CNN isn't using her full name because disclosing it could put her in danger.

"We're afraid they are going to do something worse. Usually, they will cut off connections and isolate these neighborhoods more when they are about to make something worse," Deama said Monday.

Residents also faced bread and flour shortages, she said. Bakeries were shuttered.

"This is like punishment from the regime. They want to make people hungry," she said.

There were conflicting reports Monday on who controlled the major Aleppo neighborhood of Salahuddin, which rebels had claimed days earlier. Both opposition fighters and the regime said Monday they had taken over Salahuddin.

At least 85 people were killed across Syria on Monday, including 25 in Aleppo, according to the opposition Local Coordination Committees of Syria.

With no end to the country's 16-month crisis in sight, French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said his country will take more action to try to stop the bloodshed.

"As France is taking over the presidency of the U.N. Security Council on August 1, we are going to ask -- before the end of the week -- for a meeting of the Security Council, probably at a ministerial level ... to try and stop the massacres and prepare for the political transition," Fabius told French RTL radio on Monday.

Watch a prisoner exchange in Syria
Rastan: Shattered city in Syria
Filmmaker documents violence in Syria
Showdown in Syria Showdown in Syria

Video: The changing mission of U.N. in Syria

Also on Monday, the top diplomat at the Syrian Embassy in London resigned his post, the British Foreign & Commonwealth Office said. Charge d'Affaires Khaled al-Ayoubi told British officials that he was "no longer willing to represent a regime that has committed such violent and oppressive acts against its own people," the office said in a statement.

Earlier Monday, a Syrian brigadier general -- who is also a deputy police chief of Latakia -- defected to Turkey, the Turkish Foreign Ministry said. An additional 11 Syrian officers also defected overnight, the ministry said. The total number of Syrians who have fled to Turkey has reached 43,500.

Meanwhile, fighting words continued between Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's regime and opponents near and far.

Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Moallem gave ominous words Sunday about the battle for Aleppo, vowing that rebels would not gain control of the city.

"Since last week, (opposition fighters) planned for whatever they called the 'great Damascus battle,' but they have failed after one week," Moallem said, referring to a rebel offensive beaten back earlier this month. "That's why they moved to Aleppo, and I can assure you that they will fail."

He made his comments during a trip to Iran, one of his nation's few remaining allies.

But U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta predicted Sunday that the Syrian regime's violent crackdown in Aleppo will prove "a nail in Assad's coffin" by turning even more people against al-Assad and his government.

Nabil Elaraby, the head of the Arab League, said Sunday that the league believes war crimes are being committed in the city.

Blog: A bloody mess could get messier

With reports of incessant attacks rocking Aleppo, the head of a prominent Syrian opposition group pleaded over the weekend for world allies to help arm rebels with "weapons that will allow us to stop tanks and planes."

"Our friends and allies will bear responsibility for the terrifying massacres that will happen in Aleppo if they don't move soon," Abdulbaset Sieda, head of the Syrian National Council, said Saturday.

Read more: Syria rebels appear more capable, yet still outgunned

The Syrian crisis started in March 2011, after al-Assad's regime violently cracked down on peaceful protests seeking his ouster. The Assad family has ruled Syria for more than four decades.

More than 20,000 people, mostly civilians, have died in the conflict, the LCC said. Last week, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said almost 17,000 people have died.

On Monday, Ban said armed vehicles had protected the head of the U.N. observer mission and others in his convoy during an attack Sunday.

"The situation is getting worse and worse, and I'm deeply concerned. ... Now we really need the united international community's action and political will to resolve this issue as soon as possible," Ban told reporters Monday.

Read more: After the fall of the House of Assad, could Syria be worse?

CNN's Mohammed Jamjoom, Salma Abdelaziz, Yesim Comert, Holly Yan and Saskya Vandoorne and journalist Mohamed Fadel Fahmy contributed to this report.

i appreciate the wide range of sources quoted. makes info that much more reliable.
now I am all cheered up.

Posted For Fair Use And Discussion.
http://oilprice.com/Geopolitics/Mid...Syria-Could-Affect-the-Global-Oil-Market.html

How the Uprising in Syria Could Affect the Global Oil Market
By Post Carbon | Sun, 29 July 2012 00:00 | 0

Benefit From the Latest Energy Trends and Investment Opportunities before the mainstream media and investing public are aware they even exist. The Free Oilprice.com Energy Intelligence Report gives you this and much more. Click here to find out more.

In surveying the multiple, uprisings, insurgencies, insurrections, confrontations and what have you currently going on in the Middle East, it is hard to believe that all this turmoil will not eventually find its way to our local gas pumps. In the last week the overall situation clearly has taken a turn for the worse with large numbers of Syrian insurgents infiltrating Damascus and Aleppo for the first time accompanied by the spectacular bombing of a security meeting that killed four of the regime's top leaders. As the 16 month uprising, that to date has killed some 20,000 people, grinds towards a bloody conclusion, the Assad government has pulled out one of its last cards which is the large stockpile of chemical and biological weapons that it has accumulated with the help of the Russians as a deterrent against the Israelis.

Now such weapons are virtually useless in fighting urban insurgents, but the threat of turning some of them over to any of the numerous jihadist groups running around the Middle East carries a lot of weight. Weapons of mass destruction in the hands of a national government against which it is easy to retaliate is one thing, in the hands of stateless militants in a self-martyring frame of mind is something entirely different. The Middle East and much of the world would never be the same should nerve gas canisters rather than bombs become the weapon of choice to express dissatisfaction or score political points.

Until now the US and other western powers have been reluctant to become militarily involved in yet another Middle Eastern conflict. Should it appear, however, that the Assad government is losing control of its chemical and biological weapons, intervention, at least by Israel and likely a wider circle of Western powers, would be inevitable. The ramifications of such a foreign military intervention into the Syrian situation would be widespread.

The next ominous development was the recent bombing of a bus filled with Israeli tourists in Bulgaria. Although the Bulgarians are withholding judgment as to the sponsor of the plot until the investigation is complete, the Israelis were quick to blame Iran and their Palestinian associates, Hezbollah. If Iranian sponsorship is established, the bus bombing indicates that after the failure of a string of plots to assassinate Israeli diplomats, Tehran has turned to attacking soft targets such as Israeli tourists on the way to a Bulgarian beach.

Although the Iranians may see this attack as retaliation for what is widely assumed to be Israeli assassinations of Iranian nuclear scientists, the assassination of civilian tourists, rather than Israeli officials who are actively working against Iranian interests, represents a new level of confrontation. Israel will of course retaliate at a time and place of its own choosing; however, the longer this goes on of course the more dangerous it becomes and the possibility of more open hostilities increases.

A third new element in the Middle Eastern brew was a round of sectarian bombings carried out by the Sunni-dominated Al Qaeda in Iraq and aimed at 40 Shiite power centres. The bombings and attacks which killed and wounded hundreds were the worst in many years and raise issues whether the new Iraqi government can survive without outside help. Al Qaeda actually announced that the attacks were in retaliation for the suppression of the Sunni majority by the Shiite-aligned Assad government in Syria. Al Qaeda's purpose in all this is to ignite a civil war in hopes of bringing down the Shiite government in Iraq that was brought to power by the American invasion.

These attacks may be the first major manifestation of the Syrian uprising spreading across borders in neighbouring countries. With torrents of refugees flowing away from the fighting in Syria and various Jihadist groups traveling back and forth across the porous borders, the full impact of the Syrian uprising has yet to be seen. Moscow continues to warn the West, that while the Assad government may not the greatest, the anarchy that will follow the down fall of Assad will be far worse.

Unlike other Middle Eastern uprisings of late, the Syrian situation has a larger element of centuries old Sunni-Shiite confrontation. This brings Iraq, Iran, Bahrain and even a bit of Saudi Arabia into the issue. The spectre, however remote, of a more generalized Sunni-Shiite confrontation is always there and Al Qaeda is doing its best to exploit it.

Now none of these developments by themselves represent an immediate threat to Middle Eastern oil exports. Taken together, however, the deteriorating security situation is a major cause for concern. Iran is still making threats about blocking the Straits of Hormuz, largely because they don't have anything else to make threats about. Tehran's economy continues to deteriorate under the weight of the various sanctions with no clear end in sight. Recent negotiations have seen little progress.

Should Assad fall, Iran will lose its only true ally in the Middle East. This could push the Iranians closer to the Shiite-dominated government in Baghdad, which is facing insurrections from its own Sunni minority who are used to running things as well as the Kurds who want to be an independent country. There is no other term for all this than "a can of worms." It is going to be a long hot summer in the region with the likelihood that things will get a lot worse before fall comes.

By. Tom Whipple

Housecarl said:

For links see article source....
Posted for fair use.....
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390444130304577556883862567476.html?mod=googlenews_wsj


MIDDLE EAST NEWS
July 29, 2012, 9:00 p.m. ET

U.S. Says Afghans Abandoned Police Bases

Article
Comments (43)

more in Middle East »

By NATHAN HODGE

WASHINGTON—Inspectors from a U.S. government watchdog agency discovered that several American-funded border police bases in Afghanistan have been largely abandoned or left unoccupied, raising questions about the coming hand-over of security duties to local forces.

Among other findings, inspectors found that one base, Lal Por 2, wasn't being used by Afghan border forces because it had no water supply, a report due out Monday states. A second, Nazyan, "may soon be uninhabitable" because of shoddy construction that caused sewage overflow.

All told, the new report by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction found most of the facilities on three of the four bases that it inspected—each built to house 93 border police personnel—"were either unoccupied or weren't used for the intended purposes."

The disclosures shed new light on the U.S. investment in Afghanistan's security ahead of the planned withdrawal of most foreign troops by 2014. Creating capable and self-sufficient Afghan security forces is a cornerstone of the U.S. exit strategy. But the report points to questions about whether the U.S. is leaving behind working infrastructure that the Afghan government can sustain.

At issue is the construction of four Afghan border-police bases in eastern Nangarhar province, a key region that borders Pakistan's Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. The region is home to a highway that forms a crucial military supply line and trade link to the Afghan capital.

The bases are among the many security facilities the Afghan government will inherit from U.S. and international donors after a decade of reconstruction work.

Enlarge Image
image
image

The U.S. inspection work, carried out between January and July, found extensive evidence of shoddy construction. Leaking fuel lines on generators created fire hazards; drainpipes weren't installed, causing water damage; and poorly installed doors wouldn't close. In one case, a well house at the Lal Por 1 base was being used as a chicken coop, "increasing the risk of sanitation and health issues," the report states.

The inspectors didn't examine whether the Afghan police units which were supposed to occupy the facilities were performing their jobs elsewhere.

All told, the value of the construction contract for the four bases was nearly $19 million. In a written response to a draft of the inspection report, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which awarded the base contract to Road & Roof Construction Co., an Afghan contractor, said it was working to fix the problems uncovered by inspectors.

But the Corps also said the precarious security in the country made it difficult for it to undertake spot checks on construction projects. The report says the bases are "located in extremely remote and predominately inaccessible sites."

Ahmad Jawaid Abdullah, an executive with Road & Roof Construction Co., said the firm was aware of reports of "minor deficiencies" at sites, but added that most of the problems were "not due to construction," but rather poor facility maintenance.

The Corps, Mr. Abdullah added, was aware of water supply problems on one of the bases, but said that alternatives—such as drilling a well at a separate location and pumping water to the site—had been identified. Mr. Abdullah said the wastewater system at the Nazyan site was functional.

Since the end of 2001, Congress has appropriated just under $90 billion for Afghanistan's reconstruction, of which about $52 billion has been allocated toward bankrolling and building up Afghan security forces.

The Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, or Sigar, was created in 2008 to track the billions of taxpayer dollars the U.S. has poured into Afghanistan for reconstruction projects. The organization got off to a rocky start, with the watchdog agency's original head forced to step down in early 2011 amid congressional questions about its effectiveness.

The White House recently named veteran prosecutor and congressional investigator John Sopko to lead the agency after the top post there was filled by acting heads for over a year.

Write to Nathan Hodge at nathan.hodge@wsj.com

Click to expand...

How do you say Chutzpah in Pashtun?....

For links see article source...
Posted for fair use....
http://paktribune.com/news/Taliban-urge-NATO-not-to-demolish-installations-251898.html

Taliban urge NATO not to demolish installations
28 July, 2012

KABUL: Taliban on Friday criticized NATO decision to demolish their installations in Afghanistan after withdrawal and said the installations were erected by spending the money collected in the name of Afghans.

In a statement the Taliban Islamic Emirate said, "The withdrawal of the occupants is a positive step but demolishing their installations has no justification. These installations are the property of Afghanistan, as it was erected on their soil and on the money collected in the name of Afghans."

Declaring the NATO decision of demolishing their installations against all the principles, it said, "The Islamic Emirate condemns it and urge the occupational forces and their allies to stop this cruelty against the Afghan nation. "They were raising the hollow slogans of reconstruction but now demolishing the installations constructed at a cost of Afghan nation's money in front of the entire world.

Is this reconstruction or re-destruction? Their task is to destroy everything. They came with destruction and now go with destruction.

The Kabul puppet administration spent 10 years in the service of the occupational force and still continuing. But they have no importance for the invaders to give them a few bases. Is this the reward of the 10 year slavery?"

Taliban also urged the Afghan government to cooperate with nation in the ouster of foreign forces.

Media reports suggested NATO has decided to demolish their installations in Afghanistan after pullout in 2014. According to reports NATO also signed a $58 million deal with a foreign company for demolition of their installations.

However, Afghan government also opposed the NATO decision and said a joint commission of NATO and Afghan government would discuss the issue.

End.

____

For links see article source...
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world...f-nato-bases/2012/07/24/gJQAcho06W_story.html

Afghan President Hamid Karzai demands handover, not demolition, of NATO bases
By Kevin Sieff, Published: July 24
Comments 15

KABUL — President Hamid Karzai and Afghan lawmakers called on the NATO coalition this week to stop demolishing Western military bases, saying that the facilities could be converted to schools, clinics and government offices.

As NATO troops continue their withdrawal from Afghanistan, U.S. and coalition officials have begun to identify and dismantle bases that the Afghan army lacks the capacity to inherit or that are no longer operationally significant. Dozens more of the facilities, which range from one-room checkpoints to large operating bases, could be bulldozed over the next two years.

Karzai has asked his defense minister, Abdul Rahim Wardak, to “take all necessary measures to stop the demolition of bases by NATO and make their handover possible,” according to presidential spokesman Aimal Faizi.

Afghan officials in Kabul said they have been shut out of the process and have been forced to watch as some of the country’s most modern and best-fortified buildings are torn apart for no apparent reason.

“They have spent lots of money for constructing the bases, and now they are spending more money for their destruction,” said Shukria Barakzai, a lawmaker. “We can use these bases for clinics, schools and for other administrative purposes.”

NATO officials say that Afghan government officials do have an opportunity to claim bases before they are demolished but that they often do not act in time.

NATO and U.S. forces engage “directly and regularly with the Afghan Ministry of Finance-led Base Closure Commission, who ultimately determines the disposition of bases,” said Lt. Col. Sarah Goodson, a spokeswoman for NATO forces. “On those occasions where the Afghan government does not desire a base which ISAF [the International Security Assistance Force] is leaving, the base is demilitarized and the ground is returned to its original state and appearance.”

In June, the Reston-based firm Serco was awarded a three-year, $57 million contract to plan and document the dismantling of bases across Afghanistan. The company played a similar role in Iraq, where dozens of bases were shuttered rather than transferred to Iraqi control.

To do the job, Serco will deploy teams that specialize in closing military installations.

“It makes no sense to spend money to destroy a facility that you have spent money to build in the first place,” said Daud Kalakani, another lawmaker.

Although the Afghan army is about 200,000-strong, U.S. officials say it lacks the logistical capacity to inherit the hundreds of bases that pepper Afghanistan, including many in isolated mountain ranges.

Rather than spread the Afghan security forces too thin, U.S. and NATO officials are proposing a large-scale consolidation of bases. Some large installations are being downsized. And many will be dismantled — a process that can take weeks.

Javed Hamdard and Sayed Salahuddin in Kabul and Marjorie Censer in Washington contributed to this report.

For links see article source....
Posted for fair use.....
http://thediplomat.com/2012/07/30/what-chinas-leaders-fear-most/

What China’s Leaders Fear Most
July 30, 2012
By Minxin Pei
Comments 3

By charging Bo Xilai’s wife with murder, China's political leaders have set a dangerous precedent.

The news that Chinese prosecutors have filed formal murder charges against Gu Kailai, the wife of disgraced former Communist Party boss of Chongqing Bo Xilai, has conjured up tantalizing images of a sensational trial at which the dirtiest laundry of the Bo family would be mercilessly aired. But before aspiring writers of a political thriller rush to purchase the rights to the Bo saga, its obvious entertaining value notwithstanding, we need to pause and reflect on one dimension of the Bo story that has not received sufficient attention: the insecurity of China's top rulers.

While most people understandably cheer the downfall of characters like Bo, arrogant, hypocritical, cruel, and greedy apparatchiks when they are in power, the political implications of their demise and the manner in which they are purged are not those of a morality play. On the contrary, how the powerful lose power and what happens to them afterwards can tell us a great deal about the nature of the political regime in which they thrive and perish. In the case of the current Chinese regime, the ugly purge of Bo reveals many of its dark sides: corruption, lawlessness, hypocrisy, and ruthlessness. Such qualities of a regime make it illegitimate and undermines its durability. However, rarely do we view political power struggles from the perspective of a regime insider. As a result, we often fail to appreciate how the insecurity of top elites constitutes a fatal threat to the very regime that has made and unmade their political fortune.

Before we analyze the degree of insecurity of the ruling elites in contemporary China, it may be useful to refer to another era in which top elites of the Communist Party lived in constant fear for their lives and those of their families — the reign of Mao Zedong from 1949 to 1976. The Maoist regime was a purge machine in perpetual motion. Any member of the party's hierarchy, regardless of his seniority or loyalty to Mao, was dispatched the instant he became a threat to Mao's power. No rules governed such purges. In nearly all cases, the victims included not only the disgraced official, but also his innocent family members, who were thrown in jail or sent to labor camps. Indeed, Bo's family story during the Cultural Revolution was a typical case. His father spent a decade in prison. Bo himself was jailed, too, during the Cultural Revolution. His mother committed suicide.

After the end of Maoist rule and the return of political sanity in China in the late 1970s, the party's elders worked very hard to restore the party's unity. One keen insight they drew from the self-destructiveness of the Maoist era was that elite insecurity greatly exacerbated the power struggles at the top. Besides the absence of a due process that could protect the basic rights of the members of the ruling elites, the degree of arbitrariness, unpredictability, and cruelty to which they and their families were subjected was horrific and inhumane. These conditions meant that once a member of the top ruling elite lost power, he would lose everything, including his life and liberty and those of his family members. This made the price of losing power infinite. Thus, elites would fight with the utmost viciousness to avoid losing.

To improve the political security of the party's top elites, Deng Xiaoping and his colleagues devised some elaborate schemes, both formal and informal. The formal rules include specific procedures governing the removal of senior officials. The informal ones include, among other things, no jail time for losers in power struggles and no persecution of their families.

Of course, like Chinese laws, the formal rules were mostly honored in breach. Deng's dismissal of Hu Yaobang, the reformist Party chief, and of Zhao Ziyang, another reformer, violated the Party's own procedure. But until Deng placed Zhao under 15 years of illegal house arrest in 1989, he had essentially stuck to the rule of no physical harm or loss of liberty for political adversaries.

In the post-Deng era, elite security has declined significantly. Not only has the procedure through which senior officials are removed from office become more opaque, arbitrary, and politicized, but also the price of losing power has increased dramatically. Purges now come with jail sentences, not quiet or comfortable retirement. The loser's family members face imprisonment as well.

The first victim of post-Deng purges was Chen Xitong, a Politburo member and Beijing's party boss who was jailed on corruption charges in 1995. His son was jailed as well. Mr. Chen recently released his memoir. While trying to show that he had nothing to with the Tiananmen crackdown in 1989, he revealed that his secret trial was perfunctory and he called the proceedings "fascist." The second high-profile victim was another Chen, Mr. Chen Liangyu, one-time high-flying Shanghai party boss and Politburo member. Like Chen Xitong, Chen Liangyu was felled by corruption charges and sentenced to 18 years in prison.

What has happened to Bo Xilai and his family thus may not seem unusual. As expected, the decision to try Gu Kailai merely signals that the Communist Party's top leadership has already determined her guilt and punishment. Bo Xilai, now languishing in the Party's infamous shuanggui system (indefinite extra-legal detention), will almost certainly face the same fate as the two Chens.

Some observers may object by saying that purging senior officials on corruption charges is quite different from sacking them because of ideological disloyalty or factional power struggle, as was the case during the Maoist era. This difference may be technically true but substantively and politically irrelevant. In terms of fostering a dreaded sense of insecurity among the top ruling elites, corruption charges and alleged political offenses are no different.

First, like political offenses, corruption charges can be concocted. The alleged evidence against the two Chens, for example, revealed two far-fetched and weak cases. It is common knowledge that the two Chens fell not because of corruption, but because of their political ambitions and disloyalty. The same could be said of the causes of Bo's collapse.

Second, because China's top elites, who personally or directly may have little involvement in corrupt activities but who all have family members and relatives who engage in questionable or illegal business deals, no one at the top is absolutely safe. At the moment, the Party seems to have drawn the line at the Politburo Standing Committee level — Politburo members are not safe, but Politburo Standing Committee members enjoy absolute immunity, because purges at the highest level of the Party would be too destabilizing. But since this arrangement is not ironclad, who knows when the Party will decide to go after one of the top nine leaders in the future?

Third, once brought down in a power struggle, even China's top rulers lack minimal legal protection. They cannot pick lawyers or have the ability to challenge the charges against them in an independent judiciary. Their verdict and penalty are typically decided, not by professional judges after the conclusion of the proceedings, but by top political leaders behind closed doors.

What this analysis reveals — and what the case against Bo and his wife shows — is that political security for China's top rulers today has deteriorated so much that, in some crucial ways, they might feel that they are back to the bad old Maoist days. Elite disunity and vicious infighting is now the rule, not the exception. This cannot be reassuring news for a regime ruled by individuals whose daily nightmare is that they will one day become another Bo Xilai.

Related Features

Why China’s Leaders Fear Inflation
Why China Can’t Pick Good Leaders
West’s Diplomacy Trumps China Fear
Are Iran’s Leaders, Well…Crazy?
Fear of Iran and Syrian Bloodletting

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use....
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/07/30/us-trade-latinamerica-idUSBRE86T16V20120730

Analysis: Venezuela joins trade bloc big on politics, protectionism
By Guido Nejamkis

BUENOS AIRES | Mon Jul 30, 2012 3:06pm EDT

(Reuters) - The South American trade group Mercosur welcomes Venezuela as its newest member this week but growing protectionism in the bloc's leading economies and political posturing have reduced it to a shadow of its former self.

When regional heavyweights Argentina and Brazil teamed up with Paraguay and Uruguay to form the customs union in 1995, they hoped to boost regional trade and investment by forging a bigger market along the lines of the European Union.

Trade within Mercosur has since quadrupled to $51 billion in 2011 but with economic growth slowing and Argentina and Brazil locked in a series of trade disputes over everything from cars to olives, analysts expect it to fall this year.

"Argentina is seen as hostile to foreign capital, Paraguay is fragile and unstable, Uruguay has an open economy but it's very small, and Brazil continues to draw investment. Mercosur, as a whole, does not," said Jose Botafogo Goncalves, a former Brazilian diplomat and representative to the bloc.

The decision last month to allow Venezuela's entry into Mercosur stirred further controversy within the group and fueled criticism that it has become little more than a political club for left-leaning leaders who harbor ambitions of Latin American unity.

Venezuela's socialist President Hugo Chavez shares such ideals but his country's membership, pending since 2006, had been blocked because it did not have the support of Paraguay's Congress, dominated by rightist parties.

When the same Congress ousted leftist President Fernando Lugo in a lightning-quick impeachment trial in June, the other Mercosur countries suspended Paraguay from the trade bloc and took advantage of its absence to let Venezuela in.

Mercosur will formally welcome Venezuela into the fold at a presidential summit in Brasilia on Tuesday.

GRUMBLING AND REPRISALS

When Mercosur got its start, the only products that were exempted from free trade were automobiles and sugar.

All other goods were supposed to be traded freely within the bloc or gradually stripped of duties, a goal that was largely met until Argentina expanded the use of non-automatic import licenses in 2011 and imposed a new system to pre-approve nearly all purchases abroad in February.

Last month, Brazil and Argentina got Mercosur's approval to raise import tariffs on up to 200 products of their own choosing, further diluting the objective of a common tariff, on the grounds that each nation must protect its industry as economies get hit by fallout from Europe's debt crisis.

Trying to safeguard its cherished trade surplus, Argentina has used the non-automatic licenses and new approvals system to block imports, affecting goods such as farm machinery and textiles from Brazil and shoes and food products from Uruguay.

It is a clear violation of Mercosur norms, but the response from within Mercosur has been muted grumbling and a raft of reprisals by Brazil's government, which like Argentina is under pressure to revive flagging local industry.

Brazil has sporadically restricted the entry of some Argentine goods, including fruit, olive oil and cookies.

The decision by Argentina and Brazil to virtually abandon the common external tariff - the backbone of Mercosur - allows individual members to raise tariffs as high as 35 percent, compared with current levels of about 10 percent to 12 percent.

"Argentina has a protectionist model, taking tariffs to 35 percent. It doesn't allow imports and it's methodology differs greatly from the original spirit of Mercosur," said Sergio Abreu, a former government minister in Uruguay.

WREAKING HAVOC

For international companies using regional bases to supply the Mercosur market, the protectionist hurdles among member states are wreaking havoc.

"In the new Mercosur, foreign investment is discouraged," Abreu said.

Canada-based McCain Foods, the world's largest producer of French fries, laid off hundreds of workers at its Buenos Aires plant last month because Brazilian trade barriers were preventing it from supplying Burger King and McDonald's branches across the border.

"They had to supply the Brazilian market from Canada and Europe and rent warehouse space to store some of the production that they couldn't sell," a spokesman in Buenos Aires said.

The squabbles between Mercosur's two heavyweights have also proved a headache for the bloc's smaller members.

All three of Uruguay's car assembly plants - run by Chery Socma, Nordex SA and Effa Motors - have threatened to close and have laid off hundreds of employees since October, when import restrictions in Argentina and Brazil began taking a toll on their shipments.

McCain set up shop in Argentina in 1995 with an eye on the lucrative market in Brazil, Latin America's biggest economy with a population of about 200 million.

Access to Brazil's market once allowed Argentina to attract investment that would not have landed there otherwise, particularly in the food-processing and automotive sectors.

"But the way things are now, Argentina will probably have more trouble getting investments that were aimed at tapping a bigger market," said Mauricio Claveri, a trade expert at Abeceb consulting group in Buenos Aires.

Last year, Brazil received $66.66 billion in foreign direct investment compared with Argentina's $7.24 billion. In the 1990s, when Mercosur was created, Argentina received one dollar for every four dollars that entered Brazil, U.N. data shows.

"Argentina would never have been able to become a top 20 automobile manufacturer if it hadn't belonged to Mercosur," said Marcelo Elizondo, an international trade specialist at Argentine consulting firm DNI Negocios Internacionales.

For the first time since Mercosur's creation, the new protectionist measures are hitting trade flows. Trade between Brazil and Argentina slumped 12 percent in the first half of the year and shrank 32 percent in June alone.

And while Venezuela's Chavez hails his country's membership in the bloc after a six-year wait, producers in the Caribbean nation are skeptical about the potential benefits.

The target dates for reducing tariffs that were set in 2006, when Venezuela's incorporation was first agreed in principle, must be overhauled and details governing its membership will take a long time to hash out.

Trade between the Caribbean country and the bloc totaled $8.76 billion in 2011, with Mercosur tallying a roughly $5 billion trade surplus.

"From the point of view of manufacturing or agriculture ... we can't compete," said Manuel Heredia, president of Venezuela's National Federation of Ranchers, or Fedenaga.

(Additional reporting by Alejandro Lifschitz in Buenos Aires, Eyanir Chinea in Caracas and Hugo Bachega in Brasilia; Writing by Helen Popper and Hilary Burke; Editing by Kieran Murray; Desking by Vicki Allen)

Related News

WRAPUP 3-Argentina economy shrinks in May for first time since 2009
Fri, Jul 20 2012
Venezuela's Chavez, Capriles launch presidential race
Sun, Jul 1 2012

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use....
http://www.washingtonpost.com/busin...bout-imports/2012/07/30/gJQALf51KX_story.html

Chavez says joining trade bloc to be boon for Venezuela, but some concerned about imports
By Associated Press, Updated: Monday, July 30, 4:37 PM

CARACAS, Venezuela — Joining the South American trade bloc Mercosur will be a boon for Venezuela and should help the country’s businesses boost international sales, President Hugo Chavez said Monday as he traveled to Brazil for a meeting where Venezuela will formally become a member.

Chavez urged Venezuelan business leaders, some of whom are concerned about reducing tariffs, to support the initiative as he left Caracas for the meeting in Brasilia.

He said joining Mercosur will allow Venezuela “to have a much wider market to climb the scale” in its exports and also diversify its largely oil-driven economy. At the same time, Chavez said the bloc’s other members, including Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay, will also have expanded access to Venezuela’s vast oil reserves.

Some business leaders and farmers say they’re worried that the four-year period during which Venezuela should eliminate tariffs on products from Mercosur members will be too short, and that cheaper imports from countries such as Brazil and Argentina could hurt Venezuelan businesses.

Coffee grower Vicente Perez said he and other Venezuelan farmers are already struggling due to price controls and 21 percent inflation, and is concerned that joining the trade bloc will bring more economic pain.

“Now we just survive, and when Mercosur arrives I don’t know what will happen,” said Perez, who said price controls and other problems have forced him to leave his farm in central Portuguesa state in the hands of workers while he moved to the city to look for other work.

Perez, who is also a leader of the country’s main farmers’ association, said he’s worried that cheaper imports of products such as beef, soy beans and coffee from countries such as Brazil will drive Venezuelan producers out of the market and lead to declining agricultural production.

Food imports have swiftly risen in Venezuela during the past seven years as the government has sought to meet rising demand, counter inflation and compensate for declining domestic production of various food products. Periodic shortages of items such as sugar, coffee and cooking oil have emptied shelves at times in recent years.

Increased food imports from other South American countries such as Brazil and Argentina have also supplied a network of state-run grocery stores that Chavez’s government has opened to bring low-priced products to poor neighborhoods where many of the president’s supporters live.

Venezuela’s growing commercial ties with Mercosur members could also help Chavez raise his international profile as he seeks re-election in an October vote.

Venezuela’s efforts to become a full member of Mercosur have been in the works for nearly six years but until recently were held up by resistance from lawmakers in Paraguay. Last month, when Paraguay was temporarily suspended from Mercosur in response to the congressional ouster of its president, the leaders of Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay seized the opportunity and welcomed Chavez’s government as a member.

Paraguay’s new president, Federico Franco, whose government is at odds with Venezuela, cited political motivations. “Venezuela has its elections Oct. 7. For that reason, Mercosur is trying to give a boost to President Chavez,” Franco said Monday, according to Paraguay’s state news agency.

For Chavez, the visit to Brazil for Tuesday’s meeting was the first international trip he has made as president in months following an operation in Cuba in February that removed a tumor. Chavez said earlier this month that he is now cancer-free.

Chavez said upon his arrival in Brasilia that with Venezuela joining, “Mercosur increases its territory, its population, its economic potential.”

Last week, Chavez dismissed criticisms of Venezuela’s entry into Mercosur, saying it wouldn’t be anything like the U.S.-supported free trade deals that he has vocally opposed. He called the Mercosur trade regimen “flexible” and said it accepts differences between members.

In contrast with the U.S., Chavez said, “Brazil isn’t an empire. Brazil is a brother... as is Argentina, and also Uruguay and Paraguay.”

___

Associated Press writer Pedro Servin in Asuncion, Paraguay, contributed to this report.

Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use....
http://www.eurasiareview.com/28072012-iran-attempts-to-forge-ties-with-latin-america-analysis/

Iran Attempts To Forge Ties With Latin America – Analysis
By: COHA
July 28, 2012
By Laila Zandi and Jorge Rojas-Ruiz

Does Iran have nuclear weapons? Absolutely not. However, it is in the process of enriching uranium to a high-level grade capable of producing nuclear weapons, despite strong international opposition. Before the 1979 Islamic Revolution, the United States provided Iran with the material requisite to establish a civilian nuclear weapons program in an effort to create “Atoms for Peace.” However, today the issue of Iran’s nuclear propagation is one that is wrought with intense controversy.

Iran has often argued that its nuclear program is solely for peaceful purposes, but Western leaders have repeatedly rejected this argument. They contend that while a country has a natural right to arm itself and protect its citizens from external threats, national defense and domestic security should not be allowed to compromise the security of the rest of the world. International anxiety over Iran’s nuclear aspirations has long been elevated because Iran is a signatory of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT)—an international treaty that aims to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons and technology—giving it the right to enrich uranium. However, Iran’s refusal to comply with Article III of the NPT’s safeguard agreement, requiring inspection of its nuclear equipment, has not helped to assuage the anxiety. This has led to pressure in the form of sanctions against Iran and countries that deal with Iran, costing the country a number of allies and forcing Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to forge unconventional alliances.
Cooperation Agreements or Diplomatic Zealotry?
Demonstration against the president of Iran Mahmoud Ahmadinejad during the RIO+20 conference

Demonstration against the president of Iran Mahmoud Ahmadinejad during the RIO+20 conference

On June 19, en route to Rio de Janeiro, Ahmadinejad made his third visit to Bolivia for a brief meeting with President Evo Morales. Subsequently, the president attended the United Nations-sponsored Río+20 summit, a conference on sustainable development, poverty eradication, and protection of the environment.[ii] His tour culminated in a meeting with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, an encounter that Washington must have found disconcerting.[iii]

The Bolivian Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that the purpose of the bilateral meeting in Bolivia was to “sign the memoranda of understanding pertaining to Development Projects of a Geological Map in the Areas of the Eastern Cordillera and the Precambrian,” and a five-year cooperation plan in an effort to fight drugs.[iv] The Iranian embassy in La Paz also announced that Ahmadinejad had invited Morales to the Summit for the Movement of Non-Aligned Countries, to be held in late August in Tehran.[v]

Morales’ political opponents greeted the Iranian president with contempt. Alejandra Prado, congresswoman of the rightist political party Convergencia Nacional, condemned Ahmadinejad’s visit, arguing that his theocratic regime does not respect the “fundamental rights of women, children, and homosexuals,” and that his relationship with Morales’ administration has “never been clear or transparent.”[vi] Ahmadinejad wasn’t received well in Brazil, either. Protesters, many of whom “included Jewish activists, gay Brazilians, and human rights advocates,” lined Rio’s Ipanema beach to contest the president’s visit. This came as no surprise, considering Tehran’s human rights record and Ahmadinejad’s well-documented denial of the Holocaust.[vii] The United States has heightened awareness of the ties between Latin America and Iran, as they fear the creation of a new nuclear weapon launch pad to be a possible outcome of this relationship.

Ahmadinejad’s visits may have furthered his international agenda, but conceivably at the relatively high price of further economic sanctions and political isolation. His visit to Bolivia can be seen as an attempt both to strengthen the bilateral relationship between the two countries and to gain a new ally in the Western Hemisphere. However, in advancing its recent agenda in Latin America, Iran risks losing its biggest strategic ally, Syria. Since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, Syria has been Iran’s strongest (and perhaps only) supporter because, from the outset, the Islamic Republic and Syria shared a common enemy—Saddam Hussein—as well as a strategic alliance against Israel. If the Syrian government, lead by Bashar al-Assad, is overthrown, Iran’s could find itself standing alone with few allies within the region.

Hugo Chavez’s cancer is reportedly progressing, which jeopardizes the future of Ahmadinejad’s partnership in the Central and South American region. If Ahmadinejad were to lose this strong, cooperative, and influential alliance, he would need to find a way to reestablish a political connection with Venezuela, or seek another ally: Bolivia.[viii] This is exactly what Ahmadinejad’s, June 19, meeting with President Morales accomplished. At a press conference that concluded the visit in La Paz, Morales said, “I have heard through the media that there is a permanent aggression against you, your government, and the people of Iran. I want to tell you, Brother President Mahmoud, that you are not alone; we are here standing by you in your fight against imperialism.”[ix] Proclamations like these encourage Iran’s antagonism towards U.S. and E.U. policies.

Ahmadinejad’s visit to Latin America took place as the representatives of the P5+1—a group of countries formed in 2006 to address Iran’s nuclear program—met in Moscow to discuss what has been called Iran’s “last-chance diplomacy to achieve a negotiated outcome to the showdown over Tehran’s nuclear program.”x Facing the possibility of further economic sanctions and diplomatic isolation, Iran is in dire need of political support from countries in the Western Hemisphere. On January 1, Washington implemented measures against Iran’s central bank that directly affected the export capacities of the country’s oil industry. This encouraged Ahmadinejad to establish relationships with member countries of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA). He toured Cuba, Ecuador, Nicaragua, and Venezuela to strengthen diplomatic ties with these countries.[x]

Iran is attempting to befriend Latin American leaders by assisting them through donations, investment, and trade agreements. In July 2009, the Iranian government agreed to provide a $280 million low-interest loan to the Morales administration, to be used for social programs in developing communities.[xi] Some view such aid as potentially helpful for the beneficiary countries, while critics question Iran’s true intentions.
Internal and External Conflict

Iran’s dependency on oil exports puts it in a precarious position. To safeguard its economic future, the country is seeking out new trading partners and alternate means of production. For example, Iran is currently leasing land from Argentina for food production. Balanced international payments, the basic flow of money, are also crucial for the country’s economy. Thanks to its close ties with Venezuela and Ecuador, Iran established “a way to bypass the economic sanctions, as Iran may be using a parallel financial system operated by members of ALBA to elude financial sanctions by the West and engage in money-laundering.”[xii] For instance, Iran has a well-established history of using front companies to disguise its involvement in proliferation activity. Novin, one of Iran’s front companies, “has transferred millions of dollars … to entities associated with Iran’s nuclear program.” However, in recent years, “many international financial institutions have severed ties with Iranian banks and entities because of a growing body of public information about their illicit and deceptive conduct designed to facilitate the Iranian government’s support for terrorism and its pursuit of nuclear and ballistic missile capabilities.”[xiii]

Conflict brews within the country as well. Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, had issued a fatwa against nuclear weapons, yet Ahmadinejad appears to continue his pursuit.[xiv] Additionally, tensions have worsened between the mullahs and Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC). Following the Iranian Revolution, the mullahs, under Ayatollah Khomeini, who preceded Khamenei, created the IRGC in an effort to “consolidat[e] their leadership and revolutionary ideals.”[xv] Over time, however, the IRGC has gained significant influence and is now a force potentially capable of changing the regime from a clerical one to a military dictatorship. As a former member of the IRGC, Ahmadinejad has appointed the majority of his cabinet from this revolutionary corps, creating conflict with the clerical apparatus, in that they are more like generals.

Time will tell what comes of Iran’s attempted Latin American ties. A “process of change”—as President Morales likes to say—has begun, where these new alliances attempt to balance against the United States and its allies’ hegemonic power.

Laila Zandi and Jorge Rojas-Ruiz, Research Associates at the Council on Hemispheric Affairs

Citations:

Carlson, John. “Defining Noncompliance: NPT Safeguards Agreements”. Arms Control Association, May 2009. http://www.armscontrol.org/act/2009_5/Carlson

[ii] Ellsworth, Brian. “Venezuela says building drones with Iran’s help”. Reuters, June 14, 2012. http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/06/14/us-venezuela-iran-drone-idUSBRE85D14N20120614

[iii] AFP. “Ahmadinejad heads to Rio+20, Bolivia, Venezuela”. AFP, June 2012. http://www.google.com/hostednews/af...docId=CNG.7bd103d02c7593c2733ec1430677329e.61

[iv] Paredes, Iván. “Bolivia e Irán rubrican dos memorandos y revisan planes”. La Razon, June 19, 2012. http://www.la-razon.com/nacional/Bolivia-Iran-rubrican-memorandos-revisan_0_1635436483.html

[v] Eju!. “Ahmadineyad se reúne hoy con Evo; Bolivia e Irán firman memorandos y revisan planes”. Eju!, June 19, 2012. http://eju.tv/2012/06/ahmadineyad-s...via-e-irn-firman-memorandos-y-revisan-planes/

[vi] El Deber. “Ahmadineyad visita Bolivia por tercera vez en medio de críticas de oposición”. El Deber, June 18, 2012. http://eldeber.com.bo/nota.php?id=120618154639

[vii] Fortin, Jacey. “Ahmadinejad Goes to Rio: Ahead of Summit, Iran Makes and Breaks Ties in Latin America”. International Business Times, June 19, 2012. http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/353825/20120619/iran-brazil-ahmadinejad-protest-rio-latin-summit.htm

[viii] Zuckerman, Jessica. “Bolivia: Iran’s Newest Friend in Latin America”. The Foundry, May 23, 2012. http://blog.heritage.org/2012/05/23...News+(The+Foundry:+Conservative+Policy+News.)

[ix] El Dia. “Bolivia-Irán se alían contra las drogas y critican a EEUU”. El Dia, June 20, 2012. http://www.eldia.com.bo/index.php?c...critican-a-EEUU&cat=1&pla=3&id_articulo=93492

[x] Glickhouse, Rachel; Keller, Mark. “Iran’s Ahmadinejad Seeks to Renew Ties in Latin America”. Americas Society, January 6, 2012. http://www.as-coa.org/article.php?id=3875

[xi] Farrar-Wellman, Ariel; Frasco, Robert. “Bolivia-Iran Foreign Relations”. AEI Iran Tracker, August 4, 2010. http://www.irantracker.org/foreign-relations/bolivia-iran-foreign-relations

[xii] Reich, Otto; Vazquez Ger, Ezequiel. “Iran’s stealth financial partners in Latin America”. The Miami Herald, March 14, 2012. http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/03/14/2693960/irans-stealth-financial-partners.html

[xiii] “Finding the Islamic Republic of Iran is a jurisdiction of primary money laundering concern”. The Department of the Treasury, November 18, 2011. http://www.treasury.gov/press-center/press-releases/Documents/Iran311Finding.pdf

[xiv] The Christian Science Monitor. “Iran’s nuclear program: 4 things you probably didn’t know”. The Christian Science Monitor. http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Midd...amenei-issued-a-fatwa-against-nuclear-weapons

[xv] BBC. “Profile: Iran’s Revolutionary Guard”. BBC, October 18, 2009. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7064353.stm
5
About the author:

COHA

COHA

COHA, or Council on Hemispheric Affairs, was founded in 1975, the Council on Hemispheric Affairs (COHA), a nonprofit, tax-exempt independent research and information organization, was established to promote the common interests of the hemisphere, raise the visibility of regional affairs and increase the importance of the inter-American relationship, as well as encourage the formulation of rational and constructive U.S. policies towards Latin America.

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://kgmi.com/Key-lawmakers-ink-deal-on-new-Iran-sanctions/11461903?newsId=156876

Key lawmakers ink deal on new Iran sanctions
Posted: Monday, 30 July 2012 08:49PM

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Lawmakers are a step closer to finalizing new sanctions aimed at further restricting Iran's oil revenues after negotiators from the Senate and House of Representatives agreed upon a compromise bill on Monday.

If passed, the sanctions will add additional pressure on top of penalties imposed by the United States and European Union earlier this year on countries that fail to slash purchases of Iranian oil - sanctions the West hopes will prevent Tehran from building nuclear weapons.

Senate and House leaders have said they would like to pass the sanctions by the end of the week, when lawmakers are slated to leave for an extended recess. Votes have not yet been scheduled.

(Reporting by Roberta Rampton; editing by Todd Eastham)
(c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2012.

For links see article source....
Posted for fair use....
http://www.washingtonpost.com/busin...tor-shipping/2012/07/30/gJQArIeWLX_story.html

House, Senate negotiators agree on an Iran sanctions bill targeting energy sector, shipping
By Associated Press, Updated: Monday, July 30, 6:53 PM

WASHINGTON — House and Senate negotiators reached agreement Monday on a new round of stifling sanctions on Iran, targeting energy, shipping and insurance sectors with punitive measures to derail Tehran’s suspected push for nuclear weapons.

Lawmakers filed a final bill late Monday that expands on existing penalties, with a House vote expected as early as Wednesday. Congress has just a week before a monthlong August recess and members see the legislation as the last chance to impose crippling sanctions that hit Iran’s economy and its ability to finance its nuclear program.

“The bill sends a clear message to the Iranian regime that the U.S. is committed, through the use of sanctions, to preventing Iran from crossing the nuclear threshold,” said Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, R-Fla., chairwoman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

Sanctions have broad bipartisan support in Congress. Crucial to the bill is the strong backing of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the powerful pro-Israel lobbying group.

Sen. Tim Johnson, D-S.D., chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, said the bill reconciles the House and Senate bills and incorporates new provisions from lawmakers. He vowed to help pass it in the Senate before Congress adjourns.

Unless Iranians, “come clean on their nuclear program, end the suppression of their people, and stop supporting terrorist activities, they will face deepening international isolation and even greater economic and diplomatic pressure,” Johnson said.

The two lawmakers and their staff worked for weeks behind closed doors to come up with a bill.

The bill would sanction many transactions related to the energy sector and prohibit Iran from transferring money back to the country from oil sales to foreign nations.

Any company shipping proliferation-sensitive goods to Iran would be subject to penalties under the bill, a provision pushed by Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J. The bill also calls for sanctions on anyone who provides insurance or reinsurance to a shipping service from Iran. One of the main targets of the measure is the National Iranian Tanker Co., the state-run company and shipping line.

The bill also would deny visas and freeze assets on individuals and companies that supply Iran with technology that could be used against its citizens, such as tear gas, rubber bullets and surveillance equipment. The bill extends those sanctions on human rights violators to Syria, where President Bashar Assad’s regime is accused of a bloody crackdown against protesters

The bill targets Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps and requires companies that trade on the U.S. stock exchange to disclose any Iran-related business to the Securities and Exchange Commission.

The bill also goes after anyone who helps Iran evade oil sanctions through reflagging of vessels and any entity that is involved in uranium mining with Iran worldwide. Sanctions also would extend to anyone who transports crude oil from Iran and hides its origin, or carries refined petroleum products to Iran.

The United States and Europe argue that depriving Iran of its oil income would thwart its suspected drive for nuclear weapons. Iran has exported 2.5 million barrels of oil per day to Europe, China, India, Japan and South Korea. U.S. officials say the penalties have reduced Iran oil exports to less than 1.8 million barrels per day, costing Iran about $63 million per day.

But while Congress works on more sanctions, their effectiveness in deterring Iran from pursuing nuclear weapons is being challenged.

“All the sanctions and diplomacy so far have not set back the Iranian program by one iota,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said this past weekend.

A few lawmakers said they were frustrated that the legislation didn’t go far enough.

Several proponents of tough sanctions such as Rep. Ted Deutch, D-Fla., Sen. Mark Kirk, R-Ill., Rep. Robert Dold, R-Ill., and Rep. Brad Sherman, D-Calif., had pressed negotiators to blacklist Iran’s energy sector, labeling it a “zone of proliferation concern” that effectively bans all business.

But the bill says the president should impose sanctions and the provision is non-binding.

Lawmakers also pushed for sanctions on the directors and shareholders of organizations like SWIFT, the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunications, unless they stop providing services to the Central Bank of Iran. The draft bill does not target the directors.

Mark Dubowitz, a sanctions expert and executive director of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, described the legislation as a “strong bill that fills numerous loopholes and tightens the sanctions requirements but it could be a lot tougher” if Congress understood as much about the psychology as the legality of sanctions. Dubowitz said Iran often figures out ways to get around the penalties.

The new legislation builds on penalties that went into effect this year. Those sanctions target foreign financial institutions that do business with Iran’s central bank by barring them from opening or maintaining correspondent operations in the United States. It applies to foreign central banks only for transactions that involve the sale or purchase of petroleum or petroleum products.

Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use....
http://india.nydailynews.com/newsar...ks-suspended-for-5th-day-at-pakistan-crossing

NATO trucks suspended for 5th day at Pakistan crossing
Monday, July 30th 2012, 08:42 PM

Pakistani officials said Monday that a ban on NATO trucks at the main border crossing into Afghanistan will last until the government promises to safeguard security.

Officials closed the northwestern Torkham crossing, the quickest route to the Afghan capital Kabul from the port of Karachi, to NATO traffic on Thursday, just weeks after lifting a seven-month blockade on NATO trucks going into Afghanistan.

The Pakistani Taliban have vowed to attack NATO supplies and last Tuesday, one of the truck drivers was shot dead in the northwestern town of Jamrud.

The suspension comes with the head of Pakistani intelligence, Lieutenant General Zaheer ul-Islam, due to hold talks with CIA chief David Petraeus in Washington this week, the first such talks for a year.

"The security plan by the political administration, police and Frontier Corps (a paramilitary force) is being prepared and once it is finalised and approved, NATO trucks will be allowed to pass," Bakhtiar Khan, a local administration official, told AFP.

Authorities in the northwest say they wrote to the federal government 11 days ago, asking them to finalise a security plan as soon as possible.

"But so far we have not received any response," information minister Mian Iftikhar Hussain told AFP from the northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.

Federal government officials were not immediately available to comment.

Islamabad closed its land routes to NATO convoys after US air strikes killed 24 Pakistani soldiers on November 26, but on July 3 agreed to reopen them after Washington said sorry for the deaths.

At Pakistan's southwestern crossing into Afghanistan, officials said no restrictions have been placed on NATO supply trucks, but that traffic had thinned.

"Fifty-eight trucks are parked at Chaman awaiting clearance from Afghan officials," clearing agent Ashraf Khan told AFP.

In Karachi, many truckers won't leave without security guarantees and compensation, said Akram Khan Durrani, president of the All Pakistan Oil Tankers Owners Association.

"Until that, we are not going anywhere," he told AFP.

"It is too dangerous to take our vehicles out without solid guarantees. The situation has changed dangerously as many political and religious groups are against it and the Taliban could strike anywhere if we have no security."

This article was distributed through the NewsCred Smartwire. Original article © Agence France Presse 2012

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/07/30/us-pakistan-usa-drones-idUSBRE86T0OD20120730

Pakistan to push for intelligence sharing at U.S. talks
DUBAI | Mon Jul 30, 2012 6:03pm EDT

(Reuters) - Pakistan's spy chief will call for an end to U.S. military drone strikes in its tribal areas bordering Afghanistan and push for a sharing of technology and intelligence during a visit to Washington this week, the country's interior minister said on Monday.

But indications are that Islamabad's demands for a halt to drone attacks may receive a less-than-sympathetic hearing from top Obama administration officials.

Pakistani Lieutenant-General Zaheer ul-Islam's visit to meet CIA director General David Petraeus will be his first since he became head of the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) in March and follows a thaw in relations between Pakistan and the United States.

Pakistan, however, continues to insist that U.S. drone strikes -- which it says are a breach of its territorial sovereignty -- must end.

"We will push for no drones. If we (Pakistan and the U.S.) are partners, we should sit together and have a common strategy. However, in this regional war there has been no common strategy against a common enemy," Interior Minister Rehman Malik told a news conference in Dubai.

"I hope the visit of the director of the ISI will have good results. There is some dialogue going on as we speak," he said.

The United States has given no sign it is willing to halt the drone strikes.

In fact, U.S. officials signal there will be little, if any, change in U.S. counter-terrorism activity in Pakistan and the region.

"Let's not lose sight of the issue here. Al-Qaeda and its militant allies are violating Pakistan's sovereignty by using its territory to plot and carry out attacks," a U.S. official said. "Aggressive counterterrorism operations are what's frustrating al-Qaeda and pushing their leadership to the brink."

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, also reiterated U.S. concerns about the extent of Pakistan efforts to confront militants -- including the Haqqani network and the Pakistani Taliban, known as the TTP -- in loosely-governed tribal areas along the country's mountainous border with Afghanistan.

"Everyone wants the Pakistanis to accept more responsibility for taking on al-Qaeda, TTP and the Haqqanis. The problem is they have yet to show the capability -- or willingness -- to take effective action" in Pakistan's tribal areas, said the U.S. official.

The official added that while there was "always room for dialogue on how to defeat terrorist entities in the region," Pakistani authorities "need to offer some concrete ideas on how it does more against the violent Haqqanis, rather than point fingers."

But Pakistan's Malik told journalists: "Both countries have to find a midway (pont) ... This of course means intelligence-sharing. Also, give us the technology and we will use it. The U.S. has given us F-16 (fighter jets). Are we misusing it?"

Malik gave no further details, but Pakistan has long asked the United States to provide its military with its own drones for use in its tribal areas.

(Reporting by Praveen Menon in Dubai and Mark Hosenball in Washington; editing by Gary Crosse)

Related News

U.S. drone kills 12 suspected militants in Pakistan
Mon, Jul 23 2012
Thirsty South Asia's river rifts threaten "water wars"
Mon, Jul 23 2012
Militant attacks kill 15 in Pakistan
Sat, Jul 21 2012
Officials say major threat to London Olympics yet to materialize
Fri, Jul 13 2012
Al Qaeda suicide bomber attacks Yemen police academy
Wed, Jul 11 2012

Analysis & Opinion

Acid attacks: the faceless women you can’t forget
Opting for lean and mean armies

For links see article source....
Posted for fair use.....
http://blogs.reuters.com/india-expertzone/2012/07/25/opting-for-lean-and-mean-armies/

Opting for lean and mean armies
By S K Chatterji
July 25, 2012

army | defence | military | s k chatterji

(The views expressed in this column are the author’s own and do not represent those of Reuters)

The British army is being cut to size, or perhaps, being stripped to its bones. The British defence secretary has announced a 20 percent cut, reducing its strength to 82,000 combatants by the end of the decade.

The British expect to retain the ability to field only one expeditionary force of a brigade group for protracted periods, and given support by allies, up to a division for non-enduring exigencies. Even if all their wishes were to come true, the British army will more than reflect the shrinking of the British Empire. Contrast the British story to the goings-on in Asia. The Chinese army boasts a strength of 2.3 million. In India, the armed forces are over 1.3 million.

A few years ago, Indians announced the raising of two new divisions for the eastern theatre. Apparently, the way the concept of lean and mean forces is being addressed in continents oceans apart couldn’t be more different.

However, an analysis of parameters to be met before cutting down forces needs to be undertaken before cuts in force levels are applied to the Indian army.

The British do not share land borders with inimical countries. In fact, like all big powers they deploy forces far beyond borders to keep the homeland secure. India faces threats across its borders from Pakistan and China.

Further, these borders run over some of the steepest mountain ranges, where evicting an enemy is extremely costly even with overwhelming fire power. It leads to manning posts all along the line of control supported by fail-proof logistics. Some examples of such terrain and deployment are Siachen and Kargil.

The British philosophy also seems deeply embedded in the guaranteed involvement of Americans, support from NATO and the provisions of EU’s Common Security and Defence Policy. Indians have to fight their own battles — at best, aided in terms of material resources, intelligence sharing, diplomatic support, etc., but definitely not boots on ground.

The British armed forces cater for modernisation in spite of the cuts. The Americans will surely provide full spectrum technology support that they will require to fight in a battlefield spread over land, sea, air, space and cyber domains. The Indian army has huge backlogs even in the areas of replacement of ageing equipment.

Technology enhances combat potential exponentially, while technological superiority over an adversary can degrade the opponent’s potential critically. The Americans bombed Iraq at will, barely losing an aircraft to hostile fire or Iraqi air force, while grinding Saddam’s elite Republican Guards to dust.

The budgets for techno-savvy, agile and flexible forces also need a deliberate look. The U.S. military budget is over $600 billion for its forces and overseas contingencies. The UK spent $59 billion in 2011 while even the opaque Chinese accounting allows an estimated $100 billion in 2011. The Indian treasury coughed up a mere $36 billion in 2011.

Even if Indian forces induct technology aggressively, the nature of threats, terrain and multiplicity of tasks call for a large standing army, albeit technologically matching its prime opponents at least. Insurgencies require boots, as the Americans learnt in Afghanistan. For Indians, with insurgencies being within the country, the tolerance for collateral damage is zero, with boots replacing firepower. Numbers also remain relevant in the Indian context till budgets allow a technology leap.

Talk about pushing the game beyond table stakes.....if these "tribesmen" don't let this guy go, they may be in for a very big surprise at around 0300 local time...

For links see article source...
Posted for fair use....
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/sns-rt-us-yemen-italy-kidnapbre86t1gx-20120730,0,4328872.story

Yemen confirms Italian is detained by tribesmen
Reuters
5:21 p.m. CDT, July 30, 2012

SANAA (Reuters) - An Italian embassy security officer who was kidnapped in Yemen on Sunday was seized by tribesmen and is being detained in the oil-producing province of Maarib, Yemen's Interior Ministry said on Tuesday.

The abductors are demanding compensation for the arrest of one of their relatives and the return of land they say they own in the capital Sanaa, a tribal source told Reuters.

Related
Yemen confirms Italian is detained by tribesmen
Police troopers guard outside the Italian embassy in Sanaa Police troopers guard outside the Italian embassy in Sanaa
Man walks past the Italian embassy in Sanaa Man walks past the Italian embassy in Sanaa

The incident highlights continuing instability in Yemen five months after former leader Ali Abdullah Saleh was formally replaced by his deputy under a plan designed to forestall a slide into lawlessness.

Tribesmen often bomb oil and gas pipelines and kidnap foreigners as a way to press demands on authorities. The kidnapees usually are freed unharmed.

On Sunday, disgruntled tribesmen also stormed the Interior Ministry in the capital Sanaa in a protest over jobs.

Yemen's wealthier Gulf Arab neighbors and the United States are concerned the turmoil is being exploited by al Qaeda-linked Islamist fighters who already have a foothold in the impoverished state.

The Saudi deputy consul in Aden, Abdallah al-Khalidi, was kidnapped in March by al Qaeda-linked militants who demanded the release of women detainees from Saudi prisons.

(Reporting by Mohammed Ghibari; Writing by Isabel Coles; Editing by Michael Roddy)

Copyright © 2012, Reuters

For links see article source....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.jamestown.org/single/?no_cache=1&tx_ttnews[tt_news]=39701&tx_ttnews[backPid]=7&cHash=c177f98bcb16bbd1acdde27a9d11fe1d

Moscow’s Military Muscle in Central Asia: Tajikistan Exposes Russian Hard Power
Publication: Eurasia Daily Monitor Volume: 9 Issue: 144
July 30, 2012 03:15 PM Age: 7 hrs
By: Roger McDermott

Russian 201st military base in Tajikistan (Source: RIA Novosti)

Continued wrangling between Dushanbe and Moscow over the renewal of basing rights for the 201st Military Base headquartered in Tajikistan’s capital has eclipsed Russia’s wider basing strategy in Central Asia and the extent to which Tajikistan’s security depends upon Moscow’s continued military and security presence and assistance to the country. At face value, the basing agreement, which expires this year, allows an opportunity for President Emomalii Rahmon to try to extract as much money from Moscow to renew the agreement, much in the way that neighboring Kyrgyzstan has attempted to do, and skillfully achieved, in relation to the US Transit Center at Manas (RIA Novosti, July 17).

It seems the core dispute is that the Tajikistani government would like to secure between $250 million and $300 million annually for the Russian base, while Moscow hopes to continue a complimentary stay based on the strategic importance of its location and recognition of Dushanbe’s dependence on the Russian military to support the ruling regime (Interfax, July 5).

First, there is a much wider issue involved in the dispute, namely Russian foreign military basing policy. As retired Colonel Viktor Baranets observed, Russia’s foreign military bases and access to local facilities are not the result of “imperial caprice” among the top brass; they are an integral part of Moscow’s foreign policy. In this context, the apparent free basing issue in Tajikistan is by no means unique in Russia’s arrangements for foreign military basing. The country has around twenty bases or military facilities internationally, with free access in Abkhazia, Armenia, Belarus, Moldova and South Ossetia. Moscow is currently discussing with Baku the terms to renew its Gabala radar station lease in Azerbaijan, and other foreign bases are paid for including the nominal naval base in Tartus, Syria. In Central Asia, Russian facilities and bases are located in Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan – where Russia has emergency access to the Navoi airfield for the Russian Air Force. The Russian airbase in Kant, Kyrgyzstan, functions under the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), while Moscow has expressed interest in opening a second base in the country, possibly in Osh in the troubled south (Komsomolskaya Pravda, June 14).

The Russian 201st Military Base, which was developed on the basis of the former 201st Motorized Rifle Division, also functions under the CSTO but provides support for Tajikistan’s Army to ensure the security of the state; it is the largest Russian Army base abroad, with between 6,000 to 7,000 personnel. An additional military facility in the country is the Okno space monitoring system, which is used by the Russian Aerospace Defense Forces. This facility was handed to Moscow for free in return for writing off a debt of $242 million. Whereas, in 2006, Russia agreed to provide $76 million in military assistance to Tajikistan (Komsomolskaya Pravda, June 14).

Although difficulties have been encountered to date on the 201st Military Base, according to Russian Defense Minister Anatoliy Serdyukov, the talks on the new basing agreement with Dushanbe are due to be completed by October 2012 (Krasnaya Zvezda, July 18). Colonel-General Vladimir Chirkin, the Commander-in-Chief of Russia’s Ground Forces, stated that Dushanbe “deemed the draft agreement between Russia and Tajikistan enshrining the presence of the 201st Military Base in the Republic of Tajikistan for 49 years to be acceptable on the whole.” The draft agreement envisaged continuing the Russian base for 49 years on a non-payment basis.

Tajikistani officials have proved to be cautious about publicly commenting on the precise nature of Dushanbe’s objections to the earlier Russian proposals. However, a Tajikistani government source told the Russian media that President Rahmon was ready to sign the deal in return for firm guarantees. “Tajikistan would like to remain in Russia’s orbit. But Rahmon needs guarantees of retaining power and of stability in the country. Russian can give these guarantees. Particularly as Rahmon has always fulfilled adopted pledges and has not once torn up strategic agreements with Russia. But he does not want to bear financial costs,” the source explained (Nezavisimoye Voyennoye Obozreniye, July 18).

Chirkin had previously tied the base extension to the Russian General Staff’s concern about the possibility of future military conflicts in Central Asia, which met with rebuttals in Dushanbe. During a press conference on July 16, the Russian Army commander adopted a more circumspect tone: “The negotiation process is proceeding quite actively, and I think we will emerge fairly soon with an outcome that suits both sides,” Chirkin said. Moscow’s proposed deal envisages the continued use of the base for free due to its role in Tajikistan’s security. Russia would also “assist in the provision to Tajikistan of contemporary and compatible weaponry and military and specialized equipment” (RIA Novosti, July 17).

Saifullo Safarov, the Deputy Director at the Center for Strategic Studies under the President of Tajikistan, highlighted an entirely non-military set of causal factors creating problems in the negotiating process. On July 12, Safarov told Interfax that “money is not the main issue,” but Dushanbe wants to see Russia respect its national interests. These interests, in fact, link to concern over the plight of more than one million migrant Tajik workers in Russia, whose remittances annually yield over 45 percent of Tajikistan’s GDP. “Our primary concern is the fate of our migrant workers living and working in Russia. Besides, we are keen on cutting export duties on Russian petroleum products for our republic,” Safarov said. Around 90 percent of petroleum products in Tajikistan are imported from Russia, and Dushanbe would like to see import duties lifted as Moscow did earlier for Kyrgyzstan (Interfax, July 12).

Indeed, Russian sources close to the talks told Jamestown that Moscow has actively avoided using the Tajik migrant issue as leverage in the discussions, supporting Safarov’s views. Both Dushanbe and Moscow understand the strategic importance of the 201st Military Base, and that without the base, the regime and the country’s security would be more vulnerable. Moscow in this context is playing a patient game, confident that Rahmon will sign a deal later in the year, avoiding applying too much pressure in the awareness that Dushanbe has no strong cards to play. Moreover, in December 2011, Dushanbe signed a CSTO agreement on foreign basing that involves requiring full consent among all members prior to agreeing to host a new military base: this gives Moscow a de facto veto on Tajikistan opening a US military facility in the country.

For links see article source...
Posted for fair use....
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/jul/29/russia-seeks-sea-power-with-decrepit-fleet/

Russia seeks sea power with decrepit fleet
Base expansion likely an empty threat
Comments (75)
By Rowan Scarborough - The Washington Times

Sunday, July 29, 2012

In this October, 2001 file photo the Pyotr Velikiy, Peter the Great, Russian nuclear-powered missile cruiser seen near Severomorsk, Russia. (AP Photo/Dmitry Lovetsky, File)

Story Topics

Politics
Russia
Vladimir Putin
Cuba
Russian Navy

Russia's boast that it plans to extend its naval forces to bases in Cuba, the Seychelles and Vietnam poses little strategic threat to U.S. interests in Latin America, the Indian Ocean or the Pacific, analysts say.

It is more a political move than a military one, as President Vladimir Putin continues to contest American supremacy, particularly during the Syrian crisis.

The Russian fleet may number 300 ships, about the same as the U.S. Navy, but its aging warships are less advanced than America's high-powered guided-missile cruisers and destroyers. The Kremlin owns only one operational aircraft carrier, as opposed to Washington's 11 nuclear-powered carriers and strike groups that comprise what is called a "blue-water" navy able to operate far from home.

Moscow deploys few ships outside its waters, while the Pentagon stations a quarter of the fleet at sea at any one time.

"Russia is trying to punch above its weight in world affairs, trying to pretend it is a major world power when it is in fact a state in [a] declining strategic circumstance," said James Russell, an instructor at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, Calif.

"The declaration of wanting more navy bases, a throwback to the 1970s and 1980s, is just another example. The Soviets never had a real blue-water power-projection capability, and neither does Russia."

'Grand pronouncements'

Russia's top naval officer, Vice Adm. Viktor Chirkov, told the country's RIA news agency Friday that Moscow is holding talks to put naval bases in Cuba, Vietnam and the Indian Ocean island nation of Seychelles. Russia operates only one overseas base -- a strategically important one in the port city of Tartus, Syria.

"It is true. We are working on the deployment of Russian naval bases outside Russian territory," he said.

Naval sources note that Russian navy leaders have boasted before about goals such as fielding more aircraft carriers, but the declarations were unfulfilled.

"Russia has made a series of grand pronouncements about engagement in this region, and the words end up outpacing the deeds," said P.J. Crowley, a former top spokesman for the State Department. "But clearly Putin is fighting the perception that Russia is no longer a global power, only a regional power, and is trying to restore some trappings of Russia's past."

The only way Mr. Putin can project power is with his navy and perhaps some permanent ports of call.

"Putin would like to do it because right now the navy is the only force that he has to demonstrate Russia is still a world power," said Norman Polmar, a naval analyst and author of several books about the Russian navy.

"He can't send the army anywhere. He can't send his airplanes anywhere without over-flight rights, and people don't like to let military planes fly over their countries."

Russia already has been using its navy to send signals against the U.S. Last year, it dispatched a nuclear-powered cruiser task force to Venezuela, where President Hugo Chavez has made alliances with Iran and China and sees himself as an irritant to U.S. interests in Latin America. Russian ships also have been showing up in Cuba, another U.S. foe.

"I look at this as Putin attempting to demonstrate that Russia is still a major world political-military player," Mr. Polmar said.

"I think it is important to point out, it is both political and military. A Russian base in Cuba and a couple of destroyers that visit there regularly are no military threat to us of any kind. So it is primarily political."

He said the Russian navy "is in very poor shape because of finances."

"It has very few ships that are operational. Very few submarines that are operational. Everything is behind schedule, all of their new construction. The country was for several years essentially bankrupt after the fall of the Soviet Union. The shipyards fell into disrepair. All of the services fell into disrepair," Mr. Polmar added.

Mr. Russell said the problem is worsened by corruption. Money meant for the government is siphoned off by organized crime.

"The country's balance sheet looks good right now because it has lots of oil and natural gas, but the profit from this bonanza is being looted by the organized crime-apparatchik kleptocracy that is ruling the country," he said.

"Much of the money is just being stolen and not being invested in the people and the state. If it didn't have nuclear weapons, why would anyone take Russia seriously today, except in a negative sense?"

'Ordinary workhorses'

Earlier this year, RIA Novosti ran a frank assessment of Russia's beleaguered navy, saying the fleet is made up of "ordinary workhorses."

"The Russian Navy is not obsessed with grand-scale projects or the 'de facto global standard' strike groups of heavy ocean-going ships deployed around nuclear aircraft carriers," a Russian naval analyst wrote.

"Even at its height, the Soviet Union failed to live up to that standard with reasons ranging from weaknesses in industry and ship-repair facilities to the varying rants of top military and defense-industry leadership. The Russian Navy orders simple and ordinary workhorses for the sea. When a large number of ships was decommissioned in the 1990s [the nonstrategic portion], it left a big gap in the country's naval forces."

Today, Mr. Putin sees a U.S. Navy that dominates the world's key regions -- the Mediterranean Sea, the Persian Gulf, the Arabian Sea, the Indian Ocean and the Pacific Ocean -- while his sea power increasingly is built around territorial defense, plus the nuclear capability of submarines to strike the United States.

"Very few Russian ships are out of coastal waters at any given time," Mr. Polmar said.

Mr. Putin, in his third term as president, has made confronting Washington a priority. He opposed NATO intervention in Libya and now is blunting Western efforts to put pressure on Syrian President Bashar Assad to step down.

Russia and China have vetoed three U.N. Security Council resolutions calling for tougher measures against Mr. Assad. Mr. Putin also continued to send attack helicopters to Damascus. It drew a rebuke from Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, who had made a "reset" in relations with Moscow a chief priority.

An exasperated Victoria Nuland, State Department spokeswoman, could not explain Mr. Putin's motives.

"I'm so not going to speak for what Russia and China want," she said. "I'm going to let them speak for themselves because, frankly, it's not so clear at the moment."

© Copyright 2012 The Washington Times, LLC.

Turkey will not let Syria become another Lebanon

http://www.todayszaman.com/news-288...ill-not-let-syria-become-another-lebanon.html

30 July 2012 / ABDULLAH BOZKURT, ANKARA
Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu has vowed not to let Syria become another Lebanon, saying that Turkey will never allow de facto structures in northern Syria lest the country fragment along sectarian lines. “If there are de facto formations that have emerged out of the chaotic situation in Syria, this would threaten the unity of Syria,” Davutoğlu says.

Speaking to a group of reporters on Sunday night, he said that Turkey will never allow such a possibility for its southern neighbor.

He was referring to the emergence of a structure in northern Syria where the terrorist Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and its affiliate the Democratic Union Party (PYD) have joined forces. “We will not let any terrorist groups prosper along our borders, whether they are al-Qaeda or the PKK. Both are seen as a threat [to the country] and all measures will be taken to stop them,” Davutoğlu said.

He explained that the PKK-PYD coalition seized on the opportunity given by the power vacuum in Kurdish towns and villages following the withdrawal of Bashar al-Assad’s forces from Kurdish-populated areas to fight the opposition forces in Damascus and Aleppo. “They [PKK-PYD] are opportunists. They cooperated with Assad in the past, and now they are trying to fill the power vacuum there. But this could lead to a confrontation with Syrian opposition groups. We do not want this to happen,” he said.

The Turkish foreign minister underlined that Turkey will take any measures it can to prevent terrorist groups from operating in northern Syria, noting, though, that Turkey is not against Kurdish people living in Syria. He stated that Turkey has close cooperation with the Kurdish National Council (KNC) of Syria, recalling that Ankara raised the infringement of rights for Kurdish people with Assad when both countries were cooperating closely in the past.

“If there is wrongdoing directed against Nusayris or Christians, we will take a position against that as well,” he added. Davutoğlu emphasized that different ethnic and religious groups have lived in Syria and in the Middle East for centuries. “We never consider any group of people as a threat.” He also said Turkey would not make any distinction between Kurds and Turkmens.

He revealed that Turkish intelligence knew how many PKK militants had moved from northern Iraq to Syria and where they are positioned. The issue of PKK terrorists infiltrating from Iraq to Syria will become part of the discussion Davutoğlu will have with Massoud Barzani, the president of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in northern Iraq, when he visits there on Wednesday.

Commenting on the Assad regime’s aggression in Aleppo, Davutoğlu said the city is a key economic and trade hub in Syria. “If security in and around Aleppo is not restored, this would pose a threat to Turkey,” he said, stating that Turkey has taken up all the necessary measures to respond to a security threat from the power vacuum in Aleppo.

The Turkish foreign minister predicted that Turkey may need to take more drastic measures if the onslaught in Aleppo triggers a huge refugee crisis for Turkey. “We may have to find a way to host these refugees within Syria,” he said, signaling that Turkey may be forced to set up a buffer zone on Syrian soil to address the mounting refugee crisis. Although he declined to give a specific number of refugees that would prompt Turkey to take such action, he asked simply, “What would happen if the refugee number reaches 100,000?” Turkey currently hosts some 45,000 Syrian refugees in various centers.

Davutoğlu also shared with reporters the latest number of senior army defectors. According to government data, 26 generals, 47 colonels and 130 other officers defected from the Syrian army and have taken refuge in Turkey. “In recent weeks, even some Nusayris have defected to Turkey,” he said.

The Turkish minister also denied a Reuters report on a secret base in Turkey, allegedly operated jointly with allies Saudi Arabia and Qatar to direct military and communications aid to Syrian rebels from a city near the border, citing Gulf sources. “There has been much speculation on this [arming the rebels]. Most of what the Syrian opposition has in their hands is from the stock the defectors brought with them when deserting the Syrian army. Other arms and munitions were obtained during attacks [on Syrian troops]. Speculative news like this should be discounted,” he said, adding that there is no longer any border security at Syrian borders.

ahhhhhhh sadly at one time .....


Reagan Renews Vow for 600-Ship Navy : 'Way to Prevent War Is to Be Prepared for It,' He Tells Academy Class
May 23, 1985|RUDY ABRAMSON | Times Staff Writer


ANNAPOLIS, Md. — Chiding critics of his military buildup and renewing his pledge to have a 600-ship Navy by the end of the decade, President Reagan told U.S. Naval Academy graduates Wednesday that "it is too costly for America not to be prepared" for hostilities and that "the way to prevent war is to be prepared for it."

"It is about time," Reagan said, "that those who place their faith in wishful thinking and good intentions get the word."
http://articles.latimes.com/1985-05-23/news/mn-8052_1_600-ship-navy

Housecarl said:

For links see article source...
Posted for fair use....
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/jul/29/russia-seeks-sea-power-with-decrepit-fleet/

Russia seeks sea power with decrepit fleet
Base expansion likely an empty threat
Comments (75)
By Rowan Scarborough

-

The Washington Times

Sunday, July 29, 2012

In this October, 2001 file photo the Pyotr Velikiy, Peter the Great, Russian nuclear-powered missile cruiser seen near Severomorsk, Russia. (AP Photo/Dmitry Lovetsky, File)

Story Topics

Politics
Russia
Vladimir Putin
Cuba
Russian Navy

Russia's boast that it plans to extend its naval forces to bases in Cuba, the Seychelles and Vietnam poses little strategic threat to U.S. interests in Latin America, the Indian Ocean or the Pacific, analysts say.

It is more a political move than a military one, as President Vladimir Putin continues to contest American supremacy, particularly during the Syrian crisis.

The Russian fleet may number 300 ships, about the same as the U.S. Navy, but its aging warships are less advanced than America's high-powered guided-missile cruisers and destroyers. The Kremlin owns only one operational aircraft carrier, as opposed to Washington's 11 nuclear-powered carriers and strike groups that comprise what is called a "blue-water" navy able to operate far from home.

Moscow deploys few ships outside its waters, while the Pentagon stations a quarter of the fleet at sea at any one time.

"Russia is trying to punch above its weight in world affairs, trying to pretend it is a major world power when it is in fact a state in [a] declining strategic circumstance," said James Russell, an instructor at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, Calif.

"The declaration of wanting more navy bases, a throwback to the 1970s and 1980s, is just another example. The Soviets never had a real blue-water power-projection capability, and neither does Russia."

'Grand pronouncements'

Russia's top naval officer, Vice Adm. Viktor Chirkov, told the country's RIA news agency Friday that Moscow is holding talks to put naval bases in Cuba, Vietnam and the Indian Ocean island nation of Seychelles. Russia operates only one overseas base -- a strategically important one in the port city of Tartus, Syria.

"It is true. We are working on the deployment of Russian naval bases outside Russian territory," he said.

Naval sources note that Russian navy leaders have boasted before about goals such as fielding more aircraft carriers, but the declarations were unfulfilled.

"Russia has made a series of grand pronouncements about engagement in this region, and the words end up outpacing the deeds," said P.J. Crowley, a former top spokesman for the State Department. "But clearly Putin is fighting the perception that Russia is no longer a global power, only a regional power, and is trying to restore some trappings of Russia's past."

The only way Mr. Putin can project power is with his navy and perhaps some permanent ports of call.

"Putin would like to do it because right now the navy is the only force that he has to demonstrate Russia is still a world power," said Norman Polmar, a naval analyst and author of several books about the Russian navy.

"He can't send the army anywhere. He can't send his airplanes anywhere without over-flight rights, and people don't like to let military planes fly over their countries."

Russia already has been using its navy to send signals against the U.S. Last year, it dispatched a nuclear-powered cruiser task force to Venezuela, where President Hugo Chavez has made alliances with Iran and China and sees himself as an irritant to U.S. interests in Latin America. Russian ships also have been showing up in Cuba, another U.S. foe.

"I look at this as Putin attempting to demonstrate that Russia is still a major world political-military player," Mr. Polmar said.

"I think it is important to point out, it is both political and military. A Russian base in Cuba and a couple of destroyers that visit there regularly are no military threat to us of any kind. So it is primarily political."

He said the Russian navy "is in very poor shape because of finances."

"It has very few ships that are operational. Very few submarines that are operational. Everything is behind schedule, all of their new construction. The country was for several years essentially bankrupt after the fall of the Soviet Union. The shipyards fell into disrepair. All of the services fell into disrepair," Mr. Polmar added.

Mr. Russell said the problem is worsened by corruption. Money meant for the government is siphoned off by organized crime.

"The country's balance sheet looks good right now because it has lots of oil and natural gas, but the profit from this bonanza is being looted by the organized crime-apparatchik kleptocracy that is ruling the country," he said.

"Much of the money is just being stolen and not being invested in the people and the state. If it didn't have nuclear weapons, why would anyone take Russia seriously today, except in a negative sense?"

'Ordinary workhorses'

Earlier this year, RIA Novosti ran a frank assessment of Russia's beleaguered navy, saying the fleet is made up of "ordinary workhorses."

"The Russian Navy is not obsessed with grand-scale projects or the 'de facto global standard' strike groups of heavy ocean-going ships deployed around nuclear aircraft carriers," a Russian naval analyst wrote.

"Even at its height, the Soviet Union failed to live up to that standard with reasons ranging from weaknesses in industry and ship-repair facilities to the varying rants of top military and defense-industry leadership. The Russian Navy orders simple and ordinary workhorses for the sea. When a large number of ships was decommissioned in the 1990s [the nonstrategic portion], it left a big gap in the country's naval forces."

Today, Mr. Putin sees a U.S. Navy that dominates the world's key regions -- the Mediterranean Sea, the Persian Gulf, the Arabian Sea, the Indian Ocean and the Pacific Ocean -- while his sea power increasingly is built around territorial defense, plus the nuclear capability of submarines to strike the United States.

"Very few Russian ships are out of coastal waters at any given time," Mr. Polmar said.

Mr. Putin, in his third term as president, has made confronting Washington a priority. He opposed NATO intervention in Libya and now is blunting Western efforts to put pressure on Syrian President Bashar Assad to step down.

Russia and China have vetoed three U.N. Security Council resolutions calling for tougher measures against Mr. Assad. Mr. Putin also continued to send attack helicopters to Damascus. It drew a rebuke from Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, who had made a "reset" in relations with Moscow a chief priority.

An exasperated Victoria Nuland, State Department spokeswoman, could not explain Mr. Putin's motives.

"I'm so not going to speak for what Russia and China want," she said. "I'm going to let them speak for themselves because, frankly, it's not so clear at the moment."

© Copyright 2012 The Washington Times, LLC.

Click to expand...

=

Foreign fighters join Syria battle

Ben Glaze
Tuesday 31 July 2012
Syria
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/foreign-fighters-join-syria-battle-7994450.html​

More foreign fighters will pour into Syria the longer president
Bashar Assad maintains his grip on power, the British Government said
today.


Foreign Office minister Alistair Burt warned the worsening civil war would attract jihadists to the country to fill the void created by fierce battles between Assad's forces and rebels.

He would not confirm claims from a British war photographer held hostage in Syria that 30% of his captors were British jihadists.

Mr Burt said: "It must be true to say that since the initial pressure and opposition against the Assad regime, which was local, the fight has been joined by others.

"We said at a very early stage that unless this finished early, unless the proposals to have a ceasefire and get political transition going in Syria among Syrians happened, then the fight would be joined by others from outside. There is clear evidence of this.

"The longer it goes on, without that ceasefire and political discussion, the worse that will get."

Mr Burt told BBC Radio 4's World At One the battle for Syria's second city, Aleppo, showed why a United Nations Security Council resolution increasing the pressure on Assad should have been agreed earlier this month.

The move was vetoed by the Russians and Chinese.

=

UNHCR:
Thousands of Syrians trapped in Aleppo

31 July 2012 / REUTERS, GENEVA
http://www.todayszaman.com/news-288179-unhcr-thousands-of-syrians-trapped-in-aleppo.html​

Battles between the Syrian army and rebels in Aleppo have forced many terrified civilians to flee the city by perilous routes or take refuge in safer areas, a United Nations official said on Tuesday.

"Thousands of frightened residents are seeking shelter in schools, mosques and public buildings," said Melissa Fleming, spokeswoman for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).

"These are people that haven't fled the city as they haven't had the means or feel it is too dangerous to make that journey and we are getting indications that the journey is fraught with armed gangs and road blocks blocking the way," she said.

About 7,000 have taken refuge in university dormitories and many more are camped out in 32 schools, each housing 250-350 people, Fleming told a news conference. Her figures suggest a total of 15,000 to 18,000 displaced within Aleppo.

Fighting has raged in the city of 2.5 million for a week. Helicopters fired heavy machineguns at eastern districts on Tuesday, a Reuters reporter in Aleppo said.

U.N. humanitarian chief Valerie Amos said on Sunday about 200,000 people had fled Aleppo and surrounding areas over the weekend, citing an estimate from the Syrian Arab Red Crescent.

But that has not produced a flood of refugees into nearby Turkey, about 50 km (30 miles) from Aleppo, with only 2,000 crossing the border in the past four days, the UNHCR said.

"Many report difficulties along the route, including snipers and road blocks, which may be hindering others from making the journey," the agency said.

Thousands of Iraqi refugees in Syria are heading home to escape the violence now convulsing the country where they found sanctuary following the U.S.-led invasion in 2003. The UNHCR said 20,000 had returned to Iraq in the past 10 days.

Many of the Iraqis left from Aleppo, according to the International Organisation for Migration, which said more than 2,800 Syrians had also sought refuge in Iraq, a journey that returnees say costs about $300 by taxi or $100 by bus.

Iraq now hosts more than 12,000 Syrian refugees, far fewer than the more than 30,000 registered in each of Lebanon and Jordan, and more than 44,000 in Turkey, part of an overall total of 129,000 Syrians who have registered with UNHCR.

The total number of Syrians who have quit the country is far higher, with an estimated 150,000 in Jordan alone. The IOM is expanding Jordan's Zaatari camp, which can hold 5,000 refugees to enable it to take 150,000, in case of a mass exodus.

Between 10,000 and 25,000 Syrians have fled to Algeria, where they do not require visas, Fleming said, citing information from the Algerian government. But on 70 of them have contacted the UNHCR in the North African country.

A UN official said most of those in Algeria were from Damascus and, with flights out of Syria becoming rarer, many had flown from Beirut or Amman after crossing the border.

The UNHCR has registered another 1,305 Syrian refugees in Egypt and 400 in Morocco.

UN agencies bracing for an exodus from Syria doubled the size of their humanitarian aid plan a month ago to cater for 185,000 refugees by the end of 2012.







=

=

Conditions grow more dire in
Syria’s Aleppo as refugees flee

Published 10 minutes ago
Paul Schemm
The Associated Press
http://www.thestar.com/news/world/a...-more-dire-in-syria-s-aleppo-as-refugees-flee​

BEIRUT—Humanitarian conditions have grown even more dire in the besieged Syria city of Aleppo with activists reporting on Tuesday dwindling stocks of food and cooking gas and only intermittent electricity supplies as droves of residents flee 11 days of intense clashes between rebels and regime forces.

Government helicopters pounded rebel neighbourhoods across Syria’s largest city and main commercial hub. Activists said the random shelling has forced many civilians to flee to other neighbourhoods or even escape the city altogether. The U.N. said late Sunday that about 200,000 had fled the city of about 3 million.

“The humanitarian situation here is very bad,” Mohammed Saeed, an activist living in the city, told The Associated Press by Skype. “There is not enough food and people are trying to leave. We really need support from the outside. There is random shelling against civilians,” he added. “The city has pretty much run out of cooking gas, so people are cooking on open flames or with electricity, which cuts out a lot.”

He said shells were falling on the southwestern neighbourhoods of Salaheddine and Seif al-Dawla, rebel strongholds since the rebel Free Syrian Army began its assault on Aleppo 11 days ago.

The official Syrian news agency said government forces were pursuing the “remnants of armed terrorist groups” in Salaheddine and inflicting heavy losses. President Bashar Assad’s authoritarian regime regularly refers to opposition fighters as terrorists.

But the rebels denied that the government has succeeded in penetrating the neighbourhood with its tanks.

Rebels have captured a number of government tanks in operations against army positions outside the city, including the town of al-Bab and the village of Anand. Saeed said they planned to use them in future operations.

The taking of Anand has also opened the road to the Turkish border, where the rebels get many of their supplies and manpower. It also the main escape route for refugees streaming out of Aleppo.

Many of those who have fled may be taking refuge with relatives in the countryside, remaining inside Syria.

According Turkish prime minister’s office, there are some 44,000 Syrian refugees being sheltered in tent cities and temporary housing in camps along the border. While Turkish authorities say they have yet to see a massive upsurge in refugees from Aleppo, they are prepared to house up to 100,000.

Jordan, for its part, has also begun building a tent camp to house refugees along the border — something it was initially reluctant to do out of fear of embarrassing Syria by calling attention to its refugee problem. But with 142,000 Syrians having already fled across the border, according to the Jordanian government, they needed to create the facilities to house them all. Jordan said this week that up to 2,000 new refugees are arriving daily.

While there had initially been speculation that Assad’s regime might be in serious danger from the rebels, especially after a bomb killed four top security officials in Damascus on July 18, the core of the army has remained intact and the fight looks set to be prolonged.

A high-ranking Western diplomat familiar with the intelligence assessments on Syria said most expected the civil war to be a drawn-out affair.

There is also a great deal of concern in the West over the flow of foreign militants into Syria to fight a jihad, or holy war, against Assad’s regime, said the diplomat, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss such matters.

Militants from Chechnya, Yemen, Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan have been joining the rebels in significant numbers entering by way of Iraq and Lebanon and bringing along skills gleaned from battling the Americans and Russians, the diplomat added.

Syria has long branded the opposition as being foreign-funded “terrorist mercenaries” even when the anti-government movement was overwhelmingly peaceful and Syrian. Now, however, it appears that elements involved in militant jihads are increasingly joining the fight.

In the past month, the rebels have demonstrated greater capabilities and have mounted the biggest challenges to the regime so far in the 17-month-old uprising. They have been fielding more effective forces with better weaponry.

Saudi Arabia and Qatar have both expressed a willingness to fund the rebellion and are believed to be sending money to rebels to purchase weapons. On Tuesday, the official Saudi Press Agency said a week-long national campaign to support “our brothers in Syria” had collected $117 million dollars in cash donations to outfit relief convoys for Syrian refugees.






=

=

2012-07-31

The Syrian Crisis:
Russian Policy Risks Wider Conflict

http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=53663​

Russian support of Syrian president Bashar al-Assad’s crackdown on anti-government insurgents bodes ill for Moscow’s ability to prevent chaos and anarchy in Syria and risks wider conflict in the Fertile Crescent and beyond, stresses James M. Dorsey.

Middle East Online

Russian policy towards the Syrian crisis is seen internationally as supporting president Bashar al Assad’s brutal crackdown on anti-government insurgents and opposition protestors. In Syria, where intense fighting has spread from Damascus to Aleppo, many believe the international community has abandoned them and left to fend for themselves against the superior firepower of the Syrian military.

Russia’s pro-Assad policy bodes ill for Moscow’s ability to contribute to preventing a descent into chaos and anarchy by a post-Assad Syria. It also holds out little promise for Russia’s ability to help prevent the Syrian crisis from spilling across borders into Lebanon, Iraq, Jordan and Turkey. The risk for Russia is that its pro-Assad policy will produce the very situation it is seeking to avoid: increased volatility and conflict across the Fertile Crescent that could reinforce already restive population groups and Islamic militants in its own Muslim republics. It also risks troubling its relations with post-revolt states in the Middle East and North Africa where public opinion has little sympathy for the Assad regime and its perceived backers.

Russia’s Islamist militants​

Recent attacks on two prominent Muslim clerics in the Russian autonomous oil-rich republic of Tartarstan on the Volga River, may help explain Russian support for the Assad regime.

Within minutes of each other in July, Tartarstan’s deputy mufti was assassinated and the mufti wounded in two separate but carefully timed attacks.

The two men, Valilulla Yakupov and Idius Faizov, were known for their criticism of militant Islam, and their support for Russian federal government efforts to isolate the militants and their commercial interest in the lucrative business of pilgrimages to the holy city of Mecca.

To counter the militants, who are spreading out from their base in Chechnya and the Caucasus, the two muftis had fired extremist clerics and banned the use of religious textbooks from ultra-conservative Saudi Arabia.

The influx of radical clerics was in response to a call by Chechen separatist leader Doku Umarov, the self-described emir of an Islamic emirate in the Caucasus, for militants to extend their area of operations from the Caucasus to lands that once were part of the Golden Horde, a medieval Muslim state ruled by a Tartar-Mongol dynasty. Tartarstan, with its oil wealth and 4 million residents of which half are Muslim, is for Umarov, a logical target. He has claimed responsibility for last year’s attack on a Moscow airport and a 2010 bombing in the city’s metro system that together killed 75 people.

A small price to pay​

Umarov’s ideological and geographical ambitions go a long way in explaining Russia’s otherwise incomprehensible support for a brutal regime in Syria that has proved incapable of defeating an increasingly well-armed and effective insurgency. Russian support has earned it the scorn of the West and the Arab world and bodes ill for the future of Russian relations with a post-Assad Syria and others in the Arab world. Chambers of commerce in Saudi Arabia have already refused to meet with Russian trade delegations and a Saudi contractor has broken its commercial ties to its Russian counterparts in protest against Russian policy.

That may be a relatively small price to pay from Russia’s perspective which views the Middle East much like the United States did prior to the 9/11 attacks. Like pre-9/11 Washington, Moscow sees autocratic regimes in the region as pillars of stability, in a world that otherwise would produce Islamists, as the only buffer against chaos and anarchy.

The civil war in Syria where Islamists dominate the insurgency, the Islamist electoral victories in Egypt and Tunisia, and the political uncertainty in Libya and Yemen reinforce a view of the popular revolts sweeping the region as a development that is too close for comfort to Russia’s soft underbelly in the Caucasus. It also strengthens Russian perceptions of US and European support of the revolts as cynical hypocrisy that ultimately could target autocratic rule in Russia itself.

Then president George W. Bush, in a rare recognition of the pitfalls of decades of US policy in the Middle East and North Africa, acknowledged within weeks of the 9/11 attacks, that support for autocratic regimes that squashed all expressions of dissent, had created the feeding ground for jihadist groups focused on striking at Western targets. It is a lesson that appears to have bypassed Russian decision and policy makers as they stubbornly support a Syrian regime whose downfall is no longer a question of if but when.

Russian suspicions of Western sanctions against Syria and non-military support for the rebels may not be totally unfounded, but Moscow has done little to give substance to its calls for an end to the fighting and a political solution that would incorporate elements of the Assad regime. In failing to do so, it has allowed the situation in Syria to go beyond the point of no return and risks paying a heavy price in the longer term. As a result, the lessons of 9/11 could yet come to haunt Moscow.







=

=

2012-07-31

Key military targets attacked:
Rebels insist Aleppo is their Syria’s Benghazi


Syrian rebels attack key military targets, overrun police stations in
Aleppo, killing 40 officers as pivotal battle for commercial capital rages on.

By Iskander Kat - NEAR ALEPPO (Syria)
http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=53661​

Syrian rebels attacked key military targets and overran two police stations in Aleppo, killing 40 officers, a watchdog said, as the pivotal battle for the commercial capital raged on Tuesday.

Clashes between the rebels and loyalists of President Bashar al-Assad were also reported in the capital Damascus, the eastern city of Deir Ezzor and Daraa in the south, cradle of the more than 16-month uprising.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Aleppo was on Tuesday rocked by the fiercest fighting of a military offensive on rebels in the city, which came after the government had warned of a looming "mother of all battles."

Rebels used rocket-propelled grenades in pre-dawn attacks on a military court, an air force intelligence headquarters and a branch of the ruling Baath Party in Aleppo, said the Observatory's Rami Abdel Rahman.

Later, "hundreds of rebels attacked the police stations in Salhin and Bab al-Nayrab (neighbourhoods) and at least 40 policemen were killed during the fighting, which lasted for hours," Abdel Rahman said.

The police chief was among those killed at the Salhin station in the south of the city, while three vehicles were destroyed, he added.

The attacks came as the UN observer mission said government forces were using helicopters, tanks and artillery to fight the rebels, while appealing for both sides to protect civilians in the city of 2.7 million people.

Through the night, government troops had shelled the neighbourhoods of Salaheddin, Marjeh, Firdoss, Al-Mashhad, Sakhur, Al-Shaar and Ansari, before the army and rebels clashed at dawn in Al-Meesr and Al-Adaa.

A security official in Damascus said on Monday that the army had regained some of Salaheddin but it was facing "a very strong resistance." The rebels, however, denied that the army had advanced even "one metre" (yard).

"The fierce fighting in Aleppo shows how crucial this city is for a regime that does not want a Benghazi in Syria," said Abdel Rahman, referring to the coastal city secured by Libyan rebels as a base in their fight to bring down strongman Moamer Gathafi.

Gunmen from loyalist Arab tribes in Aleppo, including the al-Berri family, had joined the fray and were fighting alongside the army.

"All of this links back to calls by Syrian media and talking heads on some Lebanese satellite stations that loyal Syrian citizens should take up arms and fight with the regime troops," Abdel Rahman added.

Rebels on Monday seized the strategic Anadan checkpoint, some five kilometres (3.8 miles) northwest of Aleppo, securing a direct route to the Turkish border.

"During the next few hours, the impact of rebel control over this checkpoint will be proven by the amount of supplies brought to Aleppo," said Abdel Rahman.

The fight for Aleppo erupted on Saturday when the regime launched an all-out offensive to overrun rebel-held districts, after massing its forces on the city's outskirts for two days.

United Nations mission chief Lieutenant General Babacar Gaye said he was "deeply concerned about the ongoing violence from both sides in Aleppo."

"My observers there have reported an upsurge in the violence, with helicopters, tanks and artillery being used," the Senegalese general said.

"It is imperative that both sides respect international humanitarian law and protect civilians."

UN humanitarian chief Valerie Amos said an estimated 200,000 people had fled from Aleppo in two days and that an unknown number were still trapped in the city.

Many people in Aleppo had sought shelter in schools and other public buildings.

"They urgently need food, mattresses and blankets, hygiene supplies and drinking water," she said.

The Observatory, which reported 93 people killed across Syria on Monday, says it cannot swiftly give an authoritative death toll for the fierce battles in Aleppo.

Elsewhere in Syria, clashes erupted in multiple districts of Deir Ezzor city, including near a police station, while one civilian was killed by sniper fire, the Observatory said.

In the southern province of Daraa, regime troops shelled a camp for displaced persons as the towns of Tafas and Al-Ghariyeh also came under shelling, leaving an unknown number of casualties.

Clashes and the sound of explosions were reported at the University of Idlib in the northwestern city.

US President Barack Obama and Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan spoke by telephone Monday "to coordinate efforts to accelerate a political transition in Syria," the White House said.

Obama and Erdogan shared their concerns over the crackdown "and the deteriorating humanitarian conditions throughout Syria as a result of the regime's atrocities."

On Tuesday, Iran's military said it will "not allow the enemy to advance" in its key ally Syria, but that it does not yet see the need to directly intervene in the country.

More than 20,000 people have been killed in Syria since the anti-regime revolt began in March 2011, according to the Observatory. There is no way to independently verify the figure, while the UN has stopped keeping count.






=

=






..

Syrian soldiers 'fled like rats': rebels

By Iskandar Kat | AFP – 23 hours ago.. .
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/syrian-soldiers-fled-rats-rebels-141135571.html​

"The soldiers fled like rats," says a grinning rebel after he and his fellow fighters captured Anadan checkpoint from the Syrian army, giving them strategic access to Aleppo where they are battling a fierce loyalist offensive.

"Bashar don't go, we will catch you," jokes another rebel, sitting on crates of ammunition in the back of a truck where the Islamist flag -- black with white lettering -- flutters.

The jubilant rebels celebrate their victory with gunfire, while some retrieve weapons and ammunition left behind by the retreating Syrian troops after 10 hours of fierce fighting during the night.

The ground near the military post is littered with bullets of all calibre, as well as heavy machineguns and Kalashnikovs, after the rebels captured it just before dawn on Monday.

The Anadan checkpoint, about five kilometres (3.8 miles) northwest of Aleppo, gives the rebels free movement between Turkey and the northern city, Syria's commercial capital.

The overrunning of the checkpoint comes just days after Syrian troops on Saturday launched an offensive to dislodge the rebel Free Syrian Army (FSA), composed of deserters and armed civilians, from Aleppo.

At Anadan, a rebel could be seen taking shells from an army tank and handing them over to a colleague to be loaded into a pick-up truck. Nearby lies a still-smouldering truck that had been used to ferry soldiers, its tyres melted.

More trucks are parked under a large tent, where the rebels empty dozens of boxes of ammunition and search through whatever has been left behind by the Syrian soldiers.

A rebel picks up a book, a biography of Hafez al-Assad, former president and father of Bashar al-Assad, and tears it into pieces.

The assault on the checkpoint came soon after the call at dusk on Sunday by the muezzin signalling the end of the day's Ramadan fasting. It was ordered by Lieutenant Rifaat Khalil.

"We had 150 rebels ready to fight, but we sent a first wave of 50 men," says the lieutenant.

The rebels arrived from all sides and opened fire with rockets, machineguns and Kalashnikovs.

"We have arrested 25 soldiers and recovered six bodies, but maybe they took away other bodies when they fled," adds the FSA officer.

Once the soldiers had fled, the rebels counted their own losses: four men killed.

During the battle they seized eight tanks, only one of which was dysfunctional.

"Now we can use them to fight in Aleppo," says Khalil.

"This victory strengthens the position of the rebels in Aleppo, and God willing, all the rebels are heading to Aleppo to free the city from Assad's gangs and the shabihas", he says, referring to the pro-regime militiamen.

Aleppo, the country's economic powerhouse, lies just behind a hill overlooking a dam near Anadan.

With the capture of the checkpoint, the rebels now control a major route between the Turkish border and north of Aleppo -- a vital axis for the shipment of weapons, fuel and food for opposition fighters locked in battle in Aleppo.

The rebels had tried in May to take the dam held by the Syrian army but their presence in Anadan, a few hundred metres (yards) from the dam, attracted massive bombing from the soldiers and forced locals to flee.

Today Anadan is a ghost town. Its streets are dotted with shell holes, walls are blackened by fire bombs, homes lie looted and deserted with their windows broken.

"People have left their doors open and gone," says General Abdel Nasser Firzat, commander of the rebel troops in Anadan. Firzat, who spent 10 years in Russia, defected in June to be part of the rebellion.

"My three children left Aleppo, a few hours later my wife did the same, and I left last. We ended up outside Aleppo. I took them to safety and then came here," says Firzat who has made a spacious house in the town his temporary residence.

Firzat says the regime still "controls the skies."

But, he asserts, Assad's army only controls three areas of the countryside surrounding Aleppo. He points to a military map showing an airfield from where helicopters take off, and an artillery post.

"Before the army bombed us day and night but now they are too occupied in Aleppo and only bomb us during the day," says Firzat.

Suddenly there is an explosion a few metres down the road and a cloud of dirt and dust rises. The rebels run in all directions as shells begin falling closer.

Two youngsters on a motorcycle rush to take refuge in the town. They bow their heads to protect themselves and ride as fast as possible after a shell falls about 50 metres from them.

The bombings continue throughout the afternoon in Anadan and surrounding villages.







=

=

Syrian ally Iran has warned Turkey of
harsh response to potential strikes: report

Monday, 30 July 2012
By AFP
DAMASCUS
http://english.alarabiya.net/articles/2012/07/30/229406.html​

Syrian ally Iran has warned their common neighbor Turkey that it will meet a harsh response should Ankara carry out any strikes inside Syrian territory, a pro-Damascus daily reported on Monday.

“Any attack on Syrian territory will meet with a harsh response, and the Iranian-Syrian mutual defense agreement will be activated,” the Al-Watan newspaper said.

“Turkey has received very strong warnings in the past few hours and the following message -- beware changing the rules of the game,” the paper added.

Iran is the closest regional ally of embattled Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, but has also striven to keep good relations with Turkey even as the standoff over its controversial nuclear program has deepened with other NATO member states.

Tehran has enjoyed close ties with Damascus since 1980 when the Syrian government took its side in its devastating eight-year war with now executed dictator Saddam Hussein's regime in Baghdad, and has signed a series of defence pacts, including in 2006 and 2008.

But Ankara has been a leading champion of the more than 16-month uprising against the Assad regime and has given refuge to large numbers of army defectors, who have formed the kernel of a rebel army, as well as tens of thousands of civilian refugees.

Al-Watan cited an “Arab diplomat” as accusing Turkey of seeking to use its fears about the rebel Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which already enjoys rear-bases in the far north of Iraq, as a pretext to intervene in Syria.

“Ankara is preparing an agreement with Washington to intervene militarily in the Syrian (crisis), using the Kurdish card as an excuse,” the paper said.

“Turkey has agreed with the United States on a military intervention limited to the north of Syria, specifically the northern province of Aleppo, to pave the way for the creation of a safe haven guarded by the armed gangs.”

Turkish newspapers have reported that some Kurdish-majority regions of northern Syria have been flying the flag of Syria's PKK ally, the Democratic Union Party (PYD), in what they have said is a deal with the Assad family's government, which was a longtime backer of the Kurdish rebel group's insurgency in Turkey.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has warned that it is a “given” that Turkish troops would pursue fleeing PKK militants inside Syria, warning that Ankara would not hesitate to strike “terrorists.”

Turkey has sent a convoy of tanks, ground-to-air missile batteries and other weapons to the border with Syria to further bolster its forces, the Anatolia news agency reported on Monday.

Turkey has repeatedly carried out air and ground operations against suspected PKK rear-bases in northern Iraq. Iran has also done so against suspected hideouts in the same area of PKK ally the Party of Free Life of Kurdistan (PJAK).






=

=






As they stood outside the commandeered government building in the town of Mohassen, it was hard to distinguish Abu Khuder's men from any other brigade in the Syrian civil war, in their combat fatigues, T-shirts and beards.

But these were not average members of the Free Syrian Army. Abu Khuder and his men fight for al-Qaida. They call themselves the ghuraba'a, or "strangers", after a famous jihadi poem celebrating Osama bin Laden's time with his followers in the Afghan mountains, and they are one of a number of jihadi organisations establishing a foothold in the east of the country now that the conflict in Syria has stretched well into its second bloody year.

They try to hide their presence. "Some people are worried about carrying the [black] flags," said Abu Khuder. "They fear America will come and fight us. So we fight in secret. Why give Bashar and the west a pretext?" But their existence is common knowledge in Mohassen. Even passers-by joke with the men about car bombs and IEDs.

According to Abu Khuder, his men are working closely with the military council that commands the Free Syrian Army brigades in the region. "We meet almost every day," he said. "We have clear instructions from our [al-Qaida] leadership that if the FSA need our help we should give it. We help them with IEDs and car bombs. Our main talent is in the bombing operations." Abu Khuder's men had a lot of experience in bomb-making from Iraq and elsewhere, he added.

Abu Khuder spoke later at length. He reclined on a pile of cushions in a house in Mohassen, resting his left arm which had been hit by a sniper's bullet and was wrapped in plaster and bandages. Four teenage boys kneeled in a tight crescent in front of him, craning their necks and listening with awe. Other villagers in the room looked uneasy.

Abu Khuder had been an officer in a mechanised Syrian border force called the Camel Corps when he took up arms against the regime. He fought the security forces with a pistol and a light hunting rifle, gaining a reputation as one of the bravest and most ruthless men in Deir el-Zour province and helped to form one of the first FSA battalions.

He soon became disillusioned with what he saw as the rebel army's disorganisation and inability to strike at the regime, however. He illustrated this by describing an attempt to attack the government garrison in Mohassen. Fortified in a former textile factory behind concrete walls, sand bags, machine-gun turrets and armoured vehicles, the garrison was immune to the rebels' puny attempt at assault.

"When we attacked the base with the FSA we tried everything and failed," said Abu Khuder. "Even with around 200 men attacking from multiple fronts they couldn't injure a single government soldier and instead wasted 1.5m Syrian pounds [£14,500] on firing ammunition at the walls."

Then a group of devout and disciplined Islamist fighters in the nearby village offered to help. They summoned an expert from Damascus and after two days of work handed Abu Khuder their token of friendship: a truck rigged with two tonnes of explosives.

Two men drove the truck close to the gate of the base and detonated it remotely. The explosion was so large, Abu Khuder said, that windows and metal shutters were blown hundreds of metres, trees were ripped up by their roots and a huge crater was left in the middle of the road.

The next day the army left and the town of Mohassen was free.

"The car bomb cost us 100,000 Syrian pounds and fewer than 10 people were involved [in the operation]," he said. "Within two days of the bomb expert arriving we had it ready. We didn't waste a single bullet.

"Al-Qaida has experience in these military activities and it knows how to deal with it."

After the bombing, Abu Khuder split with the FSA and pledged allegiance to al-Qaida's organisation in Syria, the Jabhat al Nusra or Solidarity Front. He let his beard grow and adopted the religious rhetoric of a jihadi, becoming a commander of one their battalions.

"The Free Syrian Army has no rules and no military or religious order. Everything happens chaotically," he said. "Al-Qaida has a law that no one, not even the emir, can break.

"The FSA lacks the ability to plan and lacks military experience. That is what [al-Qaida] can bring. They have an organisation that all countries have acknowledged.

"In the beginning there were very few. Now, mashallah, there are immigrants joining us and bringing their experience," he told the gathered people. "Men from Yemen, Saudi, Iraq and Jordan. Yemenis are the best in their religion and discipline and the Iraqis are the worst in everything – even in religion."

At this, one man in the room – an activist in his mid-30s who did not want to be named – said: "So what are you trying to do, Abu Khuder? Are you going to start cutting off hands and make us like Saudi? Is this why we are fighting a revolution?"

"[Al-Qaida's] goal is establishing an Islamic state and not a Syrian state," he replied. "Those who fear the organisation fear the implementation of Allah's jurisdiction. If you don't commit sins there is nothing to fear."

Religious rhetoric​

Religious and sectarian rhetoric has taken a leading role in the Syrian revolution from the early days. This is partly because of the need for outside funding and weapons, which are coming through well-established Muslim networks, and partly because religion provides a useful rallying cry for fighters, with promises of martyrdom and redemption.

Almost every rebel brigade has adopted a Sunni religious name with rhetoric exalting jihad and martyrdom, even when the brigades are run by secular commanders and manned by fighters who barely pray.

"Religion is a major rallying force in this revolution – look at Ara'our [a rabid sectarian preacher], he is hysterical and we don't like him but he offers unquestionable support to the fighters and they need it," the activist said later.

Another FSA commander in Deir el-Zour city explained the role of religion in the uprising: "Religion is the best way to impose discipline. Even if the fighter is not religious he can't disobey a religious order in battle."

Al-Qaida has existed in this parched region of eastern Syria, where the desert and the tribes straddle the border with Iraq, for almost a decade.

During the years of American occupation of Iraq, Deir el-Zour became the gateway through which thousands of foreign jihadis flooded to fight the holy war. Many senior insurgents took refuge from American and Iraqi government raids in the villages and deserts of Deir el-Zour.

Osama, a young jihadi from Abu Khuder's unit with a kind smile, was 17 in 2003 when the Americans invaded Iraq, he said. He ran away from home and joined the thousands of other Syrians who crossed the porous border and went to fight. Like most of those volunteers, at first he was inspired by a mixture of nationalistic and tribal allegiances, but later religion became his sole motivation.

After returning to Syria he drifted closer to the jihadi ideology. It was dangerous then, and some of his friends were imprisoned by the regime, which for years played a double game, allowing jihadis to filter across the borders to fight the Americans while at the same time keeping them tightly under control at home.

In the first months of the Syrian uprising, he joined the protesters in the street, and when some of his relatives were killed he defected and joined the Free Syrian Army.

"I decided to join the others," he said. "But then I became very disappointed with the FSA. When they fought they were great, but then most of the time they sat in their rooms doing nothing but smoke and gossip and chat on Skype."

Fed up with his commanders' bickering and fighting over money, he turned to another fighting group based in the village of Shahail, 50 miles west of Mohassen, which has become the de facto capital of al-Qaida in Deir el-Zour. More than 20 of its young men were killed in Iraq. In Shahail the al-Qaida fighters drive around in white SUVs with al-Qaida flags fluttering.

The group there was led by a pious man. He knew a couple of them from his time in Iraq. One day, the group's leader – a Saudi who covered his hair with a red scarf and carried a small Kalashnikov, in the style of Bin Laden – visited Mohassen. He gave a long sermon during the funeral of a local commander, telling the audience how jihad was the only way to lead a revolution against the infidel regime of Bashar al-Assad, and how they, the Syrians, were not only victims of the regime but also of the hypocrisy of the west, which refused to help them.

"They were committed," said Osama. "They obeyed their leader and never argued. In the FSA, if you have 10 people they usually split and form three groups." The jihadis, by contrast, used their time "in useful things, even the chores are divided equally".

Osama joined the group. "He [the Saudi] is a very good man, he spends his days teaching us. You ask him anything and he will answer you with verses from the Qur'an, you want to read the Qur'an you can read. You want to study bomb-making he will teach you."

In the pre-revolutionary days when the regime was strong it would take a year to recruit someone to the secret cause of jihad. "Now, thanks to God, we are working in the open and many people are joining in," said Osama.

In Shahail we interviewed Saleem Abu Yassir, a village elder and the commander of the local FSA brigade. He sat in a room filled with tribal fighters and machine-guns. The relationship with al-Qaida had been very difficult, he said, with the jihadis being secretive and despising the FSA and even calling them infidel secularists. But now they had opened up, co-operating with other rebel groups.

"Are they good fighters?" he threw the question rhetorically into the room. "Yes, they are, but they have a problem with executions. They capture a soldier and they put a pistol to his head and shoot him. We have religious courts and we have to try people before executing them. This abundance of killing is what we fear. We fear they are trying to bring us back to the days of Iraq and we have seen what that achieved."

Osama had told me that his group was very cautious about not repeating the Iraq experience – "they admit they made a lot of mistakes in Iraq and they are keen to avoid it", he said – but others, including a young doctor working for the revolution, were not convinced. The opposition needed to admit Al-Qaida were among them, and be on their guard.

"Who kidnapped the foreign engineers who worked in the nearby oilfield?" he asked. "They have better financing than the FSA and we have to admit they are here.

"They are stealing the revolution from us and they are working for the day that comes after."







=

=

Russia Upgrades Status of Syrian Conflict

AFP/ Bulent Kilic13:11 31/07/2012
MOSCOW, July 31 (RIA Novosti)
http://en.rian.ru/russia/20120731/174879588.html​

The Russian government has upgraded the status of the Syrian conflict, adding the country to the list of nations “in the state of emergency or military conflict,” in line with a decree issued by Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev.

Previously, Syria was listed as a country with a “complicated social and political situation.”

The decree, dated July 26, was published on the online federal legal database on Tuesday. The document introduces amendments to guarantees provided to Russian diplomats abroad.

Besides Syria, the Central African Republic (CAR) and Sri Lanka have also been removed from the list of countries with “complicated social and political situation,” while India and Kenya have been added.

The decree comes as Syrian troops have continued a major offensive against rebels in Aleppo, a northern commercial hub, on Tuesday. Syrian state TV reports that government troops have been gaining ground in several Aleppo neighborhoods, a claim dismissed by rebel forces.

Some observers view the battle for Aleppo as a major watershed in the Syrian conflict which could decide the future of the armed uprising against President Bashar al-Assad.

The 17-month old conflict has already left between 14,000 and 17,000 people dead, according to estimates by Syrian activists. International diplomatic efforts have failed to force the conflicting sides to stop the bloodshed and begin talks.






=

=

2012-07-31

Romney Ups the Ante in Israel

http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=53666​

Mitt Romney took his campaign to Israel with a belligerent speech suggesting that he, as President, would happily support an Israeli war against Iran. In a major foreign policy speech, he also ignored Palestinian rights and repeated some old Mideast canards, reports Robert Parry.

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney told an audience of Israelis and some wealthy pro-Israel Americans that he is prepared to employ “any and all measures” to stop Iran from gaining a nuclear weapons “capability,” a vague concept that arguably already exists.

Romney’s speech in Jerusalem on Sunday was accompanied by a comment from his top foreign policy adviser Dan Senor seeming to endorse an Israeli unilateral strike against Iran. “If Israel has to take action on its own,” Senor said, “the governor would respect that decision.”

In what was widely interpreted as an attempt by Romney to peel some Jewish votes – and particularly Jewish financial support – away from President Barack Obama, Romney insisted that he has long supported an aggressive strategy against Iran.

“Five years ago, at the Herzliya Conference [on Israeli security], I stated my view that Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons capability presents an intolerable threat to Israel, to America, and to the world,” Romney said on Sunday. “That threat has only become worse. …

“Now as then, the conduct of Iran’s leaders gives us no reason to trust them with nuclear material. But today, the regime in Iran is five years closer to developing nuclear weapons capability. Preventing that outcome must be our highest national security priority. …

“We must not delude ourselves into thinking that containment is an option. We must lead the effort to prevent Iran from building and possessing nuclear weapons capability. We should employ any and all measures to dissuade the Iranian regime from its nuclear course, and it is our fervent hope that diplomatic and economic measures will do so. In the final analysis, of course, no option should be excluded.”

By elevating Iran’s achievement of a nuclear weapons “capability” to America’s “highest national security priority” and vowing to “employ any and all measures” to prevent that eventuality, Romney is essentially threatening war against Iran under the current situation. In that, he is going beyond the vague language used by President Obama, who himself has sounded belligerent with his phrasing about “all options on the table” to stop Iran if it moves to build a nuclear weapon.

However, the nuance here is significant, since U.S. intelligence agencies – and even their Israeli counterparts – have concluded that Iran has not decided to build a nuclear weapon even as it makes progress in a nuclear program that Iranian leaders say is for peaceful purposes only. Still, those lessons from a peaceful nuclear program arguably can give a country a nuclear weapons “capability.” [See Consortiumnews.com’s ““US/Israel: Iran NOT Building Nukes.”]

In recent months, American neoconservatives and sympathetic journalists have slipped in the new weasel word “capability”in the face of complaints that the earlier formulation about Iran seeking nuclear weapons was contradicted by the U.S. intelligence assessment. For most casual readers, the subtle change was barely noted but the word “capability” can mean pretty much anything.

To deny Iran a nuclear “capability” would almost surely require a war between the United States and Iran, a course that some neocons have been quietly desiring for at least the past decade when the Iraq invasion was seen as a first step to bringing “regime change” to Iran – or as some neocons joked at the time, “real men go to Tehran.”

Indeed, the massive U.S. Embassy in Baghdad – which now sits increasingly idle – can be best understood as the intended imperial command center for a new American dominance of the region. But those neocon plans were spoiled by the disastrous turn of the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq and ultimately America’s forced military withdrawal from the country at the end of 2011.

Usual Misquote​

Romney’s speech in Israel was also peppered with the usual exaggerations about Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad making threats about “wiping this nation off the map.” Though that quote is now widely known to be a mistranslation, U.S. leaders, including President Obama, have continued to cite it as part of their tough-talking indictment of Iranian intentions.

Indeed, repeating the bogus quote has become almost an expected signal of support for Israel. Romney even mocked those who note the mistranslation as something of Ahmadinejad apologists by adding: “only the naïve – or worse – will dismiss it as an excess of rhetoric.”

Beyond Romney’s full-throated advocacy of Israeli policies in the Middle East, his speech was also notable in that he made no reference to Palestinian rights or the two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Romney’s references to the Palestinians were limited to his condemnation of Hamas, the militant group that now governs Gaza.

To drive his apparent disdain for Palestinian rights home, Romney referred to Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, something the Obama administration avoids because the Palestinians hope that East Jerusalem might someday become the capital of their future state.

Besides ignoring Palestinian desires for statehood and self-determination, Romney finished his speech with flowery – and some might say hypocritical – rhetoric about the commitment of the United States and Israel to the rule of law and to democracy. He said:

“We both believe in democracy, in the right of every people to select their leaders and choose their nation’s course. We both believe in the rule of law, knowing that in its absence, willful men may incline to oppress the weak.

We both believe that our rights are universal, granted not by government but by our Creator.

“I believe that the enduring alliance between the State of Israel and the United States of America is more than a strategic alliance: it is a force for good in the world. America’s support of Israel should make every American proud. We should not allow the inevitable complexities of modern geopolitics to obscure fundamental touchstones.

“No country or organization or individual should ever doubt this basic truth: A free and strong America will always stand with a free and strong Israel. And standing by Israel does not mean with military and intelligence cooperation alone.

We cannot stand silent as those who seek to undermine Israel, voice their criticisms. And we certainly should not join in that criticism. Diplomatic distance in public between our nations emboldens Israel’s adversaries.

“By history and by conviction, our two countries are bound together.

No individual, no nation, no world organization, will pry us apart. And as long as we stay together and stand together, there is no threat we cannot overcome and very little that we cannot achieve.”

The New York Times reported that among the Americans flown to Israel to witness Romney’s speech were casino magnate Sheldon Adelson, who has vowed to spend $100 million to defeat Obama; Cheryl Halpern, a New Jersey Republican and advocate for Israel; Woody Johnson, owner of the New York Jets; John Miller, chief executive of the National Beef Packing Company; John Rakolta, a Detroit real estate developer; L. E. Simmons, the owner of a private-equity firm in Texas with ties to the oil industry; Paul Singer, founder of a $20 billion hedge fund; and Eric Tanenblatt, a Romney fund-raiser in Atlanta.






=

Posted For Fair Use And Discussion.
http://www.debka.com/article/22225/Saudi-silence-on-intelligence-chief-Bandar’s-fate-denotes-panic

Saudi silence on intelligence chief Bandar’s fate denotes panic
DEBKAfile Special Report July 31, 2012, 1:52 PM (GMT+02:00)
Tags: Prince Bandar Saudi Arabia Iranian terror Syria US


Disquiet in Washington, Jerusalem and a row of Middle East capitals is gaining ground the longer the Saudi government stays silent on the reports of the assassination of the newly-appointed Saudi intelligence chief Prince Bandar bin Sultan, purportedly in a revenge operation by a Syrian intelligence death squad. If true, it would shoot a devastating tentacle out from the Syrian conflict to the broader region.

It is widely feared that Saudi rulers are too traumatized to respond by the fear of Iranian penetration of the highest and most closely guarded circles of Saudi government, possibly climaxing in Bandar’s assassination.

The unconfirmed reports of his death attribute its motive to revenge by Iran and Syria for the bomb explosion five days earlier in Damascus which killed four of Bashar Assad’s top managers of his war on the uprising against his regime.

The prince, son of the late crown prince Sultan, has not been seen in public since Saudi General Intelligence headquarters in Riyadh was hit by a bomb blast Monday, July 23 killing his deputy, Mashaal al-Qarni.

DEBKA-Net-Weekly 550 of Friday, July 26, was the first world publication to report this attack, in the face of a massive official blackout, from its exclusive intelligence sources.
Now as then, debkafile’s sources have obtained no confirmation that Prince Bandar was injured or killed in that attack. King Abdullah made him Director of Saudi Intelligence on July 19, just a day after the Damascus bombing. But our sources doubt whether a Syrian intelligence squad would be capable of reaching deep inside Riyadh. They therefore postulate that the deed was committed or orchestrated by a clandestine Iranian agency.
It wouldn’t be the first time.

In 2003 and 2004, Iran initiated a wave of bombing attacks inside the Saudi kingdom carried out by Al Qaeda, supplying its terror squads with intelligence, explosives and money. Al Qaeda experts ran those operations. One of them, Saif al-Adal, was later freed by Iran and is now based in Pakistan.

Iran’s terror masters may have gone back to their tested stratagem of hiring Al Qaeda terrorists for an insider job against the Saudi regime.

For Tehran, all means are justified for the preservation of their foremost Arab ally, Syrian ruler Bashar Assad, in power. Furthermore, Iran’s ability to strike deep into the heart of the Saudi capital is meant to serve as a timely object lesson for their Middle East enemies that Iran’s arm is long enough to reach inside any of their capitals.

The attack on Riyadh therefore throws a new perspective on the military calculations actuating the “Arab Spring” and governing US and Israel plans to strike Iran’s nuclear program in the very near future. In the same way, the Damascus bombing of July 18 dragged the Syrian civil war outside its borders to Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Turkey and Iran.

The unconfirmed report claiming Prince Bandar was critically injured and his doctors had lost the fight to save him, spilling out since Sunday July 29, has gained wide resonance – not because it was verified but because of its momentous strategic significance. Corroboration is still lacking. debkafile reports that Washington too is groping the dark and has turned to its many Middle East intelligence contacts for a glimmer of light on what has happened to the key Saudi figure – so far without success.

It looks as though the enigma will be solved one way or another only after an authoritative account or an official statement is forthcoming from the Saudi government or if the missing prince appears in public. The absence of any word from the Saudi government increases the trepidation in Washington and among concerned parties in the Middle East.

=

Prince Bandar Bin Sultan:
Is The Saudi Spy Chief Dead Or Alive?

By Staff Reporter
July 31, 2012 1:52 PM GMT
http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/articles/368685/20120731/prince-bandar-bin-sultan-saudi-spy-chief.htm​

Unconfirmed reports are emerging from the Middle East and Europe that Saudi Arabia’s intelligence chief Prince Bandar bin Sultan bin Abdulaziz Al Saud has been assassinated.

The Voltaire Network of Paris reported that Bandar was killed in a bomb attack on July 26. He was apparently murdered by Syrian operatives in retaliation for his alleged role in the July 18 bombing in Damascus which killed four of President Bashar al-Assad’s inner circle, including Defense Minister Dawoud Rajiha and his deputy Assef Shawkat.

However, neither Saudi nor Syrian sources have confirmed the alleged assassination.

The Prince was a familiar figure in the U.S. since he served as Saudi ambassador to the US from 1983 until 2005. He was appointed Saudi intelligence chief earlier this month, reportedly a reward for having orchestrated the Damascus attack.
[/size]




=

=

Could the Syrian chaos spill
over the border into Jordan?

Published July 31st, 2012 - 17:08 GMT
via SyndiGate.info
http://www.albawaba.com/behind-news/saudi-jordan-fsa-436397​

According to ‘Arab al Yawm’ newspaper the regular Saudi money sent to Jordan is late. But there’s been no mismanagement of the funds. Instead, according to sources within the government, Saudi is using the money as leverage to get what it wants.

And what Saudi wants is a “military stance” on Syria from the Hashemite Kingdom. In fact, unless Amman complies with the Saudi condition to set up a military base for the FSA on the Jordanian-Syrian border, they won’t see the money at all.

Dr. Mead Fhakoury, office manager of the King of Jordan, has reportedly been asking in hushed whispers, “why is the Saudi money late?”

According to Arab al Yawm, a major Jordanian government figure made a questionable phone call to a prominent Saudi insider just recently, enquiring about the aid. He was told that the payment has not yet moved.

In the meantime, Kuwait has made empty promises to step in to cover the aid deficit but if Jordan wants the Saudi money they will need to step up their policy on Syria.

For the Hashemite Kingdom, the situation is now urgent as more and more Syrian refugees flood into the country - on last count 142,000 were registered - resources are running dangerously low.

Other refugees, such as those from Iraq, have now been told to leave off updating their permits for another year because of the influx of Syrians. But the price of getting involved could be even higher for Jordan, whose proximity to the chaos is a constant source of concern.

On this basis, the Jordanian government has been doing its best to secure the money without the need to give military support to the Syrian opposition. According to the same report, Amman tried to go direct to Prince Bandar Bin Sultan, head of Saudi intelligence, to get financed. But he was on a secret trip to Turkey where he was allegedly offering financial support in exchange for Turkish promises to go pro-FSA.

This latest move doesn’t bode well for the Jordanians who are looking to stay out of politics and out of trouble. If they agree to set up a base on their border for the FSA they will lose any chance of keeping the conflict outside of their remit.






=

=

Iran 'will not allow enemy
to advance' in Syria: military

July 31, 2012 11:27 AM
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Mi...-advance-in-syria-military.ashx#axzz22DwYSX6v​

TEHRAN: Iran "will not allow the enemy to advance" in its key ally Syria, but does not yet see the need to directly intervene, the deputy chief of the Islamic republic's armed forces was quoted as saying in reports Tuesday.

"There is still no need for Syria's circle of friends to fully enter the arena, and our assessment is that there will be no need to do so," Brigadier General Masoud Jazayeri said, according to the Shargh daily.

"In special situations, we decide how to support the regional (anti-Israeli) resistance and our friends. We shall wait to see the future situation and conditions," he said.

"We are very sensitive when it comes to our friends in the (anti-Israeli) resistance in the region, and we will not allow the enemy to advance," he said.

A senior commander in Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards, General Hamid Reza Moqadam-Far, was quoted in another newspaper, Kayhan, saying that Syrian civilians were now fighting rebels alongside the regime's troops.

He added that, if the rebellion was routed, it would "deliver an enormous blow to Saudi Arabia and Western countries," which Tehran sees as directly helping the insurgents.

Iran is one of the key allies of the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, alongside Russia and China. It sees Syria as part of a regional anti-Israeli bloc that includes itself, the Lebanese militia Hezbollah, and the Palestinian group Hamas.

Tehran has been providing humanitarian aid and diplomatic support to Damascus, but denies reports it has already sent military assistance.

Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi held a telephone conversation late Monday with his Swedish counterpart, Carl Bildt, in which he said there was a need for a dialogue to be held between Syria's regime and opposition to resolve the conflict.

"Syria's friends and those who want peace and stability in the region must prepare the ground to permit dialogue between the regime and the opposition to facilitate an exit from the crisis," Salehi was quoted as saying by the official news agency IRNA.

On Monday, the Syrian regime sent helicopter gunships and artillery to pound rebel-held districts in Aleppo, the country's commercial capital.

The 16-month uprising in Syria, and Assad's crackdown on it, has cost more than 20,000 lives according to activists and sent hundreds of thousands of civilians fleeing their homes.


Read more: http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Mi...-advance-in-syria-military.ashx#ixzz22Dwd4L7x
(The Daily Star :: Lebanon News :: http://www.dailystar.com.lb)




=

=

Nationwide blackouts
to hit Lebanon, says EDL

Published July 31st, 2012 - 12:10 GMT
via SyndiGate.info
http://www.albawaba.com/business/lebanon-electricity-436342​

Electricite du Liban warned Monday that the country could face a nationwide blackout if contract workers do not end their “takeover” of the state-run company’s headquarters in Beirut. In an unprecedented move, EDL contract workers blocked off the company’s offices in Mar Mikhail and called for closing other EDL headquarters across Lebanon. They vowed to continue shutting down headquarters until their demand to become full-time employees is met.

According to a statement from the EDL board of directors, the company was “forcibly shut down because of the takeover by some contract workers and bill collectors,” warning that the “measures taken by the contract workers would lead to an electricity blackout in all of Lebanon in the coming hours.”

The board issued the statement after holding a meeting at the Zouk power plant north of Beirut, where it moved its headquarters after being unable to enter the Mar Mikhail offices closed off by contract employees.

EDL said it would only consider the “takeover” as over when the premises “have been evacuated and the security situation restored.” It said that employees manning the National Control Center in the Mar Mikhail headquarters – which controls electricity distribution across Lebanon – were evacuated after being trapped inside, leaving no one to run the center.

EDL’s board of directors will hold a news conference Tuesday at 1 p.m. at the Zouk power plant. But Lubnan Makhoul, the head of EDL contract workers’ committee, said that EDL was making threats of a nationwide blackout in order to tarnish the reputation of contract workers and put them under pressure.

“We decided to close [EDL] headquarters [across the country] rather than power plants,” Makhoul told The Daily Star. “So why would the power go off? They make such threats so that people would think that we do not care for them,” he added.Makhoul said that EDL headquarters would remain closed until demands were met. “Tomorrow will be just like today.” Contract workers resumed their sit-in at Beirut headquarters Monday, setting fire to several tires inside the building’s gates.

The protesters closed off all entrances to the premises with metal chains as EDL administration staff stood outside and tried to negotiate with the contract workers to allow them in. Employees tasked with coordinating hours of rationing electricity across the city were prevented from entering the building.

Angry staff members briefly blocked the road near EDL to protest the contract-workers’ actions before returning to their homes. Internal Security Forces deployed heavily near EDL premises. The three-month strike by contract workers has resulted in blackouts in recent weeks in a number of areas in the capital.

Contract workers, who number more than 2,000, are demanding that they are paid their salaries, which they haven’t received in over three months, and that they become full-time employees.

Parliament endorsed in early July a draft law making them full-time employees. But the law, supported by Speaker Nabih Berri, outraged his ally, Free Patriotic Movement leader Michel Aoun. Energy Minister Gebran Bassil, Aoun’s son-in-law, believes only a little more than 700 contract-workers should become full-time employees after a probation period of three months. Bassil argues that EDL does not need all the contract workers to become full-time employees.

EDL has said that it will only pay the May salaries of contract workers, arguing that they should begin working for private service providers by June 2.

The escalation of the workers’ protest came in response to EDL announcing that private-service providers would begin making repairs Monday and that bill collections would resume. Bill collection has been on hold for the past five months in many parts of Lebanon, as contract workers used to do the job.

A source close to Berri told The Daily Star Monday that earlier efforts by Hezbollah and Marada Movement leader Suleiman Franjieh are still ongoing to mediate a solution between Berri and Aoun. “They are working on a solution acceptable to both sides.” “Contract workers have not received their salaries for the past four months and they will by no means stop action,” he added. The source said that Berri would support any agreement reached between Bassil and contract employees.

Speaking at the beginning of a Cabinet session at Baabda Palace, Health Minister Ali Hasan Khalil, a political aide to Berri, said the demands of contract employees can only be addressed through dialogue, citing the example of ongoing talks between Education Minister Hasan Diab and teachers demanding a salary raise.

Ghassan Ghosn, head of the General Labor Confederation, voiced his support for the demands of contract employees. Addressing contract workers at EDL headquarters after holding talks with members of the contract workers’ committee, Ghosn said: “The law to employ you has been endorsed [by Parliament] and measures to implement it should take place.”

“It is unacceptable that a worker who receives a daily wage of LL30,000 and makes sacrifices to earn this amount cannot afford visiting a physician,” he said, referring to the plight of contract workers who are not enrolled at the National Social Security Fund. “This is injustice.” Ghosn said there would be no negotiations until contract workers were paid their salaries for recent months.

The National News Agency reported that EDL contract workers in Akkar held a symbolic sit-in, closing the Abdeh roundabout for a short while. In addition to their demands to become full-time employees, contract workers, joined by other locals, protested that Akkar receives only five hours of power each day.

In protest against the contract workers’ actions preventing EDL staff from entering the premises, a number of members of the executive council of the EDL full-time employees union said they would suspend their participation in the council until the union once again defends the dignity of employees.







=

http://english.irib.ir/radioislam/n...ed-in-an-explosion-near-intelligence-building

Saudi Arabia deputy spy chief killed in an explosion near intelligence building


A blast has hit the building of Saudi intelligence service in Riyadh, killing deputy of the newly-appointed intelligence chief Prince Bandar bin Sultan, according to reports.

The explosion took place on Sunday when Bin Sultan’s deputy was entering the building; Yemen's al-Fajr Press quoted eyewitnesses as saying.

Saudi media have so far refrained from showing any reaction to the blast.

http://www.wnd.com/2012/07/iran-preparing-madhis-special-forces/


Iran preparing Mahdi's Special Forces
Army of operatives planning for terror, destruction of the West

by Reza Kahlili

The Quds Forces, a special Iranian unit of thousands of operatives tasked with exporting Iran’s Islamic revolution, are being told to step up preparations for terrorism for the coming of the last Islamic messiah and the destruction of the West.

Ali Saeedi, the Iranian supreme leader’s representative to the Revolutionary Guards, emphasized during a Friday sermon in Tehran that the Islamic republic must directly confront America so that the necessary environment is created for the reappearance of Mahdi, the Shiite’s 12th imam, who will kill all infidels and raise the flag of Islam in all corners of the world.

“In three points of history, God directly confronts the will of unruly humans in which, of course, the Right will overcome the False,” Saeedi said, according to the Sepah News, the Guards’ official publication. “The first point in history was during the era of pharaoh, the second era was Bani Abbas, and the third is our current era in which it seems that God has willed us to enlighten the world with the coming of Imam Mahdi.”

Saeedi, “Many of the signs [necessary] for the coming have taken place during the previous years; however, the main sign will take place right before the coming.”

There are five levels of readiness that have to be prepared for the coming, he said: “Individual readiness, the readiness for creating the environment, systematic readiness, the readiness in the region and the international readiness. This means Occupy Wall Street must take place, the Americans must lose hope with the Democratic Party and others, and lose faith in the U.N., while at the same time the unraveling in the Middle East, which was not ripe before, must have taken place before the coming.”

This is the first time a high-ranking Iranian official has stated on the record that the Quds Forces are not only involved in the region, but also internationally for a final confrontation with the West.

“The Revolutionary Guards are one vehicle for preparation for the coming, and in the current Islamic Awakening [the Arab Spring] in the region and on international arena, the Quds Forces play a major role in preparing the readiness of the human force needed for such an event,” Saeedi said. “The chief commander of the Guards and the supreme leader’s representative are tasked for preparing the individual readiness, regional readiness as well as international readiness for the coming.”

In another Guards’ weekly publication, Sobhe Sadegh, a front-page analysis explains that the opening of Iran’s geopolitics and the empowerment of its Islamic power are a reality in which Iran’s influence has expanded not only in the region, but also in Africa, Latin America, Eastern Asia and even in Europe and America.

As was the fall of socialism and the Eastern bloc, the analysis promises, so will be the fall of the capitalism and liberal democracy.

The analysis refers to the statements of the founder of the Islamic revolution, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini:

• “I say with all certainty that the 21st century will be the century of Islam.”
  
• “I say with all certainty that Islam will conquer all key entrenchments of the world.”
  
• “I say with all certainty that Islam will defeat all world powers.”
  
• “I say with all certainty that the 21st century is the century where the oppressed will be victorious over the oppressors.”

While the Quds Forces have recently expanded their operations in shipment of explosives to Latin America, Africa and other places in the world, and at the same time have put terror cells on high alert for terrorist acts, the Islamic regime in Iran has expanded its nuclear program in which over 11,000 centrifuges are now running at two facilities, increasing its enriched uranium stock.

As of the last report in May by the IAEA, Iran had enough enriched uranium for six nuclear bombs, and despite all negotiations and recent sanctions, the Iranian supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, announced days ago that there will be no turning back from the nuclear path.

Reza Kahlili translated this Iranian video about Islamic prophecies of a coming messiah and the destruction of Israel:


Reza Kahlili is a pseudonym for a former CIA operative in Iran’s Revolutionary Guards and the author of the award-winning book, A Time to Betray. He is a senior Fellow with EMPact America, a member of the Task Force on National and Homeland Security and teaches at the U.S. Department of Defense’s Joint Counterintelligence Training Academy (JCITA).

Hummm.....

For links see article source....
Posted for fair use.....
http://thediplomat.com/2012/07/31/can-a-new-nato-deter-iran/

Can a New ‘NATO’ Deter Iran?
July 31, 2012
By Zachary K. Goldman & Mira Rapp-Hooper

Could a strong U.S. led alliance network be the answer to regional security in the Persian Gulf?

On Wednesday, the Pentagon announced that it would sell 60 Patriot missiles worth $4.2 billion to Kuwait. This move is not terribly surprising—following the 1991 Gulf War, Kuwait was an early purchaser of the PAC-3 capability, and the U.S. has sold Patriots to several other allies in dangerous neighborhoods. The United States also recently announced that Qatar will host a long-range X-band missile defense radar to bulk up early warning capabilities in the region. With the latest round of talks over the Iranian nuclear program ending with no reported progress, it seems like the United States is beginning to take precautions should diplomacy fail. The Obama administration's policy is to prevent the Islamic Republic from obtaining nuclear weapons instead of learning to live with an Iranian bomb, and as such has refused to publicly discuss “containment” options. But as this nuclear standoff has picked up steam in the last year, U.S. officials have clearly begun to probe the possibilities for beefing up Gulf security. Whether or not Iran goes nuclear, the United States and its regional partners are right to seriously consider security arrangements for the Gulf. But the form that those arrangements take is still an open question.

In March of this year, U.S. officials met with the six states of the Gulf Cooperation Council—Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates—marking the inaugural session of the US-GCC Strategic Cooperation Forum. At that meeting, Secretary of State Clinton declared that the U.S. was “committed to defending the Gulf nations and we want it to be as effective as possible.” And this was not the first sign of increased U.S. interest in a more robust GCC. In September 2011, Secretaries Clinton and Panetta met with leaders of the six Gulf states during the UN General Assembly. In advance of the meeting, Panetta stated that the Council was “emerging as an increasingly critical partner to advancing our common interests,” and impressed upon his Gulf counterparts the importance of a stronger Gulf security architecture. Secretary Clinton and President Obama have each suggested that if Iran goes nuclear the United States may extend its security umbrella to cover Gulf partners, and several recent analyses have suggested that the GCC could be a new NATO. Is a multilateral security umbrella the U.S.’s best defense in this tumultuous region? To answer this question, we must explore what that kind of military cooperation this would entail.

Strictly speaking, extending a formal U.S. security umbrella over the Gulf would require guarantees in the form of defense pacts with GCC states, or with the GCC as a whole. These security guarantees would have mutual or collective self-defense provisions, promising that an attack on any one member state would require a military response from them all. When a nuclear weapons state like the U.S. extends such guarantees, it implies a willingness to use its own nuclear weapons on behalf of its allies if that becomes necessary. One goal of these guarantees is to provide for allies’ defense needs. But a related goal is the hope that the presence of these guarantees will keep the recipients from pursuing their own nuclear weapons. This motivation would clearly be at play in the Gulf, where Saudi Arabia is believed to be a proliferation risk if Iran obtains a nuclear weapon.

Security guarantees could be provided through a series of bilateral treaties, following the “hub-and-spokes” alliance system the U.S. currently maintains in East Asia. A guarantee could also be provided to the GCC as a whole, resulting in a single, multilateral, defense pact. But there are at least three reasons why a multilateral approach may be inadvisable.

First, multilateral defense organizations require close integration among the members, but there may be limits to how much further the GCC states can integrate. Additionally, successful security umbrellas require major commitments from their great power patrons but conditions at home, and political realities in the region, may make it very difficult for the United States to invest in new alliance structures. Building a defense architecture in the Gulf that even approximates NATO’s level of cohesion will therefore be extremely difficult.

Any militarily effective defense pact would require close regional integration. The majority of the military capabilities of GCC states, however, belong to Saudi Arabia, and because many member states are wary of Saudi domination they may be reluctant to entrust their future security to a Saudi-dominated regional body. Indeed, in 2010, Saudi Arabia alone accounted for nearly 40% of total military expenditures for the Middle East and North African region. The Kingdom also accounts for approximately two-thirds of the population of the GCC and a similar proportion of the GCC’s total active duty military forces, along with nearly half of its combat capable aircraft. It is no surprise, then, that some of the other Gulf states fear that any truly integrated regional defense organization will be dominated by Saudi Arabia, and have thus far resisted Riyadh’s efforts to more tightly integrate the GCC.

Furthermore, any sort of nuclear umbrella or formal regional defense pact would likely require much greater—and much more public—American involvement in regional defense decisions. Such an arrangement would likely require significantly enhanced joint military consultations, joint training and exercises, and perhaps coordinated warplanning. Many of the U.S.’s previous security guarantees have involved the recipient country extending forward basing rights. While the U.S. currently enjoys excellent bilateral military relations with the states of the GCC, some of them may balk at the expanded military footprint that a nuclear umbrella agreement may require. Indeed, this dynamic was at work in 2003, when the U.S. pulled most of its troops out of Saudi Arabia, where it had made use of important military facilities like the Prince Sultan Air Base for many years. The significant U.S. military presence in Saudi Arabia, a vulnerability for the Saudi royal family, became too much to bear after the American invasion of Iraq earlier in the year.

Finally, domestic political and economic conditions inside the United States make deeper US commitments to the Gulf unlikely. This is so both because of the current domestic political climate, which is weary of military engagements after a decade of war, and because the American public is unlikely to endorse increased obligations to Middle Eastern monarchies as the rest of the region appears to be democratizing. Indeed, in 2010, after the Obama Administration proposed an unprecedented $60 billion arms sale to Saudi Arabia, 198 Members of Congress from both political parties wrote to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates questioning the rationale for the sale. Concerns regarding a deepening military commitment to the Gulf are likely to be even more pointed when they involve not arms sales, but rather the long-term commitment of American resources in a time when budgetary pressures are being felt around the country, and “sequestration” hangs like a Sword of Damocles over the Defense Department.

Whether or not it gets the bomb, Iran is clearly eager to upset the current regional security system that is dominated by the U.S. and its allies. The United States can and should remain close to, and intensify cooperation with, its regional partners in the face of this behavior. A formal NATO-style collective defense pact, however, is unlikely to be viable means of achieving those goals. Instead, the U.S. should consider intensifying its bilateral ties with some individual GCC countries where appropriate, forming a “hub-and-spokes” system of defense arrangements like the one that has worked so well in East Asia. Such a system may allow for enhanced military preparations in the form of information-sharing, training, the promotion of interoperability, and holding military exercises in a way that is feasible, but does not require more regional defense integration than GCC states are willing or able to handle.

Like many regional fora, the GCC is a good way to encourage greater cooperation among members, but it is probably not a defense panacea. If the U.S. is to shore up the Gulf’s security architecture, regional pressures as well as domestic ones suggest that less formal bilateral ties are the way to go.

Zachary K. Goldman is the Executive Director of the Center on Law and Security at NYU School of Law, and has previously worked on Middle East issues at the Treasury and Defense Departments. Mira Rapp-Hooper is a PhD candidate in Political Science at Columbia University and is writing a dissertation on nuclear umbrella alliances.

Related Features

China-Russia’s Anti-NATO?
Is the Global NATO Dream Over?
Why the ‘Anti-NATO’ Won’t Grow
NATO’s Afghan Lifeline
Time to Talk (Properly) to Iran

=







Syrian rebels have acquired shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles, NBC News reported late Tuesday night.

According to the report, Free Syrian Army rebels claim they now have nearly two dozen surface-to-air missiles smuggled from Turkey.

The exact type of missile was not mentioned in the report. Such a weapon, however, would offer a significant defense against helicopter gunships that Syrian government forces have deployed against rebel strongholds such as Aleppo, where intense fighting has raged for nearly two weeks






=

=

Iran ‘will not allow enemy to advance’

By: AFP | August 01, 2012 | 0
http://www.nation.com.pk/pakistan-n...Aug-2012/iran-will-not-allow-enemy-to-advance​

TEHRAN - Iran “will not allow the enemy to advance” in its key ally Syria, but does not yet see the need to directly intervene, the deputy chief of the Islamic republic’s armed forces was quoted as saying in reports on Tuesday.

“There is still no need for Syria’s circle of friends to fully enter the arena, and our assessment is that there will be no need to do so,” Brigadier General Masoud Jazayeri said, according to the Shargh daily. “In special situations, we decide how to support the regional (anti-Israeli) resistance and our friends.

We shall wait to see the future situation and conditions. We are very sensitive when it comes to our friends in the (anti-Israeli) resistance in the region, and we will not allow the enemy to advance,” he said.

A senior commander in Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards, General Hamid Reza Moqadam-Far, was quoted in another newspaper, Kayhan, saying that Syrian civilians were now fighting rebels alongside the regime’s troops.

He added that, if the rebellion was routed, it would “deliver an enormous blow to Saudi Arabia and Western countries,” which Tehran sees as directly helping the insurgents.

Iran is one of the key allies of the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, alongside Russia and China. It sees Syria as part of a regional anti-Israeli bloc that includes itself, the Lebanese militia Hezbollah, and the Palestinian group Hamas.






=

SouriShamy: An #Iranian intelligent officer was assassinated in #Damascus Time for #Iranians to go home & stop killing and conspiring against us #Syria
Tuesday, July 31, 2012 11:06:41 PM

AlArabiya_Eng: An Iranian diplomat has been assassinated in Damascus: Syrian opposition sources #AlArabiya #Syria #Assad
Tuesday, July 31, 2012 11:11:30 PM

This is post #995 on the long Damascus thread. This is the execution on the street today of some supposed Shahiba (ghost killer) guy and either his friends or family. It explains it all on the thread after this one was posted.

Pretty grim, they must have used like 10,000 bullets.


Hey_Joud: RT @SyriaTribune: The cold blooded killing of a number of tribal leaders in #Aleppo #syria by opposition rebels puts the city on hot tin https://t.co/qghKO8RB
Tuesday, July 31, 2012 5:21:15 PM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ey-0H7Y3v_I