WAR 04/07 to 04/14 ***The***Winds***of***WAR***

[The Flying Dutchman]

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(4)03/07 to 03/14 ***The***Winds***of***War***
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/showt...***of***War***

(5)03/15 to 03/21 ***The***Winds***of***WAR***
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/showt...***of***WAR***

(6)03/22 to 03/29 ***The***Winds***of***WAR
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/showt...nds***of***WAR

(7)03/30 to 04/06 ***The***Winds***of***WAR***
http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/showthread.php?402163-03-30-to-04-06-***The***Winds***of***WAR***




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Israeli pre-emptive strike plan demoralizes Iran

ALI BLUWI
Apr 7, 2012 01:51
http://arabnews.com/opinion/columns/article606783.ece​

Surveillance devices that belong to one Asian ship in the Arabian Gulf intercepted a dialogue between Iranian sailors and some Houthi leaders in Yemen.

The intercepted message, which is fully recorded, assures the Houthis that weapons and funds were sent and plans were to be implemented. A few days ago, Kuwait Islamist intellectual Abdullah Al-Nafisi revealed, based on credible information, that Iranian pilots were bombing the cities of Homs, Idlib and Niftnar after Syrian pilots refused to comply with military orders to bomb people. A Syrian opposition member, a former colonel from the military intelligence, confirmed that hundreds of dead bodies were moved to the national hospital in Homs. The people were killed because they refused to carry out orders in Homs. The bodies were supposed to be buried in a collective cemetery which was prepared for them, but people in Homs surrounded the hospitals to recognize them. Some of the dead bodies were actually belonged to air force personnel.

While the killings of people in Homs and other cities continue, there is an international silence due to the position of Russia, Iran and China. Some medical doctors and nurses were also killed to create the impression that they were killed as a result of sectarian operations carried out by Islamic groups. However, it is well known that some military elements from the division led by Assad’s brother, Mahir, carried out these attacks. Interestingly, Iran shipped a great deal of weapons from an Israeli origin to Damascus. These weapons were given to the Syrian Free Army and some protesters in order to paint the opposition as collaborating with Israel.

There are some confirmed reports that Iran and Israel have some sort of understanding over the Syrian crisis, Hezbollah, Hamas, and the nuclear issue. For this reason, Israeli sources are quick to say that military intervention in Syria is not possible and that Assad has already prevailed over his opponents. A few days ago, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that Assad could smile as the possibility of a military solution to the crisis was over. The Iraqi prime minister said that putting an end to Assad’s regime was not possible and unacceptable and that the crisis was over. The statements from the Iraqi prime minister were most disheartening. He did not have the courage to say “no” to Tehran especially even before the ink of the Arab League’s decisions went dry. His statements proved beyond doubts that the Iraqi sovereignty and decisions are still hostage to the Iranian position.

And yet, people have changed. They understood that the world is no longer the same and that the tools of politics have changed. In an era of the new media, the bankruptcy of dictatorships and ideologies cannot be more striking. Additionally, the new media has revealed that mentality of Iran, Syria, and Russia are something of the past where security solutions took precedence over political solutions. Not surprisingly, we see the insistence of the Syrian president to stay in power; manipulating the will of the Iranian people in elections; and the Russian rigged elections where the Russian people had either to elect Putin or a version of him!

The Syrian colonel said that over the last three months the Syrian regime aided by the Iranian intelligence were planning for the post Annan’s plan that is expected to fail. The new plan talks about transferring the weapons of the Division 14, moving the files of the state, and the archives of the Intelligence Department to the region of the Mountain (Al-Jabal). It transpired that the Iranian Revolutionary Guard has been overseeing the training of a special force that belongs to the family of Assad. This special force is made up of Shiite volunteers, some leaders of the Revolutionary Guard, and elements from the forces of Jerusalem, the army of Mahdi, the Iraqi and the Lebanese Hezbollah, and Badr organization. This big force is named the army of Al-Hussein. It has some 35,000 volunteers most of them well trained and took part in sectarian repression in Iraq and in Iran after rigging elections of 2009.

And Israeli intelligence report confirms that Iran fears the downfall of Assad because of the grave consequences on Iran. According to the report, Tehran was further terrified when Israel talked about a three-month period to end Iran’s nuclear project and that Israel would strike without taking permission from Washington. This pushed President Obama to send an urgent message to Tehran urging its leaders to respond quickly or else. Perhaps, this new development pushed Iran to agree on dialogue in Ankara about its nuclear file.

But, as Tehran defends Assad, it has managed to move battalions of the Revolutionary Guard and death squads to Syria in order to threaten the security of Israel in case Israel attacks Iran. Israeli reports confirm that the quantity of weapon sent to Syria indicate that Iran is actually preparing for war with Israel through Syria in order to impose a new reality in the region.

The question is who would fall first? Some information confirm that during a secret meeting the Assad family reached a conclusion that it is better to pave the way for power transfer to one personality from the Alawites. This conclusion came after the Syrian intelligence reports talked about defection among the army and that some 60 percent of the Baath party would give up on Assad, and that the latter will have no presence in the new political entities.

Additionally, Western reports confirm that change in Syria is inevitable within no more than six months. But what would happen if Israel carried out its decision during June? I think that Iran is between a rock and a hard place. The downfall of Assad will be too much for Iran to digest and an Israeli strike would surely emasculate Iran. This is exactly what the Iraqi prime minister and the president of Russia do not want to see.







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[The Flying Dutchman]

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Obama:
US willing to accept civilian Iranian nuclear program

Washington Post says message conveyed from Washington
to Tehran by Erdogan urges Iran to prove its aims are peaceful

By Yifa YaakovApril 6, 2012, 11:51 pm
http://www.timesofisrael.com/obama-us-willing-to-accept-irans-nuclear-program/​

US President Barack Obama would be willing to accept a civilian Iranian nuclear program and has told the Iranian leadership as much, according to an analysis by Washington Post columnist David Ignatius published Friday.

According to Ignatius, Obama will give Iran a green light to go ahead with its nuclear pursuits in the event that the Islamic republic guarantees that its ultimate objective is not to acquire a nuclear bomb – a message reportedly conveyed from Obama to Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei by Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who met with Obama in Seoul over a week ago.

While Iran claims its nuclear program is peaceful, the West – and Israel in particular – has grown increasingly more frustrated with Tehran’s evasive behavior, which has forced it to toughen its stance toward the Islamic republic and place yet another round of sanctions on its leadership and financial sector.

Earlier this week, US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton urged Iran to back up its declaration that Islam bars weapons of mass destruction by agreeing to a plan that would prove it does not intend to develop nuclear arms. She spoke ahead of international talks on Iran’s uranium enrichment program.

Though the meetings were set to take place on April 13th in Istanbul, Iranian officials have recently expressed concern over the pressure that Turkey continues to exert on Syria — a key Iranian ally — and have advocated a change of venue.






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[The Flying Dutchman]

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Fri Apr 06, 2012 23:02 pm (KSA) 20:02 pm (GMT)

Iranian cleric says Saudi Arabia is ‘center of sedition’

Friday, 06 April 2012
By Reuters
DUBAI
http://english.alarabiya.net/articles/2012/04/06/205898.html​

An Iranian cleric accused Saudi Arabia on Friday of giving refuge to terrorists and committing crimes in Arab states including Syria, the Iranian Students’ News Agency ISNA reported.

Relations between Gulf heavyweight Saudi Arabia and Iran have been strained over Iran’s nuclear program and what Saudi Arabia and some other Gulf Arab states say is Iran’s meddling in Arab affairs.

Tehran denies the charge and has condemned what it calls foreign interference in the affairs of its closest Arab ally, Syria.


“The Saudi government has become the center of sedition in the region and a safe haven for terrorists,” hardline cleric Ahmed Khatami said during a sermon at Friday prayers.

“They are taking seditionist acts in Syria ... I warn them that if they do not stop such actions, they will be burned with the fire they have created themselves,” Khatami said, according to ISNA.

Shiite Muslim Iran backed popular uprisings which have removed leaders in Egypt, Libya and Yemen, but has steadfastly supported Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, who is a member of the minority Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shiite Islam.

Backed by Western countries, Riyadh has spearheaded Arab efforts to counter Assad’s suppression of a year-old uprising and to demand that he step down.

In October, the United States said it had uncovered an Iranian-backed plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to Washington. Iran denied any involvement.

Riyadh suspects Tehran of backing unrest in neighboring Bahrain and supporting Shiite rebels in northern Yemen.

Saudi Arabia has indicated it could increase oil output to make up for Iranian crude in the event of a European Union embargo against Iranian oil, a stance criticized by Iranian officials.





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[The Flying Dutchman]

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China issues strongest warning yet on Iran attack

A senior Chinese diplomat said Friday an attack on Iran would
invite devastating retaliation that would envelop the region

Reuters
Published: 00:00 April 7, 2012
http://gulfnews.com/news/region/iran/china-issues-strongest-warning-yet-on-iran-attack-1.1005011​

Beijing; A senior Chinese diplomat said Friday an attack on Iran would invite devastating retaliation that would envelop the region and destabilise the global economic recovery, and added that the international community had to restrain itself.

Israel and the US have threatened military action against Iran unless it abandons its nuclear programme.

China, which has close energy and trade ties with Iran, has urged a negotiated solution to the dispute.

The comments by Chen Xiaodong, head of the Foreign Ministry's West Asia and North African affairs division, was China's strongest warning yet not to use force to resolve the dispute.

"If force is used on Iran, it will certainly incur retaliation, cause an even greater military clash, worsen turmoil in the region, threaten the security of the Strait of Hormuz and other strategic passages, drive up global oil prices and strike a blow at the world economic recovery," he said.





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[The Flying Dutchman]

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Another carrier arrives in region to bolster US Navy

Allan Jacob
7 April 2012
http://www.khaleejtimes.com/display...iddleeast_April88.xml&section=middleeast&col=​

DUBAI - In a significant boost to US naval capabilities in the region as tensions with Iran continue over its disputed nuclear programme, a second carrier has joined the USS Abraham Lincoln in the 5th Fleet area of operations.

The USS Enterprise, the world’s first nuclear-powered aircraft carrier and Carrier Strike Group 12 arrived in the region on April 3, officials confirmed to Khaleej Times late on Thursday.

The new strike group consists of the USS Enterprise, guided-missile cruiser USS Vicksburg, guided-missile destroyers USS Nitze, USS Porter and USS James E. Williams.

In reply to questions from Khaleej Times, Commander Amy Derrick-Frost of the US Naval Forces Central Command and 5th Fleet, said it was a routine deployment.

“The presence of two aircraft carriers fluctuates based on needs and requirements set by the combatant commander and approved by the Joint Staff and the Secretary of Defence, and ensures the US military has naval and air capabilities to support operations requirements, while adequately meeting other security commitments in the region.”

She said maritime operations were normal in the region and there was no sign of aggression from the Iranian navy. “All maritime interactions with Iranian naval forces continue to be routine and professional.”

Last month, Admiral Jonathan Greenert, chief of naval operations, had said that four more minesweepers and four more minesweeping helicopters would be sent to the Arabian Gulf. Iran had warned earlier this year that it would close the strategic Strait of Hormuz if attacked.

Commander Derrick-Frost said no additional minesweepers had deployed or arrived in the US Fifth Fleet area of operations.

Rear Admiral Walter E. Carter, Commander, Enterprise Carrier Strike Group, in a report on the US Navy’s official website said: “We’ve trained hard since our last deployment to the region making sure that the capabilities we bring remain flexible, adaptable and persistent.”

In the past ten years, there had been three periods of additional aircraft carrier presence within the US Central Command area ,as part of an increased military presence, said Commander Derrick-Frost. In March 2003 two carrier strike groups operated in the region simultaneously in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom.

In February 2007, USS John C. Stennis joined USS Dwight D. Eisenhower to continue support to operations Iraqi Freedom and Enduring Freedom.

In June 2010, aircraft carrier USS Harry S. Truman arrived to relieve USS Dwight D. Eisenhower.

This will be the final deployment for the Enterprise, America’s oldest active-duty warship. She will be decommissioned, after 50 years of naval service, said the navy
official.

US carrier strike groups are floating battle-ready units with awesome firepower and include a cruiser or destroyer squadron. They also have air wings with fighter jets.





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[The Flying Dutchman]

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U.S. Missile Defense in Gulf Signals
Strike on Iran – Russian Lawmaker

U.S. Missile Defense in Gulf Signals Strike on Iran

15:29 06/04/2012
http://en.rian.ru/russia/20120406/172654762.html​

A U.S.-backed plan to build a missile defense shield within the Gulf States may signal preparation for a military strike on Iran, Chairman of the State Duma International Affairs Committee Alexei Pushkov said on Friday.

“The building of a missile defense shield is a political step, which signals the possibility of a military strike against Iran,” he said, speaking at a round table conference on Iran at the Lower House of Parliament, the State Duma.

Pushkov’s comment comes after the U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Saturday at the Persian Gulf-U.S. security forum in Riyadh announced the idea of a missile defense shield in the six Persian Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) States, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Oman.

Iranian Defense Minister Ahmad Vahidi sharply criticized the U.S.-backed missile defense project, saying that it was “against regional security.”

"This missile defense shield is a U.S.-Israeli project and anyone who gets involved with this project is, in fact, implementing the U.S. and Israel's plot," the Fars news agency quoted Vahidi as saying.

Washington is seeking to expand its missile defense shield within the Gulf States. U.S. Patriot missiles are already deployed in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

Russian lawmaker also said that Iran was on the brink of a full-fledged military conflict, as diplomacy so far has not help diffuse the situation.

“Unfortunately, the situation [around Iran’s nuclear program] is not moving towards resolution but towards aggravation,” Pushkov said, adding that despite the international political and diplomatic efforts to solve the Iranian nuclear issue, “the likelihood of a full-fledged war is very high.”

Pushkov called on Iranian officials to take the Western threats “seriously” by “keeping in mind Iraq’s experience.”

He also said that bombing Iran’s nuclear facilities could trigger a global war, as the Islamic Republic would definitely respond and its response may be asymmetrical.

Pushkov reiterated Russia’s stance on Iran, saying that Moscow opposed any military outcome to tackle the Iranian nuclear problem.

“Russia has strongly condemned the so-called military scenario…there is no reason to say that anything will change in this regards,” Pushkov said.

The West accuses Iran of pursuing a secret nuclear weapons program but Tehran insists it needs nuclear power solely to generate electricity.






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[The Flying Dutchman]

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US-Israel War on Iran:
The Myth of Limited Warfare

by James Petras / April 5th, 2012
http://dissidentvoice.org/2012/04/us-israel-war-on-iran-the-myth-of-limited-warfare/​

The mounting threat of a US-Israeli military attack against Iran is based on several factors including: (1) the recent military history of both countries in the region, (2) public pronouncements by US and Israeli political leaders, (3) recent and on-going attacks on Lebanon and Syria, prominent allies of Iran, (4) armed attacks and assassinations of Iranian scientists and security officials by proxy and/or terrorist groups under US or Mossad control, (5) the failure of economic sanctions and diplomatic coercion, (6) escalating hysteria and extreme demands for Iran to end legal, civilian use-related uranium enrichment, (7) provocative military ‘exercises’ on Iran’s borders and war games designed for intimidation and a dress rehearsal for a preemptive attack, (8) powerful pro-war pressure groups in both Washington and Tel Aviv including the major Israeli political parties and the powerful AIPAC in the US, (9) and lastly the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act (Obama’s Orwellian Emergency Decree, March 16, 2012).

The US propaganda war operates along two tracks: (1) the dominant message emphasizes the proximity of war and the willingness of the US to use force and violence. This message is directed at Iran and coincides with Israeli announcements of war preparations. (2) The second track targets the ‘liberal public’ with a handful of marginal ‘knowledgeable academics’ (or State Department progressives) playing down the war threat and arguing that reasonable policy makers in Tel Aviv and Washington are aware that Iran does not possess nuclear weapons or any capacity to produce them now or in the near future. The purpose of this liberal backpedaling is to confuse and undermine the majority public opinion, which is clearly opposed to more war preparations, and to derail the burgeoning anti-war movement.

Needless to say the pronouncements of the ‘rational’ warmongers use a ‘double discourse’ based on the facile dismissal of all the historical and empirical evidence to the contrary. When the US and Israel talk of war, prepare for war and engage in pre-war provocations – they intend to go to war – just as they did against Iraq in 2003. Under present international political and military conditions an attack on Iran, initially by Israel with US support, is extremely likely, even as world economic conditions should dictate otherwise and even as the negative strategic consequences will most likely reverberate throughout the world for decades to come.

US and Israeli Military Calculations on Iran’s Capability​

American and Israeli strategic policy makers do not agree on the consequences of Iran’s retaliation against an attack. For their part, the Israeli leaders minimize Iran’s military capacity to attack and damage the Jewish state, which is their only consideration. They count on their distance, their anti-missile shield and protection from US air and naval forces in the Gulf to cover their sneak attack. On the other hand, US military strategists know the Iranians are capable of inflicting substantial casualties on US warships, which would have to attack Iranian coastal installations in order to support or protect the Israelis.

Israel intelligence is best known for its capacity to organize the assassination of individuals around the world: Mossad has organized successful overseas terrorists acts against Palestinian, Syrian, and Lebanese leaders. On the other hand Israeli intelligence has a very poor track record with regard to its estimates of major military and political undertakings. They seriously underestimated the popular support, military strength, and organizational capacity of Hezbollah during the 2006 war in Lebanon. Likewise, Israel intelligence misunderstood the strength and capacity of the Egyptian popular democratic movement as it rose up and overthrew Tel Aviv’s strategic regional ally, the Mubarak dictatorship. While Israeli leaders ‘feign paranoia’ – tossing clichés about ‘existential threats’ – they are blinded by their narcissistic arrogance and racism, repeatedly underestimating the technical expertise and political sophistication of their Arab and regional Islamic foes. This is undoubtedly true in their facile dismissal of Iran’s capacity to retaliate against a planned Israeli air assault.

The US government has now overtly committed itself to supporting an Israeli assault on Iran when it is launched. More specifically, Washington claims it will come to Israel’s defense ‘unconditionally’ if it is ‘attacked’. How can Israel avoid being ‘attacked’ when its planes are raining bombs and missiles on Iranian installations, military defenses and support systems, not to mention Iranian cities, ports and strategic infrastructure? Moreover, given the Pentagon’s collaboration and coordinated intelligence systems with the Israel Defense Forces, its role in identifying targets, routes and incoming missiles, as well as integrated weapons and ordinance supply chains will be critical to an IDF attack. There is no way that the US can dissociate itself from the Jewish State’s war on Iran, once the attack has begun.

The Myths of ‘Limited War’: Geography​

Washington and Tel Aviv claim and appear to believe that their planned assault on Iran will be a ‘limited war,’ targeting limited objectives and lasting a few days or weeks – with no serious consequences.

We are told Israel’s brilliant generals have identified all the critical nuclear research facilities, which their surgical air strikes will eliminate without horrific collateral damage to the surrounding population. Once the alleged ‘nuclear weapons’ program is destroyed, all Israelis can resume their lives in full security knowing that another ‘existential’ threat has been eliminated. The Israeli notion of a war, limited in ‘time and space,’ is absurd and dangerous – and underlines the arrogance, stupidity and racism of its authors.

To approach Iran’s nuclear facilities Israeli and US forces will confront well-equipped and defended bases, missile installations, maritime defenses and large-scale fortifications directed by the Revolutionary Guards and the Iranian Armed Forces. Moreover, the defense systems protecting the nuclear facilities are linked by civilian highways, airfields, ports, and backed by a dual purpose (civilian-military) infrastructure, which includes oil refineries and a huge network of administrative offices. To ‘knock out’ the alleged nuclear sites will require expanding the geographic scope of the war. The scientific-technological capacity of the Iranian civilian nuclear program involves a wide swath of its research facilities, including universities, laboratories, manufacturing sites, and design centers. To destroy Iran’s civilian nuclear program would require Israel (and thus the US) to attack much more than research facilities or laboratories hidden under a remote mountain. It would require multiple, widespread assaults on targets throughout the country, in other words, a generalized war.

Iran’s Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has stated that Iran will retaliate with a war of equivalence. Iran will match the breadth and scope of any attack with a corresponding counter-attack: ‘We will attack them at the same level as they attack us’. That means Iran will not confine its retaliation to merely trying to shoot down US and Israeli bombers in its airspace or launch missiles at offshore US warships in its waters but will take the war to equivalent targets in Israel and in US-occupied countries in and around the Gulf. Israel’s ‘limited war’ will become a generalized war extending throughout the Middle East and beyond.

Israel’s current delusional fetish about its elaborate missile defense system will be exposed as hundreds of high-powered missiles are launched from Teheran, Southern Lebanon, and just beyond the Golan Heights.

The Myth of Limited War: Time Frame​

Israeli military experts confidently expect to polish off their Iranian targets in a few days – some might think a mere weekend – and perhaps without the loss of even a single pilot. They expect the Jewish state will celebrate its brilliant victory in the streets of Tel Aviv and Washington. They are deluded by their own sense of superiority. Iran did not fight a brutal, decade-long war against the US-supplied Iraqi invaders and its western/Israeli military advisers, to just turn over and passively submit to a limited number of air and missile attacks by Israel. Iran is a young, educated, mobilized society, which can draw on millions of reservists from across the political, ethnic, gender, religious spectrum, galvanized in support of their nation under attack. In a war to defend the homeland, all internal differences disappear to confront the unprovoked Israeli-US attack threatening their entire civilization – its 5000-year culture and traditions, as well as its modern scientific advances and institutions. The first wave of US-Israeli attacks will lead to ferocious retaliation, which will not be confined to the original areas of conflict, nor are will any such act of Israeli aggression end when and if Iran’s nuclear research facilities are destroyed and some of its scientists, technicians and skilled workers killed. The war will continue in time and extend geographically.

Multiple Points of Conflict​

Just as any US-Israeli attack on Iran will involve multiple targets, the Iranian military will also have a plethora of easily accessible strategic targets. Though it is difficult to predict exactly where and how Iran will retaliate, one thing is clear: The initial US-Israeli strike will not go unanswered.

Given Israeli-US supremacy in long and medium range sea and air power, Iran will probably rely on short-range objectives. These would include the highly valued US military facilities and supply routes in adjoining terrain (Iraq, Kuwait, and Afghanistan) and Israeli targets with missiles launched from Southern Lebanon and possibly Syria. If a few Iranian long-range missiles escape the Jewish State’s much vaunted ‘anti-missile dome,’ Israeli population centers may pay a heavy price for their leaders’ recklessness and arrogance.

The Iranian counter-strike will lead to an escalation by US-Israeli forces, extending and deepening their air and sea war to the entire Iranian national security system – military bases, ports, communication systems, command posts and government administrative centers – many in densely populated cities. Iran will counter by launching its greatest strategic asset: a coordinated ground attack involving the Revolutionary Guards together with their allies among the Iraqi Shia troops, against US forces in Iraq. It will coordinate attacks against US facilities in Afghanistan and Pakistan with the growing nationalist-Islamic armed resistance.

The initial conflict, centered on so-called military objectives (scientific research facilities), will spread rapidly to economic targets, or what US and Israeli military strategists refer to as ‘dual civilian-military’ targets. This would include oil fields, highways, factories, communications networks, television stations, water treatment facilities, reservoirs, power stations and administrative offices, such as the Defense Ministry and headquarters of the Republican Guard. Iran, faced with imminent destruction of its entire economy and infrastructure (which occurred in neighboring Iraq with the unprovoked US invasion of 2003), would retaliate by blocking the Straits of Hormuz and sending short range missiles in the direction of the principle oil fields and refineries of the Gulf States including Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, a mere 10 minute distance, crippling the flow of oil to Europe, Asia, and the United States — plunging the world economy into deep depression.

It should not be forgotten that the Iranians are probably more aware than anyone in the region of the total devastation suffered by Iraqis after the US invasion, which plunged that nation into total chaos and devastated its advanced infrastructure and civilian administrative apparatus, not to mention the systematic obliteration of its highly educated scientific and technical elite. The waves of Mossad-sponsored assassinations of Iranian scientists, academics and engineers are just a foretaste of what the Israelis have in mind for Iran’s outstanding scientists, intellectuals, and highly skilled technical workers. Iranians should have no illusions about the Americans and Israelis who seek to thrust Iran into the brutal dark ages of Afghanistan and Iraq. They will have no more role in a devastated Iran than their counterparts had in post-Saddam Iraq.

According to US General Mathis, who commands all US forces in the Middle East, Persian Gulf and Southwest Asia, ‘an Israeli first strike would be likely to have dire consequences across the region and for the United States there’ (NY Times, 3/19/12). General Mathis “dire cost” estimate only takes account of the US military losses, likely several hundred sailors on warships within missile distance of Iranian gunners.

However the most delusional and self-serving assessment of the outcome and consequences of an Israeli air attack on Iran, emanates from top Israeli leaders, academics and intelligence experts, who claim superior intelligence, superior defenses and supreme (if also racist) insight into the ‘Iranian mind.’ Typical is Israeli Defense Minister Barak who boasts that any Iranian retaliation will at worst inflict minimal casualties on the Israeli population.

The ‘Judeo-centric’ view of re-ordering the balance of power in the region, which is prevalent in leading Israeli war circles, overlooks the likelihood that war will not be decided by Israeli air strikes and anti-missile defenses. Iran’s missiles cannot be easily contained, especially if they arrive several hundred a minute from three directions, Iran, Lebanon, Syria and possibly from Iranian submarines. Secondly, the collapse of its oil imports will devastate Israel’s highly energy dependent economy. Thirdly, Israel’s principle allies, especially the US and the EU, will be severely strained as they are dragged into Israel’s war and find themselves defending the straits of Hormuz, their army garrisons in Iraq and Afghanistan, and their oil fields and military bases in the Gulf. Such a conflict could ignite the Shia majorities in Bahrain and in the strategic oil-rich provinces of Saudi Arabia. The generalized war will have a devastating effect on the price of oil and the world economy. It will provoke the fury of consumers and workers rage everywhere as factories close and powerful shocks throughout the fragile financial system result in a world depression.

Israel’s pathological ‘superiority complex’ results in its racist leaders consistently overestimating their own intellectual, technical and military capabilities, while underestimating the knowledge, capacity and courage of their regional, Islamic (in this case Iranian) adversaries. They ignore Iran’s proven capacity to sustain a prolonged, complex multi-front defensive war and to recover from an initial assault and develop appropriate modern weaponry to inflict severe damage on its attackers. And Iran will have the unconditional and active support of the world’s Muslim population, and perhaps the diplomatic backing of Russia and China, who will obviously view an attack on Iran as another dress rehearsal to contain their growing power.

Conclusion​

War, especially an Israeli-US war against Iran is indissolubly linked to the asymmetrical US-Israeli relationship, which sidelines and censors any critical US military and political analysis. Because Israel’s Zionist power configuration in the US can now harness US military power in support of Israel’s drive for regional dominance, Israeli leaders and most of their military feel free to engage in the most outrageous military and destructive adventures, knowing full well that in the first and last instance they can rely on the US to support them with American blood and treasure. But after all of this grotesque servitude to a racist, isolated country, who will rescue the United States? Who will prevent the sinking of its ships in the Gulf and the death and maiming of hundreds of its sailors and thousands of its soldiers? And where will the Israelis and US Zionists be when Iraq is overrun by elite Iranian troops and their Iraqi Shia allies and a generalized uprising occurs in Afghanistan?

The self-centered Israeli policy-makers overlook the likely collapse of the world oil supply as a result of their planned war against Iran. Do their Zionist agents in the US realize that as a result of dragging the US into Israel’s war, that the Iranian nation will be forced to set the Persian Gulf oilfields ablaze?

How cheap has it become to ‘buy a war’ in the US? For a mere few million dollars in campaign contributions to corrupt politicians, and through the deliberate penetration of Israel-First agents, academics and politicians into the war-making machinery of the US government, and through the moral cowardice and self-censorship of leading critics, writers and journalists who refuse to name Israel and its agents as the key decision makers in our country’s Mid East policy, we head directly toward a war far beyond any regional military conflagration and toward the collapse of the world economy and the brutal impoverishment of hundreds of millions of people North and South, East and West.






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[The Flying Dutchman]

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Iran, Hezbollah are 'up to their
necks' in Syria, says Israeli general

Saturday April 7, 2012
http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_article.php?id=3857​

In his first wide-ranging interview since assuming post as GOC Northern Command, Maj. Gen. Yair Golan hints that all hell would break loose if Hezbollah acquired Syrian chemical weapons • Predicts Assad will survive 2012, but “I would be very happy if [he] goes."

It’s highly doubtful that the thousands of Israelis who descend on the north in the coming days are cognizant of just how deceptive the quiet is in this area. Indeed, the border with Lebanon and Syria has been tranquil for a number of years now, but the potential for conflagration is significant, and menacing. An assault on Iran is just one possible trigger for an escalation, but it is not the only one. A large-scale terrorist attack or the transfer of strategic weapons from Syria to Hezbollah is liable to ignite a full-blown war, says the IDF's GOC Northern Command Maj. Gen. Yair Golan.


The army is operating amid the underlying tension separating the present calm from the escalation that could very well materialize. The challenges which Golan faces are enormous, larger than those currently faced on any other front.


From his office at Northern Command HQ in Safed, Golan prepares for the post-Assad period in Syria and the next clash in Lebanon, where he will be asked to act quickly and forcefully, not just to restore calm along the border but also to minimize the damage inflicted on Israel's central region, which is expected to come under massive rocket attack.


Golan, 50, came up through the paratroopers and was wounded in the late 1990s while serving as the commander of the Lebanon coordinating unit’s Eastern Division. He is married to Ruti, with whom he has five children. His resume includes a stint as Nahal Brigade commander, the commander of the Galilee Formation, and the commander of the Judea and Samaria Division. He took over the Northern Command after concluding a stint as the GOC Home Front Command.


In an exclusive interview with Israel Hayom, the first interview he has agreed to since being named GOC Northern Command, Golan revealed that advanced weaponry has made its way into Hezbollah's hands in Lebanon. He also predicts that Bashar Assad will not be deposed in the near future. “A lot of blood will be spilled before that happens,” he said. “It will take many months. Last October, we said it would take 18 months, and I think that we underestimated the situation. In my view, it will take even longer.”


In other words, barring any unforeseen circumstances, Assad survives 2012 in office?


“I believe so, and I think this will continue into 2013. On the one hand, it’s hard to put down the rioting there, which is wider and bloodier than what Hafez Assad [Bashar's father] had to deal with in the 70s and 80s. But even back then, the uprising kept Hafez preoccupied for six years. On the other hand, the opposition today is having a very difficult time coming together. Ultimately, Assad will be toppled due to the increasing number of defections and draft-dodging, his country's economic difficulties, and the eroding influence of the senior political leadership. But these are processes that don’t happen overnight.”

Who is advising him? To whom will he listen?​

“The traditional leadership surrounding him remains intact. You have to remember that this is an aging group of leaders whose best years are well behind it. While it is very experienced, it is doubtful whether it has the energy necessary to withstand a challenge of this scale. Here, too, I make the comparison with what Assad senior had available to him.


"Not only does the father appear to have been a more impressive figure than the son, but he also had much younger people, much more energetic people around him, people who carried themselves with a revolutionary fervor. So I think that the probability this rebellion will end just like the one that was suppressed in 1982 is not high.”


How deeply involved are Iran and Hezbollah with what is taking place in Syria?


“They’re up to their necks with what is happening there. When we use the term ‘axis of evil,’ people look at it as some kind of literary expression, as some kind of image conjured up by the poetic mind of whoever is saying it. It’s not that. When we talk about the axis of evil, it is in the most down-to-earth sense possible.”

Are Hezbollah fighters active in Syria?​

“Certainly. There are military trainers, instructors, and, to the best of my knowledge, combatants as well. They are involved up to their necks.”

Is Iran providing weapons to Syria?​

“All the time. This is a continuing, constant development. The Iranians are saying to Assad, ‘Listen, you are dear to us,’ and they are supporting him enthusiastically. Part of the Syrian regime’s resoluteness stems from Assad’s sense that he still has support from his immediate environment, from overseas, and from relevant global powers. In other words, when Assad takes a look outside, he sees Hezbollah, which is helping. He has the Iranians who are supporting him, and in the background are Russia and China, two countries that are not exactly thrilled with the trend that has taken hold in the West of condemning, isolating, and advocating rapid regime change. So from an international standpoint, Assad can take solace. If those guys in the Arab League want to condemn him, let them condemn.”


Has Assad convinced himself that he will remain president?


“I have no doubt that in his mind he sees the situation as containable. He believes in the combination of brutal military measures, shrewd political maneuvers on the domestic front, and an awareness of the need to avoid angering the international community too much and to play the diplomatic game in some way or another, all in order to survive.”


Are there many deserters from his army? And is this significant?


“This is very significant, but not on the level of whether this or that brigade can preserve its fighting capability. There have already been thousands of desertions, and there is no doubt that it is having an effect.”

Are senior officers also deserting?​

“There are a number of brigadier generals who have deserted, and there are also lieutenant colonels and majors and junior officers as well. It isn’t just one or two officers, but dozens, and in my view this is just another aspect of the disintegration taking place there.”


“

The weapons smuggling continues”​

Under the present circumstances, what is particularly disturbing to the IDF is the prospect of Syria becoming a failed state. This would mean that the quietest border that Israel has had for the last 40 years could very well turn into a border rife with terror. “A failed state is a state in which terrorism thrives,” Golan said. “When I see these terror attacks by Al-Qaida in Aleppo and Damascus, I understand that from a law-and-order standpoint something is amiss. Today it is happening within the context of a civil war, but tomorrow it could be on our border. So, yes, on the one hand the challenge posed by the standing Syrian army could disappear, but it could be replaced by the challenge of terrorism.”


Ostensibly, Golan is not concerned solely with terrorism, but with the stockpiles of strategic weapons that are in Syria. “Long-range missiles and advanced rockets, unmanned aerial drones, surface-to-air missiles, sophisticated underwater projectiles, and, above all else, the world’s largest stockpile of chemical weapons,” he said. “From our standpoint, all of these items are a source of concern.”

Are they under control as of today?​

“As of now, we are not seeing any leakage of any of these arms into the hands of irresponsible or unofficial actors, but one does not need a wild imagination in this regard. The Syrians routinely provide arms to Hezbollah, not just any arms, but almost everything in their arsenal. And Hezbollah has all the reasons in the world to procure advanced weapons at bargain prices. From its standpoint, it now has the opportunity to do so.”


Will things spin out of control the more the regime in Damascus loses its grip on power?


“This is what we think, and this is just an assessment. There are certain assessments where one can attribute to pure speculation. In this case, we don’t have an instance of pure speculation. Here we have seen a years-long supply of Syrian arms to Hezbollah, and these deliveries persist to this day. So there isn’t even a question mark in my view.”

Are any of the strategic items changing hands?​

“Over the long haul, strategic weapons have also made their way from Syria to Hezbollah. Let’s be modest and say that we don’t know all the details, so I believe that more weapons have passed than we think.”


Is any of this a cause for serious concern?


“The only element that I can finger as one that would change the situation is chemical weapons.”


And these haven’t been transferred?


“To the best of our knowledge, no. The other weapons, which vary in terms of their level of sophistication, have been transferred.”


Would the handing over of any of these weapons be a cassus belli?


“There is no mechanism for an automatic response and we would not do anything without first holding a situational assessment, but there is no doubt that we are living in a reality more fragile than it has ever been. I think the most dramatic change which in my view should be talked about more is that we once spoke of a large war taking place every decade, and we thought in terms of strategic deterrence. Today we are in a situation where the clashes are less comprehensive, but the home front is part of the equation and this happens like a lightning strike on a clear day. A decade ago, when we sat at the Seder table, I never imagined that on the day after I’d be in Ramallah. And when we woke up on July 12, 2006 nobody in Israel or in Hezbollah predicted that by the evening we would be engaged in war.”

What conclusions do you draw from this?​

“The lesson to be learned is to maintain a state of readiness, and that our state of preparedness and training for crisis situations that suddenly unfold – situational surprises, not strategic ones – should be at its maximum, because an incident that sets the whole thing ablaze could take place any second.”


There are many possible scenarios. Do you believe that any information which indicates that Hezbollah has come into possession of chemical weapons from Syria is just cause to upset the apple cart?


“I think that this is the most severe thing that can happen, and it’s something that I feel we won’t be able to ignore. We will have to do something about this. We will not be able to sit idly by and just watch this happen.”

Hezbollah’s responsibility​

Maj. Gen. Golan has a pinpoint understanding of why Assad doesn’t involve Israel in the war and deflect the attention away from the predicament in which he finds himself. “Assad understands very well that drawing in Israel would weaken his regime, since it would result in damage to the army which is his primary crutch,” he said. “Assad understands that it is far from certain whether [attacking Israel] would help, and on this matter I think that he is demonstrating a very rational mode of thought.”


Is that why he prevented demonstrators from reaching the border on Land Day this year?


“Last year it seemed to him that [sending protesters to the border on] Nakba Day was a fantastic idea. At the time, we were barely two months after the start of the rioting, and he tried. But then he realized that it wasn’t such a good deal for him because he absorbed many casualties. Aside from arousing the anger of Palestinians in Syria, he failed to make any regional or international impact that would’ve scored some points for Syria.”


The massacre which Assad is perpetrating against his own people prompts a natural wish to see him quickly deposed, but the experts believe that from a selfish standpoint Israel should prefer to see Assad remain in power since without him Syria could descend into dangerous anarchy. Golan is aware of these opinions and of the risks. Still, he says that “in this world, there are times when we have to take moral values into consideration, some kind of anchor or compass. I would be very happy to see Assad go, no question about it.”

And this is good for us?​

“This would mean a number of things. First of all, it would mean that we would not have to deal with the threat of Syria surprising us like it did on Yom Kippur. And there is also hope, not just dark forecasts as to what will happen in the future. And I think we mustn’t lose hope on this issue.”

What will happen to Hezbollah in the post-Assad period?​

“If a Sunni regime comes to power in Syria, then it would be enough to break the link that ties the axis of evil comprised of Iran, Syria, and Lebanon. At that point, we would already have a new situation on our hands. From Hezbollah’s standpoint, it would mean the blockage of a conduit used to acquire weapons and the closing down of weapons manufacturing sites. It would also realize that it is much more isolated given that Iran is 1,000 kilometers away to the east.”


“Hezbollah is a terrorist organization”


In the past, when anyone wanted information on Syria, it sufficed to concentrate on the president, his inner circle, and senior officials in his regime while studying the capabilities of his armed forces, all in order to prepare for war. The upheavals in the Middle East, particularly in Syria, have made this intelligence challenge even more daunting. “If you would interview the head of Military Intelligence, he would tell you what kind of revolution is taking place today, since his sources of information and the subjects of his research are changing dramatically in a very short period of time,” he said.


“Think about these rebels, how they’re unorganized and devoid of a clear, hierarchical structure, and now you need to understand what is going on there,” he said. “I think it’s premature to ascertain to what extent we are succeeding, but there is no doubt that our intelligence-gathering on Syria and the manner in which we are assessing the situation in Syria has changed dramatically in the last few months.”


For years, we said that Syria was a rock of stability and Hezbollah was unstable. Now everything has turned upside down. Syria has become dangerous and Hezbollah is stable.


“That’s right, even though it’s an unstable stability, because you need to remember that Hezbollah is an actor with a far different degree of responsibility. The best indicator of this is the attempted attack that recently took place in Bangkok.”


Apparently Hezbollah believed it would not lead to a Third Lebanon War.


“When such an organization manufactures a terror attack, say, in a Bangkok restaurant patronized by many Israelis, and between 20 to 30 Israelis are blown up, then the chances of such an organization miscalculating are quite high.”


Despite what happened in 2006?


“Despite 2006. It’s a fact.”


Even though the Iranians are making sure that Hezbollah doesn’t go crazy when it doesn’t suit their interests?


“An organization that engages in terrorism is invariably in a situation where it straddles the edge all the time. It is true that Hezbollah of today does not resemble the Hezbollah of the 80s, but to infer from this that it is a ‘responsible’ organization is somewhat far-fetched. At the end of the day, this is a terrorist organization that is committed to pursuing armed struggle, and it is constantly looking for ways to implement this goal.”


Does Hezbollah possess weapons that would cause us to lose sleep knowing that it has them?


“What this organization possesses today causes me to lose sleep. I don’t know what else you would need.”


Why does a terrorist organization need Scud missiles capable of reaching Eilat?


“I don’t think it’s a question of the efficacy of the weaponry. A terror organization is also battling for hearts and minds. When Nasrallah says ‘We’ll bomb deep, deep, deep inside Israel,’ he wants to say that this ‘deep’ is the furthest point on the map within Israel. Besides, this allows him to deploy his weapons from deep inside Lebanon in a manner that dovetails with his strategy – scattering the weapons as much as possible so that Israeli firepower would be less effective against them.”

Does an attack on Iran necessarily mean a war with Hezbollah?​

“I don’t think this is a conditioned reflex. I have no intention of discussing an attack on Iran, but we need to responsibly prepare for any scenario, including this one.


Is Nasrallah’s rationale a Lebanese one, an Iranian one, or a combination of the two?


“It’s important for Nasrallah to be perceived as a Lebanese player, but he can’t deny his ties with Iran, nor does he want to deny them, and he needs to take them into consideration. It is very difficult to predict which policy he will adopt if he will be asked to address difficult situations that involve a clash of interests, but we as a responsible army must be prepared for the most difficult situations.”


“I trust the nation”


When Maj. Gen. Golan speaks of the major lessons learned from the Second Lebanon War, he says: “First of all, we should remember that despite the feeling that we missed an opportunity from an operational standpoint, Israel scored some significant strategic achievements. There is quiet in the north the likes of which hasn’t been experienced since the end of the 1960s. Still, the major lesson is that next time, if we will be called upon to wage a large-scale operation in Lebanon, we will have to remove the threat against the home front as quickly as possible, and in order to do that we need to unleash the full force of the IDF, which is exactly what we intend to do.”

And this means?​

“This means bringing what the professional jargon refers to as ‘asymmetrical warfare.’ Oddly enough, asymmetrical warfare is viewed as a disadvantage for organized states. I claim the opposite is true. There is total asymmetry between us and Hezbollah, and our job is to demonstrate to Hezbollah our might in action in the most muscular way possible.”


In that situation, are Nasrallah and the Hezbollah leadership legitimate targets?


“Certainly. No question about it.”

Explain.​

“Like any army that is fighting and analyzing the system that is at the enemy’s disposal while searching for the enemy’s weak points, it is our obligation to try and hit these weak points with the strongest blow possible, and no element in Hezbollah’s capability structure will be exempt from this principle, and that includes its means as well as its manpower.”


What lesson that you learned during your previous post as home front commander will you take with you to the next war?


“I think that the citizens of Israel need to know that the IDF will remove the threat that is hanging over their heads as quickly as possible. This is what we are promising the citizens, and at the same time we expect them to show some fortitude. I think this needs to be said out loud. One needs to look at the citizen as a fighter, and say to him, ‘You’re important to me, you’re part of the state of Israel’s might.’ There is no difference here between home front and battlefront. We must all be strong, and we must all do our jobs proficiently.”

The next war means rockets on Tel Aviv.​

“That’s exactly what I’m talking about. All of Israel’s population needs to know how to live under the threat, to know how to go about a routine in an emergency situation, a routine of maintaining a productive day while in an emergency situation. We have no other alternative. We did it in the past, and we did it very well. There’s no reason why we can’t do it again in the future. Irrespective of this, the army needs to remove the threat quickly.”

And you’re convinced that the home front will give this to you?​

“The tendency is to be pessimistic and to predict doom, to say that the civilians are wretched and defenseless, not fighters, that they have neither the means nor the knowledge. This is a very misguided approach. Why go this far? I look at my family, at my mother. She’s not a young woman anymore. She’s approaching 80 years of age, but she’s a fighter. She has lived through everything. She even remembers Italian warplanes bombing our cities during the Second World War, and there are thousands like her. You want to tell her to leave her home? That’s not happening.”

Where does she live?​

“In Rishon Letzion. I have no doubt that even if central Israel absorbs missiles, she won’t move one meter. Listen, war is a complicated thing. The human aspects that are discovered during war run the gamut. Anything you want to find, you’ll find. From cowardice and misery to acts of heroism and altruism. The question is what is the overall sum, and I trust the nation. I don’t say this to be flowery or corny.”

“Training is at a minimum”​

There is widespread agreement that the IDF is in much better shape today than it was in 2006. The thousands of drills and exercises that have been held have improved its operational capabilities, its emergency supplies have been filled up, and the operational plans are in synch with the mission at hand. Still, Golan is disturbed. The financial and budgetary uncertainty has already led to a cancellation of training drills, and the future looks bleak.


“We are repeating the same mistakes that were made in 2003,” he warns. “They are taking the IDF and putting it in a tough situation. We don’t need much time. One year of not training adequately is enough for us to see a drastic fall-off in our preparedness.”

Aren’t you crying wolf?​

“We cannot go there. We built up this state of readiness with hard work, and not through charity. Even today, reservist training is not some extravaganza. It’s at its bare minimum. In my view, regressing in our preparedness is a very problematic thing to do. Ultimately, the army is not a cheap organization to run, and I don’t think that the strategic situation is such that the state of Israel can afford to slash the defense budget, to shrink defense expenditures, and to exhale and say that we are in the clear.”

And what do you say to those who criticize your work benefits?​

“It’s insulting, it’s hurtful, and it’s totally outrageous. I’m prepared to show anyone my salary slip and the salary slips of all of my men, and the public can decide if it’s opulent. I haven’t taken a trip abroad with my family since 2007. I don’t know, perhaps this is how people who live a luxury lifestyle go about their lives. I don’t walk around with a luxury watch, I don’t use pens that cost thousands of shekels. I think I live a very modest lifestyle, and I’m a major general in the IDF. And that’s not because I’m being humble, but these are my professional capabilities.”


“I don’t claim that my salary is too little, but the IDF is a thrifty army which has placed tremendous financial restraints on itself, particularly under the current chief of staff. This isn’t the army of the 1970s, there aren’t chefs who run after generals or gala events featuring celebrities. So it’s quite hurtful when government officials and regular folks criticize the army over its alleged wastefulness.”






=

 

[The Flying Dutchman]

=

4/06/2012 @ 1:23PM

Why Israel Will Attack Iran

By James D. Zirin
http://www.forbes.com/sites/jameszirin/2012/04/06/why-israel-will-attack-iran/​

”Ever since the longbow, when man has developed new weapons and stockpiled them, somebody has come along and used them. I don’t know how we can escape it with nuclear weapons.”

-President John Fitzgerald Kennedy​

I entered Israel from Jordan some 10 days ago curious to take the temperature of the country most directly threatened by Iran’s nuclear program.

I made the border crossing on foot at Eilat, Israel’s southernmost city, a resort town on the northern tip of the Red Sea.

My first trip to Israel had been some 28 years ago when I had gone at the suggestion of John Lindsay for whom I had campaigned in 1965 as a street corner speaker. Lindsay had given me a letter of introduction to Teddy Kollek, Jerusalem’s legendary mayor.

Excited about the trip, I bantered with the young female security officer who questioned me sharply at the checkpoint.

“Who suggested that you come to Israel,” she asked.

“You mean the first time or this time?”

“Oh, you have been here before?”

“John Lindsay.”

“Who is John Lindsay?”

“You may not remember him. He was one of the great American mayors of the last century, a friend of Teddy Kollek.”


“I don’t know them. Are you carrying any dangerous weapons?”

“Only my pen and my tongue.”

“Get serious. How about a laptop computer?”

I entered Israel with no particular bias as to what should be done about Iran’s nuclear aspiration. If anything, I favored the cautious approach taken by President Obama, who wants to use sanctions to force Iran to give up its enrichment program as part of a larger diplomatic solution. Americans are weary of costly wars in the Middle East and have too many domestic economic and political problems at home to undertake yet another military adventure.

In Israel, I talked with ordinary people, as well as some former senior officials close to Israel’s cabinet, military and intelligence community. I learned that stopping Iran from building a bomb is the nation’s highest national security priority, and they are confident they can do it.

In so doing, I heard arguments, rooted in Israeli history and mindset, not commonly aired in the United States, that led me to the sobering conclusion that, absent a dramatic diplomatic breakthrough, Israel will pre-emptively strike Iran before too long—even if it has to go it alone.

What I didn’t know (or had failed to consider) before my trip are the following:

Israel has no faith that Obama will spearhead or join with them in an attack on Iran’s nuclear installations. No American president has ever intervened militarily to prevent a Mid-east country from going nuclear. In the notable cases of Iraq and Syria, America stood by, warned the Israelis not to do it and then expressed admiration for Israel’s success.

In the perception of the Israelis, Obama acts on basis of reason, not emotion (I certainly hope so). This makes it unlikely he will intervene. Indeed, the US may be unable to do much to help if Iran turns a nuclear device over to terrorists who detonate a dirty bomb in a suitcase in downtown Tel Aviv, and leave no Iranian fingerprints.

The Jewish state was founded in 1948 because history through the millennia had taught the Jews it was folly to rely on the good will of other people for their survival. Why should they trust Obama now just because he says “We’ve Got Israel’s Back”—whatever that means?

For Israelis, the issue is existential. The last time a madman publicly called for the “extinction” of the Jewish people in Europe, he wasn’t kidding and damn near succeeded.

The overwhelming majority of Israelis want to strike Iran, although a not insignificant number want to do it in conjunction with the United States.
The advice of the international community to temporize has been historically bad advice for Israel. As Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu reflected recently, had Ben Gurion acceded to the wishes of other countries that he delay declaring independence in 1948, there would have been no State of Israel.

A nuclear Iran in Israel’s calculus will likely trigger a nuclear arms race in the region. Someone highly placed I spoke with had just returned from India where he met with senior officials. The Indians think that if Iran goes nuclear, the Saudis (and other states in region) will most certainly buy a bomb from Pakistan.

Jordan, an Arab neighbor friendly to Israel, is already starting a “peaceful” nuclear program. What does Israel do if Jordan’s Hashemite regime is overthrown by radical elements in its Palestinian majority and joins the ranks of Israel’s nuclear enemies? Israel is already losing leverage over the Jordanians because Jordan is busily building a 325 km water pipeline from an underground aquifer near Saudi Arabia to Amaan. Once the pipeline is completed, they will be less dependent on Israel which currently supplies them with water.

Time is not working in Israel’s favor. If Israel delays an attack, the Iranian’s will have buried their reactors and plutonium reservoirs in bunkers so deep that their arsenal will have a “zone of immunity.”

Israel itself has the bomb together with an arsenal of modern weaponry, but this is hardly a cold war style deterrent. Iran may not use the bomb right away, but Israel fears the Mullahs may well use it on the way out if they are about to be overthrown in a “Persian Spring” uprising. And if this happens, is it a deterrent to Iran’s murderous Mullahs that Israel might retaliate against the very dissidents who ousted the regime? Israelis are quick to recall that Hitler stepped up the murders of the Holocaust into an orgy of killing after D-Day when it was clear that Germany would lose the war.

Jerusalem with its large Arab population is not immune from Iranian attack. Although Ron Paul suggests that Iran would never bomb the Al Aqsa mosque sacred to Muslims, Shiite books indicate that the mosque in Jerusalem is not so important to Shia as it is to Sunni Muslims. And Israelis are quick to point out that when Iran’s cat’s paw Hezbollah shelled Haifa, and Muslims died, Iran said they were “martyrs”.

Israel feels it is well prepared for eventual reprisals and howls of execration from the international community should it act against Iran. When asked what his country would do if Israel struck Iran, the foreign minister of a Gulf state was recently quoted as saying, “First we break out the Champagne, then we denounce them at the UN.”

Israel is beset with a Masada complex. If they do nothing, they fear they may not survive very much longer. If they act now, they will more probably survive or die with honor.

General Petraeus told me not so long ago, “I don’t know which is scarier—if Israel attacks Iran or if they don’t attack Iran.” Sobering stuff.

As the US and Israel ponder their course, I saw a military Boeing refueling fighter jets on maneuvers high above the Negev.








=

 

[Be Well]

I fervently wish we had a real president who was an American who had courage, loyalty to our Constitution and was not beholden to any malignant interests....

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/nation/2012/04/120_108525.html

04-07-2012 11:54
China to patronize NK in post-launch tensions: expert

WASHINGTON (Yonhap) -- Should North Korea go ahead with a long-range rocket launch as early as next week, China will likely repeat its typically tepid and equivocal approach -- requesting the international community to act in a calm manner, an expert said Friday.

Pyongyang will apparently try to ride on its renewed "blood alliance" with Beijing in defending itself from pressure from other regional powers, according to Masako Ikegami, professor of political science at Stockholm University.

"Beijing will turn a blind eye towards North Korea's latest provocation, while simultaneously calling for restraint by all parties," she said in a report released by the Hawaii-based East-West Center.

North Korea's new leadership announced a plan to blast a rocket, which it says is aimed at sending a satellite into orbit, between April 12 and 16. The timing is symbolic for the North, coinciding the centenary of the birth of late founding leader Kim Il-sung, who is grandfather of the current ruler, Kim Jong-un.

The communist nation hopes to become a self-styled "strong and prosperous" country this year.

The U.S. and its allies have pressed China to use its leverage to help dissuade the nuclear-armed North from the rocket plan, suspected to be a test of an intercontinental missile.

China is the largest benefactor for the impoverished North, under tough U.N. sanctions. China has a track record of blocking U.S. attempts in the U.N. Security Council to impose ultra-strong punishments for the North's nuclear and missile tests.

Ikegami said Beijing is unlikely to be active in efforts to prevent the launch or impose more sanctions if the North carries it out.

"Recently, the China-North Korea 'blood alliance," a concept of allies that originated during the (1950-53) Korean War, has been renewed," she said. "And it is in China's interests that North Korea consolidates its 'absolute deterrence' capability to deter U.S. forces in the region."

China's ultimate interest is to maintain North Korea as a hermit state, subject to Beijing's influence, she added.

One of China's major strategic goals would be to secure naval access to North Korean ports for gateways to the East Sea, also called the Sea of Japan, she pointed out.

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/text/nn20120407a9.html

Saturday, April 7, 2012
North's planned rocket launch pits Japan, South Korea against China

By KO HIRANO
Kyodo

BEIJING — Rising tensions over North Korea's planned rocket launch next week are expected to dominate the agenda when Foreign Minister Koichiro Genba meets with his Chinese and South Korean counterparts Sunday in China.

Tokyo, Beijing and Seoul likely will agree to continue calling on Pyongyang to show restraint up to the very last minute, but will also discuss coordination with other countries if the launch goes ahead.

They remain cautious about stronger action, however, mindful that when the U.N. Security Council condemned a 2009 rocket launch by the North, it responded by conducting a nuclear test and pulling out of six-nation talks on denuclearizing the Korean Peninsula.

To complicate matters further, some analysts are speculating that Japan and South Korea could find themselves at odds with China — a major benefactor of North Korea — over how to deal with the rocket launch, given Beijing's previous reluctance to condemn Pyongyang at the Security Council.

North Korea appears determined to proceed with the launch of what it claims is an earth observation satellite between April 12 and 16.

During the trilateral talks Sunday in the eastern Chinese city of Ningbo, Genba and South Korea's foreign minister, Kim Sung Hwan, are expected to urge China to increase its efforts to prevent the launch.

Following a March 29 meeting in Beijing with Wu Dawei, China's representative for Korean Peninsula affairs, Shinsuke Sugiyama, director general of the Foreign Ministry's Asian and Oceanian Affairs Bureau, said Japan will keep strongly urging North Korea to exercise self-restraint.

He also called on China to take similar action.

But Sugiyama declined to say whether Beijing views Pyongyang's rocket launch as violating Security Council resolutions slapped on the North, including Resolution 1874 that bans Pyongyang from conducting any launch using ballistic missile technology.

Chinese analysts say that while Beijing is aware the launch would violate Resolution 1874, it will not condemn it in public to avoid provoking Pyongyang.

"China believes that if North Korea launches a satellite for whatever reason, it is in violation of Security Council Resolution 1874," said Shi Yinhong, director of the Center for American Studies at Renmin University of China in Beijing.

"We have worries and concerns," Shi said in a recent interview.

"But we are not in the same position as the United States, Japan, South Korea and Russia, who can publicly declare that North Korea is in violation of the resolution," Shi said.

Citing "warmer ties" between China and North Korea since 2009 and Beijing's desire to maintain stability in its neighbor, Shi voiced doubts that China would agree to condemn the launch or tighten sanctions on Pyongyang if the United States, Japan, South Korea and other countries referred the case to the Security Council.

China's influence over the North is limited in any event, experts say, especially over the rocket launch.

The move is intended as a demonstration of North Korea's strength and scientific progress, as well as a celebration to mark the centennial of state founder Kim Il Sung's birth and the new regime of Kim Jong Un.

North Korea claims the planned satellite launch is for the peaceful development and use of space, arguing that is a legitimate and universally recognized right of every sovereign state.

But Tokyo, Washington and Seoul suspect this is just cover to test long-range ballistic missile technologies.

Military experts say similar technologies can be applied to ICBMs to provide a delivery system for a nuclear weapon, should the North ever manage to produce nuclear warheads.

"Kim Jong Un has domestic factors (to consider). You have to understand that," Shi said. "Otherwise it is difficult to interpret what happened in just two weeks" between a deal the North struck with the United States in late February and its announcement of a rocket launch.

Washington argues the launch will jeopardize the deal, under which Pyongyang would implement a moratorium on nuclear tests, long-range missile launches and uranium enrichment in exchange for 240,000 tons of U.S. food aid.

The Choson Sinbo newspaper, printed by the pro-North General Association of Korean Residents in Japan (Chongryon), suggested Wednesday that Pyongyang may even carry out a third nuclear test depending on the international community's response to the planned rocket launch.
GSDF to lock and load
Kyodo

In an unprecedented move, Ground Self-Defense Force units will carry sidearms and rifles when guarding a Patriot antimissile battery deployed in advance of North Korea's planned rocket launch next week, according to senior Defense Ministry officials.

It will be the first time Self-Defense Forces personnel have carried loaded arms outside their bases in Japan while functioning as security guards.

The order applies to GSDF personnel guarding the Patriot Advanced Capability-3 interceptor deployed on Ishigaki Island, Okinawa Prefecture.

The officials said the ministry will allow the GSDF to carry weapons because security at the site is low compared with existing SDF bases.

The other Patriot batteries deployed for the North Korean launch are at SDF facilities.

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use......
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/text/nn20120407b1.html

Saturday, April 7, 2012

North Korea, China posing growing security challenges, Bluebook warns
Kyodo

Japan's security situation is getting shakier year by year because of North Korea's nuclear drive and China's military buildup, the Foreign Ministry said Friday in its annual report on diplomacy.

Foreign Minister Koichiro Genba said in the latest edition of the Diplomatic Bluebook that it will be "important to minimize risks and maximize opportunities for growth within the Asia-Pacific region" to maximize Japan's interests.

The report, which gives an overview of Japanese foreign policy in 2011, says the nation needs to develop a "dynamic defense force" and strengthen the decades-long security alliance with the United States.

It says North Korea, following the death in December of leader Kim Jong Il, is "unpredictable" and that Japan will continue to closely monitor developments in Pyongyang.

The report takes an alarming tone about North Korea's nuclear and missile development programs, China's opaque defense buildup and increased maritime activities, and a Russian military that is modernizing steadily in tandem with its economic development.
South Korea files protest
Kyodo

SEOUL — South Korea lodged a strong protest Friday against Japan's renewed claim over a pair of islets in the Sea of Japan, saying the move is "totally unacceptable," according to a statement issued by South Korea's Foreign Ministry.

The statement was issued after Japan reiterated its claim over the islets, known as Dokdo in Korea and Takeshima in Japan, in the Diplomatic Bluebook for 2012.

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use......
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304072004577327132139129246.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

ASIA NEWS
Updated April 6, 2012, 2:55 p.m. ET

Japan Readies Response to Pyongyang's Launch

Article
Comments (4)

more in World »

By KELLY OLSEN

TOKYO—North Korea's planned rocket launch is giving Japan's military an unexpected opportunity to deploy its ballistic-missile defense forces in the country's southern islands—the first time in the area that has been a focus of tension with China.

North Korea said last month it plans to launch an Unha-3 rocket to put a satellite into space between April 12 and 16. Japan, South Korea and the U.S. consider the move cover for a ballistic-missile test in violation of U.N. resolutions.

Japan has seen two North Korean missiles fly over its northern region, in August 1998 and April 2009. Japan deployed ballistic-missile defenses in the latter case.

Enlarge Image
JNORCOR
JNORCOR
Kyodo/Reuters

A police boat motors by a Patriot missile unit on the island of Ishigaki, in Okinawa prefecture

This time, North Korea says it will launch in a southerly, not an easterly, direction. That means the rocket is expected to pass high over Okinawan islands in the East China Sea, an area that has become a security concern for Tokyo amid disputes with China and worries over that country's increasing military profile.

On Friday, Defense Minister Naoki Tanaka told reporters that nothing unusual should be read into the southern deployment. "It's not related to a strengthening of our defense structure," he said. "It's just in case."

Late last month he ordered troops to destroy the rocket if it threatens to hit Japanese territory, although this is considered highly unlikely unless it goes off course.

Japan is preparing for any eventuality with the planned launch, with missiles situated on ships and on islands. It is mobilizing three Aegis-equipped ships, which carry SM-3 missiles, and is deploying eight land-based Patriot missile batteries: four on Okinawan islands, and four in Tokyo and surrounding areas.

"The Ministry of Defense and the Self-Defense Forces must be thankful to Pyongyang for providing a chance for training under such real circumstances," said Tetsuo Maeda, a Japanese military analyst.

Tensions with China over a territorial dispute in the area heated up in 2010 when a Chinese fishing boat collided with a Japanese Coast Guard ship. Japan detained the Chinese captain before eventually releasing him after strong Chinese protests.

Later that year, Japan approved a shift in defense strategy to address contingencies in its southern island and maritime regions, the focus of this month's deployment. For decades during the Cold War, Japan's defense posture was geared toward thwarting a possible Soviet attack from the north.

More recently, Japan has expressed concern about what it says is stepped-up activity by Chinese navy ships traversing waters near the Okinawan islands.

Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda last month described conditions surrounding Japan as "increasingly severe" due to North Korea's nuclear and missile development and China's naval activities.

Japan's Self-Defense Forces are constitutionally limited to defending the country, a result of its defeat in World War II and U.S. occupation. Any talk of possible armed conflict remains a sensitive subject. The potential missile threat from Pyongyang, however, is widely considered within the mandate of self-defense.

Debates in Japan over defense policy are closely watched in China, and the two Koreas for any signs of a more aggressive stance. Some in Japan's political spectrum say amending the constitution's famous war-renouncing Article 9 is long overdue, while others favor keeping it.

U.S. Democratic Sen. James Webb, a defense expert, said that Japan is taking the right measures with its missile-defense deployment. "I think it's prudent," he told reporters Thursday in Tokyo. "This is a government [North Korea] that is opaque. We don't really understand much about what its intentions might be."

Write to Kelly Olsen at Kelly.Olsen@wsj.com

A version of this article appeared April 7, 2012, on page A8 in some U.S. editions of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: Japan Readies Response To Pyongyang's Launch.

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.eurasiareview.com/07042012-the-long-libyan-wave-reaches-mali-niger-and-burkina-faso/


The Long Libyan Wave Reaches Mali, Niger And Burkina Faso

Written by: MISNA
April 7, 2012

“To fully understand what is happening in Mali and Libya, we must look to the history of discrimination and neglect of the Tuareg people of the north generally by the institutions of Bamako, and we must also bear in mind the latent hatreds within the army, which then led to the coup against President Amadou Toumani Toure,” according to Adriana Piga, professor of social and political systems of contemporary Africa, the Department of Social Sciences University ‘La Sapienza’ of Rome.

Piga was speaking to MISNA on the recent events in Mali.

According to Piga, “The view must necessarily be extended to the entire region and our reasoning must start from this preliminary observation: the conflict in Libya last year and its outcome have had and continues to have consequences in all countries of the Sahel. Mali is the most obvious case, but Niger is watching with concern what is happening in the neighboring country. From Libya, the Tuareg have not only returned well armed and trained, they have also had access to considerable financial resources. Migrants have also returned and their remittances supported very weak local economies, a case involving several countries including as far away Burkina Faso. ”

The discussion of the Tuaregs has distant temporal roots, reaching at least the colonial and post-colonial periods

“During the French colonial occupation the Tuaregs were kept out by the roles and responsibilities, suffering also various forms of discrimination. This marginalization has continued even after their independence, so that all the north of Mali to the present day has in fact been completely left alone by the central government, private infrastructure, investments and projects. A void that had consequences and that is necessarily easily been filled by the same armed groups such as Al Qaeda in Islamic Maghreb (AQMI),“ said Piga.

With the occupation of Kidal, Gao and Timbuktu, the Tuareg of the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA) and other groups that are participating in the rebellion went very close to that myth of Azawad of a State that has always been present in the culture of the Tuaregs.

According to Piga, “This myth, which has its foundations in the large differences between the Tuareg and the neighboring populations, separated at the end of the colonial era in different States. Thus, the Tuareg are found in three, four states, and a similar fate befell the Peul and Songhai. If the Azawad become a State party to be seen: of course come into play several international dynamics that may also help to end a more federalist than a real secession “.

The coup led by the obscure Captain Amadou Sanogo Yaha was as if “a strange coup against a president who was nevertheless able to build democratic institutions. But it is also true that in the army discontent had been simmering for some time for the limited equipment that was gifted to different views regarding the management of conflict in the north and the ‘war’ to Aqmi that goes on for longer. It ‘clear that Toure has underestimated this state of things and this latent dissatisfaction, episodic deliberately organizing a response to the attacks coming from the north and eventually paying the price for this policy. ”

About the author:

MISNA

MISNA, or the Missionary International Service News Agency, provides daily news ‘from, about and for’ the 'world’s Souths', not just in the geographical sense, since December 1997.

 

[The Flying Dutchman]

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Saturday 7 April 2012


Could this act of self-defence lead to an apocalyptic war?

Ian Bell
Columnist.
http://www.heraldscotland.com/comme...f-defence-lead-to-an-apocalyptic-war.17245778​

WHEN Barack Obama met the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Washington last month, only one topic mattered: the nuclear ambitions of Iran.

Israel wants Tehran's weapons programme, if such it is, halted forthwith, by airstrikes if necessary. The President wants at all costs to avoid a unilateral act with unguessable consequences, especially in an election year.

Mr Netanyahu understands the second part of that calculation. He too must face the voters, in his case no later than October 2013. He could go to the polls earlier, however, if – who knows? – airstrikes on Iran were to provide evidence of his resolute leadership. Equally, he could wait until Mr Obama's joust with the Republicans is out of the way. In either event, he can't lose.

Should Mr Obama be defeated in November, a right-wing administration in the White House would give the right-wing Israeli all the support he could require. If the Democrat is returned to office, and if the latest round of UN sanctions has by then failed to tame Iran, excuses – as Mr Netanyahu sees them – for avoiding action would be exhausted. And he would still have his pre-election airstrikes.

All of this presumes, of course, that Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran's Supreme Leader, does not order a bomb to be assembled in the meantime. The unpredictable head of an isolated theocracy in deep economic difficulties might feel he has nothing to lose.

America and Europe doubt Tehran's scientists will be capable of preparing a weapon for at least another two years. Israel counters that the Fordow complex near Qom, already hidden beneath a range of mountains, could be fortified further, to the point where even "bunker-buster" bombs would fail to inflict the necessary damage. Delay, say Mr Netanyahu's officials, could be fatal.

That's what they always say. In Washington, Mr Obama told Israel's Prime Minister to let sanctions – chiefly designed to isolate Iran from international finance – do their work. Most, even in Israel, believe they are already having an effect. Besides, more talks between the "five-plus-one" (the US, UK, France, Germany, Russia and the Chinese) and the Iranians are due to be held in Istanbul a week from now.

Nevertheless, the President also declared that America will under no circumstances tolerate a nuclear-armed Iran. Such was Mr Obama's promise. This was good enough, supposedly, for Mr Netanyahu. He can wait.

Patently, this is scary stuff. As a region, the Middle East has not been stable, by any definition, for decades; it is hardly a zone of tranquillity today, given Syria, the condition of Iraq, the aftermath of the Arab spring, and the fact that Mr Netanyahu's government has been conspiring yet again in the acquisition of Palestinian land. Israel can employ the usual bland language of surgical strikes. Iran, it seems, has plenty of conventional long-range missiles. Would they have to be destroyed too?

For the world, there are other issues. Five of the six nations that will seek to dissuade Iran from nuclear weapons in Istanbul are nuclear-armed. The other protagonist, namely Israel, also possesses a "secret" – meaning no secret at all – thermo-nuclear arsenal. If it flies missions against the Fordow complex its pilots will drop American bombs from American aircraft, the fruits of the $3 billion a year the US pays in "aid". When does Mr Obama intend to say that he will not tolerate Israel's nuclear weapons?

This isn't a matter – though Mr Netanyahu will tell you it is – of avoiding a "moral equivalency" between a democratic Israel and a brutal theocracy. Nor need you conflate the Iranian "threat to peace", as the Israeli government calls it, with the threat to stability posed by Israel's treatment of the Palestinian people. You can keep it simple. How do half a dozen nuclear powers tell a sovereign republic that it must never join their disreputable club?

What are the arguments? That the rest are busy disarming? That isn't even half true. That they all trust one another never to use the weapons they retain for "security"? Ask around in Washington, Moscow, or Beijing. In the Middle East, only one statement would be plausible: that the US, in return for Iran's co-operation, will oblige Israel to disarm.

Thanks to the nature of domestic American politics, that isn't going to happen. In the Middle East, with reason, Israel is therefore understood as a US proxy. So Mr Netanyahu exploits American elections and Middle Eastern fears alike. This is not a formula for stability. Israel has bombed threatening neighbours before, yet the game goes on.

Self-evidently, it's the most dangerous game imaginable. One irony is that plenty of Middle Eastern states, led by those dedicated democrats in Saudi Arabia, would also like to see Iran's ambitions thwarted. They would say no such thing publicly, however, if the pre-emptive (and wholly illegal) strike came from Israel. Any progress in the "war on terror", or any attempt to refloat the world economy, could meanwhile be forgotten.

In all of this, Israel claims moral authority for its subsidised military might. History and Iran's repeated threats to destroy the country give the claims plenty of credence, but they do not still every protest. Even Coalition Britain is opposed to airstrikes. Mr Netanyahu certainly doesn't care about that. If he wages still another "defensive" war while robbing still more Palestinians, however, he may find world opinion beginning to turn.

Gunter Grass, the 84-year-old Nobel laureate, has simply published a poem this week. In his native language, as best as I can tell, it isn't much of a poem; in English translation it's execrable. It is, nevertheless, a statement in verse by Germany's greatest living writer on the threat, moral and physical, posed by the world's only Jewish state.

It is a statement, indeed, by an author who waited until 2006 to confess that as a teenager in 1944 he had been drafted into the Waffen-SS. The writer, often described as Germany's conscience, acknowledges in What Must Be Said that he will be accused of anti-Semitism just for speaking out. He dismisses the Iranian theocrats and expresses his solidarity with Israel. Then he damns the idea of "self-defence" that will lead, so he fears, to apocalyptic war.

Grass questions why Israel is allowed nuclear weapons. He questions his own country's silence, a circumspection that allows Germany to supply Israel with submarines. He states that he has spoken out "because I'm sick of the West's hypocrisy;/ and I hope too that many may be freed/ from their silence..." Grass, the German, is saying that Israel can no longer be exempted from judgment because of the Holocaust.

Mr Netanyahu responded, predictably, by calling the poet and his poem "ignorant and reprehensible". The Israel embassy in Berlin then accused Grass of perpetuating the blood libel, saying that "it belongs to European tradition to accuse Jews of ritual murder before the Passover celebration". The charge of anti-Semitism came as predicted.

Neither response was an answer, however. Can it really be an answer, while Mr Netanyahu agitates for a war that could ignite half the world, just to assert, over and over, that Israel can never be wrong? Too many have ceased to believe it.

In 1967, Grass published a poem about Vietnam. It was entitled, ironically enough, Do Something. One line runs: "Impotently I protest against impotent protests". Mr Netanyahu needs to hope that all protest remains forever impotent.






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[The Flying Dutchman]

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Israel has few options for rocket fire from Egypt

Published 6 Apr 2012 at 9:22 AM
By The Associated Press
http://www.dailytexanonline.com/world-and-nation/2012/04/06/israel-has-few-options-rocket-fire-egypt​

JERUSALEM — Israel’s prime minister on Thursday warned that Egypt’s Sinai desert is becoming a “terror zone” and vowed to strike at militants there after a rocket fired from the area hit a southern Israeli resort town.

The tough talk, however, was tempered by Israel’s desire not to disturb the already fraught relationship with Egypt. Israeli officials acknowledged their options are limited as the new government in Egypt — one of Israel’s few allies in the Arab world — tries to secure its sovereignty over the mountainous Sinai Peninsula.

Thursday's rocket attack, the first on Eilat in nearly two years, raised new Israeli concerns about militant activity in Sinai, particularly since the fall of Hosni Mubarak’s regime last year. Israeli security officials have repeatedly warned of a power vacuum in Egypt and say that Islamic militants have stepped up their activity in Sinai and are now active on Israel’s doorstep.

“We are seeing now with Eilat that the Sinai Peninsula is turning into a terror zone,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said. “We will strike at those who attack us. There can be no immunity for terrorism; it must be fought and we are doing so.”

Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak threatened to “strike those responsible for firing (the Grad rocket) at Eilat.”

No injuries were reported in the overnight strike against Eilat, a normally tranquil Red Sea vacation spot that is set to welcome thousands of visitors this weekend for the Passover holiday.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility, and Egypt denied the attack was launched from its territory. “The chief of security of southern Sinai has already denied that the rocket was fired from the Sinai territory,” Egyptian Foreign Minister Mohammed Amr told reporters in Cairo.

But Israel military officials, citing intelligence, said all signs were that the rocket had been fired from Egypt. It would be the third such time since 2010 that militants in Egypt have fired rockets toward Israel.

Israel has warned of growing lawlessness in Sinai following the uprising last year that overthrew Mubarak’s regime.Sensing the growing threat, Israel has increased its surveillance on the Egyptian border and is building an electronic barrier along the 150 mile frontier in a bid to keep out militants and illegal migrants. It is expected to be completed by the end of the year.

But the fence cannot protect southern Israel from rockets, a gap that Netanyahu pointed out on Thursday.

Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip, separated by a border fence from Israel, have fired thousands of rockets into Israel in recent years. Israel has responded to Gaza rocket fire with military reprisals and the deployment of a rocket-interception system known as Iron Dome.

Rocket fire from Egypt is far rarer, and it is not clear if Israel plans to move the anti-rocket system, which is still in its infancy and expensive to deploy, to the border with Egypt.

Thursday’s attack left Israel in a delicate position: absorbing hostile fire from a neighboring country but having few options to respond.

Eli Shaked, a former Israeli ambassador to Egypt, said Israel’s hands are tied until a government takes shape in Cairo that is ready and able to tackle the militancy in the Sinai Peninsula. Israel’s historic peace agreement with Egypt is a cornerstone of Israeli security policy, and Israel cannot do anything that might sabotage the peace.

“Israel has no choice but to wait,” he said.

An Israeli official echoed those limitations.

“We will fight terror, of course, but we don’t intend to enter Egyptian territory. That’s not an option,” said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the sensitive diplomatic issue with the press. “We can talk to (the Egyptians), but that’s it.”

Both Shaked and the official were confident Egypt would work to rein in anarchy in Sinai, but that it would take time before it could do so. Egypt votes for a new president in May.

No injuries were reported in Thursday’s incident. But it was part of a string of attacks believed to have been launched from Sinai over the past year years.

Last August, gunmen from Sinai sneaked into Israel and ambushed vehicles on a desert highway, killing eight Israelis. Three Egyptian soldiers were killed in Israel’s subsequent hunt for the militants, causing a diplomatic crisis that ended with an Israeli apology. It is unclear if Israeli soldiers crossed the border in their chase.

That incident suggested that Gaza militants with their allies in neighboring Sinai were exploiting Egypt’s political turmoil to open a new front against Israel.

It also highlighted the delicate balance Israel must maintain between trying to defend its border and protect its relationship with Egypt.

Rockets last hit Eilat and the nearby Jordanian town of Aqaba in August 2010, killing one person and wounding four. In April of that year, two rockets landed in Aqaba and the remains of one were found in the waters off Eilat.

Egypt became the first Arab nation to sign a peace treaty with Israel in 1979. After Mubarak’s fall and with the rise of Islamist parties who traditionally view Israel with hostility, Israel has become concerned that the accord may be under threat.

The Muslim Brotherhood, the largest party in Egypt’s parliament, does not openly oppose the peace deal, but has said it would consider amending the pact to allow more Egyptian troops along the border with Israel. The deployment of Egyptian forces in Sinai is limited under the 1979 deal.

Israel’s insistence that the peninsula be significantly demilitarized was a key aspect of the 1979 peace deal.

Today, however, this provision makes it difficult for Israel itself to demand the Egyptians do a better job of policing the vast desert triangle that separates Asia from Africa. In the aftermath of Mubarak’s ouster, Israel permitted Egypt to send in more troops than the 750 allowed under the treaty.






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[The Flying Dutchman]

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8:01 a.m. today

Iran lawmaker:
Country can produce nuclear weapons

By ALI AKBAR DAREINI, Associated Press
http://www.wral.com/news/political/story/10955706/​

TEHRAN, Iran — Iran has the knowledge and scientific capability to produce nuclear weapons but will never do so, a prominent lawmaker has said.

Gholamreza Mesbahi Moghadam is a parliamentarian not a government official and his views do not represent the Iranian government's policy. It however is the first time that such a prominent Iranian politician has publicly stated that Iran has the technological capability to produce a nuclear weapon.

His assertion published on parliament's website late Friday suggests that Iran is trying to show unity in its political establishment around its often repeated claims that it seeks world-class technological advances including nuclear expertise, but does not want to develop atomic arms as the U.S. and its allies claim.

The statement comes before planned talks beginning next week with the U.S. and other world powers over Tehran's nuclear ambitions.

Moghadam said Iran can easily produce the highly enriched uranium that is used to build atomic bombs, but that it is not Tehran's policy to go that route.

"Iran has the scientific and technological capability to produce (a) nuclear weapon, but will never choose this path," he said in remarks carried by the parliamentary website icana.ir.

The U.S. and its allies accuse Iran of using its civilian nuclear program as a cover to develop nuclear weapons. Iran denies the charges, saying its program is peaceful and geared toward generating electricity and producing medical radioisotopes to treat cancer patients.

Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has repeatedly insisted that his country is not seeking nuclear weapons, saying that holding such arms is a sin as well as "useless, harmful and dangerous."

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has also asserted that if Iran one day decides to build nuclear weapons, it will do so openly and won't fear anybody. However, he has also emphasized that Iran has no intention to weaponize what he describes as a peaceful nuclear program.

Director of U.S. National Intelligence James Clapper asserted in a January report to the Senate Intelligence Committee that Iran has the means to build a nuclear weapon but has not yet decided to follow through.

U.S. intelligence officials say they generally stand by a 2007 intelligence assessment that asserts Iran stopped comprehensive secret work on developing nuclear arms in 2003. But Britain, France, Germany, Israel and other U.S. allies think such activities have continued past that date, a suspicion shared by the IAEA, which says in recent reports that some isolated and sporadic activities may be ongoing.

However, the IAEA says there is no evidence to prove that Iran's nuclear materials have been diverted towards weapons.

Iran says it is enriching uranium to about 3.5 percent to produce nuclear fuel for its future reactors and also to around 20 percent to fuel a research reactor that produces medical isotopes to treat cancer patients. Uranium has to be enriched to more than 90 percent to be used for a nuclear weapon.

The U.N. nuclear agency has also confirmed that centrifuges at the Fordo site near Iran's holy city of Qom are churning out uranium enriched to 20 percent, and says uranium enriched to that level can more quickly be turned into weapons-grade material.

Moghadam, the lawmaker, said that Iran has the means to produce 90-plus percent enrichment.

"There is a possibility for Iran to easily achieve more than 90 percent enrichment," icana.ir quoted Moghadam as saying.






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[The Flying Dutchman]

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Washington looks for a nuclear opening with Iran

April 07, 2012 03:42 PM
By David Ignatius
The Daily Star
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/Opinion...-nuclear-opening-with-iran.ashx#axzz1rMeR3AXz​

President Barack Obama has signaled Iran that the United States would accept an Iranian civilian nuclear program if Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei can back up his recent public claim that his nation “will never pursue nuclear weapons.”

This verbal message was sent through Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who visited Khamenei last week. A few days before traveling to Iran, Erdogan had held a two-hour meeting with Obama in Seoul, South Korea, in which they discussed what Erdogan would tell the ayatollah about the nuclear issue and Syria.

Obama advised Erdogan that the Iranians should realize that time is running out for a peaceful settlement, and that Tehran should take advantage of the current window for negotiations. Obama didn’t specify whether Iran would be allowed to enrich uranium domestically as part of the civilian program the U.S. would endorse. That delicate issue evidently would be left for the negotiations that are supposed to start April 13, at a venue yet to be decided.

Erdogan is said to have replied that he would convey Obama’s views to Khamenei, and it’s believed he did so when he met the Iranian leader on March 29. Erdogan also met President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and other senior Iranian officials during his visit.

The statement highlighted by Obama as a potential starting point was made on state television in February. Khamenei said: “The Iranian nation has never pursued and will never pursue nuclear weapons ... Iran is not after nuclear weapons because the Islamic Republic, logically, religiously and theoretically, considers the possession of nuclear weapons a grave sin and believes the proliferation of such weapons is senseless, destructive and dangerous.”

The challenge for negotiators is whether it’s possible to turn Khamenei’s public rhetoric into a serious and verifiable commitment not to build a bomb. When Obama cited this statement to Erdogan as something to build on, the Turkish leader is said to have nodded in agreement.

But the diplomatic path still seems blocked, judging by recent haggling over the meeting place for negotiations. Istanbul was expected to be the venue, but the Iranians last weekend balked and suggested instead that negotiators meet in Iraq or China. U.S. officials see this foot-dragging as a sign that the Iranian leadership is still struggling to frame its negotiating position.

The Erdogan back channel to Iran is the most dramatic evidence yet of the close relationship Obama has forged with the Turkish leader. Erdogan, who heads an Islamist party that is often cited as a model by Muslim democrats, has been a key U.S. partner in handling Syria and other crises flowing from the Arab Spring uprisings.

A sign of Erdogan’s role as intermediary is that he was accompanied, both in the meeting with Obama and on the trip to Iran, by Hakan Fidan, the chief of Turkey’s intelligence service. Fidan is said to have close relations with Qassem Suleimani, who heads Iran’s Quds Force and is probably Khamenei’s closest adviser on security issues. Also joining Erdogan was Ahmet Davutoglu, the Turkish foreign minister.

Syria was another big topic in Erdogan’s discussions with Obama and his subsequent visit to Iran. The Turkish leader told Obama he would press Iran to reduce its support for Syrian President Bashar Assad, whom Erdogan once championed but is now determined to oust. Erdogan said he planned to tell Khamenei that Syrian attacks on Muslim opposition forces must stop. The Turks have been trying, meanwhile, to bolster the opposition, so that it can provide a credible alternative to Assad’s rule.

Some Arab analysts see a weakening of support for Assad in recent days from Iran and its Lebanese proxy, Hezbollah, whose leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah last week called for a “political solution” with the opposition. The key player in any such managed transition would be Russia’s president-elect, Vladimir Putin. U.S. officials hope he can broker a Syria deal before he meets Obama at the G-8 summit in May.

As Iran’s leadership debates its negotiating stance, the squeeze of Western sanctions is becoming tighter. Nat Kern, the editor of Foreign Reports, a leading oil newsletter, forecasts that Iran will lose about a third of its oil exports by mid-summer. It may get even worse for Iran after July 1 if China and the European Union follow through on recent warnings they might stop insuring tankers carrying Iranian crude.

U.S. officials believe that if Iran refuses to negotiate, it will be easier to tighten sanctions even more.


Read more: http://www.dailystar.com.lb/Opinion...-nuclear-opening-with-iran.ashx#ixzz1rMeWidEX
(The Daily Star :: Lebanon News :: http://www.dailystar.com.lb)




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[The Flying Dutchman]

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The creeping war in Sudan

07/04/2012
By Osman Mirghani
http://www.asharq-e.com/news.asp?section=2&id=29161​

Unless a miracle takes place, Sudan is approaching a catastrophic war which will be even fiercer and more bloody than all the previous rounds of fighting. This is what many have, for quite a long time, been warning against, due to the government's abject failure in dealing with the peace issue and the consequences of secession, as well as a result of the minor considerations of some of those in power in Khartoum.

The manner in which the al-Bashir regime has handled the South Sudan issue and the Peace Agreement was always leading in one direction, namely hostile secession.

The North is now paying the price for the government's failure to manage the transitional period following the signing of the 2005 peace agreement which ended with South Sudan's 2011 referendum on secession. This government not only failed, during these six months, to create an atmosphere where unification would be viewed as an attractive prospect, it also failed – disastrously – to solve a number of dangerous issues prior to secession.

No rational person can believe that the al-Bashir government failed to anticipate that the South would vote for secession, rather than unity. This was clear and the writing was on the wall, as the saying goes, therefore this justifies the questions that have arisen regarding the government's true objectives for failing to solve the problematical issues of borders and wealth before the referendum in the south. This is because issues of this sort, if they remain outstanding or vague, are often a cause for wars between countries. In fact, Sudan had better chances of resolving these issues via negotiations before, not after, secession. Yet, the government squandered these opportunities in the same manner that it squandered unity, and it ultimately seemed glad about the South’s secession.

Isn't it true that some government supporters even celebrated the "divorce" from the South, slaughtering sacrifices in Khartoum and expressing their joy at what they deemed their salvation from the South and true independence for the North? What is even stranger is that one of those who celebrated the South’s secession was writer al-Tayeb Mustafa, who happens to be President al-Bashir’s uncle, and who also heads the Just Peace Forum, which has nothing whatsoever to do with either justice or peace!

This coalition continues to provoke hostility and incite war by launching media campaigns against anybody seeking to bring Khartoum and Juba together. Toward this endeavour, the coalition has supported calls to expel the southerners and occupy Juba, the capital of South Sudan. What kind of genius prompted some individuals, particularly within al-Bashir's inner circle, to celebrate the South’s secession and consider this to be “great” for the North, and then later demand the invasion of Juba?

The problem is that those individuals calling for this are not the voice of dissent, rather they are part of the regime and some of them are even part of the President's inner circle. This, however, means that the reins of government are in the hands of the regime's "hawks" despite the talk about disagreements within the party, not to mention reports that some youth within the Islamist movement have brought their complaints to the leadership, calling for the rectification of a series of failures.


In fact, the al-Bashir government, not matter how many peace slogans it raises, will remain a government of war. Under this government, Sudan came to experience a series of endless wars, and it continues to jeopardize what remains of the country. Ever since the regime emerged to seize power via a military coup, it continued to start wars, and sow the seeds of antagonism and division until Sudan is in flames with creeping wars which extend from the farthest west to the farthest east, whilst signs also indicate that it is likely that wars may extend elsewhere. This government fought against the South for 16 years, adopting the slogan of jihad against its own people.

Towards this endeavour, the Sudanese government sought assistance from Islamist groups in other countries, as was evidenced by the striking admissions made by the Egyptian al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya [the Islamic Group], which confessed it had made a mistake in participating in the wars in Sudan; a participation which they acknowledged has contributed to this deplorable status quo. Nevertheless, the Sudanese government has failed in its primary duty, namely protecting the country’s soil.


Central governments do not fight for separation, but rather to preserve unity and the safety of the country's soil. However, the al-Bashir government is the exception to this, for it fought in order to ultimately divide the country via a peace agreement that achieved only a short armistice, not peace, and paved the way for secession, not lasting unity.

It is odd that following this long episode, the government is once again declaring war and is threatening to invade the South, claiming that South Sudan is conspiring with foreign parties to undermine the rule in the North by backing armed groups in South Kordofan, the Blue Nile and Darfur, in addition to waging an economic war by ceasing its oil exports.


The regime may need to be reminded that 10 months ago al-Bashir himself threatened to cease oil exports through northern seaports as part of the nail-biting game between the two sides over their oil dispute. Such threats have rebounded on the regime; Khartoum seized some of the South’s oil cargo on account of the existing dispute between the two sides, the South resorted to the Samson Option whereby it ceased its oil exports and closed its oil-fields.

This has served to raise the pressure within the corridors of the al-Bashir government, which is now facing an economic crisis which it declines to admit; indeed it is trying to delude people into believing that it will restore the oil revenues that went to the South via mining and exporting gold.


It is striking that the government is speaking of gold as a solution to its crisis, rather than agriculture which has been completely destroyed under this regime, with this destruction extending to the [Nile] Island Project that was once regarded as the prop for Sudan's national economy. It is odd that the government is saying this after it has concluded dubious deals whereby it has sold much of the country's land [to foreigners].

I fear that people will wake up one day and discover that what remains of their land is nothing more than a handful of barren plots and "a rented capital." I fear that people will one day discover that the best of their land has been sold to foreign companies thanks to the regime's brokers and widespread corruption, which has already begun to affect those in power.


The regime, in its current crisis and in light of the signs of discontent in the North, is rushing towards the war option, particularly after its policies have only exacerbated the hostilities with the South, serving as a cause for new wars in Northern Kordofan and the Blue Nile, as well as Darfur. Due to this rush to war, the regime is dragging the entire country into the abyss!






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[The Flying Dutchman]

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Main Yemen airport closed 'after threat by military'

07/04/2012
http://www.asharq-e.com/news.asp?section=1&id=29160​

SANAA, (AFP) - The airport in the Yemeni capital was closed on Saturday after threats by forces loyal to a general close to former president Ali Abdullah Saleh to attack aircraft landing or taking off, an airport source said.

The airport has been surrounded by forces loyal to air force chief General Mohammed Saleh al-Ahmar, Saleh's half brother, who has refused to quit after being sacked by President Abdrabuh Mansur Hadi, the source said.

"No aircraft has taken off or landed since these forces made their threat late on Friday," the source said, adding that the troops surrounding the airport were backed by members of the Hamdan tribe that supports former strongman Saleh.

These men were led by Naji Jamaan, a Hamdan tribal chief, the source added.

Ahmar has refused to step aside unless several senior defence ministry officials, including the minister himself, also leave, a military source said on Saturday.

In a message to his troops, Ahmar said that Hadi's presidential decree would not be "implemented" until Defence Minister Mohammed Nasser Ahmed, General Ali Mohsen al-Ahmar and chief of staff Ali al-Ashwal left their posts.

He also demanded that several members of the powerful Hashed tribe be forced into exile. The tribe backed defectors such as General Ali Mohsen al-Ahmar during last year's anti-regime protests.






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[The Flying Dutchman]

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US warship Carl Vinson arrives

Ritu Sharma
Express News Service
Last Updated : 07 Apr 2012 10:25:21 AM IST
http://expressbuzz.com/nation/us-warship-carl-vinson-arrives/379880.html​

NEW DELHI: USS Carl Vinson – the US aircraft carrier that buried the most dreaded terrorist in the world Osama Bin Laden at sea – has reached Indian shores to take part in the 10-day long war games with the Indian Navy off Chennai coast and then in Bay of Bengal.

About a year ago, Osama’s body was on the deck of the USS Carl Vinson before it was lowered into the sea -- Osama’s final resting place somewhere in the Indian Ocean Region (IOR).

Powered by nuclear fuel, the 31-year-old Vinson was also deployed around Iran in 1990s and in the north Arabian Sea to launch first strikes of Operation Enduring Freedom against Afghanistan after 9/11 terror attack. Floating deck carrier Vinson has led the US 7th Fleet comprising of guided missile cruiser USS Bunkerhill, guided missile destroyer USS Halsey and logistics ships UNNS Bridge, Los Angeles-class submarine USS Louisville and a P3C Orion reconnaissance aircraft to India for the 16th edition of the Malabar exercise that began in 1992.

Presently, Vinson has reached off the coast of Chennai with a 6,000-strong crew. The ship goes by the nickname the ‘Gold Eagle’.





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[The Flying Dutchman]

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Pakistan practically an enemy state

By Salim Mansur ,QMI Agency
First posted: Friday, April 06, 2012 08:00 PM EDT
http://www.torontosun.com/2012/04/05/pakistan-practically-an-enemy-state​

Last week I wrote Pakistan is the centre of the global-jihad complex and, in effect, is practically an enemy state at war with the West and its democratic allies, India and Israel.

For reasons of diplomacy western officials are loathe to characterize Pakistan as an adversary.

The big question, and no one in the western capitals has yet an answer for it, is how to deal with a rogue state possessing nuclear weapons that colludes with jihadis and provides sanctuary to those who have openly declared war against the West?

This question is also being asked inside Pakistan by those who are sane enough to recognize how perilous the fate of their country has become due to the reckless, if not criminal, conduct of their political-military elite.

Pakistan’s leading English-language newspaper, Dawn, in one of its recent editorials, warned: “If the discovery of Osama bin Laden in Abbottabad wasn’t embarrassing enough, there is now even more reason for Pakistan to take a long, hard look at its record against terrorism.”

This record is dismal, and many intrepid Pakistani journalists have paid with their lives — as did Syed Saleem Shahzad of Asia Times who was kidnapped, tortured and killed last May — in reporting this sordid reality.

In Azaz Syed’s report for Dawn, more information about Bin Laden has surfaced through one of his widows, Amal Ahmed Abdulfattah, who agreed to speak to officials on record.

Bin Laden was living in Pakistan in relative comfort, according to Amal, moving from one safe house to another in different cities with his three wives and children before settling down in the military town of Abbottabad.

Amal had five children from Bin Laden, and four of them were born in government hospitals in Pakistan. This could not have occurred without the knowledge of Pakistani authorities.

Bin Laden crossed into Pakistan in 2002. For nearly a decade Pakistani authorities denied his whereabouts, spoke about him as someone dead, and all the while they were engaged in a sort of “witness protection” plan to keep him safe from demands to locate and hand him over to the Americans.

But how has Pakistan got away with such brazenly duplicitous behaviour without severe penalty?

This is a long, complex and ugly story of how the West, and in particular the U.S., has sullied its own liberal democratic values abroad and at home by making false friends for some higher principle, such as opposing communism during the Cold War years.

Apart from its location at a strategic crossroad of global politics, Pakistan has nothing of any value to offer the world.

Whatever little it manufactures, such as textiles, can be bought elsewhere, and as a dysfunctional society it has impoverished its people and abandoned them to the false litany of grievances against others that fuel Islamism and the politics of jihad.

Yet Pakistan has practically stalemated the West, while making its living through jihadi blackmail as a nuclear weapon state. If Pakistan had oil, then what?

“Then what” would be a nightmare and it is close to turning real when Iran acquires nuclear weapons, while the West agonizes like Hamlet on the merits of taking “arms over a sea of troubles.”





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[The Flying Dutchman]

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The Growing Turkish Threat

April 7, 2012:
http://www.strategypage.com/qnd/iran/articles/20120407.aspx​

Iran does not like Turley supporting Syrian rebels, but does little beyond complain about Turkey and Iran disagreeing about what is happening in Syria. Iran is intent on maintaining good relations with the Turks, who have been a formidable (and usually victorious) foe for centuries. This strategy is based on fear, reflected in a recent Turkish opinion poll that showed 54 percent of Turks approved Turkey developing nuclear weapons if Iran does.

To make matters worse Turkey has joined with the Sunni Arabs to rebuild the old (pre-1918 when the Ottoman Turk empire collapsed) coalition opposing Shia Iran. Back in Ottoman times, Turkey was the undisputed leader, but now must share that with Saudi Arabia. Much to Iran's discomfort, the Turks are making this unnatural marriage (the Turks and Arabs never really got along) work.

In Syria, Iranian advisors have prevailed over more bloody minded Syrian leaders who wanted to kill a lot more protestors, in order to terrorize all the others. The Iranian advisors speak from experience, and it is Iranian cash that keeps the Syrian government running in the face of economic sanctions. Iran loses a lot if the pro-democracy rebellion in Syria succeeds. At that point a loyal ally turns into another bitter Arab enemy. Worse, it becomes much harder to support the Hezbollah militia that runs southern Lebanon. Hezbollah, armed with over 40,000 Iranian rockets, is the only weapon Iran has to use against Israel if Israel tries to bomb Iranian nuclear weapons facilities. While Hezbollah would lose another war with Israel (like they did in 2006 when they accidentally started one); Hezbollah would also lose most of its rockets and other Iranian weapons.

Without Syria, replacing all those rockets would take a long time, and might be impossible. For this reason, Hezbollah is supplying men (as trainers, technicians and, in a few cases, fighters) and weapons to Syria. Throughout all this, Syrian and Hezbollah personnel in Syria are under orders to keep their heads down. The Lebanese and Iranians wear Syrian uniforms as needed, unobtrusive civilian clothes otherwise. Foreign media are kept at a distance. But a growing number of Syrians fleeing the country have seen the foreigners in action, and recognized where they were from and what they were doing.

Iran needs also Hezbollah to support a worldwide network of Iranian spies and terrorists. Since Hezbollah is Lebanese, they have an easier time connecting with the worldwide network of Lebanese expatriates (many of whom fled during the 1975-90 civil war that helped create Hezbollah). Iran uses this network as a support force for Iranian agents. If Hezbollah is weakened or destroyed, so is much of Iran's foreign espionage and terror capability. Some overseas efforts would not be hurt, like those closer to home (in Afghanistan, Yemen and Arabia).

Iran is not too worries about an Israeli air strike, because the Israelis are already waging a covert war against Iran's nuclear weapons program. This has been going on for several years and is doing an increasing amount of damage.

Iran is also using rather quiet moves to increase its influence in Iraq. One critical operation is to get a pro-Iranian Iraqi cleric appointed (by a council of senior clerics) the chief Shia cleric for Iraq. Because most Shia clerics, especially the elite ones, go to elite religious schools in Iran, the Iranians have a good idea how all the Iraqi candidates think. Using the same tools (bribes, favors, blackmail, whatever it takes) employed to ensnare Iraqi politicians, the Iranians are trying to persuade the senior Iraqi clerics to pick the right buy when the aging and sickly incumbent (81 year old Grand Ayatollah Ali al Sistani) finally dies.

In Afghanistan, Iran is using more money than guns to influence the media and public opinion. Western Afghanistan has, in the past, often been a part of Iran and Afghans are willing to take what they can get from the Iranians. If the Iranians want to pay the local media to say nasty things about the Afghan government or the Americans, or local people to stage demonstrations for those causes, there is not a lot of resistance. Iran has always played the long game, and the Afghans (including the Afghan government) respect that.

The U.S. believes that there is enough spare capacity in the world oil supply to replace what is lost by cutting off Iranian exports. Starting June 28, the world is supposed to stop buying Iranian oil, as part of a sanctions program to get Iran to stop developing nuclear weapons. Iranian oil shipments are already down 14 percent. But two of Iran's major oil buyers, China and India, refuse to abide by the sanctions.

China is doing it largely for economic reasons. By defying the sanctions China has more leverage and is able to get a lower price for Iranian oil. India, on the other hand, wants to keep good relations with Iran in order to gain access to Central Asian (including Afghanistan) trade routes. In addition, "sticking it to the West" is still popular in India (which was an anti-West "neutral" during the Cold War.) Despite Chinese and Indian support, it looks like there will be a ban on insurance for ships trading with Iran. This will force China and India to provide insurance, which will increase their costs a bit.

The sanctions are having a growing impact. Shortages of foreign currency mean many foreign goods cannot be imported. General mismanagement of the economy by the corrupt government means inflation is now running at a high rate (north of 20 percent a year). Most Iranians are feeling the pain, but not the corrupt officials that are responsible for it.

April 6, 2012: Early today nine Somali pirates captured a Chinese cargo as it approached an Iranian port on the Indian Ocean. China requested that Iran rescue the ship, and its 28 Chinese sailors, from the pirates. Later that day, two Iranian warships caught up with the much slower Chinese ship and told to the Somalis to surrender or die. The Somalis, knowing how bloody minded the Iranians and Chinese could be, didn't try to use the Chinese sailors as hostages, but threw weapons overboard and surrendered.

March 31, 2012: The U.S. openly pledged to aid Gulf Arab states against any Iranian aggression. This guarantee was always implied, but making it so public serves to make the Iranians nervous and the Gulf Arabs bolder (especially in their support for Syrian rebels.)

March 25, 2012: Somali pirates seized an Iranian merchant ship off the Maldive Islands, which are 3,000 kilometers from Somalia. The pirates have to go farther from Somalia to avoid detection and capture by the anti-piracy patrol.

March 24, 2012: Interpol has issued arrest warrants for four Iranians believed involved in a recent terrorist operation in India, what attempted to kill Israeli diplomats.






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[The Flying Dutchman]

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Israeli pre-emptive strike plan demoralizes Iran

ALI BLUWI
Apr 7, 2012 01:51
http://arabnews.com/opinion/columns/article606783.ece​

Surveillance devices that belong to one Asian ship in the Arabian Gulf intercepted a dialogue between Iranian sailors and some Houthi leaders in Yemen.

The intercepted message, which is fully recorded, assures the Houthis that weapons and funds were sent and plans were to be implemented. A few days ago, Kuwait Islamist intellectual Abdullah Al-Nafisi revealed, based on credible information, that Iranian pilots were bombing the cities of Homs, Idlib and Niftnar after Syrian pilots refused to comply with military orders to bomb people.

A Syrian opposition member, a former colonel from the military intelligence, confirmed that hundreds of dead bodies were moved to the national hospital in Homs. The people were killed because they refused to carry out orders in Homs. The bodies were supposed to be buried in a collective cemetery which was prepared for them, but people in Homs surrounded the hospitals to recognize them. Some of the dead bodies were actually belonged to air force personnel.

While the killings of people in Homs and other cities continue, there is an international silence due to the position of Russia, Iran and China. Some medical doctors and nurses were also killed to create the impression that they were killed as a result of sectarian operations carried out by Islamic groups. However, it is well known that some military elements from the division led by Assad’s brother, Mahir, carried out these attacks. Interestingly, Iran shipped a great deal of weapons from an Israeli origin to Damascus. These weapons were given to the Syrian Free Army and some protesters in order to paint the opposition as collaborating with Israel.

There are some confirmed reports that Iran and Israel have some sort of understanding over the Syrian crisis, Hezbollah, Hamas, and the nuclear issue. For this reason, Israeli sources are quick to say that military intervention in Syria is not possible and that Assad has already prevailed over his opponents. A few days ago, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that Assad could smile as the possibility of a military solution to the crisis was over. The Iraqi prime minister said that putting an end to Assad’s regime was not possible and unacceptable and that the crisis was over. The statements from the Iraqi prime minister were most disheartening. He did not have the courage to say “no” to Tehran especially even before the ink of the Arab League’s decisions went dry. His statements proved beyond doubts that the Iraqi sovereignty and decisions are still hostage to the Iranian position.

And yet, people have changed. They understood that the world is no longer the same and that the tools of politics have changed. In an era of the new media, the bankruptcy of dictatorships and ideologies cannot be more striking. Additionally, the new media has revealed that mentality of Iran, Syria, and Russia are something of the past where security solutions took precedence over political solutions. Not surprisingly, we see the insistence of the Syrian president to stay in power; manipulating the will of the Iranian people in elections; and the Russian rigged elections where the Russian people had either to elect Putin or a version of him!

The Syrian colonel said that over the last three months the Syrian regime aided by the Iranian intelligence were planning for the post Annan’s plan that is expected to fail. The new plan talks about transferring the weapons of the Division 14, moving the files of the state, and the archives of the Intelligence Department to the region of the Mountain (Al-Jabal). It transpired that the Iranian Revolutionary Guard has been overseeing the training of a special force that belongs to the family of Assad. This special force is made up of Shiite volunteers, some leaders of the Revolutionary Guard, and elements from the forces of Jerusalem, the army of Mahdi, the Iraqi and the Lebanese Hezbollah, and Badr organization. This big force is named the army of Al-Hussein. It has some 35,000 volunteers most of them well trained and took part in sectarian repression in Iraq and in Iran after rigging elections of 2009.

And Israeli intelligence report confirms that Iran fears the downfall of Assad because of the grave consequences on Iran. According to the report, Tehran was further terrified when Israel talked about a three-month period to end Iran’s nuclear project and that Israel would strike without taking permission from Washington. This pushed President Obama to send an urgent message to Tehran urging its leaders to respond quickly or else. Perhaps, this new development pushed Iran to agree on dialogue in Ankara about its nuclear file.

But, as Tehran defends Assad, it has managed to move battalions of the Revolutionary Guard and death squads to Syria in order to threaten the security of Israel in case Israel attacks Iran. Israeli reports confirm that the quantity of weapon sent to Syria indicate that Iran is actually preparing for war with Israel through Syria in order to impose a new reality in the region.

The question is who would fall first? Some information confirm that during a secret meeting the Assad family reached a conclusion that it is better to pave the way for power transfer to one personality from the Alawites. This conclusion came after the Syrian intelligence reports talked about defection among the army and that some 60 percent of the Baath party would give up on Assad, and that the latter will have no presence in the new political entities.

Additionally, Western reports confirm that change in Syria is inevitable within no more than six months. But what would happen if Israel carried out its decision during June? I think that Iran is between a rock and a hard place. The downfall of Assad will be too much for Iran to digest and an Israeli strike would surely emasculate Iran. This is exactly what the Iraqi prime minister and the president of Russia do not want to see.






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[The Flying Dutchman]

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Iranian cleric says Saudi is ‘centre of sedition’

Saturday, 07 April 2012 01:11
http://www.thepeninsulaqatar.com/mi...-cleric-says-saudi-is-centre-of-sedition.html​

DUBAI: An Iranian cleric accused Saudi Arabia yesterday of giving refuge to terrorists and committing crimes in Arab states including Bahrain and Syria, the Iranian Students’ News Agency Isna reported.

Relations between Gulf heavyweight Saudi Arabia and Iran have been strained over Iran’s nuclear programme and what Saudi Arabia and some other Gulf Arab states say is Iran’s meddling in Arab affairs.

Tehran denies the charge and has condemned what it calls foreign interference in the affairs of its closest Arab ally, Syria, and Saudi Arabia’s deployment of foreign troops in Bahrain last year.

“The Saudi government has become the centre of sedition in the region and a safe haven for terrorists such as (Tunisia’s former president Zine Al Abidine) Ben Ali and (Iraq’s fugitive Vice President) Tareq Al Hashemi,” hardline cleric Ahmad Khatami said during a sermon at Friday prayers.

“They are also committing crimes in Bahrain and taking seditionist acts in Syria ... I warn them that if they do not stop such actions, they will be burned with the fire they have created themselves,” Khatami said, according to Isna.

Shia Muslim Iran backed popular uprisings which have removed leaders in Egypt, Libya and Yemen but has steadfastly supported Syrian President Bashar Al Assad, who is a member of the minority Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shia Islam.

Backed by Western countries, Riyadh has spearheaded Arab efforts to counter Assad’s suppression of a year-old uprising and to demand that he step down.

In October, the United States said it had uncovered an Iranian-backed plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to Washington. Iran denied any involvement.

Riyadh suspects Tehran of backing unrest led by neighbouring Bahrain’s Shia majority against the island state’s Sunni monarchy, supporting Shia rebels in northern Yemen and fomenting unrest among Saudi Arabia’s own Shia minority.

Saudi Arabia has indicated it could increase oil output to make up for Iranian crude in the event of a European Union embargo against Iranian oil, a stance criticised by Iranian officials.






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[The Flying Dutchman]

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Israeli official says Iranian claim of nuclear
capability shows its program has military angle

DANIEL ESTRIN
Associated Press
10:18 a.m. EDT, April 7, 2012
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/nationworld/sns-ap-ml-israel-iran,0,2403458.story​

JERUSALEM (AP) — An Israeli official says a prominent Iranian lawmaker's claim that Tehran has the knowledge and scientific capability to produce atomic weapons reinforces Israel's view that the Islamic Republic's disputed nuclear program has a military dimension.

The Israeli official on Saturday reiterated demands that Israel's prime minister issued last month: Iran must stop enriching uranium, remove all military-grade enriched material from the country, and dismantle its Fordo nuclear research site.

He spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter.

Iranian lawmaker Gholamreza Mesbahi Moghadam's comment on the Iranian parliament's website late Friday was the first time a prominent Iranian politician has publicly stated that Tehran has the capability to build a nuclear bomb.





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[The Flying Dutchman]

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Egypt launches large-scale operation in northern Sinai

Security forces sent in to crack down on terror groups,
protect gas pipeline; second rocket discovered in Eilat

By Yoel GoldmanApril 7, 2012, 5:18 pm
http://www.timesofisrael.com/egypt-launches-large-scale-operation-in-sinai/​

Egyptian authorities launched a large-scale operation Saturday against terror groups in northern Sinai. General Salah al Masri, commander of security forces in the region, said that the operation was meant to reinforce the security presence in the area and protect the peninsula’s gas pipeline, reported Voice of Israel radio.

Al Masri said that approximately 150 police officers — from special forces and other combat units — were sent into northern Sinai on Saturday.

Egyptian security officials said Israel had agreed to allow Egypt to send seven battalions into the peninsula, according to Haaretz, despite agreements between the two nations that prohibit sending military forces into the region.

In a related story, a rocket was discovered Saturday by the IDF in an open area in Eilat, according to Voice of Israel radio. The rocket was apparently launched at the same time as another rocket that exploded overnight Wednesday in a residential area in the southern Israeli city.






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[The Flying Dutchman]

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Iran’s unbelievable hypocrisy

Saturday,April 7 2012,
Your time is 10:02:44 AM
http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/ir...risy-.aspx?pageID=238&nid=17848&NewsCatID=411​

In the aftermath of the “Friends of the Syrian People” meeting in Istanbul, a most bizarre statement came from Tehran.

Ali Larijani, the speaker of the Iranian Parliament, condemned the meeting and dubbed its participants as “the enemies of Syria.” He even argued that the meeting was organized by Turkey, of course, “to bribe Israel.”

But Iran should know better who “the enemies of the Syrian people” really are. After all, it is Tehran who is supporting and arming the illegitimate regime in Damascus which has killed more than 9,000 Syrian citizens in the past year. It is even reported that the “Islamic Republic” is actively participating in this mass murder, by putting its military advisers and even snipers at the service of the tyranny of Bashar al-Assad.

In other words, if we want to name any “enemy of the Syrian people,” we should probably look to somewhere other than the Turkish government.

In fact, the Turkish government, like it or not for any other reason, has been doing its best to help the Syrian people. When Syria was threatened by the Bush Administration in 2005, it was Ankara who reached out to Damascus and saved it from total isolation. Soon Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoðan befriended Bashar al-Assad, and solved all longtime problems between the two countries.

Visa requirements were lifted as trade and tourism boomed between the two nations.

When the Arab Spring reached Syria, Turkey again tried to help, by trying to persuade the al-Assad regime for a peaceful transition to democracy. Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoðlu visited Damascus again and again to convince the regime to refrain from violence and reach a consensus with the opposition under Turkish mediation.

But, well, the leopard did not change its spots. The Baath regime proved that nothing has changed since 1982, when it killed tens of thousands of Sunnis in Hama and Homs – a monstrosity that Sunni Turks know and remember well. Soon, thousands fled to Turkey to find shelter, and Ankara, as a friend of the Syrian people, welcomed them. These survivors also made Turkey even more aware and alarmed about the barbarism of the al-Assad regime.

So, today Turkey is condemning the Syrian regime, supporting the Syrian opposition, and trying to mobilize the international community, only because it is indeed the friend of the Syria people.

Tehran’s dishonesty is evident not only its anti-Turkish demagoguery on Syria, where it itself carries the real guilt, but also its total disrespect to Ankara’s efforts to find a diplomatic solution to the nuclear crisis. In 2010, Ankara went out of its way to help Tehran on this, by first brokering a nuclear swap deal and then voting “no” to sanctions on Iran at the United Nations Security Council. But all that goodwill on the Turkish side has simply been exploited by Iran to earn more time for its spooky nuclear program.

Finally, I know whatever I write here will not change much, but let me still tell this openly to the Iranians who apparently see the whole region from the prism of a Sunni-versus-Shiite dichotomy: Yes, we Turks are overwhelmingly Sunni, but we certainly are not anti-Shiite. Quite the contrary, we want to see only understanding, respect and fraternity between these two great branches of Islam.

Thus, our condemnation of the al-Assad regime has no sectarian subtext. We just hate to see innocent children, women and men being killed everyday by a ruthless dictatorship. And when the patron of that dictatorship calls us an “enemy” of those victims, I can’t find any word for the behavior of that patron other than hypocrisy.
April/07/2012






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[The Flying Dutchman]

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Escalating bloodshed crushing
hopes of Syrian ceasefire

Updated April 08, 2012 00:49:46
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-04-...ed-crushing-hopes-of-syrian-ceasefire/3938100​

Syrian troops have pounded opposition areas on Saturday, activists said, killing 43 people in an offensive that has sent thousands of refugees surging into Turkey before next week's UN-backed ceasefire aimed at staunching a year of bloodshed.

Each side has accused the other of intensifying assaults in the run-up to the truce due to take effect early on Thursday.

The truce can only be implemented if government forces begin pulling back from towns 48 hours earlier in line with UN-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan's peace plan, but witness reports and satellite images show no let-up in the attacks.

The military attacked Deir Baalba district in the restive city of Homs, killing 17 people in what the grassroots Local Coordination Committees opposition group called a "massacre".

Amateur video recorded by activists showed scenes of carnage said to be the aftermath of the assault. Heaps of mangled limbs and body parts gathered in blankets were being loaded onto a pick-up truck after army shelling.

The footage, which could not be verified independently, also showed 13 people who had apparently been tied up and had their throats cut.

No comment was immediately available from Syrian officials.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said at least 43 people had been killed, including 27 in an army attack on al-Latmana, a town in Hama province, that began on Friday.

Rebels trying to oust president Bashar al-Assad attacked army posts north of Aleppo after midnight, killing an officer and two men, and assaulted a helicopter base, activists said.

Syrian commandos shot dead three rebels in an overnight raid on a "terrorist den", Syria's state news SANA agency reported.

The towns of Anadan and Hraytan north of Aleppo and the countryside around Syria's second city have endured days of clashes and bombardment, prompting 3,000 civilians to pour across the Turkish border on Friday alone - about 10 times the daily number before Assad accepted Annan's plan 10 days ago.

'Killing must stop'​

The Syrian leader is fighting a popular uprising, which he blames on foreign-backed "terrorists", that has spawned an armed insurgency in response to violent represssion of protests.

While many in Syria's Sunni Muslim majority back the revolt, especially in provincial areas, Assad retains support from his own minority Alawite sect and other minorities fearful that his overthrow would lead to civil war or Islamist rule.

In Damascus, thousands of flag-waving Assad supporters marked the founding in 1947 of Syria's ruling Baath Party.

The bloodletting of the past week or so does not bode well for implementation of Annan's ceasefire plan.

This requires Assad to "begin pullback of military concentrations in and around population centres" by Tuesday.

Rebel Free Syrian Army commander Colonel Riad al-Asaad said his men would cease fire, provided "the regime ... withdraws from the cities and returns to its original barracks".

Syria has said the plan does not apply to armed police, who have played a significant role in battling the uprising in which security forces have killed more than 9,000 people, according to UN estimate. Syria says its opponents have killed more than 2,500 troops and police since the unrest began in March 2011.

Annan's plan does not stipulate a complete army withdrawal to barracks or mention police.

Satellite pictures published by US ambassador Robert Ford showed Syrian artillery apparently still poised to target built-up areas and tanks being moved from one place to another.

"This is not the reduction in offensive Syrian government security operations that all agree must be the first step for the Annan initiative to succeed," Ford said in Washington.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon demanded that the government halt attacks on civilians and keep its promises.

"The 10 April timeline ... is not an excuse for continued killing," he said on Friday.

"The Syrian authorities remain fully accountable for grave violations of human rights and international humanitarian law. These must stop at once."

Reuters

First posted April 08, 2012 00:31:32





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[Jonas Parker]

Thanks Dutch. Looks like we don't have long to wait...

 

[Housecarl]

Hummm.....

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://the-diplomat.com/2012/04/07/the-rise-of-global-feudalism/

The Rise of Global Feudalism
April 07, 2012
By Brian P. Klein

Economies need to get back basics – education, access to capital, rule of law, and labor mobility. Slowing growth in China and India makes clear that consumers are the key to prosperity.

In April 2007, New Century Financial Corporation filed for what was then a little noticed bankruptcy protection. Their mortgage-backed securities had become worthless and by summer Bear Stearns began liquidating hedge funds. Come the autumn, Britain’s fifth largest mortgage lender Northern Rock was on the ropes propped up by the Bank of England. The rest is well known history.

Five years on, after bank failures and bailouts, foreclosures, and rising unemployment, the crisis that started as an obscure financial scheme has led to an unusual triple failure in all three of the world’s traditional growth engines, the United States, Europe and Japan. Though boom-bust cycles are nothing new, they tended to peak and trough at different times. Germany’s early 20th century malaise was paired with America’s roaring twenties. Japan’s first lost decade of the 1990’s coincided with a western tech-driven high.

Now, industrialized nations are facing their greatest economic threat in nearly a century – a troubled middle class losing its purchasing power to drive world growth. If current trends aren’t reversed, and soon, 2012 may be the year the middle fails and a century of economic modernization grinds to a halt.

The upwardly mobile middle class is a relatively new phenomenon. For most of history, the wealthy stayed rich and most everyone else never had a chance. Over the last sixty years, the U.S. as world consumer of first resort created a golden age of opportunity along with a strengthening Europe and Japan. The new middle class that emerged bought homes, cars and appliances powering mass-market adoption of every major innovation of the time – from electricity and the telephone to medical technology and the Internet.

Without this purchasing power, investing in innovation loses its main appeal – the ability to profit from new products and ways of doing things sold into a mass market that can afford to buy them. Notice the shift already underway. Companies like Proctor and Gamble are diversifying their product mix to appeal to budget consumers and premium brand buyers, while the middle market shrinks. They’ve introduced low-priced dish detergent and expensive replacement razor blades while their laundry brand Tide has become so expensive it has attracted thieves that sell it on the black market or trade it for drugs.

Contrary to the decline of the West, rise of the rest narrative in vogue these days, even fast growth economies like China, India, Russia and Brazil can’t pick up the slack. Burdened with years of lax planning and excessive state ownership of diverse industries from banks to airlines and steel mills, the BRIC’s middle class purchasing power remains weak. Even overly optimistic forecasts of a new Asian century routinely use unsustainable growth rates that are already beginning to slow. Note China’s revision to a more modest 7.5 percent growth target and India’s struggle to keep growth alive.

A shift is now underway, risky but necessary for developing economies that looked to industrialized nations for demand. When Chinese President Hu Jintao addressed the National People’s Congress last month, he emphasized the need to re-direct the economy towards more domestic consumption. The World Bank in a recent report warned that China faces increasing risks of a hard landing if policies changing the role of government in the economy aren’t enacted soon. Several leading economists believe that day has already come. Growth fueled by investment and infrastructure spending has done little for small and medium sized enterprises, the core job creators, a social safety net or healthcare.

A triumphant Vladimir Putin in his election victory speech declared a shift in growth away from Russia’s state-owned enterprises and towards more free market reforms. Burma has started to free up its state owned economy after decades of dictatorship. Hotels in Rangoon are filled with businesspeople eager to get in early to the unveiling of a relatively untouched Southeast Asian gem. Here, too, state capitalism appears on its way out, not up.

Unfortunately, reorienting growth towards the middle is much easier said than done, more like changing the direction of an ocean liner than a speed boat. Russia’s great wealth has flowed to powerful oligarchies. China’s income gaps are widening into chasms and social unrest is on the rise. India’s companies are hampered by excessive government intervention, frequent power outages and corruption. Even Brazil’s rapid, but thin growth is based heavily on natural resources.

In the end, there has been no greater engine of growth than the power of the consumer. Both developed and developing economies need to get back basics – education, access to capital, rule of law, and labor mobility. Without them growth stalls, inequality worsens, and political instability rises. Absent change, our collective futures look surprisingly like a not so distant past. That was feudalism, and it’s making a comeback as well.

The great age of opportunity that was a hallmark of the 20th century can last well into the next if countries focus on winning the race back to the middle – and not to the destructive financial top.

Brian P. Klein is a macroeconomic and geopolitical strategist and former U.S. diplomat. His articles and op-eds have appeared in Foreign Affairs, the New York Times, Newsweek Japan, the International Herald Tribune and South China Morning Post, among others. He’s at work on his first book about the rise and fall of the global middle class and blogs at www.brianpklein.com

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[CGTech]

If the US is 'symboliclly' withdrawing forces away from Iran and Amamjammadingdong and his merry men, the Israel could feel that they are totally alone, and have no choice but to take the aggressor role..

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source....
Posted for fair use.....
http://nationalinterest.org/commentary/storms-brew-pyongyang-6740

Storms Brew in Pyongyang
| More [1]
|
April 6, 2012
Morton Abramowitz [2]

North Korea never fails to shock the world. Within days after agreeing to a moratorium on missile tests, Pyongyang announced it would launch a “satellite” in April to commemorate the centennial of the birth of Kim Il-sung. Many critics initially believed that North Korea would back away from the agreement after receiving a significant amount of aid from the United States, but Pyongyang did so before receiving an ounce of “nutritional assistance.”

Later this month, a North Korean rocket will fly across the East China Sea and fall somewhere in the Philippine Sea. Most countries condemned the launch. Japan and South Korea issued warnings that they would intercept the “satellite” if it strays into their airspace, but that is unlikely to scare Pyongyang.

At the nuclear summit in Seoul, Chinese president Hu Jintao expressed concerns about the missile launch and agreed to coordinate with the United States in the case of a “potential provocation.” China’s efforts appear limited at best, allowing some North Korean defectors in the South Korean consulate in Beijing to fly to Seoul but otherwise not changing North Korean plans.

Meanwhile, Washington has declared that the deal would not survive the launch, and Pyongyang has made clear that nothing will stop it. Despite his administration’s professed humanitarianism, President Obama personally stated that, given the North’s flagrant repudiation of the deal, nutritional assistance to North Korean women and children provided under the deal could not go forward.

The Korean cognoscenti are having a field day trying to explain North Korea’s surprising behavior. While a few claim to have predicted the North Korean turnabout, most observers expressed surprise at its abrupt about face. Some attribute it to an internal power struggle; some suggest that North Korea never wanted to give up its nuclear program and intended to use U.S. hostility towards the satellite launch to justify further nuclear-weapons advances. Many favor a simpler explanation, one advertised by the regime itself for months: the launch was a long-anticipated part of the centennial celebration of Kim Il-sung and had to take place. (Although it is hard to explain the role of knowledgeable veteran North Korean negotiators, possibly in the dark but more likely simply followinged orders out of fear for the consequences.)

The fact is that we do not know what happened in Pyongyang, and it does not change the reality that the launch will directly violate UN Security Council resolutions 1714 and 1874. Unless Beijing is determined to intervene and pressure Pyongyang with all of its weight, the rocket launch seems inevitable, and Washington must prepare for a post-takeoff reality.

A New Game Plan

The United States (and just about everybody else) is sick and tired of Pyongyang and prefers that it disappear—but has not found the means to make that happen. The notion that China would solve the nuclear issue through the six-party talks, paraded as strategic brilliance by Bush-administration champions, has not worked. And heated domestic politics now make it harder to do anything with the most reviled and untrustworthy government in the world.

So policy makers are once again left with the same old problem—relatively treacherous negotiating circumstances—but with a new regime they know even less about. Outside of the unlikely event that Washington decides to try to shoot down the missile, there are two ways the United States can deal with the current situation. One is to do nothing: let North Korea feel its isolation, and after the launch again apply sanctions and other forms of international pressure and denunciation. This approach bears an uncanny resemblance to the 2009 crisis in which North Korea also launched a “satellite,” an action that infuriated the international community, lead to sanctions against the North and left the region in a state of sustained tension without dialogue. Needless to say, the situation did not improve: there was another nuclear-weapons test and a deadly turn for the worse in 2010 with two attacks on South Korea. Today, there are hints of the same scenario.

At the moment, however, Pyongyang appears intent on continuing negotiations with the United States. It has privately expressed to Washington its strong interest to act in accordance with the rest of the agreement. IAEA inspectors were invited to return to the country, and observers were asked to watch the launch. Officials are also scurrying around conveying to some concerned countries their dedication to talks and dropping hints on giving up the food aid. All this does not appear likely to open the way to resuming negotiations. It’s conceivable—but unlikely—that a promise to halt further missile testing might bring a very skeptical Obama administration back to negotiations.

There is another alternative, albeit one not politically possible in this election year. The administration could deal with all major aspects of the nuclear issue at the highest level, with a senior U.S. official such as the vice president in the lead. Prior commitment by the North to suspend all its nuclear and missile activities, including satellite launches, would help. There are, of course, all sorts of complications with this approach, but it is about time to change the endless incremental negotiating game.

A high-level negotiating effort is not likely to go over easily here or with U.S. allies—and could backfire with Pyongyang’s new political leadership. But this new approach offers the only way of moving the whole issue to a more conclusive stage. It would also make clear that the United States is willing to go very far to resolve this issue despite Pyongyang’s egregious behavior.

For the near term, however, the Korean climate is likely to become a bit stormy, adding some fuel to America’s own electoral storm this year.

Morton Abramowitz is a senior fellow at The Century Foundation and a member of The National Interest [3]'s advisory council.

Image: Участник:Misha [4]
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Source URL (retrieved on Apr 7, 2012): http://nationalinterest.org/commentary/storms-brew-pyongyang-6740

Links:
[1] http://www.addthis.com/bookmark.php?v=250&username=nationalinterest
[2] http://nationalinterest.org/profile/morton-abramowitz
[3] http://nationalinterest.org/
[4] http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Dprk_pyongyang_cinema_studio_kim_sculpture_05.jpg

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use......
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/irans-limited-escape-options/2012/04/06/gIQA5zOd0S_story.html

Iran’s limited escape options
By Karim Sadjadpour, Published: April 6
Comments 30

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has never been a gambling man. Since becoming “supreme leader” of Iran in 1989, he’s sought to preserve the status quo by eschewing transformative decisions. But as unprecedented political and economic pressures — including sanctions against Iran’s central bank and the European Union oil embargo — increasingly push his back against the wall, Khamenei seemingly has two paths to deliverance: a nuclear compromise or a nuclear weapon. Each could be perilous for him; both would be transformative for Iran.

Khamenei’s aversion to compromise is well-established. He has long said that Washington’s underlying goal in Tehran is not behavior change but regime change. “If you supplicate, withdraw and show flexibility, arrogant powers will make their threat more serious,” he has said. Just as perestroika hastened the demise of the Soviet Union, Khamenei believes that compromising on revolutionary ideals could destabilize the foundations of the Islamic Republic.

Contemporary history has validated his worldview. To Khamenei’s thinking, it was Libyan dictator Moammar Gaddafi’s abdication of his nuclear program that made him vulnerable to the NATO intervention that ended his regime, and his life, last year. By contrast, Pakistan’s nuclear weapons tests in 1998 helped turn foreign pressure and sanctions against it into foreign engagement and incentives.

While Khamenei may shun compromise, however, his path to a bomb would be perilous. Overt signs of weaponization — the expulsion of nuclear inspectors or the enrichment of weapons-grade uranium — are likely to trigger U.S. or Israeli military action. Unless Khamenei wants to provoke a military attack on Iran for domestic expediency — an improbable but not implausible prospect — he will continue to favor a deliberate, incremental approach. Such a pace leaves the regime at least two years from a bomb.

But time may no longer be Khamenei’s friend. He must calculate whether his regime can sustain severe and escalating economic pressure for the period it would take to acquire a weapon.

Nor will the path toward a weapon be a straight line. Khamenei must consider that foreign intelligence services have probably penetrated Iran’s nuclear facilities and prepared various obstacles and pitfalls — computer viruses, “accidental” explosions, mysterious assassinations and defections — that could set Iran’s nuclear clock back even further.

Are these challenges enough to force Khamenei into a compromise?

The very few instances in which Iran has made significant compromises — such as ending its war with Iraq in 1988 or suspending uranium enrichment in 2003 — have come when the regime has perceived existential angst. While Iran is under enormous pressure today, two factors are different.

First, when Iran felt compelled to compromise in the past, oil cost less than $25 a barrel. Today, oil prices hover around four times that amount, softening the blow of sanctions.

Second, instances in which Iran has compromised were spearheaded not by the obstinate Khamenei but by wily former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani or his acolytes. In the past few years, however, Khamenei has purged these pragmatic elements from positions of authority and surrounded himself with sycophants who share his cynical hard-line worldview.

It’s possible that in the near term Khamenei will attempt a tactical and temporary compromise to stave off pressure and sow divisions among Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia and the United States (the P5+1), namely to peel China and Russia away from the United States and the European Union. There are no indications now, however, that Khamenei feels forced to make the types of meaningful and binding nuclear compromises that would reassure the United States and potentially placate Israel. (Such steps would probably include capping at 5 percent the level to which Tehran enriches uranium, sending out stockpiles of low-enriched uranium and agreeing to an intrusive inspections regime.)

It is often asserted that to persuade Tehran not to pursue a nuclear weapon, Washington must reassure Khamenei that the United States seeks merely a change in Iranian behavior, not in its leadership. While this makes sense in theory, it is complicated in practice by Khamenei’s deep-seated conviction that U.S. designs to overthrow the Islamic Republic hinge not on military invasion but on cultural and political subversion intended to foment a soft, or “velvet,” revolution from within.

For this reason a binding nuclear accommodation with Tehran is unlikely to take place absent a broader political accommodation. But an accommodation with the United States that reintegrates Iran into the global political and economic order could unleash unpredictable changes that undermine Khamenei’s authority. Like the longtime North Korean dictator Kim Jong Il and Syrian despot Bashar al-Assad, Khamenei appreciates that he can only rule over a closed domain. In other words, Khamenei’s opposition to the United States is cloaked in ideology but driven by self-preservation.

Herein lies Washington’s policy conundrum: No nuclear deal with Tehran can be made without Khamenei, yet it is almost as unlikely that any deal can be made with him. In effect, Khamenei’s obstinance due to his belief that U.S. policy is regime change, not behavior change, is becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy.

In this context, the utility of continued dialogue and negotiations will not be to resolve our differences with Iran but to prevent our cold conflict from turning hot. The Obama administration’s unprecedented and unreciprocated overtures to Iran helped expose — to the world and to the Iranian people — the fact that Tehran, not Washington, is the intransigent actor in this equation. This has served to strengthen the breadth and the depth of the international coalition.

The goal of coercive diplomacy should be to slow Iran’s nuclear progress and contain its political influence in the region until the regime is eventually transformed or changed through the weight of its internal contradictions and economic malaise. When this might happen is entirely unpredictable, but events in the Arab world over the past two years remind us that the line between the seeming invincibility of dictators and their inevitable demise is thin.

Karim Sadjadpour is a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source...
Posted for fair use......
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/story/2012-04-07/Israeli-strike/54102858/1


Gaza official: Israeli airstrike wounds 2 Palestinians
Updated 5h 19m ago

Comments

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) – An Israeli airstrike wounded two Palestinians in the Gaza Strip near the Egyptian border on Saturday, officials said.

Israel's military said its air force targeted Palestinians in the town of Rafah attempting to launch a rocket from Gaza into Israel.

Gaza health official Adham Abu Salmia said two people were wounded in the strike.

The leader of the Islamic militant group Hamas, which controls Gaza, vowed on Friday to abduct more Israeli soldiers to pressure the Jewish state to release Palestinian prisoners.

Speaking at a conference in the capital of Qatar, Khaled Mashaal said that such kidnappings are the only way to secure the release of Palestinians held in Israeli jails. Mashaal has made similar statements before.

Last year, Hamas struck a deal with Israel to swap an Israeli soldier held by Hamas for more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners, including many jailed for helping carry out bombings.

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap...Q0XaqQ?docId=42e186f6d2684411838bfc49c5cbf34d

US warns Syria it can't deceive world over pullout

By KARIN LAUB, Associated Press – 8 minutes ago

BEIRUT (AP) — The U.S. warned Syria it won't be able to deceive the world about compliance with a cease-fire that is just days away, as regime forces pounded more opposition strongholds Saturday in an apparent rush to crush resistance before troops must withdraw. Activists said more than 100 people were killed, including at least 87 civilians.

Almost half died in a Syrian army raid on the central village of al-Latamneh, activists said. Amateur video from the village showed the body of a baby with bloodied clothes and an apparent bullet wound in the chest. On another video, a barrage of shells is heard hitting a neighborhood of Homs as the restive city's skyline is engulfed in white smoke.

Syrian President Bashar Assad last week accepted a cease-fire agreement brokered by international envoy Kofi Annan calling for government forces to withdraw from towns and villages by Tuesday, and for the regime and rebels to lay down their arms by 6 a.m. Thursday. The truce is meant to pave the way for negotiations between the government and the opposition over Syria's political future.

However, Western leaders are skeptical about Assad's intentions because of broken promises of the past and the recent escalation in attacks on opposition strongholds, including arrest sweeps and shelling of civilian areas. The U.S. ambassador to Syria posted online satellite images late Friday that he said cast doubt on the regime's readiness to pull out.

"This is not the reduction in offensive Syrian government security operations that all agree must be the first step for the Annan initiative to succeed," Ambassador Robert Ford wrote on the embassy's Facebook page.

Ford posted photos he said show the government has pulled back some forces, but kept others in place or simply shifted around troops and armored vehicles. Earlier this week, the government claimed it had withdrawn from several areas.

"The regime and the Syrian people should know that we are watching," Ford wrote, citing satellite surveillance. "The regime cannot hide the truth."

The ambassador, who left Syria in February amid security concerns, said the Syrian government must give U.N. monitors access to confirm its compliance with the cease-fire. A U.N. advance team arrived in Damascus earlier this week; Annan's spokesman has said the U.N.-Arab league envoy hopes to put together a team of 200 to 250 observers.

Syria says the details of the mission have not been worked out.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, meanwhile, expressed alarm about escalating violence, saying Tuesday's deadline for a troop pullback "is not an excuse for continued killing." On Friday, he urged the regime to cease all military action immediately and unconditionally.

In Saudi Arabia, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation said Saturday that it believes some 1 million of Syria's 23 million residents need humanitarian assistance. The OIS, which considers itself the voice of the Islamic world with 57 Muslim majority member states, said it would provide $70 million in aid, including food and medical supplies. It has already sent nine trucks with relief to the areas most in need.

The group sent representatives to Syria, a member country, in late March and said it was willing to work closely with authorities there.

The international community has been deadlocked over how to end the violence in Syria. Assad allies Russia and China blocked resolutions condemning Syria. The West, in turn, opposes military intervention or arming the opposition fighters. Russia, increasingly critical of the Syrian regime, supports Annan's plan, but it's not clear if that's enough to make a truce stick.

Street protests against Assad erupted 13 months ago, inspired by the Arab Spring's pro-democracy uprisings in the region, but eventually turned violent under a brutal regime crackdown. More than 9,000 people have been killed since then, the U.N. says.

Ill-equipped, poorly funded civilians-turned-fighters and army defectors have been no match for the regime, backed by a loyal army. On Friday, in a typical street battle, fighters in ski masks took cover behind walls and tried to spot army snipers in a Damascus suburb.

The capital itself has been relatively calm, and on Saturday, thousands attended a rally marking the 65th anniversary of the founding of Syria's ruling Baath party. A large poster of Assad hung from a facade facing a city square and supporters waved Syrian flags.

Saturday's deadliest fighting was reported in al-Latamneh in the central Hama province. Regime troops stormed the village after shelling it, killing at least 40 people, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

Amateur video posted by activists showed al-Latamneh residents crying "Allahu Akbar" as they held up the body of the dead baby. Another video showed the bodies of several men covered in white sheets lined up on the ground.

In the nearby province of Homs, activists reported shelling of the city as well as the rebel-held areas of Rastan, Deir Baalabeh and Qusair.

In all, at least 87 civilians and 16 opposition fighters were killed Saturday, the group said, while 13 unidentified bodies were found in the Deir Baalabeh neighborhood of Homs and 10 in Hreitan, in the northern province of Idlib. The Observatory said two dozen Syrian troops were also killed.

The grassroots Local Coordination Committees put the day's death toll on the opposition side at 121, including 59 in the Hama area.

The Syrian government restricts access of foreign journalists, and the activists' accounts could not be independently verified.

Syrian officials said troops arrested large numbers of gunmen and killed "some others" in the Damascus suburbs and in the center of the country. The government said it seized large amounts of weapons and ammunition Saturday. The regime claims the revolt is a foreign-led conspiracy, rejecting its portrayal as a popular uprising.

Associated Press writer Zeina Karam in Beirut and Abdullah al-Shihri in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, contributed reporting.

Copyright © 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

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[The Flying Dutchman]

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Going Mad over MAD

April 6, 2012, 2:50 pm 3
http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/going-mad-over-mad/​

The question has been floating around for some time now: “Is the Iranian regime a “rational actor?” This question is more than relevant for military strategists who subscribe to the Cold War nuclear deterrence model known as Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD). MAD contemplates the dynamic between two adversaries armed with enough nuclear weapons to survive and respond in kind to a first strike. The threat of catastrophic retaliation creates an equilibrium whereby both sides lose the incentive to be the first to attack. MAD theory postulates that even if Iran does acquire nuclear arms, it would not use them against Israel, as such use would be akin to national suicide, given the expected Israeli nuclear response. Instead, Iran would be locked into a cold war with Israel – a nuclear paralysis comparable to that between the United States and the Soviet Union during the latter half of the 20th century.

Proponents of MAD rely on the assumption that a “rational” state actor will not commit acts that will almost certainly result in the annihilation of a major portion of its own population and infrastructure, e.g. acts such as a nuclear first strike against an enemy state that possesses second strike capability (in this case, Israel). Most foreign policy analysts agree that since the revolution of 1979, the Islamic Republic has sufficiently demonstrated it is a rationally behaving entity. Even Israeli ex-Mossad Director Meir Dagan has been clear on this point. Assuming Iran is a rational actor; can we safely assume a nuclear equipped Iran would be deterred from attacking Israel under the principles of MAD?

MAD about the bomb​

MAD doctrine’s presumption that rational actors will be guided by a self-interest averse to wholesale devastation to its populace and infrastructure is dangerously flawed. The historical record shows Iran is willing to accomplish relatively minor gains at huge cost to the Iranian civilian populace. The military tactics of Iran during its decade-long war with Iraq in the 1980s evidence a shocking disregard not only for Iraqi civilian life, but for Iranian lives as well.

Perhaps most abhorrent was the decision by the Iranian military to clear mine fields by sending tens of thousands of untrained boys to their certain death. Enticing children to commit suicide involved the invocation of the Islamic notion of martyrdom through jihad. Plastic necklaces with “keys to paradise” were purportedly given to the children prior to their ghastly mission.

In a similar vein, thousands of children and other untrained Iranians were recruited for suicide missions in which human waves would run toward enemy artillery installations to make the path easier for Iranian troops and tanks. Massive enemy civilian casualties were the intended result of the “War of the Cities,” a relatively dark period of the Iran-Iraq War during which both sides barraged each other’s population centers — ostensibly to crush enemy morale.


If a moderate like Rafsanjani can envision a nuclear exchange with Israel as a positive for Iran, what are we to expect from his more extreme cohorts? (illustration: Arie Katz/The Times of Israel)

Iran has already proven its willingness to target innocent Jewish populations for mass execution. Iran was formally charged by Argentinean prosecutors for the 1994 bombing of a Jewish community center in Buenos Aires — a civilian facility — that claimed 85 innocent lives. Unbeknownst to many, Iran’s current minister of defense, Ahmad Vahidi, is one of five men wanted by Interpol for his involvement in the 1994 slaughter.

Iran continues to target civilian populations in Israel through its allies Hamas and Hezbollah, both of which fire Iranian rockets into Israeli towns, such as Sderot and Kiryat Shmona, where no military bases exist. During the recent Gaza flare-up, the IDF for the first time destroyed launching pits for long-range Iranian Fajr-5 missiles capable of reaching Tel Aviv.

At least one former president of Iran, Ayatollah Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, has rationally calculated that a nuclear exchange with Israel would be in Iran’s interest. In 2001, he was quoted as saying:


If one day, the Islamic world is also equipped with weapons like those that Israel possesses now, then the imperialists’ strategy will reach a standstill because the use of even one nuclear bomb inside Israel will destroy everything. However, it will only harm the Islamic world. It is not irrational to contemplate such an eventuality.

In the recent parliamentary elections of early March, candidates much farther to the right than Ayatollah Rafsanjani — those more closely aligned with Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamanei — won the day. Election results helped to consolidate the power of Khamanei, the real power in Iran and the real force behind Iran’s nuclear ambitions and its intransigence to a negotiated outcome. If a moderate like Rafsanjani can envision a nuclear exchange with Israel as a positive for Iran, what are we to expect from his more extreme cohorts?

The Iranian regime has shown rationality in the sense that it balances costs against benefits before determining a particular course of action. However, as demonstrated above, the value it assigns to human life is drastically lower than here in the West. Predicting Iran’s behavior once it acquires nuclear arms, if that’s even possible, requires taking this distinction into account. Given the low cost they ascribe to Israeli and Iranian casualties, the benefits of a first strike become more pronounced.

For Iran, apocalypse now​

Iran is weak, and its economy is in a shambles. A war with Israel may play into the hands of the Iranian regime under these circumstances – to deflect blame, to silence dissent, to galvanize domestic support and to regain the sympathies of the international community. If war breaks out, there is no telling where it will end. If Iran is backed into a corner and the regime threatened, eliminating once and for all the “cancer” of the Middle East, Israel, through nuclear attack could be an option rationally drawn and increasingly attractive. This is not to say it is a likely outcome, or reason to take a knee-jerk alarmist position at the present time, but the plausibility of this outcome shouldn’t be so easily discarded because Iran is a rational state actor.

We are told Iran hasn’t invaded a country in 300 years. We are told government-led chants of “death to Israel” are not actual threats but rather benign rallying cries for the suffering Palestinians. We are told to ignore the fervor with which the current regime embraces the apocalyptic brand of Shi’a messianism – which requires global upheaval and war as a precondition to the return of the hidden mahdi (messiah). And though Iran’s regime is steeped in devout fatalist religiosity, we are told to ignore this fact and the repetitive references to Israel as the incarnation of Satan on earth and the “enemy of Islam.” As for Israel, we are told it suffers from an “Auschwitz mentality,” always exaggerating the risks to its security.

Even heeding these spurious warnings and disregarding entirely the possibility of an irrational element to the Iranian regime’s thought-process, the historical record is clear: A nuclear Iran may not be deterred from a first strike based upon the principles of MAD.






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[The Flying Dutchman]

=

00:51 08.04.12


Special IDF units preparing for mass Lebanon
incursion if war breaks out with Hezbollah

Ground forces are expected to contribute much more than in 2006, when Israel
relied mainly on the IAF, which would entail much more intense urban warfare.

By Gili Cohen
http://www.haaretz.com/news/diploma...ion-if-war-breaks-out-with-hezbollah-1.423178​

Almost six years after the Second Lebanon War, special Israeli units are preparing to take part in mass incursions into Lebanon if another round of fighting with Hezbollah breaks out. Just as important, they are being trained to heed the legal implications.

Officers say the Israel Air Force would destroy targets like training bases and rocket-launching pads within a few days, based on the intelligence gathered by the Israel Defense Forces. But this would not be enough, so a ground offensive would be necessary.

"When you stick an [Israeli] flag [on enemy territory], there's no question who won," says a high-ranking officer who requested anonymity. "You need to seize a geographic space. This is the only way the concept of victory can be established."

The IDF has been trying to improve its performance if hostilities resume, but so has Hezbollah. The Shi'ite organization has built fortified lines with underground command posts and improved operational capacity. Its rockets are hidden in better-camouflaged launching pads.

The ground forces are therefore expected to contribute much more to the war effort than in 2006, when Israel relied mainly on the IAF. This would entail much more intense urban warfare, with many civilians caught in the crossfire, and the attendant legal implications.

"Everything that we've seen with the flotillas, Operation Cast Lead and the implications in terms of international law have left a strong impression on us," says Lt. Col. Sahar Abergil, commander of the special elite unit Yahalom. That unit specializes in bunker warfare and is likely to carry much of the military burden.

"I hope we'll take [international law] into account during the fighting," Abergil says.

Yahalom soldiers, along with the men and dogs of the IDF's Oketz canine unit, finished a long training session last week.

"It's not patrols or raids on Palestinians we're simulating here, but a full-fledged war," says Oketz's commander, who gave his name as Sivan.

One of Oketz's main tasks is to distinguish between militants and uninvolved civilians.

"Our dogs know how to spare civilians and home in on terrorists," says Sivan, a captain. "How do they? That's our secret."

When closing in on a house where the enemy is thought to be hiding, the soldiers must order everyone to exit. Those who don't come out are considered suspects, and the dogs soon get an order to attack.

According to Abergil, "Our goal is that the dogs won't take on civilians. "That's why we include pretend civilians in our drills, to show the soldiers that there are no hard-and-fast rules."

He says the soldiers also discuss moral dilemmas that may have legal ramifications. For example, they are expected to cope if a woman wearing a coat and a little boy approach their post.

"Do they open fire? Do they shout? Do they wound them? Our soldiers understand that it might be a terrorist cynically exploiting a 5-year-old boy, and they're supposed to try to find indications," says Abergil.

"Could she be deaf? Or maybe blind and she's being led by the boy? The army's encounter with a civilian population is never simple, and there's no way to master it fully. We're trying to instruct the soldiers to use their discretion and common sense. At the end of the day, this is war."






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[The Flying Dutchman]

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Israel warns negotiators to be tough with Iran

By AFP | AFP – 1 hour 30 minutes ago.. .
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/israel-warns-negotiators-tough-iran-121857615.html​

Two technicians at the zirconium production plant in southern Iran. Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak has warned the six-power group negotiating with Iran to set stringent limits on its nuclear enrichment at forthcoming talks

Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak on Sunday warned the six-power group negotiating with Iran to set stringent limits on its nuclear enrichment at forthcoming talks.

"If the P5+1 will set a much lower threshold, like just stop reaching 20 percent it means that basically the Iranians at a very cheap cost bought their way into continuing their military programmes, slightly slower but without sanctions," Barak said in English in an interview aired on Sunday by CNN.

"That would be a total change of direction for the worse," he added.

The so-called P5+1, comprising the five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany, is scheduled to begin talks with Iran in coming weeks, though no date has been set and Tehran has rejected at least one proposed venue.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu last month set three "benchmarks" for a peaceful settlement of the Iran nuclear issue: That the Islamic republic dismantle its underground nuclear facility in Qom, stop uranium enrichment and get rid of all enriched material in Iran beyond what would allow it to make medical isotopes or generate nuclear power.

"And when I say all the material, I mean all the material, from 3.5 percent up," Netanyahu said, during a March 2 visit to Ottawa on his way to meet US President Barack Obama in Washington.

The New York Times reported late Saturday that the United States and its European allies plan to demand the immediate closing and ultimate dismantling of the Qom plant, a halt in the production of uranium fuel that is considered just a few steps from bomb grade, and the shipment of existing stockpiles of that fuel out of the country.

"Mr. Obama and his allies are gambling that crushing sanctions and the threat of Israeli military action will bolster the arguments of those Iranians who say a negotiated settlement is far preferable to isolation and more financial hardship," the Times wrote.

The Obama administration says it does not believe Iran has taken a decision to develop a nuclear weapon, or that the time is right for military action, preferring to give sanctions time to work.

But Israel, which sees a possible Iranian nuclear weapon as a threat to its very existence, claims Iran may be on the cusp of "breakout" capability -- when it could quickly build a nuclear weapon -- and it does not rule out staging a pre-emptive strike of its own.

Iran last held talks with the six powers -- Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia and the United States -- in January 2011 with no results.

Obama has told Iran the United States would accept Tehran having a civilian nuclear programme if the Islamic state can prove it is not seeking atomic weapons, the Washington Post said Friday.

Obama sent such a message to Tehran via Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who delivered it to Iran's Supreme leader Ali Khamenei last week, said the newspaper's foreign affairs columnist David Ignatius.






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