ALERT Hezbollah, allies topple Lebanon government / Israel keeping close eye

[China Connection]

Next Israeli-Arab War Could Begin In Beirut

Jan 13, 2011

By David Eshel
Tel Aviv

http://www.aviationweek.com/aw/gene...e=Next Israeli-Arab War Could Begin In Beirut

Israel’s next war could be fought on several fronts and result in far more destruction and casualties on all sides than recent conflicts.

So said outgoing Israeli military intelligence chief Amos Yadlin in an address to the Knesset in November. Yadlin believes that despite an unprecedented period of calm for Israel right now—primarily due to its deterrence, alliances with Egypt and Jordan, and peace in the West Bank—there is a strong possibility of a major escalation of hostilities with two neighbors, Lebanon and Syria.

The flashpoint would be an attempt by Hezbollah to overthrow the Lebanese government, with backing from Syria and Iran. An overthrow could be triggered if an investigation by the Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL) assigns responsibility for the 2005 murder of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri to Hezbollah. The STL was created to investigate the killing, and will try defendants in an international court. At press time, STL reported that it would release a draft indictment of those responsible in the “near future.”

Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah has made it clear that he will not accept any indictment of Hezbollah members, and questioned the credibility of the tribunal. Should Hezbollah gain control of the country, it would absorb the Lebanese military and its assets and be in a position to menace Israel with its own arsenal of 40,000 rockets, many of which are capable of reaching urban areas including Tel Aviv. Political analysts say Israel would not tolerate such a threat, and sporadic battles would erupt on the border, leading to an all-out war with Lebanon that could eventually include attacks by Syria and by Hamas in Gaza.

According to Israel TV, Hezbollah conducted a secret exercise on Oct. 28 throughout the country to test its militia’s readiness for what leaders call “zero hour”—asserting their grip on Lebanon.

The regional fallout from a war between Israel and Lebanon, Syria and Gaza would be enormous, especially since Iran is likely to play a role in arming and supporting Israel’s enemies. Saudi Arabia and Jordan have also expressed concerns about the stability of Lebanon and the regional impact should Hezbollah take over the country.

In August, Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah traveled to Damascus to confer with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Abdullah’s objective was to explore ways of preventing an eruption of violence in—and from—Lebanon. Riyadh is worried about Tehran using Hezbollah to provoke war with Israel, a war Iran would exploit to further its regional aspirations to the detriment of Saudi interests.

A few years ago, King Abdullah of Jordan warned that a “Shia crescent” was being established across the region. He was referring to the growing influence of Shiite-dominated Iran in Iraq, its support of Hezbollah in Lebanon and the evolving alliance between Tehran and Damascus. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s triumphal visit to Lebanon in October and the threat of Hezbollah’s takeover of that country could make the Jordanian king’s warning become reality.

There is no doubt that Hezbollah is at the zenith of its power and influence in Lebanon. By demonstrating a willingness to press its advantages and hold the specter of violence over the country if it doesn’t get what it wants, the Lebanese government appears to be marching, at least somewhat, to the beat of *Hezbollah’s drum.

There are, however, obstacles that Hezbollah and its backers must overcome before expanding power in Lebanon. Some Syrian officials are far from enthusiastic about Hezbollah’s grand embrace of Ahmadinejad in October. Iran’s efforts to expand its influence in the Middle East are resented and resisted by most governments, and there is no guarantee that Tehran would be able to operate unmolested in the region should war break out. Assad’s Alawite minority regime is strong and bolstered by Iran, but rules by force over an increasingly dissatisfied Sunni majority, which includes the Moslem Brotherhood and other anti-government organizations.

Moreover, Tehran and Damascus were able to work with each other so long as it was clear that Iran was not encroaching on the influence of Syria in Lebanon. Damascus expects Tehran to refrain from inserting itself too far into Lebanese affairs and wants Lebanon to remain a Syrian protectorate.

However the situation develops, Israeli leaders are preparing for war while hoping that this current period of peace, however strained at times, continues.

 

[China Connection]

The Iranian slowdown

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/01/12/AR2011011205566.html

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Thursday, January 13, 2011

CONFIRMATION that the international campaign against Iran's nuclear program has made headway recently came from a seemingly unlikely source: Israel's intelligence chief. Last week, Meir Dagan, outgoing head of the Mossad intelligence agency, said that Iran could not now acquire a nuclear weapon before 2015, because of unspecified technical problems. That was a big change from previous Israeli estimates: In 2009, Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said Iran could have a bomb by this year. For years, Israeli measures of the Iranian nuclear timeline have been ahead of those by U.S. intelligence agencies, which predicted in 2007 than Iran could acquire nuclear capability between 2010 and 2015.

In Israel as in the United States, estimates of the Iranian threat may be swayed in part by debate over what to do about it; Mr. Dagan is reportedly an opponent of an Israeli military strike against Iran's nuclear facilities. Yet there appear to be solid reasons to conclude that U.N. and other Western sanctions and covert operations have hindered the Iranian program. An ingenious computer virus called Stuxnet may have put hundreds or even thousands of centrifuges used in uranium enrichment out of action; Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad publicly acknowledged last November that a virus had infected equipment. Two Iranian nuclear scientists were killed and another wounded in the last year in assassination operations Iran has blamed on Israel.

At the same time, sanctions may have impeded Iran from acquiring the specialized materials, such as maraging steel and carbon fiber, that it needs to replace broken centrifuges or build the more advanced models it has claimed to develop. Without more advanced centrifuges, Iran would have trouble in any attempt to create a bomb out of the low-enriched uranium it has stockpiled. Experts believe it would take a year to manufacture bomb-grade material with the current machines, which means the effort - if conducted in known facilities - would probably be detected with plenty of time for Western nations to react.
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The Obama administration deserves credit, at least, for orchestrating the tightening of sanctions; the authors of Stuxnet have not been identified. But as Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton emphasized this week, the changed timeline does not mean that the threat of Iran's program is over or that the urgency of confronting it is lessened. "We don't want anyone to be misled by anyone's intelligence analysis. This remains a serious concern," she said during a tour of Persian Gulf countries intended in part to win more support for sanctions enforcement. "We have time. But not a lot of time."

The challenge for the Obama administration, Israel and other allies will be to make use of that window to force a definitive end to the Iranian bomb program. The administration still hopes negotiations, set to resume Jan. 20, will achieve that end, but most likely it will require a fundamental change in Iran's hard-line regime. From that point of view, five years is certainly not much time

 

[Spirit Of Truth]

I'm only finding this from Iran's PressTV at this point. Chomping at the bit?

Lebanon PM resignation accepted

http://www.presstv.ir/detail/159948.html

Thu Jan 13, 2011 10:59AM

Lebanon's president has accepted the resignation of Prime Minister Sa'ad Hariri after the collapse of his government over tensions provoked by a US-backed tribunal investigating his father's assassination case.

"Since one third of the cabinet members quit, the government is now considered resigned," President Michel Sleiman said in a statement released on Thursday.

"For this reason, I request the caretaker government to carry out its duties until a new one is formed," the president added.

Lebanon's national unity government collapsed on Wednesday after eleven ministers, 10 from the Hezbollah-led March 8 Alliance and one close to Sleiman, resigned as he was on an official visit in Washington.

Sleiman has asked Hariri to continue managing the country's day-to-day affairs in a caretaker capacity until a new cabinet is formed.

The opposition bloc have for months been pressing Hariri to disavow the US-backed Special Tribunal for Lebanon (SLT), probing the 2005 assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri.

The western-backed majority, however, refused to make a compromise at the expense of the US-sponsored STL.

Rafiq Hariri and 20 other people were assassinated on February 14, 2005, when explosives equal to around 1,000 kilogram of TNT were blown up in downtown Beirut.

The Washington-sponsored STL was set up some two years later to look into the deadly incident.

Reports say that the court would likely issue an indictment against some Hezbollah members.

Hezbollah Secretary General Seyyed Hassan Nasrallah has vehemently rebuffed the allegations. He has described the plot as part of dangerous projects that are targeting the resistance movement.

The Lebanese As-Safir daily in November wrote that the United States is exerting "intensive" pressure on Hariri tribunal under the motto: "No discussions before an indictment is issued."

 

[ontheright]

Israel troops on alert after Lebanon govt falls
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Jan 13, 3:33 AM (ET)

By AMY TEIBEL

JERUSALEM (AP) - Israeli troops in the north were on alert Thursday over worries that the political turmoil in Lebanon might spill over into renewed violence on their shared border, following the collapse of the Lebanese government.

The Iranian-backed Hezbollah militant group and its allies threw the already volatile Lebanon into chaos on Wednesday by pulling out of the government and causing it to collapse.

Hezbollah, which clashed with Israel in a monthlong war in 2006, bolted over the government continued cooperation with a U.N. tribunal investigating the 2005 assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.

Hezbollah expects the tribunal to indict some of its members. It timed the dissolution of the government to coincide with the White House visit of the current prime minister, Hariri's son Saad.

A senior officer in Israel's northern command said commanders were following events in Lebanon very closely for any sign Hezbollah might try to heat up the already jittery northern border to deflect attention from the political turmoil.

However, although troops have raised their level of alert, reserves have not been called up and no regular troops have been moved north from other areas, the officer said.

He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to disclose military tactics.

Retired general Yaakov Amidror told Army Radio that the prevailing Israeli assessment is that Hezbollah has no interest at this point in a bruising war with Israel. Both the militant group - and more important, Iran - prefer to keep Hezbollah primed to assault Israel in the event Iran is attacked, Amidror said.

But in the current situation, Amidror said he would advise the military to "cast aside all these learned assessments from me and others" because the situation in Lebanon is so unsettled.

"Things are liable to slip out of the hands of decision-makers," he said. "You never know in such a volatile and delicate situation, where everyone has a lot of weapons, a lot of resentment, a lot of frustration - you never know where it could lead."

Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor said late Wednesday that Israel was "closely following events but this is a strictly internal Lebanese affair."

Israel's war with Hezbollah in 2006 was touched off by a Hezbollah border raid. Israel invaded Lebanon and Hezbollah retaliated with nearly 4,000 rockets fired into northern Israel in fighting that killed around 1,200 Lebanese and 160 Israelis, according to official counts from each side.

The Israel-Lebanon border has been largely quiet since. Hezbollah hasn't fired a rocket into Israel in the past four years - though Palestinian groups have - and the killing of an Israeli officer by Lebanese army fire in August was the military's first fatality on the frontier since 2006.

But although the U.N. truce that ended the fighting forbade Hezbollah to rearm, Israel believes the group has restocked its arsenal with even more powerful weapons.


http://apnews.myway.com/article/20110113/D9KNBHRO0.html