The Middle East

There are those who dismiss any mention of the possibility of war in the Middle East as Israeli propaganda and fear-mongering.

My feeling is that there is still a degree of Realpolitik within the Obama administration. However, if Romney wins the election all bets are off.

Israeli PM Netanyahu 'ready' to order strike on Iran

The Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has said he is ready to order a strike on Iran if international sanctions do not stop its nuclear programme.

 

BBC,

6 November, 2012

 

"I am, of course, ready to press the button if necessary," he said.

Speaking on Israeli television, Mr Netanyahu also indicated Israel was prepared to act unilaterally.

His government has failed to get the US to set a clear "red line" for military action against Iran.

This has put a strain on relations with the administration of President Barack Obama.

Channel Two interviewed the prime minister as part of an investigative report detailing Israel's efforts to stop Iran from what it says is a drive to develop a nuclear weapon.

Iran insists its nuclear programme is purely for peaceful purposes.

The Channel Two report said that in 2010, Mr Netanyahu and his defence minister, Ehud Barak, had given orders for the military to get ready to attack Iran within hours if required.

The programme described this as "the closest Israel has come to attacking Iran".

The orders were later withdrawn in the face of opposition from two top security officials at the time - chief-of-staff Lt Gen Gabi Ashkenazi and the head of the intelligence service, Mossad, Meir Dagan.

According to the programme Gen Ashkenazi considered such an attack on Iran, "a strategic mistake" because of the risk of a war, while Mr Dagan deemed it "illegal", saying a full cabinet decision was needed. Both men have since retired from their posts.

When Mr Netanyahu was asked about the reported exchanges he did not comment directly.

"In the final reckoning, the responsibility lies with the prime minister and as long as I am prime minister, Iran will not have the atomic bomb," he said.

"If there's no other way, Israel is ready to act."

In the documentary, there was also criticism of the handling of the Iranian nuclear threat from the former Israeli Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert. He suggested that the current government had jeopardised its close relationship with Washington.

Mr Olmert is considering making a political comeback ahead of a general election on 22 January.

Like its US ally, Israel has consistently refused to rule out a military option to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear bomb. It believes such a weapon would threaten its existence.

Senior Obama Adviser Leads Secret Talks With Iran

Chicago lawyer Valerie Jarrett is leading the effort, although she has no experience in high-stakes diplomacy

Anti-War,

5 November, 2012

President Obama’s close confidant and long-time friend of First Lady Michelle Obama, Chicago lawyer Valerie Jarrett, is leading behind the scenes negotiations with representatives of Iran’s supreme leader Ali Khamenei, Israeli officials with knowledge of the effort say.

Jarret, who was born in the Iranian city of Shiraz to American parents, is a senior advisor to US President Barack Obama and, Israeli officials claim, initiated and led secret talks with Iran in Bahrain, although she does not have any past experience with such high-stakes diplomacy.

Last month, the New York Times reported that the US and Iran have agreed to one-on-one negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program immediately following the US presidential elections. Officials later tried to deny this, but admitted the secret talks took place for a meeting in principle.

Such high-level, one-on-one negotiations between the Iranian regime and Washington would be unprecedented, and many have hopes that a grand bargain will be agreed up.

But even if the talks do occur in the event of a victory for Obama, it’s not clear they’ll be fruitful. Talks have floundered at various levels throughout Obama’s first term.

The closest the parties came to settlement was a deal in which Iran would halt 20 percent uranium enrichment in exchange for swapping enriched uranium for foreign-made fuel rods. Iran initially rejected the deal, but reluctantly agreed after Brazil and Turkey joined in the discussions. By that point, the Obama administration rejected Iranian acquiescence, in favor of sanctions.

Most of the so-called diplomacy with Iran has been “predicated on intimidation, illegal threats of military action, unilateral ‘crippling’ sanctions, sabotage, and extrajudicial killings of Iran’s brightest minds,” writes Reza Nasri at PBS Frontline’s Tehran Bureau. These postures have spoiled much chance to resolve the issues.

After the failed talks in 2009 and 2010, wherein Obama ended up rejecting the very deal he demanded the Iranians accept, as Harvard professor Stephen Walt has written, the Iranian leadership “has good grounds for viewing Obama as inherently untrustworthy.” Former CIA analyst Paul Pillar has concurred, arguing that Iran has “ample reason” to believe, “ultimately the main Western interest is in regime change.”

UK PM David Cameron: Safe Passage for Assad ‘Could Be Arranged’

It's clear Assad wouldn't leave power without safe passage and immunity

Anti-war,

6 November, 2012

UK Prime Minister David Cameron says he would support offering Syrian President Bashar al-Assad safe passage out of Syria if it meant he would step down.

Many leaders in the US and its top allies have so far refrained from talking about offering Assad safe passage. Politically, it is seen as a weak posture that proposes safe haven for a dictator with blood on his hands.

Cameron said the international community should consider anything “to get that man out of the country,” adding that “if he wants to leave…that could be arranged.”

The status of the Syrian conflict is essentially that it is a bloody stalemate between the remaining Assad regime and the armed rebel opposition, supported primarily by the US, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Turkey.

Riyad Hijab, Syria’s recently defected prime minister, told the Daily Telegraph that despite telling Assad “he needed to find a political solution to the crisis,” he “categorically refused.”

“Bashar really thinks that he can settle this militarily,” Hijab said.

This calculation, if true, is probably based in part on the understanding that unless he retains power and quells the rebellion, he will either be killed or face trial at the International Criminal Court at The Hague.

In fact, Amnesty International responded to Cameron saying that Assad would only agree to a safe passage deal if he was granted immunity.

“David Cameron should be supporting efforts to ensure that [Assad] faces justice, ideally at the International Criminal Court at The Hague,” Amnesty said in a statement.

Britain could build up its military presence in the Gulf to counter Iran threat

Britain could build up its military presence in the Gulf to counter the growing threat from Iran after the drawdown of troops in Afghanistan, it has emerged.

The Telegraph,

6 November, 2012

The news came as Prime Minister David Cameron, on a three day visit to the Gulf region to push sales of Typhoon jets, said the UK would do “everything to stop” Iran successfully developing nuclear weapons.

Government sources said the plans which could see Britain’s presence in the UAE boosted were part of a strategy set out in the strategic defence review to have a “flexible network of allies to deal with different threats”.

The source said that “of course” Britain was looking at contingency planning if the situation in Iran worsened, adding “that is why it is sensible to look at what allies we have in the Gulf region”.

Britain is evaluating whether to beef up a force of around 70 servicemen and women currently stationed in the United Arab Emirates to service jets flying between the UK and Afghanistan.

The Royal Air Force is currently running a twice-yearly advanced training leadership course from the base in the UAE, involving four Typhoon or Tornado jets and an additional 100 servicemen and women.

The source said: “As our plans for operational drawdown we have to look at the routes we use. No decisions have been taken but it makes sense to have a strategic ally.”

Britain was looking to do some “significant co-operation” with the Emiratis, the source added, because it was looking at developing links with a non-Nato ally.

No decisions had been made about whether British soldiers, who are being pulled out of Afghanistan by 2014, would be deployed if the situation in Iran worsened though.

Mr Cameron on Monday issued one of his most strongly worded warnings about Iran’s nuclear weapons programme. He told a group of around 200 students at a university in Abu Dhabi that Iran developing nuclear weapons would not only be a "desperately bad development for our world" but could "trigger a nuclear arms race across the whole of the region”.

Tehran was trying to develop nuclear weapons which he said would make the Middle East "a more unstable and more dangerous place", he said: "We should do everything we can to stop it happening."

During a 30 minute question and answer session, he said: "Iran does pose a threat in two ways. First of all, if Iran is embarked on trying to acquire a nuclear weapon, as I believe it is, that is a threat in itself, particularly given what Iran has said about other countries in the region, and in particular about Israel, about wanting to 'wipe it off the map'.

"In itself it is a hugely concerning development, a desperately bad development for our world and that is why we should do everything we can to top it happening.

"But I think there is a second reasons why it is so why it is so concerning and that is because I think it could trigger a nuclear arms race across the whole region.

“That would consume a huge amount of resources and energy but also I think make the Middle East a more dangerous, more unstable part of the world.

"So I think that for all those reasons it is right for like-minded countries to do everything they can to try to persuade the Iranians to take a different course," paying tribute to the fact that Dubai had almost entirely ended trade with what was one of its biggest trading partners.

It was "perfectly acceptable" for Iran to want civilian nuclear energy, he said. "The message we need to send to Iran is: there is a peaceful path; there is a path you could take that will remove the pariah status from your nation and that is to accept that you could have civil nuclear power but not military nuclear power and then we could have a proper discussion."

Mr Cameron was also critical of the United Nations for failing to get member states to agree some form of joint action over Syria, where tens of thousands of civilians have died in the civil war.

He said: “In the case of Syria the UN has let the world down. That is really because two of the permanent members, Russia and china, have not been prepared to see a strong resolution that condemns what President Assad has done to his own people.

“I worry that when the history books are written, people will look back and say: why couldn’t we do more when we knew twenty, thirty, forty thousand people lost their lives?”