Iraq warns Israel

Iraq warns Israel against overflight en route to strike IranDeputy

Iran Deputy PM says violation of his country’s airspace to hit Islamic Republic’s nuclear facilities would bring ‘consequences’

the Times of Israel,

3 June, 2013

Baghdad has cautioned Israel against flying over Iraqi airspace en route to an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities. Monday’s statements marked the first time the Iraqi government has publicly declared it would not allow such an action.

“We have… warned Israel that if they violate Iraqi airspace, they will have to bear the consequences,” Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Hussein al-Shahristani told AFP. He added that Iraq would not disclose what the reaction might be to such an overflight, so that Israel will not able to “take that into account.”

Shahristani also said that Iraq has received assurances from the US that America “will never violate Iraqi airspace or Iraqi sovereignty by using our airspace to attack any of our neighbors.”

Iraq lies across the most direct flight path from Israel to Iran, so an attack against the Islamic Republic’s nuclear facilities could necessitate violating Iraq’s airspace. The US, however, can launch an attack from its naval vessels stationed in the Persian Gulf and therefore avoid entanglement with a third country, as highlighted in a position paper published last week by the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

The Iranian government says its nuclear program is for civilian use, but Iran is widely believed by the West and the Arab world to be racing to develop nuclear weapons technology, which would dramatically change the balance of power in the Middle East.

The most recent report from the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency, in May, stated that Iran was continuing its program and had recently brought online hundreds of high speed centrifuges needed to create highly-enriched uranium, a necessary component for a nuclear weapon.

.US to send Patriot missiles, F16 jets to Jordan

The United States has decided to deploy Patriot missiles and F16 fighters to Jordan for a military drill and plans to keep the system and the jets there after the exercise.

Press TV,

3 June, 2013

Pentagon officials said on Monday that Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel has approved that the missile launchers and the jets will, at the request of Jordan, stay in the Arab country after the joint exercise, called Eager Lion. 

The deployment of the missiles to Syria’s southern neighbor will happen several months after NATO dispatched six Patriot batteries to Turkey, the northern neighbor of the crisis-hit country. 

The US has already deployed 200 troops to Jordan and 400 soldiers to Turkey. 
Sen. John McCain, who went into Syria through Turkey last week and met with militant commanders, told the Jordan Times during his recent visit to Jordan that the missiles could be a “first step” for the creation of a buffer zone for the militants fighting against the government of President Bashar al-Assad.

The Syria situation began to become more complicated last Monday when the European Union decided to end its arms embargo on Syria to pave the way for sending weapons to the militants. The move was sponsored by France and Britain but faced strong opposition from the other European heavyweight, Germany. 

The 27-nation bloc’s lifting of the embargo was a hint to Russia that had learned costly lessons from the Western intervention in Libya, which led to the downfall and killing of the North African country’s ruler Muammar Gaddafi. 

A day after the announcement of EU’s decision, Moscow said it would send its sophisticated S-300 air defense system to Syria in accordance with a contract it had signed with Damascus, raising fears and concerns in Israel and the West with the US and Germany saying that the Russian missiles would put the security of the Israeli regime at risk. 

Russsia, however, said that it adopted the measure to prevent any Western intervention in Syria. 

The deployment of the American missiles to Jordan seems to be a response to Russia’s decision at a time the two major powers have failed to agree on a political roadmap to help end the crisis in Syria. 

Hezbollah Forces Move Toward Syria’s Northern City of Aleppo

Fighters Eye Stalemate in Nation's Industrial Capital

Anti-war,

3 June, 2013

Having joined the Syrian Civil War in earnest in the fight over the border town of Qusayr, the Hezbollah militia is said to be deploying a large portion of its fightersnorth to the nation’s industrial and financial capital of Aleppo.

Or rather, its former industrial and financial capital. Once Syria’s largest city, Aleppo has turned into a large collection of warzones over the past year, with both sides constantly predicting a decisive shift in their favor but the city now stalemated for a solid 10 months. Life in the city has ground to a halt.

Hezbollah officials confirming the deployment to Aleppo hint that they are moving again stalemated places “where they think they are safe,” predicting such areas will “fall like dominoes.”

Of course there is no reason to believe Hezbollah’s own optimism is any more grounded in reality than the optimism of anyone else who thought they’d break that stalemate over the last 10 months, but the influx of fighters does seem to have put the rebels on a defensive footing, at least for the time being.