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The orders were later withdrawn in the face of opposition from two top security officials at the time - chief-of-staff Lt Gen Gabi Ashkenazi and the head of the intelligence service, Mossad,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

Iranian Revolutionary Guards in Syria

This is something that I have missed. Another very alarming sign.

Iran admits Revolutionary Guards in Syria

Members of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) are providing non-military assistance in Syria and Iran and may get involved militarily if its closest ally comes under attack, commander-in-chief Mohammad Ali Jafari said on Sunday.

The China Post,

17 September, 2012

Jafari's statement is the first official acknowledgement that Iran has a military presence on the ground in Syria, where an 18-month-old uprising has left tens of thousands dead.

Western countries and Syrian opposition groups have long suspected Iran has troops in Syria. Iran has denied this.

“A number of members of the Quds Force are present in Syria but this does not constitute a military presence,” Iranian news agency ISNA quoted Jafari as saying at a news conference.

Iran was “proud of defending Syria, a member of the (anti-Israeli) resistance,” Jafari said. “But it does not mean that we have a military presence there.”

By designating the Quds Force members as advisors, not fighters, Jafari was maintaining Iran's denial of accusations by Western and Arab states that it was militarily shoring up the regime of embattled President Bashar al-Assad.

Quds is an IRGC unit set up to export Iran's ideology. It has been accused of plotting attacks inside Iraq since the overthrow of Saddam Hussein.

Jafari did not indicate how many IRGC members were in Syria but said they were providing “intellectual and advisory help.”

The Islamic Republic has backed Syria's President Bashar al-Assad since the crisis began and regards his rule as a key part of its axis of resistance against Israel and Sunni Arab states.

Jafari also said Iran would change its policy and offer military backing if Syria came under attack.

“I say specifically that if Syria came under military attack, Iran would also give military support but it ... totally depends on the circumstances,” he said.

U.S. officials this month accused Iraq of facilitating the transfer of weapons to Syria by opening its airspace to Iranian aircraft. Baghdad has denied the accusation.

Analysts say that losing its key Syrian ally would weaken the Islamic Republic's ability to threaten Israel through the Syrian-backed Shi'ite resistance movement Hezbollah.

'Nothing of Israel would remain”

Jafari dismissed Israel's threats of attack on Iran, saying Israel was having trouble persuading the United States to back its actions.

“Our answer to Israel is clear. In the face of such actions by the Zionist regime, nothing of Israel would remain,” he said.

He said any Israeli attack on Iran would also trigger retaliatory action on U.S. bases in the region and that trade via the Strait of Hormuz would be disrupted.

Anti-missile defense shields deployed by Israel and the United States in Arab states of the Gulf would be ineffective against a rain of Iranian missiles, he added.

“The defense shields may be capable against a few missiles, but they would not stand a chance against a massive number of missiles,” he said.

But despite Israel's saber-rattling, Iran had no intention of launching a pre-emptive strike, Jafari said.

“Iran does not believe in pre-emptive action to prevent a military strike ... We are ready to respond to their attacks quickly and forcefully, and they are aware of our capabilities. This is our strongest deterrent.”

Jafari also said that, in his opinion, any attack would prompt Iran to leave the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) which is designed to prevent states developing nuclear weapons while permitting peaceful atomic energy generation.

“In case of an attack, Iran's obligations will change. My assessment is that Iran may leave the NPT — but it would not mean a dash towards a nuclear bomb because we have a religious edict from the supreme leader” against atomic weapons, he said.

Three rounds of talks earlier this year between Iran and the P5+1 group of countries — the United States, Russia, China, Germany, France and Britain — have so far failed to reach agreement on Iran's nuclear activities which the U.S. believes are targeted at developing a weapons capability.

The West is demanding that Tehran halts all high-grade enrichment, close its Fordo nuclear facility and ship out all stocks of high-grade uranium.

Tehran maintains its nuclear program is entirely peaceful.

Iranian elite units rumored to be in Syria to advise Assad

The elite special unit of Iran's Revolutionary Guards is in Syria to advise on non-military matters, but could get involved militarily if Damascus is attacked from the outside, General Mohammad Ali Jafari has reportedly confirmed.

RT,

17 September, 2012

The commander of Iran's Revolutionary Guards said that the Quds Force is present in Syria and Lebanon, but only to provide "counsel."

"A number of Quds Force members are present in Syria and Lebanon… we provide [these countries] with counsel and advice, and transfer experience to them. But it does not mean that we have a military presence there," Iranian news agency ISNA quoted Jafari as saying.

The question of military involvement in Syrian affairs will “depend on the circumstances… I say specifically that if Syria came under military attack, Iran would also give military support,” he said.

Jafari did not indicate how many members of the elite unit were present in Syria.

Some media outlets have denied that Jafari gave the statement. A source in the Quds told Al Arabiya that the reports were “fictional and absolutely untrue,” stressing that the Revolutionary Guard does not interfere in the internal affairs of any country.

The Islamic Republic has supported Syrian President Bashar al-Assad since the crisis began last year, and sees his rule as a key support center in countering the policies of the US, Israel and regional Sunni Arab states.

There have also been speculations that a number of Western and Gulf states have elite units on the ground in Syria to train and support the rebels’ cause in fighting government forces.

Meanwhile, Iraq's fugitive vice president, sentenced to death for allegedly running death squads, has claimed that Iraq is “becoming an Iranian corridor” to support Assad’s regime. “It is not only the airspace,” he told Reuters. “It is thousands of militia now inside Syria.”

However, a senior adviser to Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki rejected the accusations, saying “that Iraq will not allow any state to use its airspace to transport arms to Syria.”

Clashes have meanwhile intensified in Syria as government troops fight with the rebels in the cities of Damascus, Aleppo, Daraa, Hama and Homs. Some report the use of aerial bombardments and heavy artillery.

On Sunday, state media reported that the Syrian army had eliminated all armed insurgents in the Midan district of Aleppo, while scores of other armed men were killed in the Fardous district. SANA also reported that at least eight civilians have been killed and 25 others injured in a separate incident after a bomb exploded in Daraa.

The latest violence comes as the new school term starts in Syria, with the UN saying that over 2,000 schools have been damaged and hundreds more are being used as temporary shelters.

Eighteen months into the crisis, international action is at a stalemate, with Russia and China fearing a repeat of the Libya scenario as the West, the Gulf Arab states and Turkey call for Assad's removal from power without considering potential crimes committed by the Syrian insurgency.