A Special Relationship

By Cernig

Quote of the day via the UK's Channel Four News:

Mr Cheney, speaking to reporters after arriving in Jerusalem for a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, said: "America's commitment to Israel's security is enduring and unshakeable.

"The United States will never pressure Israel to take steps that threaten its security.".

What, not ever, over anything no matter how small or how remote the threat?

The tail wags the dog, and the prospect of Middle East compromise gets shaken off like an unwanted flea.

Update The BBC and Associated Press follow up. Both think Cheney's more interested in bolstering Israel's campaign to have it's proxy superpower attack Iran on its behalf. The AP has some expert thoughts on ramifications for the peace process.

Edward Abbington, a former U.S. consul general in Jerusalem and now an adviser to Abbas, said the mood among the Palestinians in Ramallah was grim. Neither the Israelis or Palestinians are convinced that Cheney is an integral player in the peace process, he said.

"They told me when I was in Ramallah they had no idea why Cheney was even coming to see them," Abbington said. "The Israelis are more interested in what Cheney has to say about Iran and blessing their continued strikes against Gaza than anything he has to say about the peace process."

There are three other diplomatic initiatives aimed at achieving a peace deal that the United States has been tightlipped about. Russia has floated the idea of a Moscow conference as a follow-up to Annapolis. The Egyptians are playing middleman in a pair of negotiations between Israel and Hamas and between Hamas and Abbas' moderate Fatah party. Yemen also is working to mediate talks between Hamas and Fatah.

"I would not expect Cheney to have a lot to say about any of these, simply because while the U.S. attitude ranges between sharp suspicion and quiet acquiescence to these initiatives, they appear to be dying on their own," said Nathan Brown, an expert on Arab politics at George Washington University in Washington.

The Laptop Of Doom

By Cernig

For the first time, Iran has openly said it believes the infamous "smoking laptop" to be full of MeK terror group propaganda. Gareth Porter does sterling work tracking the laptop's provenance - which is to say US intel just about got it from a guy in a bar.

those documents have long been regarded with great suspicion by U.S. and foreign analysts. German officials have identified the source of the laptop documents in November 2004 as the Mujahideen e Khalq (MEK), which along with its political arm, the National Council of Resistance in Iran (NCRI), is listed by the U.S. State Department as a terrorist organisation.

There are some indications, moreover, that the MEK obtained the documents not from an Iranian source but from Israel's Mossad.

In its latest report on Iran, circulated Feb. 22, the IAEA, under strong pressure from the Bush administration, included descriptions of plans for a facility to produce "green salt", technical specifications for high explosives testing and the schematic layout of a missile reentry vehicle that appears capable of holding a nuclear weapon. Iran has been asked to provide full explanations for these alleged activities.

Tehran has denounced the documents on which the charges are based as fabrications provided by the MEK, and has demanded copies of the documents to analyse, but the United States had refused to do so.

The Iranian assertion is supported by statements by German officials. A few days after then Secretary of State Colin Powell announced the laptop documents, Karsten Voight, the coordinator for German-American relations in the German Foreign Ministry, was reported by the Wall Street Journal Nov. 22, 2004 as saying that the information had been provided by "an Iranian dissident group".

A German official familiar with the issue confirmed to this writer that the NCRI had been the source of the laptop documents. "I can assure you that the documents came from the Iranian resistance organisation," the source said.

The Germans have been deeply involved in intelligence collection and analysis regarding the Iranian nuclear programme. According to a story by Washington Post reporter Dafna Linzer soon after the laptop documents were first mentioned publicly by Powell in late 2004, U.S. officials said they had been stolen from an Iranian whom German intelligence had been trying to recruit, and had been given to intelligence officials of an unnamed country in Turkey.

The German account of the origins of the laptop documents contradicts the insistence by unnamed U.S. intelligence officials who insisted to journalists William J. Broad and David Sanger in November 2005 that the laptop documents did not come from any Iranian resistance groups.

Despite the fact that it was listed as a terrorist organisation, the MEK was a favourite of neoconservatives in the Pentagon, who were proposing in 2003-2004 to use it as part of a policy to destabilise Iran.

You're going to be hearing a lot more about this laptop's alleged revelations, as it's the single biggest remaining item of "evidence" in the neocon war-hyper's arsenal. But it looks very like any real information contained on it relates to iran's now-defunct pre-2003 weapons program and that data has been spiced up by the inclusion of propaganda planted by one of the links in the provenance chain.

What Was Bombed In Syria Matters Less Than Why

By Cernig

It being Super-Tuesday, Sy Hersh's latest article on what exactly the Israelis bombed in the Syrian desert last September is likely to be mostly overlooked. Which is a great pity because it's the most in-depth investigation I've seen of what went on and why. It even has - gasp - named sources. Both Smintheus at DKos and Ken at Bonehead Compendium wrote to flag this one up for me and I heartily recommend giving it a full read.

The short version - reports that the site was a nuclear reactor are almost certainly israeli or neocon spin. It was far more likely to be either a missile factory, a chemical weapons factory or a combination of both. (This was the conclusion I came to some months ago after reading as much as I could grab on the subject, so I'm predisposed to a favorable reading of Hersh on this). But what it actually was no longer matters. Two messages have come out loud and clear from the large amount of speculation surrounding the raid.

The first is that Israel, following its questionable success against Hezboullah, needed to restore a perception of its military competence.

“I hesitate to answer any journalist’s questions about it,” Faruq al-Shara, the Syrian Vice-President, told me. “Israel bombed to restore its credibility, and their objective is for us to keep talking about it. And by answering your questions I serve their objective. Why should I volunteer to do that?” Shara denied that his nation has a nuclear-weapons program. “The volume of articles about the bombing is incredible, and it’s not important that it’s a lie,” he said.

...That notion was echoed by the ambassador of an Israeli ally who is posted in Tel Aviv. “The truth is not important,” the ambassador told me. “Israel was able to restore its credibility as a deterrent. That is the whole thing. No one will know what the real story is.”

The second is that America may be wagging the Israeli tail but it doesn't have complete control over Israel's actions.

Shortly after the bombing, a Chinese envoy and one of the Bush Administration’s senior national-security officials met in Washington. The Chinese envoy had just returned from a visit to Tehran, a person familiar with the discussion told me, and he wanted the White House to know that there were moderates there who were interested in talks. The national-security official rejected that possibility and told the envoy, as the person familiar with the discussion recalled, “‘You are aware of the recent Israeli statements about Syria. The Israelis are extremely serious about Iran and its nuclear program, and I believe that, if the United States government is unsuccessful in its diplomatic dealings with Iran, the Israelis will take it out militarily.’ He then told the envoy that he wanted him to convey this to his government—that the Israelis were serious.

“He was telling the Chinese leadership that they’d better warn Iran that we can’t hold back Israel, and that the Iranians should look at Syria and see what’s coming next if diplomacy fails,” the person familiar with the discussion said. “His message was that the Syrian attack was in part aimed at Iran.”

Which puts Bush's recent pronouncements that America must not be seen as a "paper tiger" in the region into a whole new perspective, especially when his own ambassador to the UN Zalmay Khalilzad is freely admitting that the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have strengthened Iran's hand in the Middle East. Is Bush more worried about Iran's perception of America's toothlessness, or of Israel's perception of America's value in the region?

What about Khalilzhad? It seems to me that he might finally have parted company with the pro-Israel lobby within the neocon circles he has always been a part of. But from Cheney on down they must be aware that he knows where all the bodies are buried - he was integral, for instance, in the Taliban's original lionising as heroes against Russia (even inviting Taliban leaders to dinner in Texas) and was intimate of the process whereby they and Al Qaeda became enemy number one after getting US aid for so long. They'll be wary of alienating him to the point where his resignation is followed by a tell-all memoir.

Laying Down With Dogs

By Cernig

I've been deriving some quiet amusement from the way in which Islamophobic American rightwing bloggers have been under fire over the last couple of weeks from their kissing-cousins at Europe's neo-nazi groups. Having spent so long telling Europeans that they should beware the Islamic menace - something these groups rightly took as code for "hate the brown people" - people like Little Green Footballs, Jawa report and Jihad Watch are under fire from European Belang-ites and BNPers. After pointing out that the neo-nazis' attendant anti-semitism is too rich even for their Muslim-hating blood, the U.S. wingnuts are now being called "leftists" and worse. The potential irony of the situation is too rich. What's a Zion-supporting white supremacist to do?

I wonder what Islamophobe guru Mark Steyn would say about it all?

Canada Bows To US, Israel Pressure On Torture Warning

By Cernig

Remember the news the other day that the Canadian government had placed both the U.S. and Israel on an internal list for diplomats of nations that torture while speaking from the other side of its mouth publicly?

Well, they've now brought public and private claims into harmony - by removing both nations from the private document. (H/T Moderate Voice)

Canada’s foreign ministry, responding to pressure from close allies, said on Saturday it would remove the United States and Israel from a watch list of countries where prisoners risk being tortured.

Both nations expressed unhappiness after it emerged that they had been listed in a document that formed part of a training course manual on torture awareness given to Canadian diplomats.

Over at TMV, Jill Miller Zimon points out the glaringly obvious:

Of course, the factual questions still remain: what methods of interrogation are used and do they or don’t they constitute torture or abuse?

Well, let's put it this way - any other nation using the methods known to be used by the U.S. and Israel is also on the list and will stay on the list.

What a spineless move by Canada's conservative government.

Israeli MADness and Rightwing War Hype

By Cernig

John Bolton and Israeli rightwingers have found a new way to escalate tensions in the Middle East.

Despite being one of the world's largest manufacturers of crude oil, Iran's capability for refinement is limited. More than 40 percent of the petroleum products consumed by Iran are produced in refineries located in neighboring countries. The American (and British) fleet could impose a naval blockade and keep oil tankers transporting the refined petroleum products to Iran from entering the Persian Gulf via the Straits of Hormuz.

Blocking the supply of refined petroleum products to Iran would prompt its leaders to conclude that the U.S. is planning a military strike against them. In order to prepare for such an eventuality, they would place the country's entire stock of refined petroleum at the disposal of the Revolutionary Guard Corps and the army. This would create a severe fuel shortage in the civilian market and the state would sink into chaos. Such a situation could inspire Iran's leaders to reach the conclusion that their nuclear program is a recipe for national disaster and could potentially provoke the collapse of their regime - and that it should therefore be halted.

If the naval blockade does not produce this effect, then the U.S. (and Israel) could still reserve the option of a military strike as a last resort. This is the scenario being promoted by John Bolton, the former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations and one of the Bush administration's more hawkish members, who is also due to attend the conference.

Doesn't it seem more likely, though, that a naval blockade of Iran's ports would spark exactly what it is supposed to be preventing? Utter insanity, unless that's the idea all along.

And yet the ex-Mossad man who will propose this plan at an upcoming conference, Dr. Shmuel Bar, aslo admits that even if Iran was to ever develop a nuclear weapon then a form of Mutually Assured Destruction could be engineered in the region were Israel to upgrade its conception of deterrence, at the center of which must be "a sharp and unmistakable message, so that it will be clear to all parties from the outset that they must not get caught up in a spiral of crisis." By a remarkable coincidence, Israel tested a new ballistic missile yesterday.

Attending the same behind-closed-doors meeting will be "several of the American intelligence officers who were involved in the drafting of the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE), according to which Iran suspended its secret nuclear military program back in 2003".

Oh, to be a fly on the wall for that discussion.

Canada Puts US, Israel On Torture Watchlist

By Cernig

This is what happens when the shining city on the hill elects a downmarket asset-stripper as Decider:

Canada's foreign ministry has put the United States and Israel on a watch list of countries where prisoners risk being tortured and also classifies some U.S. interrogation techniques as torture, according to a document obtained by Reuters on Thursday.

The revelation is likely to embarrass the minority Conservative government, which is a staunch ally of both the United States and Israel. Both nations denied they allowed torture in their jails.

The document -- part of a training course on torture awareness given to diplomats -- mentions the U.S. jail at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba where a Canadian man is being held.

The man, Omar Khadr, is the only Canadian in Guantanamo. His defenders said the document made a mockery of Ottawa's claims that Khadr was not being mistreated.

Under "definition of torture" the document lists U.S. interrogation techniques such as forced nudity, isolation, sleep deprivation and blindfolding prisoners.

"The United States does not permit, tolerate, or condone torture under any circumstances," said a spokeswoman for the U.S. embassy in Ottawa.

A spokesman for Foreign Minister Maxime Bernier tried to distance Ottawa from the document.

"The training manual is not a policy document and does not reflect the views or policies of this government," he said.

The government mistakenly provided the document to Amnesty International Canada as part of a court case the rights organization has launched against Ottawa over the treatment of detainees in Afghanistan.

Amnesty Secretary-General Alex Neve told Reuters his group had very clear evidence of abuse in U.S. and Israeli jails.

"It's therefore reassuring and refreshing to see that ... both of those countries have been listed and that foreign policy considerations didn't trump the human rights concern and keep them off the list," he said.

There's diplo-speak and then there's the truth. The Canadian government obviously believes in telling it's own employees the latter while sticking to the formewr for public consumption. In this, alas, it is not alone among Western nations that must deal with the US as ostensible ally, economic and military superpower as well as with the Israeli tail that so often seems to the US dog.

Google Maps Draws A Blank On Israel

By Cernig

I got an email from Ken at The Bonehead Compendium today. In the process of reseraching a story he had occasion to look up the location of an Israeli coastal town, and found a weird thing.

Guess what (maybe you already knew this)? Neither towns nor roads nor any other details appear to exist in Israel according to google maps. Even though Tel Aviv is clearly visible in the satellite images, in the pure map Israel appears to have no population centers. Roads and towns in Jordan, Sinai, Lebanon all are indicated but Israel is one big void.

What is that all about? I mean, I can guess. It's probably the same thinking that has Dick Cheney's VP residence blotted out in google maps and earth, like no one will know where Dick is if Number One Observatory Circle is fuzzy in google earth. But how paranoid are these people?

So I checked, and damned if he isn't right.

View Larger Map

Yet a quick search showed no indication that this was ever announced as Google policy or even that many have noticed before now. Back in 2005 Google said it was limiting resolution on satellite pictures of Israel to two meters, but this is very much more than just that kind of obvious military-driven precaution. I'm with Ken, just how paranoid is this?

CIA Knew About Israeli Nukes In '74

By Cernig

Via the Arms Control Wonk, comes a piece in Haaretz.

The Central Intelligence Agency, backed by bodies including the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research and the Defense Intelligence Agency, determined in August 1974 that Israel had nuclear "weapons in being," a "small number" of which it "produced and stockpiled."

Israel was also suspected of providing nuclear materials, equipment or technology to Iran, South Africa and other then-friendly countries.

This top secret document, consigned to the CIA's vaults for almost 32 years, was suddenly released to the public this week, during U.S. President George W. Bush's visit to Israel and on the eve of his trip to the Persian Gulf.

...In both the original 1974 document and the 1975 State Department paper (in which it was retyped), the entire intelligence community determined, "Israel already has produced nuclear weapons." This analysis was based on "Israeli acquisition of large quantities of uranium," in part covertly; on Israel's ambiguous efforts to enrich uranium; and on the huge investment in the "Jericho" surface-to-surface missile "designed to accommodate nuclear warheads." Short of a grave threat to the nation's existence, Israel was not expected to confirm its suspected capability "by nuclear testing or by threats of use."

While Israel's nuclear weapons "cannot be proven beyond a shadow of doubt," several bodies of information point strongly toward a program stretching back over a number of years, the document states.

The 1974 document describes the Jericho project, from its inception in France through its migration to Israel to the replacement of the original inertial guidance system by an Israeli design "based on components produced in Israel under licenses from U.S. companies."

...The authors of the NIE wrote that the U.S. helped France expedite its nuclear program, France in turn helped Israel, and much like France and India, Israel, "while unlikely to foster proliferation as a matter of national policy, probably will prove susceptible to the hue of economic and political advantages to be gained from exporting materials, technology and equipment relevant to nuclear weapons programs."

Only a few months ago a portion of the document had been released under an FOI request "as an attachment to a 1975 State Department paper ostensibly disputing the the portrayal of Israel's nuclear weapons as a fact. This served the Department of State's effort to avoid addressing Israel's nuclear status in response to a query by Congressman Alan Steelman." Now the whole document has been released and Dr. Lewis at Arms Control Wonk has helpfully converted it to a PDF.

Haaretz speculates that the release of this information may be blowback for Israel's harsh words over the recent NIE on Iran, but it seems to me that it's just as likely to be pressure designed to bring Israel to the negotiating table with Arab states, who have been increasingly vocal of late about the pass afforded by the U.S. to the single actual nuclear power in the region when it comes to nonproliferation issues.

Bush From The Arab Street

By Cernig

How is Bush's visit to the Middle East playing on the Arab Street? Omar Hassan, a Kuwaiti op-ed writer for AFP, gives us some hints.

His tour of Washington's closest friends in the oil-rich Gulf region comes amid escalating tensions between the US and Iran over a naval confrontation in the strategic Strait of Hormuz.

But several commentators in the region have voiced strong misgivings about his intentions, amid fears Washington could resort to military action in the long-running stand-off over Iran's disputed nuclear drive.

Although Kuwait is welcoming Bush as a friend, officials have said the emirate will not allow the United States to use its territory as a launch pad for any strike against Iran.

"Mr president, the region needs smart initiatives not smart bombs," Kuwaiti newspaper al-Rai said in a front-page editorial.

...Dubai's Gulf News, in a front-page letter to Bush, launched a stinging attack on his administration's policy in the Middle East, chiefly its support for Israel despite the "oppression" of the Palestinians.

"We realise that containing Iran, selling more weapons and securing cheap oil supplies are the main issues on your mind as you tour the region," the paper said, dismissing Bush's "claim" to want to solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Al-Khaleej, another UAE daily, said Bush was "striving to transform the Arab-Israeli conflict into an Arab-Iranian conflict, since nuclear Israel, which is armed to the teeth with weapons of mass destruction, which is aggressive, expansionist, racist and an international outlaw, does not threaten world peace."

Sounds to me like they've got a pretty clear idea of Bush's motives for his trip and aren't being fooled at all by US plans to play "look, over there!" Would that the US press were so clearsighted.

Bush Looking For Legacy In Israel

By Cernig

George W. Bush, well aware that he's in the last 12 months of possibly the worst U.S. presidency ever, has turned his ambitions to that Holy Grail of U.S. presidential "legacy" aspirations - peace between Palestine and Israel.

Bush is in the Mideast for eight days, trying to bolster his goal of achieving a long-elusive peace agreement by the end of his presidency in a year. Speaking at his hotel in Jerusalem, he said again that he thinks that is possible.

``I am committed to doing all I can to achieve it,'' Bush said. Within minutes, Bush's national security adviser Stephen Hadley said the president would return to the Middle East ``at least once and maybe more'' over the next year. He wouldn't elaborate on possible destinations, but another White House official said Bush is likely to attend Israel's 60th anniversary celebrations in May.

And I have to tell you, what he's saying sounds pretty sensible to me.

Bush gave his most detailed summation yet of what a final peace should include, including U.S. expectations for the resolution of some of the hardest issues in the violent conflict, one of the world's longest-running and most intractable. He used tough language intended to put both sides on notice that he sees no reason they cannot get down to serious business, ``starting right now.''

In his set of U.S. bottom lines were security for Israel, a ``contiguous'' state for the Palestinians and the expectation that final borders will be negotiated to accommodate territorial changes since Israel's formation. He also suggested international compensation for Palestinians and their descendants who claim a right to return to land they held before Israel's formation.

He made a point of using a loaded term - occupation - to describe Israeli control over land that would eventually form the bulk of an independent Palestinian state. That he did so in Jerusalem underscored that he is trying not to seem partial to Israel.

On borders, Bush said any peace agreement ``will require mutually agreed adjustments'' to the lines drawn for Israel in the late 1940s. He was referring primarily to Israeli neighborhoods on disputed lands that Israel would keep when an independent Palestinian state is formed.

Earlier in the day, Bush had said Palestinians deserve better than a ``Swiss cheese'' state fitted around Israeli land and security bulwarks.

``The point of departure for permanent status negotiations to realize this vision seems clear,'' he said. ``There should be an end to the occupation that began in 1967. The agreement must establish a Palestine as a homeland for the Palestinian people just as Israel is a homeland for the Jewish people.''

I can't believe the neocons are happy. Does anyone have any insight on who is behind Bush's newfound vision, or can tell me what I'm missing?

Why Iran Isn't An Existential Threat To Israel

By Cernig

It amazes me that conservative hawks are still trying to catapult the propaganda over an alleged Iranian threat to Israel. They base it on a dubious translation of an Iranian president's wishes - one who has never been the one with say-so on attacking Israel and is in any case term-limited and so will be history before Iran could even potentially have the means of carrying out his wishes.

Did they all miss the most important part of the recent NIE on Iran, the one no-one except die-hard war-hawks disbelieves, about Iran as a nation being a rational actor?

Here's why Iran won't launch a WMD sneak attack on Israel with a view to wiping Israel off the map:

If a nuclear war between Israel and Iran were to break out 16-20 million Iranians would lose their lives - as opposed to 200,000-800,000 Israelis, according to a report recently published by the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), which is headed by Anthony H. Cordesman, formerly an analyst for the US Department of Defense.

...The report assesses that a nuclear war would last approximately three weeks and ultimately end with the annihilation of Iran, due to Israel's alleged possession of weapons with a far larger yield. Israel, according to the assessment, would have a larger chance of survival. The report does not attempt to predict how many deaths would eventually be caused by possible nuclear fallout.

Even if Iran gained the means and knowledge to create nuclear weapons, according to the report it would still be limited to 100 kiloton weapons, which can cause a far smaller radius of destruction than the 1 megaton bombs Israel allegedly possesses.

The report cites Israel's Arrow missile defense system as an obstacle facing a possible Iranian strike and says that it could shoot down most of the missiles. Israel, on the other hand, would be capable of hitting most of the Iranian cities with pinpoint accuracy due to the high resolution satellite imagery systems at its disposal.

Another scenario presented by the report includes Syria joining the bandwagon in case of a war and lobbing missiles with chemical and biological warheads into Israeli cities. According to the report, up to 800,000 Israelis would be killed if that were to happen. Syria, however, would be forced to grapple with the deaths of approximately 18 million of its citizens were Israel to respond with its nuclear arsenal.

Is that clear enough for everybody?

Gulf Triangles (Updated)

By Cernig
Updated below.

Bob Gates went to the Gulf and said Iran was a clear and present security threat to the region. But the situation as perceived by the Gulf States themselves is rather more complex - they're watching as Iran, the U.S. and Israel pit themselves against each other and working the angles for Arab benefit. In this, the Gulf Arabs aren't working as individual states, but as a co-ordinated body in anticipation of the Gulf Common Market - which takes effect in January and is highly likely to eventually include Iran.

Today, neocon Max Boot writes that, privately, the Gulf States are very worried about iran's regional ambitions. He even goes as far as to compare the Gulf nation's military might to Iran's and hint that the Arab states should solve Israel's problem for them. But if he was indeed told of Arab fears privately, it must have been very privately. In similiar vein, Powerline's Scott Johnson quotes an israeli conservative analyst friend of his that pictures "of Iranian President Mahmaoud Ahmadinejad walking “hand in hand” with Saudi leader King Abdullah at the Gulf Cooperation Council’s annual Summit in Doah, Qatar" show "how terrified the Sunni Arab establishment -- particularly the Gulf states -- are of Iran’s rising power." Huh?

All wishful thinking aside, public statements, and revealing actions, from the Gulf States show a willingness to play all other parties off against each other.

In response to Gates' statements on Iran, senior Gulf officials insisted that Tel Aviv was the greater threat to the Middle East.

"Israel is a source of threats. Any country that can attack its neighbours is a source of threats. There has to be a feeling of security, and we do not use a language of confrontation and aggression. We want to build relations of mutual trust and respect," Bahrain's Crown Prince Shaikh Salman told journalists on the sidelines of the conference. "We have seen numerous wars and we do not wish to see another war in the region."

Qatar's Prime Minister Hamad Bin Jasem Bin Jabr Al Thani in his speech immediately following Gates' remarks refused to consider Iran as the enemy.

"Iran is an important neighbour that cannot be seen as an enemy. We have had problems with Iran since the days of the Shah when Tehran occupied the three islands, but we cannot compare Iran with Israel," he said. "We at the GCC do have concerns about Iran, but we need to reach an understanding because there would be grave consequences for any military escalation."

GCC Secretary-General Abdul Rahman Al Attiyah said that Gates' statement that Israel did not represent any threat was "biased politics that reflected a determination to hold onto double standards".

Quatar's PM went even further, asking why, if they could go to Annapolis to talk to Israel, the U.S. cannot talk directly ot Iran. "Direct talks do not mean agreeing (from the start) with the other party," he told Gates as he and other Gulf statesmen said that they wanted the military option off the table. The GCC States also said at their recent Doha Sunmmit that they "will not go along with the United States in its pursuit to isolate or impose sanctions on Iran". Some fear.

The Arab states are looking at an economic future that includes Iran as a part of their common market - probably at around the same time as the member states transition to a unified currency, which makes Iran's refusal to take dollars even more interesting. Why would they want war or even sanctins interfering with business with such an important economic partner?

But U.S. fear of Iran, stoked by Israeli fears, are very useful for one thing - access to state-of-the-art weaponry systems. The Bush administration has notified Congress of its intent to sell $9 billion worth of Patriot Advanced Capability-3 missile defense system to the UAE - and Gates made it clear in his speech yesterday that the U.S. wants to see such a capable anti-missile and anti-aircraft shield extended to all the Gulf States. The U.S. also intends selling AWACS aircraft to the UAE and more patriots to Kuwait. The Saudis intend upgrading their existing AWACS capability and F-15 strike fighters as well as buying more than $100 billion in other weapons and aircraft from the U.S. and UK - all funded by oil sold at record prices due to regional tensions. At least someone in the West (arms manufacturers and oil companies) is doing well from tensions over Iran, eh?

It won't have escaped either Arab or Israeli notice that such defenses would be just as much of a defense against Israeli missiles and airstrikes as it would against Iranian ones. It's pretty clear where the Arab nations expect the attacks to originate. But by the time the Gulf nations are finished making all these purchases, Iran will be a far smaller giant militarily, and so a more acceptable trading partner. (Oh, and did I mention the Gulf State's intention to become nuclear nations themselves? Although they say without weapons.) So, for now, the Gulf states have a vested interest in making polite noises about the threat of Iranian hegemony in the region.

As the last leg of the triangle, Annapolis and the Bush administration's new-found determination to get involved in Arab-Israeli peace accords means that the recalcitrant Israelis are handing the Arabs a newfound opportunity to insert wedges between Tel Aviv and Washington. Condi has already met her first deliberate prevarication and isn't happy about it. Life is looking good for the new Arab common market.

Now, none of this is to say that Iran, the U.S. and Israel aren't trying to work their own triangles - of course they are. But the simplistic viewpoint presented by much of the U.S. media - that the Arab nations are totally alongside the Bush administration in seeing Iran as a massive regional threat - is just wrong and based upon stenographic repetition of the wishful thinking of those who have an axe to grind over Iran.

Update More triangles. The AP is reporting that Iraq's National Security Adviser Mouwaffak al-Rubaie has called on the US to engage with Iran:

"The United States, until they seriously engage with Iran ... the long-term regional security will be in doubt," al-Rubaie said on the final day of a regional security summit in the Bahraini capital Manama.

...Al-Rubaie's push for greater U.S. interaction with Iran was an uncomfortable reminder that Washington's greatest enemy in the Mideast is also the country most closely tied to the predominantly Shiite government in Iraq - the nation in the region where the U.S. has the most at stake.

"It is feasible for the government of Iraq to have on one side the strategic ally, the United States of America, and on the other side, we have a good relationship with Iran," said al-Rubaie, a Shiite. "I believe they are not mutually exclusive."

What the AP isn't saying is going to be even more of a shock to neocon systems. Iraq wants more than just direct US/Iran engagement:

Iraq's national security adviser yesterday called on Gulf states to form a regional security pact, which would include Iran, while he reassured the area's US allies that Baghdad is "heading West" in its foreign policies.

But Mouaffak al-Rubaie also criticised Saudi Arabia and Iran for what he called settling scores on Iraqi soil and called for regional reconciliation that put sectarian differences aside.

"It is extremely important to have a regional reconciliation rather than having this heightened sectarian tension in the region," he told delegates at a security conference held in the Bahraini capital.

"That is why Iraq is looking seriously to call for a regional security pact like the good old (1954 anti-Soviet alliance) Baghdad Pact or a Nato-style pact, with a set agenda: counter terrorism, counter narcotics, counter religious extremism and counter sectarianism," he said.

The Iraqi official said security in the region was "indivisible. You cannot stabilise Iraq and destabilise Iran, for example."

Iraqi Vice President Tariq al-Hashimi meanwhile agreed that Iran should be included in any regional security arrangement.

Ouch, that one's going to leave a mark.

Israel's Threats On Iran Empty Without U.S. Help

By Cernig

Righwingers in the Israeli governemnt are still making belligerent noises over Iran, despite the findings of the recent U.S. National Intelligence Estimate. The Guardian today collects some recent Israeli statements:

Senior Israeli officials warned today they were still considering the option of a military strike against Iran, despite a fresh US intelligence report that concluded Tehran was no longer developing nuclear weapons.

Although Israel argues that it wants to see strong diplomatic pressure put on Iran, it is reluctant to rule out the threat of a unilateral military attack. Matan Vilnai, Israel's deputy defence minister, told Army Radio today: "No option needs to be off the table."

Avigdor Lieberman, the hard-right deputy prime minister, said Israel should be ready to act if sanctions did not work. "If they don't, we will sit and decide whatever we have to decide," he told the Jerusalem Post in an interview today.
Several of Israel's Iran experts say the American rethink on the threat posed by Iran had ruled out a US military strike and probably an Israeli strike too, at least for now. However, Israel's political hawks continue to keep the threat of action alive.

Binyamin Netanyahu, the popular rightwing opposition leader, was asked whether Israel should launch its own military operation. "We always prefer international action, led by the United States, but we have to ensure that we can protect our country with all means," he told the Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz today.

But are they serious, or is it just posture and bluster designed for domestic consumption or on further ratcheting up the pressure on Iranian leaders who were obviously happily revieved that the U.S., at least, wasn't likely to bomb their nation back to the Stone age any time soon?

Time to revisit a StratFor.Org map which did the rounds in January 2006.


The problems an Israeli unilateral strike would face haven't changed any in almost two years. As Dave Schuler wrote back then:

Re-fueling issues aside, Israel simply can’t get to Iran without crossing the airspace of one or more of the following countries: Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Turkey, Russia. I can’t imagine them getting the go-ahead. In addition we have effective control of the airspace over the Gulf. Consequently, Israel needs at least our tacit approval before conducting such a raid. As I see it that means that there’ll be the same political costs for U. S. complicity as there would be for a U. S. raid.

The U.S. controls the entire Gulf airspace. Without IFF transponder codes, any Israeli strike on Iran would be considered hostile by American forces. Even that level of complicity would inflame Muslim neighbours - and suppose the most obvios route, through iraqi airspace, was used? Back In January '06 I had some thoughts on that too. The ruling Shia would never give permission for Israel to use Iraqi airspace to strike Shiite Iran and no-one would believe otherwise. It would be the final nail in the polite fiction of Iraqi sovereignty and would doubtless instigate a general uprising and return to the insurgency of the Shiite majority in Iraq.

Even Dubya and Dick, the greatest double act since Laurel and Hardy, aren't that dumb when their own intelligence community says there's nothing to worry about yet, if ever. So I have to agree with Ephraim Asculai, a senior research fellow at the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv quoted by the Guardian.

"I think it is quite unrealistic to think Israel will go it alone against Iran in a military way."

Update Just like the neocons, the Israeli hard right wants a do-over on the NIE. Murdoch's Jerusalem Post reports that the Israelis intend trying to convince Admiral Mullen, the Chair of the U.S. Joint Chiefs, that they are correct about the Iranian threat when he visits on Sunday. Mullen is sen as one of SecDef Gates key allies, along with CENTCOM commander Admiral William Fallon who was once reported as saying that there would be no American attack on Iran on his watch. He's likely to be a tough audience - and in any case the 16 American intelligence agencies who concurred on the NIE won't be present at all. This smacks of desperation from the Israeli right and shows clearly that they obviously realise they've no hope of an attack on Iran without U.S. help.

As Alan Arkin notes, though, that help has become a more remote possibility as the sheen has worn off the Israelis' reputation as the paradigm to follow for U.S. intelligence and defense operations.

Indeed, in Iraq and in the war on terrorism, the U.S. military in many ways tried to emulate Israeli security. It initiated a head-hunting counterterrorism strategy. It looked to Israel for advice on "urban warfare" and counterinsurgency tactics. You could even say that the bomb-first-ask-questions-later invasion of Iraq was an Israeli-style invasion.

But the frustrations and failures in Iraq forced the U.S. military to reconsider the pre-eminence of Israeli tactics. And so the U.S. has shifted away from targeted terrorist assassinations and toward strategies that do more to address the sources of terrorism. Gen. David Petraeus ushered in an entirely new counterinsurgency strategy. And many leaders in the U.S. military establishment have come to realize that bomb-first-ask-questions-later may help set back nuclear programs (when they actually exist) but it does not create a lasting peace.

Israel Briefed On NIE Before Congress

By Cernig

Laura Rozen at War and Piece notes that, according to Haaretz, "During their visit to Washington last week, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and Defense Minister Ehud Barak were briefed on the report." However, when top State negotiator Under Secretary Burns met with his opposite numbers from Europe, Russia and China to press for more sanctions on Iran, "Mr. Burns could not divulge the intelligence findings at that meeting on Friday because Congress had not been briefed."

I bet Britain and the rest are sooo pleased, even if so far the Europeans are outwardly continuing to back Bush.

Laura also notes the glaring conclusion - Israel got a briefing before Congress did.

Not that it made a difference - the Israelis immediately announced their own dark suspicions that Iran had "probably" restarted it's nuclear program - helpfully kicking the ball down the road for US neocons.

Russia's Putin, in a meeting with Iran's nuclear negotiator, has vocally backed the IAEA who themselves say that the NIE is consistent with the U.N. atomic watchdog agency's own findings and "should help to defuse the current crisis."

"Although Iran still needs to clarify some important aspects of its past and present nuclear activities, the agency has no concrete evidence of an ongoing nuclear weapons program or undeclared nuclear facilities in Iran," International Atomic Energy Agency director-general Mohamed ElBaradei said in a statement.

It's just possible that Israel and those neocons "in the know" are quietly kicking themselves today. Kevin Drum cites Laura again on why their was a sudden turnaround on releasing the NIE's key findings, something which the White House had originally said wouldn't happen:

The NIE released today had been held up for more than a year. At a House Armed Services Committee hearing on global threats this summer, the CIA's top intel analyst indicated to Mother Jones during a break that the delay was due in part to new intelligence that the United States had obtained. The source of that intelligence has not been revealed, but comments by national security advisor Stephen Hadley today suggested the United States had received new information a few months ago and that a conclusion on the NIE's findings was reached only last Tuesday.

Remember the Iranian general, Ali Rez Asgari, who defected/was kidnapped back in March to much glee from the wingnuts about how he could blow the whistle on Iran's nuclear weapons plans? Maybe he did - just not in the way they expected. In turn, as Kevin puts it, "the intelligence community was directly responding to the fact that Bush and Cheney were continuing to make hawkish statements even when they knew the evidence didn't back it up."

Update There are others thinking about that Iranian general, it seems.

The U-turn by US spy agencies over Iran, the biggest since the Iraq debacle five years ago, is the result of "physical" intelligence, likely to be a defector, according to various diplomatic and security sources in Washington today.

One of the main figures in the frame is General Ali-Reza Asgari, a former deputy defence minister and Iranian Revolutionary Guard commander.

Asgari apparently disappeared in Turkey over the last 12 months, having either defected or been kidnapped, and may be in US hands.

I well recall how many of the neocons were crowing that Asgari would blow the lid off the lies over Iran's nukes.

But all accounts said that Israel was sharing the intel from Asgari, having been part of his kidnap or defection - so if the Israelis are stonewalling the NIE today having been briefed on it last week, then they already know they are warmongering on the feeblest of pretexts.

Yet More Syria Nonsense

By Cernig

Yet more crapola from the London Times' Uzi Mahnaimi about the Israli attack on a big box in the Syrian desert back in September. It wasn't a reactor after all, he says, it was a bomb factory:

ISRAEL’S top-secret air raid on Syria in September destroyed a bomb factory assembling warheads fuelled by North Korean plutonium, a leading Israeli nuclear expert has told The Sunday Times.

Professor Uzi Even of Tel Aviv University was one of the founders of the Israeli nuclear reactor at Dimona, the source of the Jewish state’s undeclared nuclear arsenal.

“I suspect that it was a plant for processing plutonium, namely, a factory for assembling the bomb,” he said. “I think the DPRK [Democratic People’s Republic of Korea] transferred to Syria weapons-grade plutonium in raw form, that is nuggets of easily transported metal in protective cans. I think the shaping and casting of the plutonium was supposed to be in Syria.”

Blowing up such a facility would scatter uniquely identifiable radioactive debris into the atmosphere, something Mahnaimi's expert concedes - yet at the time US officials confirmed that no such debris had been detected.

And what happened to Mahnaimi's last story about the Big Box? The one where he said Israeli commandos had even been inside and seized materials. Surely that would make the current story irrelevant. Could it be that Mahnaimi is just a serial liar?

Dave Schuler writes:

The facts as we know them (and as ably summarized at GlobalSecurity) are that on September 6, 2007 Israeli warplanes attacked a site in Syria and that some time subsequent to that the Syrians completely levelled the site. That’s about it. Everything else we’ve heard are statements about the facts.

We need more facts. Short of that it’s just keeping the ball in the air. To what purpose?

Well, Dave, no rightwing pundit or politician ever lost money or votes from hyping fear of war with the neighbours. And I continue to believe there's a very useful element of "look, over there!" involved for Irsael, which is the subject of a push by Egypt and Syrian at the IAEA to allow inspections of its own nuclear facilities by the nuke watchdogs.

Oops, US Ambassador To UN Upsets Israel

By Cernig

Apparently there's something about being US ambassador to the UN that makes even the staunchest Bush loyalist into a loose cannon.

In an about face, the United States on Friday withdrew a U.N. resolution endorsing this week's agreement by Israeli and Palestinian leaders to try to reach a Mideast peace settlement by the end of 2008, apparently after Israel objected.

Deputy Ambassador Alejandro Wolff informed the Security Council that the United States was pulling the resolution from consideration less than 24 hours after Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad introduced it and welcomed the ``very positive'' response from council members.

Khalilzad had said he needed to consult with the Israelis and Palestinians on the text of the resolution to ensure that it was what they wanted following the decisions by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert at the Mideast peace conference in Annapolis, Md.

Wolff said the U.S. had held intensive consultations in the past few days ``and the upshot was that there were some unease with the idea'' of a resolution.

Well-informed diplomats said Israel, a close U.S. ally, did not want a resolution, which would bring the Security Council into the fledgling negotiations with the Palestinians. The diplomats, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue, said Khalilzad introduced the draft resolution without getting broad support from the Israelis, Palestinians and the Bush administration.

``It's not the proper venue,'' Israel's deputy ambassador Daniel Carmon said after Friday's council meeting. ``We feel that the appreciation of Annapolis has other means of being expressed than in a resolution.

The State Department said Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice had decided such a resolution was unnecessary...

Poor Pammy

By Cernig

Pamala Gellar in full BDS mode, all in defense of Israel:

Bush has lost his mind and his moral compass. This statement is an outrage. A lie and a blood libel. Israel has never committed any acts of terrorism. What a tool of Islamic jihad. Based on that, Bush is a terrorist, anyone that defends himself, his family, his country is a terrorist. This is a sad sad day.

"We express our determination to bring an end to bloodshed, suffering and decades of conflict between our peoples; to usher in a new era of peace, based on freedom, security, justice, dignity, respect and mutual recognition; to propagate a culture of peace and nonviolence; to confront terrorism and incitement, whether committed by Palestinians or Israels," the text of the opening Israeli-Palestinian Statement here hat tip Mik

And if Olmert had one ounce of integrity, he would have walked. Awful, all of it.

It's a typical diplomatic statement, full of prevarications that could be interepreted to say Israel hasn't committed any terrorist acts, only incitements, and maybe not even that. But Pammy doesn't care - she is full-throated in defense of her non-homeland. Why does she hate America and disresepct it's President?

And the funniest bit? Bush didn't even say it.

Pammy was in so much of a BDS-addicted rush to diss Dubya she didn't comprehend the first paragraph of the statement she quotes from.

The representatives of the government of the state of Israel and the Palestinian Liberation Organization, represented respectively by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and President Mahmoud Abbas, in his capacity as chairman of the PLO executive committee and president of the Palestinian Authority, have convened in Annapolis, Maryland, under the auspices of President George W. Bush of the United States of America, and with the support of the participants of this international conference having concluded the following joint understanding:

So if anyone, at all, is saying Israel committed terrorist acts, then it is "Prime Minister Ehud Olmert" as representative of his nation who is doing so.

Internet subscription - $40
Computer - $300
Watching a wingnut like Pam do a meltdown for no good reason - priceless.

Why Not?

By Cernig

Today in the Washington Post, Douglas Frantz and Catherine Collins wonder aloud why Bush doesn't seem interested in answering some really crucial questions.

the scariest legacy of Bush's failed bargain with Gen. Pervez Musharraf isn't the rise of another U.S.-backed dictatorship in a strategic Muslim nation, or even the establishment of a new al-Qaeda haven along Pakistan's lawless border. It's the leniency we've shown toward the most dangerous nuclear-trafficking operation in history -- an operation masterminded by one man, Abdul Qadeer Khan.

For nearly four years, under the banner of the "war on terror," Bush has refused to demand access to Khan, the ultranationalist Pakistani scientist who created a vast network that has spread nuclear know-how to North Korea, Iran and Libya. Indeed, Bush has never seriously squeezed Musharraf over Khan, who remains a national hero for bringing Pakistan the Promethean fire it can use to compete with its nuclear-armed nemesis, India. Khan has remained under house arrest in Islamabad since 2004, outside the reach of the CIA and investigators from the International Atomic Energy Agency, who are desperate to unlock the secrets he carries. Bush should be equally adamant about getting to the bottom of Khan's activities.

...The most urgent line of inquiry -- particularly given Bush's bellicose statements about the threat posed by Iran's nuclear ambitions -- centers on what exactly Khan provided to the Iranians over 15 years of doing business with them. He could help answer the questions on which war may depend: Is Iran trying to get the bomb? If so, how close is Tehran to obtaining it? Or are the mullahs simply pursuing a civilian nuclear capacity?

Many analysts have concluded that Khan wasn't a loose cannon and was running his network of proliferation under direction from Pakistan's military - tracking back directly to Musharraf as head of the army - but that's just one of many questions he could answer. Khan could, for instance, explain massive gaps in the accounting of his nuclear inventory. Did the missing technology end up in Iran to drive a still-secret parallel military program or did it perhaps end up in Saudi Arabia or Egypt?

Such questions have an immediate impetus. Yesterday, the AFP reported on Israel's attitude towards Egyptian and Saudi announcements of new programs for nuclear power.

Egyptian and Saudi nuclear ambitions, on top of Iran's atomic drive, will lead to an "apocalyptic scenario", a senior Israeli cabinet minister said in comments published on Friday.
"If Egypt and Saudi Arabia begin nuclear programmes, this can bring an apocalyptic scenario upon us," Strategic Affairs Minister Avigdor Lieberman told the English-language Jerusalem Post newspaper.

"Their intentions should be taken seriously and the declarations being made now are to prepare the world for when they decide to actually do it," said the minister, responsible for coordinating Israeli efforts against a nuclear Iran.

...Lieberman also joined the chorus of Israeli criticism against the head of the UN nuclear watchdog, Mohamed ElBaradei, over comments from the Egyptian that Iran's nuclear acitivites pose no immediate danger.

"He is part of the problem, not part of the solution," said Lieberman, who is also a deputy prime minister.

Israel, which belongs to the UN nuclear watchdog but is not a signatory to its key Non-Proliferation Treaty, is widely considered to have the Middle East's sole -- if undeclared -- nuclear arsenal.

It seems clear that Israel is determined, by hook or by crook, to remain the only nuclear power in the region of any kind. They don't want their neighbours to have even nuclear power.

The usual rationale given for this is the "existential" threat to Israel from nuclear armed Muslim states an argument in which Iran's president's pronouncements about wiping Israel off the map are often rolled out. Now, such claims may well be based upon a faulty translation of Ahmadinejad's words. But supose they aren't - how serious is the threat? No-one, surely, would know that better than the head of Israel's Mossad intelligence agency. Yet the former head of Mossad thinks Israel's current belligerence, mirroring the Bush administration's one, is foolhardy.

Efraim Halevy, the former head of the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad, titled his memoirs "Man in the Shadows." But now that he's out in the sunlight, the 72-year-old retired spy chief has some surprisingly contrarian things to say about Iran and Syria. The gist of his message is that rather than constantly ratcheting up the rhetoric of confrontation, the United States and Israel should be looking for ways to establish a creative dialogue with these adversaries.

..."I believe that Israel is indestructible," he insists. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad may boast that he wants to wipe Israel off the map, but Iran's ability to consummate this threat is "minimal," he says. "Israel has a whole arsenal of capabilities to make sure the Iranians don't achieve their result." Even if the Iranians did obtain a nuclear weapon, says Halevy, "they are deterrable," because for the mullahs, survival and perpetuation of the regime is a holy obligation.

"We must be much more sophisticated and nuanced in our policies toward Iran," Halevy contends. He argues for a combination of increased economic pressure and a diplomatic opening that attempts to speak to Iran's "national aspirations" and its shared interests with America and the West -- and even Israel.

"Iranians, including those in government, know that acceptance of Israel is not just something they have to accept but something that might bring their deliverance," Halevy maintains.

The former spy chief also argues that Ahmadinejad's fiery rhetoric masks a deep split within Iran over the country's future. "I believe that behind their bombastic statements there is a desperate fear that they are going down a path that would have dire consequences," he says. "They don't know how to extricate themselves. We have to find creative ways to help them escape from their rhetoric."

Halevy, who made many secret visits to Iran during the days of the shah, argues that rather than rattling sabers the West should be looking for dialogue with Tehran. "A creative and constructive approach to Iran's concerns -- not the dreams of their fanatic president to effect the demise of Israel -- might move them to see that their self-interest would be better served by taking alternative paths."

Halevy takes a similarly contrarian view about Syria. "Damascus is now ripe for peace negotiation," he says. He argues that the Syrians are signaling their interest in such a negotiation and that the details of an agreement were worked out during extensive talks in the 1990s. The Syrian track might be a breakthrough, he argues, because an accommodation with Damascus might bring along the rest of the Arab world, lead to a settlement in Lebanon and undermine Syria's current alliance with Iran.

So there are a bunch of questions that all start with "why not?"

Why not push to find out from the actual source what may well be crucial information about various nations nuclear proliferation attempts?

Why not allow Mid-east states to have nuclear power programs, preserving their oil for petrochemicals and enriching their treasuries through foreign sales instead of wasting their oil in power generation?

Why not talk directly to Iran and Syria and others?

Israel Wants El-Baradei Out At Nuke Watchdog

By Cernig

Via the BBC:

A senior Israeli minister has called for the sacking of Mohamed ElBaradei, the head of the UN nuclear watchdog. Deputy PM Shaul Mofaz said the Egyptian head of the International Atomic Energy Agency had endangered world peace by neglecting Iran's nuclear programme.

His comments come days before the IAEA is to publish its latest Iran report.

Mr ElBaradei has said Iran's nuclear programme is not an immediate threat and if it wanted to build a nuclear bomb it would need years to do so.

The IAEA report will help determine whether the United Nations imposes a third set of sanctions on Tehran.

"The policies followed by ElBaradei endanger world peace. His irresponsible attitude of sticking his head in the sand over Iran's nuclear programme should lead to his impeachment," Mr Mofaz said during a visit to Washington.

Imagine, a minister from a nation which developed nukes in secret, is still not a signatory of the NPT and is under pressure at the IAEA to open up its nuclear programs to inspection wants El Baradei gone. Who'd a thunk it?