Israel's Threat to Bomb Nuclear Facilities is Central to its Iran Strategy Posted by Tony Karon Friday, July 23, 2011 at 5:00 am
The reason TIME.com's intelligence columnist Bob Baer this week found himself cast as the unintended source for authoritative claims that Israel is about to bomb Iran, is precisely because what he said had been speculative comments inadvertently played into the game of bluff at the heart of the matter. Bob saw an implicit warning in the unprecedented public comments last month by former Mossad chief Meir Dagan and former Chief of Staff, Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi warning that Israel attacking Iran would be an act of spectacular self-destructive folly -- and lamenting that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak were both prone to such reckless whims. The likes of Dagan and Ashkenazi don't bluff, Bob reasoned, and Israeli reports even suggested they may have directly blocked military action by their political masters. By speaking out, they seemed to be explicitly warning the Israeli public that Israel's elected decision-makers were strategically incompetent, and needed to be reined in by more sober heads.If these respected securocrats were willing to tempt the wrath of Israel's government to sound the alarm, they must surely be trying to stop something that was in the works. And Bob's history as a former CIA operative allowed some media outlets to cast what he insists was simply his analysis of what was being said in public as an authoritative claim that Israel was about to attack Iran.
Such an attack remains highly unlikely in the near term, of course, and Dagan even said as much, indicating that there were no imminent plans for a strike. But the centerpiece of Israel's Iran strategy has been to cultivate the belief that if sanctions and other pressures fail to force Tehran to yield, Israel will feel compelled to go to take military action, even without U.S. backing. Israel said nothing at all before its 1981 attack on Iraq's Osirak nuclear reactor, but scarcely a month has passed over the past three or four years without some new report calculated to create the impression that it was planning air strikes in Iran. The main line of criticism of Dagan in the Israeli camp did not challenge the content of what he said -- that bombing Iran would be a catastrophic mistake, plunging Israel into a war it couldn't win but from there would be no exit; instead he was pilloried for giving the game away. Defense Minister Ehud Barak warned that Israel's ability to deter Iran was weakened by any ability to disperse the ambiguity surrounding the issue -- Dagan's arguments had a valid place in a strategic debate, he said, but not in public. Haaretz columnist Ari Shavit also ripped into Dagan for undermining the impression that Israel was gearing up for war with Iran. This threat is crucial for scaring the Iranians and for goading on the Americans and the Europeans [into putting more pressure on Tehran],Shavit wrote. It is also crucial for spurring on the Chinese and the Russians. Israel must not behave like an insane country. Rather, it must create the fear that if it is pushed into a corner it will behave insanely. To ensure that Israel is not forced to bomb Iran, it must maintain the impression that it is about to bomb Iran.Atlantic Monthly correspondent Jeffrey Goldberg, a leading exponent of the minutes to midnight idea, tore into Dagan as a bungling strategist. Goldberg echoed Shavit's logic in charging that if Israel does attack the Iranian nuclear program, it will in part be because Dagan undermined his country's deterrent credibility.Translation: Israel is bluffing, hoping that Iran will back off its nuclear program for fear of Israel doing something catastrophically stupid; should the bluff be exposed, however, Israel will have no choice but to actually go ahead and do something catastrophically stupid.Goldberg, of course, last August had set off a media flurry far more intense than the on that followed Bob Baer's comments with his piece in the Atlantic Monthly predicting that
...one day next spring, the Israeli national-security adviser, Uzi Arad, and the Israeli defense minister, Ehud Barak, will simultaneously telephone their counterparts at the White House and the Pentagon, to inform them that their prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has just ordered roughly one hundred F-15Es, F-16Is, F-16Cs, and other aircraft of the Israeli air force to fly east toward Iran—possibly by crossing Saudi Arabia, possibly by threading the border between Syria and Turkey, and possibly by traveling directly through Iraq's airspace, though it is crowded with American aircraft. (It's so crowded, in fact, that the United States Central Command, whose area of responsibility is the greater Middle East, has already asked the Pentagon what to do should Israeli aircraft invade its airspace. According to multiple sources, the answer came back: do not shoot them down.)
In these conversations, which will be fraught, the Israelis will tell their American counterparts that they are taking this drastic step because a nuclear Iran poses the gravest threat since Hitler to the physical survival of the Jewish people. The Israelis will also state that they believe they have a reasonable chance of delaying the Iranian nuclear program for at least three to five years. They will tell their American colleagues that Israel was left with no choice. They will not be asking for permission, because it will be too late to ask for permission.Spring has come and gone, of course, and Goldberg's dramatically detailed scenario did not unfold. Undeterred, Goldberg insists that this was because the Stuxnet computer worm set back Iran's program, but he nonetheless believes his original thesis holds true. After all, Dagan wouldn't have spoken out if he didn't believe that Netanyahu and Barak were about to plunge Israel into a vortex.The obvious problem with his bluff-as-deterrence strategy, of course, is that it has had no effect on Iran's behavior. Even before Dagan burst the bubble, the Israelis were the ones most loudly sounding the alarm over Iran's nuclear progress despite Israel (and the U.S.) keeping all options on the table. Tehran has heeded none of the red lines previously laid down by the Israelis and the Americans (remember, uranium enrichment itself was once such a red line). No amount of ambiguity appears to have persuaded they Iranians that they face Israeli attack -- or else, if they believe such an attack is possible, they must assume they can withstand whatever the Israelis throw at them and exact the heavy price that Dagan himself warned of.Not so, says Netanyahu. In his speech to Congress earlier this year, the Israeli leader argued that Iran had briefly suspended its nuclear weapons program only once, in 2003, when it feared the possibility of military action. In that same year, Moammar Gadhafi gave up his nuclear weapons program and for the same reason. The more Iran believes that all options are on the table, the less the chance of confrontation.Some senior U.S. intelligence officials, quoted in a recent New Yorker piece by Seymour Hersh, suggested, in fact, that Iran had suspended work on a bomb program in 2003 because the threat it was meant to counter -- Saddam Hussein's Iraq, which Iran believed had been developing a bomb program, and which had killed many thousands of Iranians using chemical munitions in the '80s -- had been eliminated by the U.S. invasion. (They also told Hersh that the U.S. intelligence assessment remains that Iran is not currently developing nuclear weapons and has made no decision to do so, even though its nuclear program is designed to put the means to build weapons in Tehran's hands.)
But there may be an alternative explanation for Dagan's remarks on the idiocy of Israel attacking Iran. While the Iranians don't seem to believe the threat or take it overly seriously, a different problem arises if the Israeli public is seduced by Netanyahu's apocalyptic rhetoric, which paints Iran as the same threat to their physical survival as Nazi Germany was to Europe's Jews in 1938. To the extent that they Israeli public buys into that hysteria, they will expect their leaders to attack this implacable annihilationist threat no matter what the odds and consequences. In other words, they will expect their leaders to do something that sober heads in the Israeli strategic establishment believe is stupid, self-destructive and unnecessary given a realistic assessment of Iran's capabilities and the danger they represents.Even Defense Minister Barak appears to have recognized the danger created by alarmist rhetoric, repeatedly reiterating his belief that even a nuclear-armed Iran would not, repeat not, threaten Israel's existence.The real target audience for Israel's threatening to do something crazy may not be the leaders of Iran as much as it is the leaders of the Western powers and other international players, as Shavit noted, that the Israelis hope to scare into raising pressure on Iran. Dennis Ross, President Obama's point man on Iran and the wider Middle East had even suggested this strategy in the last book he published before joining the Administration, arguing that a diplomatic solution required that Iran and others believe that an Israeli attack is a real and imminent threat. Ross even advocated sending the Israelis around European capitals threatening to do something crazy, knowing that Europeans' fears of such a catastrophic course of action would stampede them into backing tougher sanctions. Presumably, the technique would be equally effective in Washington.Suggesting, as Dagan had done, that bombing Iran is not a plausible course of action for a serious Israeli leadership does not help that campaign. But any evidence, no matter how flimsy, that such a strike may be a looming possibility, reinforces it -- even if the Iranians don't seem to take it seriously.Read more: http://globalspin.blogs.time.com/2011/07/22/israels-threat-to-bomb-nuclear-facilities-is-central-to-its-iran-strategy/#ixzz1SxUgGdhI
Official: Iranian Scientist Assassinated
Published July 23, 2011| Associated Press
TEHRAN, Iran -- Assailants on a motorcycle assassinated an Iranian physicist Saturday in front of his home in Tehran, Iranian media reports said, in a killing that bore similarities to other slayings of scientists involved in the country's nuclear work in recent years.One report, on the javanonline.ir news website, identified the man as a nuclear scientist. Iran's official IRNA news agency also reported the killing but had few details on the attack and the man's background.
Several Iranian nuclear scientists have been murdered in recent years in attacks that Iran has blamed on the U.S. and Israel, which both accuse Tehran of seeking to develop a nuclear weapons capability under the cover of its civilian atomic energy program.The semi-official Mehr news agency identified the victim as a professor of physics and said he was assassinated in front of his house in Bani Hashem street in Tehran.The wife of the scientist was wounded in the attack and rushed to hospital for treatment, Mehr reported, quoting a police official.Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/world/2011/07/23/official-iranian-scientist-assassinated/#ixzz1SxVzRNp6
Abbas: Israeli policy forced UN statehood bid-Palestinian president says Israel's refusal to halt settlement building has forced his people to seek recognition at UN.
Last Modified: 23 Jul 2011 16:43
Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas has said the Palestinians' bid for membership in the United Nations was forced upon them by Israel's refusal to halt settlement building and end its occupation.We are going to the United Nations because we are forced to, it is not a unilateral action, Abbas said on Saturday at a conference in Turkey. What is unilateral is Israeli settlement.Abbas made his remarks in Istanbul, where Palestinian diplomats are meeting to work out the final details of their plan to seek recognition as an independent state this September, when the UN holds its General Assembly.Al Jazeera's Tony Birtley, reporting from Istanbul, said it will be a difficult process for the Palestinian leadership.This underlies more than anything the deep-rooted frustration of the Palestinian people and the Palestinian Authority that the peace process has gone nowhere for the last year,our correspondent said.What they are trying to do is get recognition by the Security Council. If that doesn't work, they will go to the General Assembly and use a rarely-used mechanism to get the General Assembly to vote. They will need a two-thirds majority. They have got 115 people to recognise Palestine but they will need another 13.
US veto threat
The US has said it will veto any move for recognition in the UN.Palestinians will seek recognition along a border that predates the 1967 war between Israel and neighbouring countries, including the territory that encompasses the occupied West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem.US President Barack Obama has said that any negotiations to establish a Palestinian state have to begin on the pre-1967 borders, but Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has rejected that condition.We have not been able to return to negotiations with Netanyahu because of his refusal to negotiate on the basis of the 1967 borders and to stop settlement,Abbas said at the meeting, attended by Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Frozen peace talks
Peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians have been on hold since late September, shortly after Washington relaunched the first direct negotiations between the two sides for nearly two years.The talks ground to a halt when Israel's partial freeze on settlement construction expired and Netanyahu declined to renew it.The Palestinians say they will not hold talks while Israel builds on land they want for a future state.Netanyahu blames the Palestinians for the deadlock.Our first, second and third choice is to return to negotiations,Abbas said on Saturday.Like the rest of the peoples of the world ... we wish to be members of the General Assembly, members of the UN; no more, no less.A senior Palestinian official told the AFP news agency on condition of anonymity that preparations for the UN plan would be completed on August 4, during a meeting of an Arab monitoring committee in Doha, attended by Qatar, Egypt and Saudi Arabia.An official letter would be sent to the UN during the first week of August, he added.To get significant results we have to speak with one voice,Abbas told his audience, adding that the decision to seek UN membership would have the backing of a large consensus, including his Fatah movement and Hamas, which runs the Gaza Strip.God willing, Palestinian reconciliation will be achieved before we go to the UN, Abbas said, referring to a formal end to years of enmity between the two.Farah and Hamas agreed to mend their relationship on April 27 but have yet to implement the deal.Abbas said that 118 countries have already recognised the Palestinian state within the borders that preceded Israeli occupation of the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip in June 1967 and that the total would rise to 130 by September.A joint Palestinian-Israeli poll last month showed that 65 per cent of Palestinian respondents supported the UN campaign.Source:
Al Jazeera and agencies.
IAEA chief says no progress on Syria
(AP)22 July 2011
VIENNA — International Atomic Energy Agency experts met with Syrian officials recently but were told that nothing would change the IAEA’s assessment that Damascus tried to secretly build a plutonium-producing reactor, the agency’s head said Friday.
There was nothing concluded” from the talks earlier this month, which arouse from a pledge by Damascus to cooperate with an agency probe, IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano told The Associated Press.He said it was now up to Syria to disprove the agency’s assessment that a target destroyed in 2007 by Israeli warplanes was a nearly finished reactor built clandestinely, and meant to produce plutonium, which can be used to arm nuclear warheads .We have done our jobs,Amano said. If there is further cooperation it is very nice. If not, ... the conclusion is there.The U.N. Security Council met in closed session on July 14 to discuss the IAEA finding and some Western ambassadors said afterward that the agency’s assessment has raised concerns the country violated its nonproliferation obligations.The IAEA has tried in vain since 2008 to follow up on strong evidence that the site in the Syrian desert bombed by Israel was a nearly finished reactor built with North Korea’s help.
Syria has said the facility was a non-nuclear military site.The IAEA resolution that reported Syria to the Security Council on June 9 expressed serious concern over Syria’s lack of cooperation with the IAEA Director General’s repeated requests for access to additional information and locations as well as Syria’s refusal to engage substantively with the Agency on the nature of the Dair Alzour site.Asked whether the popular uprising in Syria contributed to the lack of progress at the July meeting between Syrian and IAEA officials, Amano said the Syrians didn’t have an explanation to that effect, but our understanding is that they were too busy.He said the agency was still hoping for cooperation from Damascus, but if they don’t prove otherwise, we continue to be very confident with our conclusion that the site Israel targeted was a secret nuclear reactor.
UN official says landmark resolution on Lebanon, Israel yields positive effects, but still needs work 11:05, July 21, 2011
Michael Williams, UN special coordinator for Lebanon told reporters here Thursday that an important Security Council resolution designed to prevent hostilities between Israel and Lebanon has had a positive impact, but that there are still issues surrounding the resolution that need to be resolved.Remarkably, despite tensions and despite some incidents, that resolution has held very well, and it has held very well when you compare it with what happened between Israel and Lebanon in the previous 20, 30 years, said Williams.Williams briefed reporters after giving a report to the Security Council on resolution 1701, which was passed to end a July 2006 war between Israel and Lebanon. The resolution required all parties to respect the blue line that marks the border between Israel and Lebanon, work towards a permanent ceasefire, and disarm Lebanese armed groups.Williams said that although activity along the blue line has been relatively calm, Israel and Lebanon have not achieved a permanent agreement to end hostilities.There was also a recognition that while the cessation of hostilities had held well, there had been little or no movement towards a ceasefire, he said.In recent months it's become even more difficult because of course there was a prolonged period about six months when there was no government in Lebanon.Lebanon's coalition government fell apart in January, due to a disagreement over a UN-backed tribunal on the 2005 killing of former Prime Minister Rafic Hariri. The government has now been changed and formed again under new Prime Minister Najib Mikati.Mikati has showed support for the enforcement of resolution 1701, Williams noted.
I welcome the commitment of Prime Minister Mikati to 1701 and to all Security Council resolutions that apply to Lebanon,Williams said.I also welcome some concrete acts that he is already engaged in the first days of office, including the first ever visit by a Lebanese prime minister to UNIFIL (UN Interim Force in Lebanon), and to its headquarters in Naqoura and I accompanied him on that visit last Saturday.
Williams said that it is imperative that the government in Lebanon as well as in Israel work through some of the more difficult issues in resolution 1701. One such unresolved issue is the village of Ghajar, which is on the blue line, raising questions about its status.I hope we can move forward to the position we did have in 2000, when the Israelis did withdraw militarily from that village,he said.This would be an important first step. Of course it would not lead to an immediate assertion of Lebanese authority and sovereignty, but we do envisage a separate process where the United Nations would mediate and hold talks between Israel and Lebanon on a final solution which would include the people of that village.Disarmament of non-governmental armed groups is another area where Williams said parties could have dialogue to move forward. He said that with regards to Lebanese and Palestinian armed groups, there must be Lebanese national ownership of dialogue and disarmament processes.There is I think a need for both parties, Lebanon and Israel to recommit to 1701 against a background which frankly may be more difficult in the coming months, if not difficult certainly challenging,Williams said.He explained that the stalling of a peace process for Israel and Palestine as well as the looming question of Palestine's achieving statehood at the UN in September could complicate the issues surrounding resolution 1701. He also cited recent protests in Syria as an important influence on Lebanon and other Middle Eastern nations.Source:Xinhua
Israel deporting 15 foreigners aboard Gaza-bound boat
BOAT July 20, 2011|By the CNN Wire Staff
Dignite enters the Israeli port of Ashdod flanked by Israeli naval vessels after being intercepted in international waters.Fifteen foreigners aboard the Gaza-bound boat Dignite were being deported out of Israel on Wednesday, Israeli officials said.
Some of them have already left this morning and the rest will fly out during the day,said Sabin Hadad, spokeswoman for the Israeli interior ministry.The Dignite -- carrying 10 activists, three crew members and three journalists -- is affiliated with the Free Gaza Movement.One of the journalists is Israeli.Israeli naval forces Tuesday successfully took over the boat, which was intent on breaking what the activists call the siege of Gaza,without violent resistance.The forces operated in line with procedures and took every precaution necessary while using all operational tactics determined prior to the operation, and avoid causing harm to the activists on board while ensuring the safety of the soldiers,the Israel Defense Forces said.
After the boarding, the passengers' health was examined and they were offered food and beverages.The boat declared its destination as Alexandria, Egypt, so that it could leave Greek waters, said Greta Berlin, spokeswoman for the Free Gaza Movement.
But it changed its destination in international waters, which is legal, Berlin said.
Israel insists on controlling access to Gaza because it says it has to keep weapons out of the hands of Palestinian militants who would use them to attack Israelis.
Gaza is run by Hamas, which has carried out dozens of terrorist attacks and is listed by the United States as a terrorist organization.Israel emphasizes that it delivers large amounts of aid to Gaza. The country mounted a diplomatic offensive to try to stop the flotilla from setting sail.The ship was part of a group of vessels that had planned to sail to Gaza in an effort to promote public awareness about Israel's blockade of the area. The others were grounded in Greece.The activists connected with the Freedom Flotilla, as they call it, also wanted to commemorate a May 2010 incident in which Israeli troops boarded the Mavi Marmara, a Turkish ship filled with humanitarian aid and 700 activists from various countries. Nine people died in clashes with Israeli Navy commandos.The Dignite carries a message of solidarity and human empathy from the people of the world to the people of Gaza, and all of Palestine, that Israel's violence can never silence,the group said.
Israeli forces take over Gaza-bound boat; no resistance reported FREE GAZA MOVEMENT July 19, 2011|From Amir Ahmed, CNN
Benny Gantz, pictured in February, chief of staff of the Israel Defense Forces, confirmed that naval forces seized the vessel.Israeli naval forces Tuesday successfully took over a boat of activists intent on breaking what they call the siege of Gaza without violent resistance.Benny Gantz, chief of staff of the Israel Defense Forces, confirmed that naval forces had been ordered to seize the vessel, known as the Dignite, as it approached the coast of Gaza, where a maritime security blockade is in force.The forces operated in line with procedures and took every precaution necessary while using all operational tactics determined prior to the operation, and avoid causing harm to the activists on board while ensuring the safety of the soldiers,the IDF said.After the boarding, the passengers' health was examined and they were offered food and beverages.The Dignite -- carrying 10 activists, three crew members and three journalists -- is affiliated with the Free Gaza Movement, whose aim is to break the siege of Gaza.Greta Berlin, spokeswoman for the Free Gaza Movement, said the boat declared its destination as Alexandria, Egypt, so that it could leave Greek waters.But it changed its destination in international waters, which is legal, Berlin said.Four navy boats surrounded the Dignite as it approached the coast of Gaza, the boat's organizers said.After the Israeli Navy intercepted the vessel, it engaged in a dialogue with the activists in an attempt to dissuade them from continuing on their route toward a maritime security blockade off the Gaza coast, the IDF said.
It said that any supplies on board may be transferred, legally, through the existing land crossings and the Ashdod port.However, the IDF said, all diplomatic channels had been exhausted and continuous calls to the vessel had been ignored.Given the groups' unwillingness to arrive at the Ashdod port,the IDF said, it was unequivocally necessary to board the vessel and lead it to Ashdod.After all the options we suggested were refused, we decided to take over the yacht. We realized that the captain was lying. He lied to the authorities in Greece about his sailing route and changed it from Egypt to Gaza,said IDF spokesman Brig. Gen. Yoav Mordechai.
The boat was taken to Ashdod, and the relevant security authorities and the Israel police were set to begin the process of questioning the passengers, who will then be transferred to the Ministry of Interior and the immigration authorities, officials said.
Hizbullah Aimed at Israel in Istanbul-A bombing attack in Istanbul two months ago turns out to have been aimed at Israel – by the Lebanese-based Hizbullah terror group.by Chana Ya'ar18/07/11, 3:11 AM Arutz Sheva
A bombing attack in Istanbul that wounded eight people two months ago now appears to have been aimed at Israel, and not Turkish citizens, according to a report by an Italian newspaper.The attack was originally thought to have been the work of the Kuristan Workers' Party (PKK), a terrorist group outlawed in Turkey, the European Union and the United States. However, according to a report published Monday in the Italian daily Corriere della Sera, three Hizbullah terrorists had arrived in Istanbul from Beirut to attack Israeli Consul General to Istabul Moshe Kimchi.The attack was intended to be carried out in retribution for the alleged assassination by the Mossad of Iranian nuclear physicist Masoud Ali Muhammedi last year in Tehran. The attempt failed, however, because the terrorists miscalculated – Kimchi's schedule ran late on the day of the attack, the report said.Ankara intelligence sources denied the report in an interview in the Turkish daily Hurriyet, saying, Israel carries out similar disinformation campaigns through newspapers from time to time.Security officials in Israel had issued a warning just one month earlier – in April – that Hizbullah was planning to attack Israelis abroad.The terrorist organization has for some time maintained its intention to murder Israelis in retaliation for the assassination of the group's #2 commander, Imad Mughniyeh in a Damascus car bombing in February 2008. Hizbullah accused Israel of carrying out the murder. Several such attempts have been foiled.
