“Patience and persistence!"

"... There is reason to doubt, though, that an attack on Iran is imminent. The United States and the European Union are ratcheting up economic sanctions in the hope that they will push Iran’s President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, to re-start serious nuclear negotiations.... The strategy, led by Obama, appears to be achieving its aim of raising the pressure on the ayatollahs to an unprecedented level. The value of Iran’s currency has fallen sharply. The diplomatic campaign would be stronger if it contained a definite plan to assuage Iran’s fears that the West and Israel ultimately seek regime change in Tehran—fears that presumably inform Iran’s search for a nuclear deterrent. Yet this is a rare period of momentum and international unity regarding Iran. “A peaceful resolution . . . is still possible, and far better,” the President said in the State of the Union. An attack now by either Israel or the United States would shatter diplomacy’s achievements.

The Iranian nuclear program is a problem with a long arc. The secret work began in the late nineteen-seventies, under the secular-minded Shah returned to power by Eisenhower’s intervention. There can be little doubt that Iranian scientists have studied atomic-bomb design. Several leading Israeli defense officials have said recently that Iran’s nuclear work has become so advanced that unless the sites are bombed soon—within months or, at most, within a year—it will be too late to prevent the country’s acquisition of atomic arms. It is difficult to tell whether the officials really believe that or if they are just adding to the pressure on Tehran. Either way, the evidence casts doubt on their judgment. The centrifuge technology that Iran has acquired to enrich uranium is relatively easy to hide, so it is conceivable that work has advanced further than world governments understand. But all of Iran’s known nuclear-fuel enrichment facilities are today under U.N. monitoring, and there is no evidence that any of Iran’s enriched uranium has been diverted to a military program.
Short of a nation conducting a bomb test, it’s not possible to define precisely when a country’s technology has attained weapons capability....The burden of proof rests, in any event, with those who would urge war. Two of Iran’s uranium-enrichment sites are underground; there are two significant reactors and another being built, and possibly other important sites that are unknown. In these circumstances, no one can confidently predict what aerial bombardment would achieve by way of damage or delay to Iran’s over-all nuclear timelines. And the costs of any such attack are much easier to describe than the benefits. For Israel, those costs would certainly include heavy retaliatory rocket and missile strikes by Hezbollah and Hamas against Israeli civilians, a wave of popular anti-Israeli upheaval in Egypt, and the prolonged inflammation of Iran’s nuclear nationalism. A regional war involving Lebanon, Syria, and oil-producing Gulf emirates would also be a possibility.
Moreover, although “the forces of stability and freedom” may be elusive and late arriving in Tehran, the durability of the Islamic Republic is far from assured. In Cairo last week, Egyptians gathered in Tahrir Square to commemorate the first anniversary of their revolution, an uprising that was as stunning and as unforeseen as Iran’s revolution was in 1979. The Arab Spring offers ample evidence that no dictatorship should be assumed to be indelible.
In 2009, in Prague, Obama, in one of the eloquent and idealistic speeches that characterized his early Presidency, pledged to pursue a world free from the menace of nuclear arms. He receives little credit for his work in this field, but he has delivered: accelerated programs to safeguard loose nuclear materials abroad, and a hard-won New START treaty with Russia, which proposes a smaller American nuclear arsenal. Iran’s case doesn’t offer much prospect for clear achievement; it is a crucible of uncertainty and risk. In Prague, however, Obama warned against “fatalism” about the nuclear danger, and he prescribed a strategy to defeat it: “Patience and persistence.” That strategy shouldn’t be taken off the table. ♦

"Why are Israeli leaders suddenly so chatty on the topic of bombing Iran?"

"... why are Israeli leaders suddenly so chatty on the topic? Doesn't that put at risk one key strategic advantage Israel has prized in the past, the element of surprise? Bergman spoke to Yahoo News by phone from Israel Sunday. The interview has been edited and condensed.

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b>Yahoo News: There's always been a theory that if Israel is going to strike Iran, it is going to be very quiet about it (as it was before the 1981 strike on Iraq's nuclear reactor and in the 2007 strikes on the alleged Syrian nuclear facility). By contrast, I was struck by Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak so conspicuously thinking out loud on such a sensitive question in recent public statements, including in your piece. What happened to earlier thinking in the administration of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that if Israel is serious about bombing Iran, it would not blab so much?
Bergman: I have heard with some amusement the comments and follow ups and op-eds following the story, basically some of them suggesting Barak is using me and using the platform of the New York Times Magazine to send a message to the U.S. administration and to the White House. But it was not easy even to convince him to speak off-record about that.
Yahoo News: But it's not just in your piece. Barak and Netanyahu have the past few months made several statements publicly signaling they are keeping their option open to strike Iran this year. The Pentagon interpreted Barak's request last month to take a planned U.S.-Israeli missile defense exercise off the calendar as one possible sign that Israel is keeping its options open to strike Iran in the spring, and thus wouldn't want 5,000 U.S. troops on the ground in Israel then. And top U.S. officials--the president, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Martin Dempsey--have asked Israel at least twice for assurances that it will not do so, or at least will not do so without giving the U.S. advance warning, and reportedly been refused.
Bergman: Former Mossad chief Meir Dagan's public campaign against an Israeli strike on Iran has caused a public debate in Israel about this issue. And you can see that he has put Barak and Netanayhu in a tight spot, in a certain sense. He is accusing them; that for popularity they are going to strike Iran. So they feel they need to explain their position.
The second thing is that most of the Israeli statements are not meant for Israeli ears. There's an expression in Hebrew, 'Hold me back. So I won't hit him.' What Barak is doing with these statements—what Israel is now doing with the aerial drill—and other issues: they are trying to tell Europe—hold me back, you know, crazy Israel, because otherwise Israel will take the initiative. The problem with this sort of statement is that it is coming back to some extent to the Israeli public and it is creating fear in the population here.
Yahoo News: I know you're an intelligence expert, and not a political journalist. But is there any sense that politics, and in particular the U.S. presidential elections, could be one factor under consideration in Netanyahu's calculus on whether and when to launch Iran strikes? [Defense Secretary Panetta, in a speech to the Saban Forum last month, in which former Mossad chief Meir Dagan was in the audience, was in some ways making a case why Israel should not do a preemptive strike on Iran--in part because he said the consequences would drive oil prices over $200 a barrel, throw the world back into a global recession, etc. Left unsaid, such a situation would seemingly also potentially cost Obama reelection.]
Bergman: For politicians, I cannot overrule political considerations. But for Netanyahu's and Barak's political coalition, I would be very hesitant to bet it is going to help them to win, because the day after [a possible Iran strike] is going to be [very] problematic, the world will be mad at Israel, and I am not sure the population is ready for war.
Some people in Israeli intelligence and military planning are saying, "let's wait for President Obama to win re-election and once he has his next term in the White House, we cannot overrule [rule out] that he would order military action, because he promised that he will not allow Iran to [get nuclear weapons]. So if he did, he will be humiliated."
A lot of people say, "do not underestimate the stubbornness of President Obama. He was there to take the decision and was courageous enough to take military action against Osama bin Laden--against the advice of some of his advisors."

"Is there no shame in this town?"

The Cable | FOREIGN POLICY

'Will Israel REALLY attack Iran?'

Good old Iran hand Gary Sick believes that Israel will jot attack Iran!

"... Would Israel actually attack while these international inspectors are at work? No, they would need to give them warning, thereby giving Iran warning that something was coming. The IAEA presence is a trip wire that works both ways. It is an invaluable resource. Risking its loss would be not only foolhardy but self-destructive to Israel and everyone else.
Bergman’s (Maariv) dramatic statement that “I have come to believe that Israel will indeed strike Iran in 2012,” is also nothing new — it simply changes the date. We heard the same thing a year ago from Jeffrey Goldberg of The Atlantic, and two years before that from uber-hawk John Bolton, who confidently predicted that the U.S. and/or Israel would strike Iran before George W. Bush left office.  It is becoming almost an annual ritual. 
Why do these false alarms keep going off? Bergman suggests an answer with disarming honesty: “Some have argued that Israel has intentionally exaggerated its assessments to create an atmosphere of fear that would drag Europe into its extensive economic campaign against Iran…” To this, the ubiquitous “senior American official” adds that “It is unclear if the Israelis firmly believe this or are using worst-case estimates to raise greater urgency from the United States.” In other words, Israel benefits by keeping the pot near the boiling point so that no one can ignore the Iran issue, even for a moment..."

'Arab Spring May Benefit Israel'

"... now, with spreading instability resulting from a contagion of protests, the hydra of anti-Israel populism and Islamism threatens to undo years of Israeli diplomatic efforts to ensure their country's place among the Arab states.
To be sure, the Great Arab Revolt could still produce regimes that threaten Israel. But it hasn't yet.
In Tunisia,... ... If the Israelis can ignore the unsettling Muslim Brotherhood rhetoric coming from the Nahda party, they will recognize that Tunisia may be unfriendly, but it remains a weak Parisian exurb that poses no threat to the Jewish state.
Egypt is a potentially bigger problem...But the chances of war with the new Egypt are currently low. Its economy is in the toilet, with foreign investors spooked and the corrupt patronage network that Mubarak created on the verge of collapse. Even if the Muslim Brotherhood is as powerful as the recent polls suggest, it is increasingly apparent that the real struggle for control of Egypt is between the military and the internal security apparatus.Both actors rely heavily on US assistance, and neither will want to jeopardize it. So, unless the Islamists manage to purge them altogether (unlikely), Israeli interests for the time being appear safe.
Yemen is a basket case.... a hotbed for terrorism, but more for America than for Israel...
In Syria, regime change could pose a challenge to Israel. But could Bashar Assad's successor really be worse? Though Israel's northern border has remained quiet since the October 1973 war, the Syrians have been a strong ally to Iran and spilled plenty of Israeli blood by proxy, through Hezbollah and Hamas. In many ways, the fall of Assad would likely be a good thing.
Of course, Islamists could inherit Syria, but they would have little room to maneuver against Israel. After nearly a year of unrest, Syria is exhausted and impoverished, and Israel has a far superior military. For now, Israel must ensure that, amid the chaos, Syria's chemical weapons stockpiles do not fall into the wrong hands.
Finally, there's Libya.... The greatest Libyan threat to Israel now comes from the many weapons that went missing in the war that raged throughout 2011, which are allegedly pouring into Gaza with the help of Beduin in the Sinai Peninsula. But the means for those weapons to arrive in Gaza have not changed. The Israelis will need to continue to deny these weapons entry via smuggling routes and tunnels.
A better-armed Hamas is worrisome, but Hamas is a train wreck. In addition to the financial hardships owing to international sanctions against Iran (the group's primary patron), the ongoing carnage in Syria has forced its external leaders to flee Damascus. It's unclear that any other Arab state will bear the burden of harboring the group, given the expected fallout with Washington. Notably, Hamas appears to be wooing Jordan. This is obviously cause for concern in Israel, which made peace with the Hashemite Kingdom. In 1999, King Hussein of Jordan threw Hamas out of the country, but his son Abdullah is now mending fences with the group in hopes of wooing the Jordanian Muslim Brotherhood into a political partnership.
But, he too, will likely deny Hamas safe haven. He wants to shore up his rule, but cannot threaten his alliance with Washington. If Abdullah fell, that would mean trouble for Israel. But that's an unlikely scenario for the near term.
So far, the greatest question mark of the Arab Spring is the Palestinians.... for the time being, the Palestinians are unlikely to launch another intifada. Indeed, while violent groups may attempt more attacks against Israel on an ad hoc basis, Palestinians leaders in the West Bank quietly cede that they are still regrouping after an exhausting round of fighting with the Israelis during the second intifada (2000-2005)....
Here's the best of the bad news: the Arab protests amount to a much-needed reminder to the Israelis that their region is filled with Islamists, and that paying off dictators cannot solve Israel's problems in the long term.
But here's real bad news: the Arab protests are a distraction from the threat of a nuclear Iran..."

Cleanup: Syrian army regains Damascus suburb

Syrian army 'regains Damascus suburb' - Middle East - Al Jazeera English

"What I'm trying to do and my policy is to disassociate, to shy away from what's going on in Syria."

Lebanon's PM prefers to 'dissassociate' with Syria - The National

"Iran does, however, present the potential for further irritation with China with regard to oil purchases"

In the wake of the reductions in defense spending announced by Secretary of Defense Panetta on January 26th ... ... , the US does not feel under-resourced for any confrontation with Iran. With two carriers in the region, Pentagon officials feel confident that they can deter Tehran from ill-judged actions in the Strait of Hormuz. For the moment, the focus has switched to diplomacy. The Administration has welcomed the oil sanctions imposed by the EU and General Dempsey, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, has reiterated his view that military action is premature. . Concern is, however, rising rapidly in regard to Egypt and Syria. The decision by the Egyptian authorities to prevent a number of US citizens from leaving the country has crystallized rising fears that the hopes of the Arab Spring will be stillborn. One consequence of this is that US pressure on Israel over the Middle East peace process – already minimal – will not increase.

"I had a CD on Islamic jihad. I brought it to the White House and told the chief of staff, ‘I would like the President to see this.’"

"...Casino magnate Sheldon Adelson and his wife Miriam have transformed the Republican primary by pumping $10 million into a pro-Newt Gingrich super PAC, thereby enabling his surge against Mitt Romney. So it’s surprising that comments Gingrich made last week about what the Adelsons expect in exchange for their money haven’t gotten more attention.

Ted Koppel asked Gingrich the key question: what do the Adelsons get if you win?
Gingrich, in response, suggested it all comes down to U.S. policy toward Israel.

Koppel: But there has to be a so-what at the end of it. So if you win, what does Adelson get out of it?
Gingrich. Well, he knows I’m very pro-Israel. And that’s the central value of his life. I mean, he’s very worried that Israel is going to not survive.

That’s in line with what we know about the Adelsons, who have supported Israeli settlements in the West Bank and once pulled their money out of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) because of that group’s putative softness on the concept of a peace deal with Palestinians.
ABC, meanwhile, reports that “a source close to” Adelson says he wants “nothing” in exchange for his contributions. That claim doesn’t amount to much, especially coming from an anonymous source.
The latest $5 million to the pro-Newt super PAC was donated by Miriam Adelson, who is reportedly a dual citizen of the United States and Israel. And here, as reported in the New Yorker, is a small but telling example of how Miriam previously interacted with the recipients of the Adelsons’ largesse:

The Adelsons seem not to take their power for granted. Recently, Miriam told an associate, “I had a CD on Islamic jihad. I brought it to the [Bush] White House and told the chief of staff, ‘I would like the President to see this.’ It really is amazing that we have this influence.”

And here is another episode from that New Yorker article in which Sheldon personally leaned on the president:

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was organizing a major conference in the United States, in an effort to re-start the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, and her initiative had provoked consternation among many rightward-leaning American Jews and their Christian evangelical allies. … A short, rotund man, with sparse reddish hair and a pale countenance that colors when he is angered, Adelson protested to Bush that Rice was thinking of her legacy, not the President’s, and that she would ruin him if she continued to pursue this disastrous course. Then, as Adelson later told an acquaintance, Bush put one arm around his shoulder and another around that of his wife, Miriam, who was born in Israel, and said to her, “You tell your Prime Minister that I need to know what’s right for your people—because at the end of the day it’s going to be my policy, not Condi’s. But I can’t be more Catholic than the Pope.”

So the idea that the Adelsons expect “nothing” from the recipients of their millions is belied by their previous behavior.
Gingirch himself seems to have gone through a transformation on the Israel-Palestine question. As Wayne Barrett recently documented, Gingrich was as recently as 2005 praising the Palestinians, referring to “their ancestral lands” in historic Palestine, and, amazingly, inveighing against “the desire of some Israelis to use security as an excuse to grab more Palestinian land.”
That’s the type of language – Gingrich even used the phrase Israeli “land grab” in that 2005 essay – one wouldn’t hear even from alleged anti-Israel radical Barack Obama.
Fast forward to the current election cycle, of course, and Gingrich has veered way to the right, famously questioning the very peoplehood of the Palestinians and blasting calls to end Jewish settlements as a “suicidal step” for Israel. (Adelson, by the way, personally praised Gingrich’s claim that the Palestinians are an “invented people.”) ..."

Selling arms to Bahrain, in sleeze, in the dark & under the table!

Where is Ziocon Victoria Nuland when you need her!
"...Obama's administration has been delaying its planned $53 million arms sale to Bahrain due to human rights concerns and congressional opposition, but this week administration officials told several congressional offices that they will move forward with a new and different package of arms sales -- without any formal notification to the public.
The congressional offices that led the charge to oppose the original Bahrain arms sales package are upset that the State Department has decided to move forward with the new package....
The State Department has not released details of the new sale, and Congress has not been notified through the regular process, which requires posting the information on the Defense Security Cooperation Agency (DSCA) website. The State Department simply briefed a few congressional offices and is going ahead with the new sale, arguing it didn't meet the threshold that would require more formal notifications and a public explanation.
At today's State Department press briefing, The Cable asked spokeswoman Victoria Nuland about the new sale. She acknowledged the new package but didn't have any details handy.(she was busy with Syria & Russia!)
Our congressional sources said that State is using a legal loophole to avoid formally notifying Congress and the public about the new arms sale. The administration can sell anything to anyone without formal notification if the sale is under $1 million. If the total package is over $1 million, State can treat each item as an individual sale, creating multiple sales of less than $1 million and avoiding the burden of notification, which would allow Congress to object and possibly block the deal....
Regardless, congressional opponents to Bahrain arms sales are planning to fight back. Wyden is circulating a letter now to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton stating that Bahrain's government continues to commit human rights violations and should not be rewarded with U.S. arms sales...
"Supplying arms to a regime that continues to persecute its citizens is not in the best interest of the United States," Wyden said.... ... ...
"This message of ‘business as usual' will only strengthen the regime's belief that there will continue to be lack of consequences to their human rights violations internationally," she said. "At a time when the United States is already being criticized for practicing double standards when it comes to the so-called Arab spring, to the protesters in Bahrain, the U.S. selling any arms to the government of Bahrain is exactly like Russia selling arms to Syria. Bahrain has become the United States' test on how serious they are about standing against human rights violations, and they are failing miserably."

Just like that! UN to Bashar Assad: 'Leave in 15 days or else!'

'The Cable has obtained a copy of the draft resolution on Syria currently being discussed inside the U.N. Security Council. It calls on Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to hand over power to his deputy and says additional measures would be taken if he doesn't comply within 15 days.
U.N. Security Council diplomats are meeting behind closed doors on Friday to discuss what's being called the Arab-European draft resolution on Syria. The Moroccan ambassador is presenting the draft resolution, which is designed to implement the recommendations of the Arab League transition plan laid out on Jan. 22... ...
Importantly, the draft resolution requests that U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon report on the implementation of the resolution every 15 days and also directs the Security Council "to review Syria's implementation of this resolution [in] 15 days and, in the event that Syria has not complied, to adopt further measures, in consultation with the League of Arab States."...
She indicated the United States was hopeful that Russia, which has been openly supporting Assad and sending him weapons, will work with the rest of the Security Council to produce a resolution that is strong and effective. Russia and China vetoed European resolution on Syria last fall and Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Gennady Gatilov said Friday that Russia would veto any resolution that seeks to remove Assad from power..."

'Is there really a pro-Qaddafi uprising in Libya?'

'The Wild West in the Sahara'
"... Contrary to many of the headlines, the battle in Bani Walid, which the pro-revolutionary forces now seem to have decided in their favor, was not part of a pro-Gaddafi uprising. Green flags did not, as was first reported, sprout from the rooftops. The issue was the arrest of war crimes suspects. Since the end of last year's fighting, Bani Walid has become a refuge for the waifs and strays of the former Gaddafi administration who are on the war crimes lists of other cities. A pro-government unit in the town had begun to arrest them when on Monday their base was attacked by a local clan. Four soldiers were killed, the rest fled, and the suspects were set free.
Now the National Guard wants them back. "We want to go home, we all want to go home," says National Guard fighter Osman El Hadi, himself from Beni Walid. "But first we need to finish this."
This minor uprising, in short, is less significant in itself than for what it says about the disarray of the post-revolutionary administration in Tripoli. Right now, power on the national level is exercised by the National Transitional Council (NTC). But this latest crisis has revealed once again that the NTC is, at best, a bit player.
The real power in Libya remains dispersed among the country's bewildering array of grassroots military formations. Most are grouped around town or city military councils; Tripoli is divided into 11 district militias. The last time anyone counted, Misrata had 172, ranging from ten-man outfits to the 500-strong Halbus Brigade, with a wartime strength of 17,000. That figure has since plummeted, with thousands returning to their jobs...."

"An Iran that returned to being a reliably pro-American regime, as under the shah, could continue with its program!"

"... Some have argued that the spread of Western-style liberal democracy is the answer. After all, the international community trusts Japan not to abuse its nuclear status, in part because of its system of government. One of the options that has remained on the table in dealing with Iran has been to encourage domestic regime change: Some U.S. pundits and presidential candidates argue that a revolution in Tehran -- presumably by the opposition Green movement -- would bring to power a government willing to terminate Iran’s nuclear ambitions, though this does not correspond to the broad consensus of support for the uranium-enrichment effort expressed across the Iranian political spectrum. Failing regime change, some have argued that an Iran that embraced liberal democracy -- or else one that returned to being a reliably pro-American regime, as under the shah -- could continue with its program to master the enrichment cycle. ..."

Syria: Voices calling for a military solution becoming deafening!

Will Sarkozy ditch the Afghanistan mission to save himself?

Swimming against the Tide - By Eric Pape | Foreign Policy

The Ziocons & 'shitting the proverbial pants'

"...America is a country that has grown complacent in its assumptions about the Middle East and its politics, and too wedded to the idea of having an imperial role in the region (of which CENTCOM is the embodiment) and the world more generally. For several years I have advocated an American withdrawal from the Arab world (FLC believes that this is undergoing but ONLY in the Levant!) The Arab uprisings have made this all the more urgent, although it is a delicate, difficult, and potentially dangerous matter. But that's a debate for another day.
Let me focus now on a few pieces by people who have written very unwise things, and who are the other bigpart of the problem with American foreign policy in the region: those who primarily see US Middle East policy through the lens of Israel. 
Robert Satloff, a leading hack of the Israel lobby think tank WINEP, and Eric Trager have a piece in the WSJ you can read here. A few years ago Satloff was all into pressuring Egypt on democracy issues, but now has buyer's remorse – confirming my long-held suspicion that people like him and Elliott Abrams (and many others) were only tactically interested in democracy promotion as a manner to wield greater influence over the Mubarak regime. Now that Islamists have won a majority in Egypt's parliament, they are shitting their proverbial pants...."

The big lie of Iran 'two-tracks policy!'

"... There is a common conception of Western policy as based on a two-pronged, carrot and stick approach: one a diplomatic track and the other a military threat....But by all appearances, the Western approach is solely designed to achieve Iranian capitulation to Western demands that it dismantle its nuclear research program.... ... ...
So there is not a two-track policy regarding Iran. There is instead a one-track policy with two facets. On the one hand, there is a program of sanctions and covert war designed to intimidate and bloody Iran into capitulation. But if that doesn’t work (and it surely cannot), there is a military option designed to destroy Iran’s nuclear program. It’s no surprise, then, that the Iranians see their enemies closing in on them like a vise. An enemy who believes he has no options left is very dangerous. He is likely to lash out in unforeseen ways. Such desperation is precisely what could fuel not just a bilateral military conflict, but a full-scale regional war.
There is another misconception about Western policy. The liberals among us talk about a “military strike” as an option of last resort. The more clear-eyed, like the Brookings Institution’s Bruce Riedel, talk of a potential war against Iran. Neither is precisely right. As Israeli journalists have pointed out, there already is a war under way against Iran. It is bought and paid for by a $400 million allocation by the Bush administration in 2007. It has funded all the tools in the Mossad arsenal that were used to sabotage Iran’s nuclear program and foment general unrest inside the country...
Though the cable doesn’t mention the Mujahedeen-e Khalq (MEK), the Mossad clearly views it as a potent force with an extensive internal network within the country, whose muscle could be exploited to further Israeli interests.
Mark Perry recently published an expose of one particular Mossad project, a false flag operation in which it recruited the leader of Jundallah, a Sunni terrorist group operating in Iran, by posing as NATO and CIA agents. When the Bush administration discovered the nature of the program, it was furious. But ultimately it decided it had other fish to fry and would not make a major stink about the danger the duplicitous operation posed to U.S. agents in the region.
Such Israeli tactics suggest that Israel pursues its own interests with little or no regard for how its behavior will impact friend or foe. For example, it utilizes the MEK as a partner in many of its terror operations inside Iran, even though U.S. State Department officially designates the MEK as a terror group.
This, of course, doesn’t stop the MEK and its well-paid domestic allies in the United States from pursuing an aggressive campaign to delist it as a terror group. Millions of dollars have been spent to further this goal, including enlisting prominent figures on both the Democratic and Republican sides to shill for delisting. The MEK appears to believe that terrorist activities in which it may be engaged inside Iran will not have an impact on its delisting by the United States. This is all the more reason for journalists in Israel and outside to make known its cooperation with the Mossad, so that the U.S. government can make an informed judgment about whether or not the MEK has renounced terrorism as it claims.
Some analysts have called this a black ops campaign or covert war. Whatever we call it, it is war by another means. If the United States is serious about seeking a diplomatic solution with Iran, then why would it both encourage and fund such a powerful campaign of terror inside Iran?... ...
After following Iranian-Western relations for years, I believe the diplomatic track is a mirage and that the sanctions regime, which the West has pursued without success for 30 years, will not gain Iran’s capitulation. That leaves only two options: war, or Western impotence in the face of Iran’s implacable determination to pursue a nuclear option. Either option is bad, but the first is far worse than the second.
The fallout from a war with Iran has been widely discussed.......
Since the United States doesn’t appear prepared for a real negotiation with Iran regarding its nuclear program, there is only one real approach short of war: containment. The United States adopted this approach during the Cold War against the Soviet Union. Though it was never optimal, considering the dysfunction in the relationship between the superpowers, containment worked reasonably well until the Soviet collapse in 1989.
As former Defense Department Undersecretary Colin Kahl argues in his latest Foreign Affairs article, the United States already has the assets in place in the region to pursue a policy of containment ... Containment still isn’t an optimal approach, but it’s the least bad one considering the current dysfunction characterizing relations between Iran and the West. In the future, Iran may turn to a reformist, more democratic government that might approach these issues differently. Or the climate in the West may change so that it would be willing to seriously engage with Iran on a similar basis to the Khatami 2003 proposals. But given the almost lunatic tone of the Republican presidential debates concerning Iran, and the fact that Barack Obama appears convinced that he must maintain impeccable national security credentials to protect his right flank, the United States is unlikely to adopt a more reasonable, pragmatic approach to Iran.
Under the circumstances, containment is the only remaining option that doesn’t lead to regional war, stalemate, and deeper dysfunction."

"The buzz of victory & the agony of defeat!"

"Amid all this “respect” that the US has generated in the Arab world, we are rattling our sabres toward the Persians. Yeah, that’s going to help!"

“More Respected Around the World”? Really?

So, about that war with Iran, are the Europeans aware of the dynamics?

"This week, the European Union went to war against Iran. There was no formal declaration, of course, nor even any undeclared use of military force.... effectively an act of war and may very well result in the military hostilities that sanctions are meant to forestall.
...Consequently, unless other customers neutralize E.U. actions by stepping up their own purchases from Iran — and indications from China, Japan and South Korea suggest that this is unlikely to be the case — the E.U. decision, coupled with existing American measures, will come close to imposing the “crippling sanctions” ...
If that turns out to be the case, then the Iranian regime, already coping with high inflation and a rapidly depreciating currency, will feel constrained to react. One possibility is that it will capitulate and essentially dismantle its nuclear weapons program...
But it is at least as likely that Iran, feeling trapped, will lash out in a desperate attempt to frighten the Europeans into backing down or at least introduce so much hysteria into the oil market that price spikes will allow it to earn the same revenue from a reduced volume of exports.
One form this might take would be an attempt to close the Strait of Hormuz, which Iran has already threatened to do. But that is probably beyond Iran’s capacity for very long and would in any case also shut down Iran’s own ability to export to whatever markets it manages to retain.
Far less complicated would be sabotage or rocket attacks on refineries, pipelines and other facilities in places like Abqaiq and Ras Tanura in Saudi Arabia. These might be carried out as “false flag” operations by local Shiite insurgents concentrated in Saudi Arabia’s Eastern Province, but nobody would be fooled and the risks of escalation to large-scale conflict with Iran would be significant.
In this scenario, the military confrontation that many Europeans have sought to avoid will become unavoidable, even if Iranian decision makers do not delude themselves into thinking that they would ultimately prevail.
Before such courses of action are discounted as unrealistic scare-mongering or dismissed on grounds that they would be self-defeating, it might be worth recalling that Imperial Japan did not attack the United States because it was physically attacked by the United States but rather because it was being economically squeezed (as Iran may well be squeezed now) to the point where it felt that war was preferable to slow-motion strangulation. And it made no difference that many Japanese military leaders, including Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, chief planner of the attack on Pearl Harbor, believed that Japan’s ultimate defeat was foreordained.
It is difficult to imagine that the E.U. members who adopted the decision on sanctions are unaware of this possible dynamic. Indeed, the very fact that British and French warships accompanied the U.S. aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln on its passage through the Straits and back into the Gulf — in brazen defiance of Iranian warnings — imply the opposite...
And that suggests that the European Union, notwithstanding its economic travails, is experiencing its own “spring” in foreign and defense policy and that those who tended in the past to dismiss it as a flaccid talking shop capable of little more than vacuous posturing now need to carry out a fundamental reassessment."

For Syria, Jeffrey Feltman & Erdogan fly to Moscow

"... Jeff Feltman was in Moscow as part of an increasingly frantic international effort to intervene in the troubled Middle Eastern country, American officials said.
"Issue number one on [Feltman's] agenda there is Syria and our interest in being able to move forward in the UN Security Council and talking about how the situation looks after the Arab League report over the weekend," State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland told journalists at a press briefing Monday....
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan was also due to fly to Moscow Wednesday to urge Russia not to veto a UN Security Council Syria resolution, Turkey's Today Zaman reported Mahir Zeynalov reported.
American officials are also expected to ask Moscow about media reports that it has inked a deal to sell combat jets to the Assad regime, the State Department said..."

"Israel will indeed strike Iran in 2012."

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