"..Egypt on Monday charged an Egyptian businessman and two Israelis with spying for Israel and trying to recruit operatives working for telecoms companies in Egypt, Syria and Lebanon.
Officials arrested Tarek Abdel Rezek Hussein, the 37-year-old owner of an import-export firm, in August, according to a document shown to reporters by Egyptian state security attorney Hicham Badawi.
The document alleged that Hussein had accepted $37,000 for providing the Israelis with information about Egyptians working in telecommunications companies who could be recruited to spy in Egypt, Syria and Lebanon. ....It was not clear if the charges were linked to a wave of arrests in Lebanon in the past two years, some of them involving telecom sector employees, over accusations of spying for Israel...."
Monday, December 20, 2010
Egypt (also) is nabbing Israeli 'telecom spies'... recruiting for Lebanon & Syria
Sunday, December 19, 2010
US plan gets left behind in Iraq
".."U.S. ideas for power-sharing will have been conveniently left aside, which is not surprising given that they were unfeasible in the first place due to the need for special legislation to be passed in order to make them work," Visser said.
When U.S. officials in Baghdad first told Qassim Daoud, an independent Shiite politician and former national security adviser, of the council idea, he said to them, "This is a joke." .."
"Hezbollah’s choice is to commit suicide, the Lebanese should make an extra effort" to help them?!
From the minds of MEOWLebanon
"...Nasrallah reiterated his support of the Saudi-Syrian initiative, probably trying to buy more time. Hezbollah has backed that initiative assuming that the regional axis, fearing its threats of instability and strife, would offer the Party of God a way out before the indictment comes out.
But Nasrallah is certainly aware that in a statement following President Bashar al-Assad’s talks with French President Nicolas Sarkozy earlier this month, the Syrian president said that answering a question on Lebanon “There is no initiative as being reported… and in the final analysis, the solution is a Lebanese one, not Syrian, nor French or Saudi."
Additionally, in the last couple of weeks a number of messages were sent to and from Lebanon stating that there will be no postponement of the indictment and that any internal strife is rejected, including statements coming from Russian Foreign Minister Deputy Alexander Sultanof and Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who visited Lebanon recently.
If Hezbollah has eliminated all efforts to resolve the issue internally, preferring instead to bargain on the regional powers, it could be too late for them to switch back to the domestic level.
It seems there is something in the making. ..."
Saturday, December 18, 2010
US officials call WSJ 'doomsday-in-motion' scenarios on Iran talks, "inaccurate"....
"The U.S. and representatives of the European Union have agreed to impose joint sanctions against Iran in January and are considering breaking off talks with the country, as patience with Tehran's nuclear activities wears thin, according to people familiar (like my cousin Vinny?)with the matter.
Western officials are discussing making further talks with Iran contingent on Tehran's progress toward compliance with existing United Nations Security Council resolutions, (not true say US officials) which call on Iran to cooperate fully with the International Atomic Energy Agency, the U.N.'s nuclear watchdog.
Iran returned to the negotiating table this month in Geneva with the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council plus Germany, which seek to contain Tehran's nuclear program. The talks led to an agreement to another round of discussions early next year in Istanbul..."
"...This is a professional job, not the work of some geek sitting in his bedroom."
"...Elaph, a Saudi-run website, was mysteriously hacked when it ran a piece about King Abdullah's sensational calls on the US to attack Iran to destroy its nuclear programme.
Lebanon's Al-Akhbar , a leftist and pro-Hizbullah paper, pulled off quite a trick: it somehow obtained unauthorised leaks from the WikiLeaks cache, posting 250 US cables from eight Arab countries on its website – only to find that it was cyber-attacked (and replaced by a shimmering pink Saudi girl chat room) when it published one of two devastatingly frank documents about President Ben Ali of Tunisia, who reinforced his country's reputation as the most internet-unfriendly in the region. "This is a professional job," said publisher Hassan Khalil, "not the work of some geek sitting in his bedroom." ..."
Friday, December 17, 2010
"'Hariri Tribunal's' indictment, posponed", Zebari after meeting VP Biden.
"..Zebari spelled out the new US approach following his meeting in New York with Vice President Joe Biden...asked to comment on America’s policy toward Iran, Zebari said in an interview with the pan-Arab newspaper Al-Hayat, “It [US policy] is heading toward pacification, rather than an escalation or a complication of the situation and relations [with Iran]... This is what I have sensed concerning [Iran’s] nuclear issue and the tribunal,.... There is currently a tendency toward postponing the release of the indictment due to requests, probably even Lebanese requests,” ... However, Zebari noted that any postponement of the indictment would not be indefinite. “Instead of [the indictment] being issued this month, it will probably be issued next month,” he said..."
Iran in secret talks on 'nuclear swap' ...
"... "We think the deal is doable," an official involved in the negotiations said, "but there's still a lot of detail to be worked through." Turkish and Iranian negotiators, diplomatic sources say, have met several times to discuss the contours of the deal, which they hope to bring to the table next month at a meeting with an international consortium called the P5+1 – the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council and Germany.france, Russia and the United States have also been involved in the negotiations, which began after a meeting between Ahmed Davutoglu, Turkey's foreign minister, and Iranian officials in Bahrain earlier this month.... Backed by P5 member China, as well as Brazil, Turkey has long argued against harsher sanctions on Iran, arguing that weakening its economy threatens regional stability. "Turkey does not want to impose itself on the world stage," said Mustafa Kibaroglu, a nuclear expert at Bilkent University in Ankara, "but it has real stakes here. Shallow, hectoring diplomacy is not going to do it. Iran needs an interlocutor it trusts." In the US, opinion is divided on the Turkish-led initiative. Last month, several influential senators called on Barack Obama, the US president, to reject any deal until Iran dismantled its uranium enrichment infrastructure. But Hillary Clinton, the US Secretary of State, recently said Iran could resume enrichment work "at some future date once they have demonstrated that they can do so in a responsible manner". "The basic dilemma," a US diplomat said, "is this: should we pocket our winnings, and ship out whatever low-enriched uranium we can, or hold out for more in the hope sanctions will work?"..."
Lebanon gets 'anti-tank missiles' from France ... raising concerns in Israel
"...France will give Lebanon 100 anti-tank missiles, a government official said on Friday, confirming a deal that raised concerns in Israel and the United States earlier this year...
"The missiles will be delivered before the end of February and are being given with no conditions attached,"
In August, a US lawmaker objected to the transfer saying the missiles could end up being used against Israel given the influence of the powerful militant group Hezbollah in Lebanon..."
"Syria won’t abandon Iran"
"..Seale rejects the notion that Hafez Assad would not have approved of the strengthened ties between Damascus and Tehran, saying "for Syria, the relations with Iran are historic. They go back 30 years, and they are very tight." .."
Thursday, December 16, 2010
Dahlan the 'suspect' ...
"... Mahmoud Abbas has recently taken action against Dahlan as part of an effort to reduce his standing, after the latter expressed harsh criticism of the Palestinian president. Among the steps taken against Dahlan include the removal of the security detail at his home and office and the closure of the television station he owns, which was due to go on air next month.
Dahlan associates - including Yusef Issa Yakub, who until recently served as the deputy to the commander of the PA's Preventative Security Force - have also been removed from their positions..... Many in the movement, however, attributed the failure to head off the Hamas takeover of Gaza to Dahlan..... About two months ago, the Wall Street Journal reported that Dahlan was part of a group that intended to have Abbas replaced by Nasser al-Kidwa, a nephew of the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat. There were also reports that Dahlan had publicly disparaged Abbas' son during conversations with Palestine Liberation Organization representatives abroad......"
"Israel can't defeat Hezbollah!"
Though outnumbered and outgunned, Hezbollah held off Israel's advanced armed forces in a 2006 war and fired more than 4,000 rockets into Israeli territory. The group has a domestic political base and has since bolstered an arsenal that Israel describes as a strategic threat. "Israel does not know how to beat Hezbollah,... Therefore a war waged only as Israel-versus-Hezbollah might yield better damage on Hezbollah, but Hezbollah would inflict far worse damage on the Israeli homefront than it did 4-1/2 years ago," said Giora Eiland, an army ex-general who served as national security adviser to former prime ministers Ariel Sharon and Ehud Olmert.... "Our only way of preventing the next war, and of winning if it happens anyway, is for it to be clear to everyone ... that another war between us and Hezbollah will be a war between Israel and the state of Lebanon and will wreak destruction on the state of Lebanon. "And as no one -- including Hezbollah, the Syrians or the Iranians -- is interested in this, this is the best way of creating effective deterrence."................... But Israelis have been watching for signs that Hezbollah, should it be named in an impending U.N. indictment over the 2005 assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri, will push back by consolidating power in Beirut. Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak has argued that Hezbollah's role in governing Lebanon would make the country fair game in any future war involving the Shiite militia. Eiland said such a scenario would have "the entire world crying out for a ceasefire within two days," which would be more in the Israeli interest "than having to deal directly with every one of (Hezbollah's estimated) 40,000 rockets."
'Fraudulent' Arab leaders as "indispensible US allies..."
"... Like Saudi Arabia, most countries in the Middle East are ruled by unelected -- or fraudulently elected -- heads of state. That creates a number of complications for foreign-policy planners in the rest of the world, who must deal with the very real possibility that the regimes they deal with today could undergo dramatic changes when the current leader leaves power -- whether by force, personal decision, or death. The risk comes across starkly in one of the recently revealed memos in the Wikileaks trove, in which the U.S. envoy to Egypt discusses the future of that all-important U.S. ally. In the 2009 cable preparing for Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak's trip to Washington, Ambassador Margaret Scobey refers to the question of who will succeed the 82-year-old Mubarak, leader of America's "indispensible Arab ally."... After all, turmoil in Egypt, the most populous Arab country, could remake the Middle East..... Egypt's recent elections, even more of a sham than usual, showed just how little trust the regime has in its own people, pointing to the ever-present threat of just such turmoil. Unlike Egypt, Saudi Arabia holds no pretense of even being a democracy. As a monarchy, the country's leadership succession is fairly well-spelled out.... Even assuming that the same family continues to hold power in the country that holds the largest oil reserves in the world, each individual member of that family is different.... The next generation could bring even more dramatic change.... But although Saudi Arabia's succession is expected to be an orderly one, Middle Eastern dictatorships can prove extremely unpredictable. One of the most stable and Western-friendly of monarchies, the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, abruptly changed its succession only moments before King Hussein's death .... When Syria's President Bashar al-Assad took over from his father, Haffez, a decade ago, there was much optimism in the West that the younger Assad would prove to be far more moderate, ..... Bashar has formed an alliance with the West's current arch-foe Iran and become as much of an obstacle to reform as his father ever was...... The perils of succession to foreign-policy planning are evident even within the Palestinian Authority. Nobody knows who would take power after PA President Mahmoud Abbas exits the scene. ....... at least for now. If the PA were taken over by Hamas, or by a more radical leader, the edifice of Western policy could also come crashing down..."
"Damascus may accept limited clashes given that Hizbollah has the upper military hand..."
Syrian perspective. Syria regards the STL as a mechanism set up to discredit President Bashar al-Assad's government. It now views the tribunal as an instrument to cut-off Iran's reach (via Hizbollah) into the Arab-Israeli theatre, and weaken Syria and its allies vis-a-vis Israel. While Damascus was relieved when the blame for the assassination shifted elsewhere, Foreign Minister Walid al-Mouallem in September called the tribunal "irredeemably politicised". He said it should be replaced by a "purely Lebanese" investigation......Sayyid had been partly vindicated when the younger Hariri said unexpectedly in September that his earlier accusations of Syrian involvement had been politically motivated and wrong.Seeking stability. Despite these efforts to undermine the tribunal, Syria has improved its relations with Hariri. Yet cooperation is confined to the surface; and it is bitterness that endures. Both the cooperation and the attempts to discredit the tribunal stem from a fear of Lebanese instability; Syria cannot afford renewed sectarian strife in Lebanon. From Damascus' perspective, a flare up of violence provides Israel with an alibi to intervene against Hizbollah. These fears are shared by Riyadh, an ally of Hariri, with whom Syria has reached an understanding. Saudi Arabia fears Hizbollah's assured victory over its local rivals in the event of sectarian clashes. Both seek the establishment of a broad-based inter-sectarian government. Riyadh is therefore pleased that Damascus is supporting Sunni tribes along the Syrian-Iraqi border. Damascus views as a potential threat a Shia-dominated and pro-Iranian government, since an increased risk of sectarian and ethnic strife raises the possibility of spill-over into Syria.These wider shared interests may play a role in strengthening cooperation on Lebanon, reducing the risk that the mutual understanding will collapse once the indictments are issued.Differing views. However, the rapprochement does not represent a total shift in Damascus's foreign policy: Iran. Syria was troubled by the massive popular welcome (for) Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad .... Despite this, Syrian-Iranian ties remain strong, and the two have gone to great lengths to consolidate their strategic alliance and provide support for Hizbollah in the face of US pressure.....Stability deal? Shared concern for stability in Lebanon has led Damascus and Riyadh to attempt to devise a plan which their rival Lebanese allies can live with. Saudi officials have been lobbying Paris and Washington to use their influence to annul the tribunal. Yet should these efforts fail, as is likely, a compromise plan has reportedly been proposed whereby Hariri would declare Hizbollah innocent after the indictments are issued. However, these reports have not been confirmed by sources close to the Hariri camp. It is not clear that Hariri will be willing to reject the results. Nonetheless, he may have no choice but at least to nuance the indictments if Hizbollah operatives are accused. He may make a statement distinguishing between suspect and accused, or declare the individuals to be 'rogue operatives' not representing the Shia sects or Hizbollah. Yet this response is likely with or without a regional deal .... )Now), whether Hizbollah accepts such statements by Hariri without a full disowning of the tribunal; and, how the government responds to the demands of the tribunal....that will determine whether the deal is actually a 'victory' for Hizbollah or for Hariri. ..... While the regional deal and prevention of violence is Syria's priority, and has been boosted by recent efforts by Qatar and Turkey, Damascus may yet accept the emergence of limited clashes given that Hizbollah has the upper military hand. In the event that violence escalates significantly, Damascus might yet intervene on the side of Hizbollah -- and thus threaten its new relations with Riyadh. "
Balloon over Dimona ...
"... An IDF spokeswoman said an Israeli warplane "shot down a suspicious flying object, probably a balloon, in southern Israel". Israeli media reports said the balloon was unmanned but powered by an engine..."
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