| Alpha | | Posted: Sun Sep 03, 2006 8:14 pm Post subject: Israel plans for war with Iran and Syria |
| http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2089-2340486,00.html
The Sunday Times September 03, 2006
Israel plans for war with Iran and Syria
Uzi Mahnaimi, Tel Aviv, and Sarah Baxter, New York
THREATENED by a potentially nuclear-armed Tehran, Israel is preparing for a possible war with both Iran and Syria, according to Israeli political and military sources.
The conflict with Hezbollah has led to a strategic rethink in Israel. A key conclusion is that too much attention has been paid to Palestinian militants in Gaza and the West Bank instead of the two biggest state sponsors of terrorism in the region, who pose a far greater danger to Israel’s existence, defence insiders say.
“The challenge from Iran and Syria is now top of the Israeli defence agenda, higher than the Palestinian one,” said an Israeli defence source. Shortly before the war in Lebanon Major-General Eliezer Shkedi, the commander of the air force, was placed in charge of the “Iranian front”, a new position in the Israeli Defence Forces. His job will be to command any future strikes on Iran and Syria.
The Israeli defence establishment believes that Iran’s pursuit of a nuclear programme means war is likely to become unavoidable.
“In the past we prepared for a possible military strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities,” said one insider, “but Iran’s growing confidence after the war in Lebanon means we have to prepare for a full-scale war, in which Syria will be an important player.”
A new infantry brigade has been formed named Kfir (lion cub), which will be the largest in the Israeli army. “It is a partial solution for the challenge of the Syrian commando brigades, which are considered better than Hezbollah’s,” a military source said.
There has been grave concern in Israel over a military pact signed in Tehran on June 15 between Iran and Syria, which the Iranian defence minister described as a “mutual front against Israeli threats”. Israel has not had to fight against more than one army since 1973.
During the war in Lebanon, Ali Akbar Mohtashamipour, the Iranian founder of Hezbollah, warned: “If the Americans attack Iran, Iran will attack Tel Aviv with missiles.”
According to the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London, both Iran and Syria have ballistic missiles that can cover most of Israel, including Tel Aviv. An emergency budget has now been assigned to building modern shelters.
“The ineptness of the Israeli Defence Forces against Hezbollah has raised the Iranians’ confidence,” said a leading defence analyst.
In Washington, the military hawks believe that an airstrike against Iranian nuclear bunkers remains a more straightforward, if risky, operation than chasing Hezbollah fighters and their mobile rocket launchers in Lebanon.
“Fixed targets are hopelessly vulnerable to precision bombing, and with stealth bombers even a robust air defence system doesn’t make much difference,” said Richard Perle, a leading neoconservative.
The option of an eventual attack remains on the table after President George Bush warned on Friday that Iran must not be allowed to develop nuclear weapons.
While the American State Department favours engaging with President Bashar Assad of Syria in the hope of detaching him from the Iranian alliance, hawks believe Israel missed a golden opportunity to strike at Syria during the Hezbollah conflict.
“If they had acted against Syria during this last kerfuffle, the war might have ended more quickly and better,” Perle added. “Syrian military installations are sitting ducks and the Syrian air force could have been destroyed on the ground in a couple of days.” Assad set off alarm bells in Israel when he said during the war in Lebanon: “If we do not obtain the occupied Golan Heights by peaceful means, the resistance option is there.”
During the 1973 Arab-Israeli war, the Syrian army briefly captured the Israeli strategic post on top of Mount Hermon on the Golan Heights.
Some Israeli analysts believe Syria will try again to take this post, which overlooks the Syrian capital, Damascus.
As a result of the change in the defence priorities, the budget for the Israeli forces in the West Bank and Gaza is to be reduced.
The Israelis are integrating three elite brigades that performed well during the Lebanon war under one headquarters, so they can work together on deep cross-border operations in Iran and Syria.
Advocates of political engagement believe a war with Syria could unleash Islamic fundamentalist terror in what has hitherto been a stable dictatorship. Some voices in the Pentagon are not impressed by that argument.
“If Syria spirals into chaos, at least they’ll be taking on each other rather than heading for Jerusalem,” said one insider.
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The above would be right in accordance with the 'A Clean Break'/war for Israel agenda that Bamford wrote about on pages 261-269/321 of his 'A Pretext for War' book (scroll down to pages 261-269 at the following URL):
'A Clean Break' (from James Bamford's 'A Pretext for War')
http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/wake-up-america-your-government-is-hijacked-by-zionism/2005/02/11/a-clean-break-from-james-bamford-s-a-pretext-for-war.php
Bamford discusses 'A Clean Break'/war for Israel agenda on MSNBC's 'Countdown with Keith Olbermann':
http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/wake-up-america-your-government-is-hijacked-by-zionism/2006/08/07/bamford-discusses-a-clean-break-on-msnbc-s-countdown.php
Additional at following URL:
http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/wake-up-america-your-government-is-hijacked-by-zionism/2006/08/19/fwd-cair-net-israel-lobby-authors-to-speak-at-dc-press-c.php
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Looks like Israel caved into pressure from the JINSA/PNAC Neocons in the USA (keep in mind that the 'A Clean Break' document was written by Feith, Perle, Wurmser and company for incoming Likud Prime Minister Netanyahu who seems all set to replace Olmert soon:
http://www.antiwar.com/lobe/?articleid=9630
August 31, 2006
In Pro-Israel Circles, Doubts Grow Over US Policy
by Jim Lobe
A growing debate within Israel over whether United States President George W. Bush's Middle East policies really serve the interests of the Jewish state has spread to Washington, where influential voices within the U.S. Jewish community are questioning the administration's hard-line positions in the region.
Coming in the wake of the month-long war between Israel and Lebanon's Hezbollah, during which Washington provided virtually unconditional support and encouragement to Tel Aviv, the debate has focused initially on the wisdom of Bush's efforts to isolate rather than engage Syria, the indispensable link in the military supply chain between Iran and the Shia militia.
But the debate over Syria policy may mark the launch of a broader challenge among Israel's supporters here to the administration's reliance on unilateralism, military power, and "regime change" in the Middle East – whose most fervent champions have been neoconservatives and the right-wing leadership of the so-called "Israel lobby."
"Bush has been convinced by self-appointed spokesmen for Israel and the Jewish community that endless war is in Israel's interest," asserted the lead editorial in the U.S.' most important Jewish newspaper, the Forward, immediately after the cease-fire took effect.
"[Bush] needs to hear in no uncertain terms that Israel is ready for dialogue, that the alternative – endless jihad – is unthinkable," declared the paper, which argued for Israel's participation in a regional dialogue with its Arab neighbors, including Syria, for a comprehensive peace settlement. "Now is time to change the tune," the Forward concluded.
While such a regional negotiation is unlikely to be accepted either by Washington or Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert in the short term, the question of engaging Syria is rapidly moving up the agenda both in Israel, where several Cabinet ministers have endorsed the idea, and in Washington, where the traditional foreign policy elite – from Republican realists like former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage to Democratic internationalists such as former Secretaries of State Warren Christopher and Madeleine Albright – publicly criticized Bush for rejecting talks with Damascus, at the very least to probe its willingness to rein in Hezbollah, if not loosen its alliance with Iran, during the past month's fighting.
"I can't for the life of me understand why we don't [talk with] Syria," said James Dobbins, an analyst at the RAND Corporation who, as a senior State Department official, coordinated the Bush administration's diplomacy during and immediately after the war in Afghanistan.
"I think this idea that we don't talk to our enemies simply has to be jettisoned," he told a forum at the New America Foundation (NAF) in Washington last week.
Dobbins' critique echoes those raised by a number of prominent Jewish figures, such as New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman, former UN ambassador Richard Holbrooke, and Dennis Ross, the main U.S. negotiator on Israeli-Palestinian issues under Bush's father and former President Bill Clinton, and organizations in recent weeks.
The most direct challenge surfaced here Tuesday when the Zionist group Americans for Peace Now (APN) sent a letter to Bush calling on him to clarify whether his administration opposes renewed peace negotiations between Israel and Syria.
"Unfortunately, many in Israel and the U.S. believe that your administration is standing in the way of renewed Israel-Syria contacts. We urge you to clarify, publicly and expeditiously, that this is not the case" said the letter, which also called on Bush to "reject the thinking of those who view the Syrian regime as irredeemable."
While the administration is likely to dodge the question, its commitment to isolating Syria, particularly since the 2005 assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, has never been in doubt.
Indeed, in the opening days of hostilities between Hezbollah and Israel, the White House not only reportedly rebuffed an appeal by Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert himself for Washington to quietly approach Damascus about pressing Hezbollah to release two Israeli soldiers whose capture touched off the crisis, but also urged Olmert, according to one account in the Jerusalem Post, to attack Syria directly.
"In a meeting with a very senior Israeli official, [Deputy National Security Adviser Elliot] Abrams indicated that Washington would have no objection if Israel chose to extend the war beyond to its other northern neighbor, leaving the interlocutor in no doubt that the intended target was Syria," a well-informed source, who received an account of the meeting from one of its participants, told IPS this week.
While Abrams was discreetly urging Israel to expand the war to Syria, his neoconservative allies, some of whom, like former Defense Policy Board chairman Richard Perle and former House of Representatives Speaker Newt Gingrich, are regarded as close to Vice President Dick Cheney, were more explicit, to the extent even of expressing disappointment over Israel's lack of aggressiveness or success in "getting the job done."
Cheney's own Middle East advisers, John Hannah and David Wurmser, have long favored "regime change" in Damascus, and, according to the New York Times, argued forcefully – and successfully with help from Abrams and pressure from the Israel lobby's leadership – against efforts by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to persuade Bush to open a channel to Syria in an effort to stop the recent fighting.
But Bush's adamant refusal to engage Damascus is precisely what has raised doubts in Israel about whether his policies are in the long-term or even in the immediate interests of the Jewish state.
Since the cease-fire, a growing number of former and current senior Israeli officials, including Olmert's defense, interior, and foreign ministers, have called for talks with Damascus. And, while Olmert himself has rejected the idea for now, he has also abandoned his previous precondition for such talks – that Washington remove Syria from its terrorism list.
Of the officials, the two most important are both former Likud Party members – Interior Minister Avi Dichter, the former head of Israel's Shin Bet intelligence agency, and Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, who reportedly enjoys a strong relationship with Rice and has appointed her former chief of staff, Yaakov Dayan, to explore possible ways to engage Syria.
Meanwhile, other prominent Israelis are asking even more basic questions about the regional strategy pursued by Bush and its consequences for Israel.
In a column published by the Ha'aretz newspaper last week, former Foreign Minister Shlomo Ben-Ami argued that, in the aftermath of the Lebanon war, which, in his view, had "proven the limits of [Israeli] power," a peace accord with Syria and the Palestinians had become "essential" for Israel, particularly in light of "the worrisome decline of the status of Israel's ally in this part of the world and beyond."
"U.S. deterrence, and respect for the superpower have been eroded unrecognizably," he wrote. "An exclusive Pax Americana in the Middle East is no longer possible because not only is the U.S. not an inspiration today, it does not instill fear."
Indeed, the widespread perception that Washington's influence in the region has fallen sharply as a result of both the war in Iraq and the administration's stubborn refusal to engage its foes diplomatically has raised new questions about whether Bush and his neoconservative advisers have actually made Israel less rather than more secure.
"[The] Bush administration at first avoided and then was unable to deliver the diplomatic agility that was called for, and that is bad news for Israel," wrote former Israeli peace negotiator Daniel Levy in this week's Forward. "The United States had no direct channels to or leverage with key actors, and could not commit troops to any cease-fire implementation force."
"The idea that current American policy advances Israeli security and national interests is thoroughly discredited – something that is now openly aired in the Israeli media, and raised, albeit in more discreet circles, by Israeli Cabinet ministers," according to Levy, who currently directs the NAF's and Century Foundation's Middle East Initiative.
(Inter Press Service) | |
