KABOOM

Everyone calm down: Israel is not going to bomb Iran. Well, at least not in 2012.

BY AARON DAVID MILLER



Worried about a war with Iran, regional instability, more terrorism, rising oil prices or plunging markets? Don't be -- at least not yet. Think 2013. If Israel can't get assurances that the U.S. is prepared to use force, then Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak will act later this year or early next.

But for now, there will be no war and certainly no deal over the nuclear issue. And the reason for that is pretty compelling: the mullahs, the Israelis, and the Americans all don't want one right now -- and here's why.

1. It's not necessary

Nobody should trivialize the danger posed by a nuclear Iran or underestimate Israel's concerns about that possibility. Even if we had divine assurance that Iran wouldn't use nukes against Israel, an Iranian bomb would embolden Tehran's regional aspirations, erode American deterrence, trigger an arms race in the region, and give a repressive power an additional hedge on its own security.

At the same time, few buy the case for an immediate strike, either. Indeed, let's be clear about something: Iran doesn't have a nuclear weapon. As far as we know, it hasn't tested one, produced enough fissile material for a sustainable program, or mastered the weaponization of a nuclear warhead -- yet. Right now, in August 2012, there's only one country that believes it's imperative to strike Iran: Israel. And even that is somewhat misleading, because there's no consensus within the Israeli public, political elite, or security establishment about the need to attack. According to one recent poll, 60 percent of Israelis were against an Israeli strike.

Still, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has framed the idea as one of necessity. For just about everyone else in the world (though actually, the Saudis might want someone to take a whack at Teheran so long as the mullahs don't take it out on them), including the United States, Israel's closest ally, attacking Iran's nascent nuclear capacity would be a war of choice -- and a galactically risky one at that.

Look at the return-to-risk ratio. The attack might go badly, in which case planes and pilots would be lost or taken hostage. Even if everything goes according to plan, oil prices could surge, markets and fragile economies might tumble, terror would likely increase, and Iranian missiles could conceivably strike Israel. Attacks against Americans in Afghanistan would almost certainly intensify, and Israel's stock abroad, perhaps even in America, would plummet precipitously.

And for what? The possibility that Iran's nuclear program will be set back for a few years? And who's going to measure how much damage has been done? Or turn around and tell the Iranians they don't have a legitimate reason to ramp up their nuclear program? What happens to sanctions, without which Iran would probably already have a nuclear weapon?

For Israel to court those kinds of risks on the grounds that within three to six months, Iran will have entered a nebulous zone of immunity where its sites will be so redundant, so hardened, and so diffused that they will be beyond Israel's capacity to strike effectively is not a sufficient or credible basis on which to trigger an international crisis with global financial, security, and economic consequences. This is doubly true when you consider that the returns -- a temporary crippling of Iran's nuclear program that isn't even guaranteed -- are so tentative.

2. Israel doesn't really want to do it

And the Israelis know it. The fact is they have no intention of doing anything now; for the time being, it's far less risky to maintain the status quo. Sanctions are tough and might get tougher, cyber and covert war have had some effect, and the unraveling situation in Syria -- where Iran has remained a stalwart ally of embattled President Bashar al-Assad -- has isolated Tehran even further. Meanwhile, the Israelis can keep the world focused on their agenda and on the edge of their collective chairs, worried about a military strike and perhaps willing to do even more to hammer the Iranians. It's far from ideal, but not half bad for a strategy that doesn't require firing a single shot or missile.

Make no mistake: The Israelis are prepared to strike Iran. Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak has a plan and believes it can succeed. But he knows Israel's capacity to inflict a crippling blow to Iran's nuclear program is limited. It's akin to mowing the grass, really -- a move that would buy Israel a couple of years at most. What a unilateral strike will do, however, is not only to legitimate Iran's quest for nuclear weapons but also accelerate it. That's precisely what happened when the Israelis struck Saddam Hussein's plutonium reactors in 1981. And the Israelis know that, too.

3. Let America do it

What the Israelis really want is to persuade the United States to bring the full force of its military might to bear on the problem. Washington could do extensive damage to Iran's unconventional and conventional military capacity. Ultimately, however, a U.S. attack would probably also fail to stop Iran's nuclear program permanently -- producing only a more substantial delay.

But for the Israelis, the advantages of letting Washington take the lead are considerable. They would avoid a crisis in their relationship with the United States as well as the international censure that would accompany a unilateral strike. The damage to Iran's nuclear facilities would also be much greater.

And while the mullahs could handle, and perhaps even profit from, an Israeli strike, a war with America -- involving a sustained air and missile campaign that lasts for weeks -- is not something they want. The "rally around the flag" effect could be dampened by the severity of an American attack and, who knows, questions might even be raised about the wisdom of pressing ahead with the nuclear project. The Israelis probably even have dreams of regime change in Tehran.

All of this augurs for putting the proverbial ball in America's court -- and not surprising and alienating the Obama administration by striking before the November elections. The last thing Netanyahu wants is a reelected and angry American president. Sure, Netanyahu doesn't want to see Barack Obama reelected at all. But the one way to guarantee that would be to strike before the elections. There's probably no way America could stay out, depending on the nature of Iran's response. And if the United States did become involved militarily, there would be a positive rally-round-the-president effect. Mitt Romney would be left applauding from the sidelines.

Still, the Israelis really do have a problem. Sanctions aren't doing nothing, but they aren't enough to stop Iran from going after a weapon, and negotiations aren't working either. At the same time, Iran is committed to at the very least developing the capacity to weaponize, should it decide to do so. And the fall of the Assads, when it comes, may only add to Tehran's fear of Sunni encirclement and accelerate its drive for the ultimate weapon.

None of this means it ain't gonna happen. If you're betting on a war with Iran, think year's end or early next. Netanyahu will probably split the difference: delay his strike until after November to placate Obama and give the Americans one last chance to persuade him they will do it themselves. But the prime minister could be waiting for a long time. Obama's heart just isn't in this one.

Ultimately, Israel will act. No Israeli prime minister, certainly not this one, will ever be fingered as the guy who allowed the Iranians to weaponize without doing everything in his power to stop it, even if an attack only delays the program and causes Israel a lot of grief in the process. The  kaboom is probably coming -- just not quite yet.

-This commentary was published first in Foreign Policy on 20/08/2012
-Aaron David Miller is a distinguished scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. His new book, Can America Have Another Great President?, will be published this year

Syrian activists Say Pledges Of U.S. Communications Aid Are Largely Unfulfilled

By Greg Miller in Istanbul


 Fighting in Syria: Violence escalates between government and opposition forces in the key Syrian cities of Aleppo and Damascus.

 Even as the Obama administration hardens its rhetoric on Syria, members of the Syrian opposition say the United States has failed to deliver promised communications and other equipment intended to support those seeking to overthrow President Bashar al-Assad.

President Obama used his toughest language yet Monday to warn Syria that any movement or use of its chemical weapons would cross a “red line,” the closest he has come to threatening the use of force. Until now, the administration has ruled out a direct intervention and has made the provision of communications gear the centerpiece of U.S. involvement.

But opposition activists say they have smuggled hundreds of satellite receivers and other gear they have acquired on their own into Syria in recent months in part because they have not received significant quantities of such equipment from the United States.

The activists’ accounts contrast sharply with assertions by the administration that it has spent millions of dollars and provided about 900 satellite phones and other pieces of equipment to the Syrian opposition.

In Istanbul this month, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton cited the shipments during a public appearance. “We are providing $25 million in nonlethal aid, mostly communications, to civil society and activists,” she said.

With a major international airport in Istanbul, a 500-mile border with Syria and a supportive government in Ankara, Turkey is a crossroads for supplies flowing to Syrian rebels from Europe and the Middle East. But Syrian activists said they have been frustrated by unfulfilled pledges from U.S. officials that equipment is on its way.

“Our groups have not received anything from the U.S. side,” said Imad Eddin al-Rachid, a former assistant dean at the Islamic Law College in Damascus, who has met with Clinton and other high-level U.S. officials in Turkey in recent months.

More than a dozen Syrians directly involved in smuggling equipment said they have delivered hundreds of devices to groups in Aleppo, Damascus and other beleaguered cities but were unaware of any gear that had been provided by the United States.

Seeking to bolster its support to opposition groups, the State Department recently established a program to provide equipment and instruction to anti-Assad activists. But the program requires participants to travel to Istanbul for training before they are given any gear.

U.S. officials and Syrian nationals involved in the program said that it is slated to expand in the coming months but that fewer than two dozen laptop computers and satellite modem kits had been distributed so far.

U.S. officials acknowledged that the program, known as the Office of Syrian Opposition Support, only started work two months ago and had been hampered by bureaucratic and diplomatic delays. Among them, officials said, was concern by the Turkish government that OSOS could emerge as a rival to other Syrian groups or secretly be used to ship weapons into Syria.

It is “fair to say that it’s very much a work in progress,” said Rick Barton, the assistant secretary of state who oversees the program. “We are moving as aggressively as possible now that we have cleared many of the cobwebs in our own system and with our allies.”

Nonlethal supply chain

In the meantime, Syrian activists said they have assembled elaborate supply chains that account for the bulk of electronics, cash, medical supplies and other material being moved through Turkey by Syrian opposition groups. Activists said separate networks funnel weapons to the rebels.

A key outpost in the nonlethal supply chain is an office in a high-rise near the airport in Istanbul. Inside, activists oversee an informal procurement operation that takes orders from groups inside Syria, buys electronics from suppliers in Britain and has them shipped to Paris, where the devices are packed into suitcases by Syrians flying to Istanbul.

Among the recent arrivals was a pair of Astra 2 satellite receivers earmarked for opposition leaders in Homs and Hasakah. From Istanbul, the gear is carried to the border, often by bus, then picked up by smugglers and activists making regular runs into Syria.

The two devices were all that were left “from a large shipment of 70 units we bought last month,” said a 30-year-old Syrian who asked to be identified by a pseudonym, Abu Lina, citing concern for the security of his family inside Syria.

Every shipment is logged in a ledger that records serial numbers, names of recipients and phone or Skype contact information to confirm deliveries and provide technical support.

The Astra 2 typically comes with a conspicuous satellite dish. But Abu Lina said his group sends only the center “needle” so that it can be slipped into a standard television dish indistinguishable from those that top almost every apartment building in the Middle East.

Satellite connections are no substitute for weapons in a conflict that the United Nations estimates has killed at least 18,000 people and plunged Syria into civil war. But activists said communications gear is nevertheless essential to the survival of opposition groups.

The equipment enables activists to coordinate even during ­government-imposed Internet blackouts, providing warnings to civilians about approaching Syrian troops or sharing locations of makeshift medical facilities.

The gear is also used to document the brutality of the Assad crackdown, as well as broadcast propaganda, including footage recently posted online that purported to show a Syrian military pilot captured after his plane was shot down.

Abu Lina said his group, which gets funding and office space from the umbrella group Syrian National Council, has sent at least 200 satellite receivers and 100 satellite phones into Syria in recent months. Asked how many he had gotten from the United States, he replied: “None whatsoever. Just promises.”

Others provided similar accounts. An activist with ties to opposition elements in the Syrian city of Latakia said his most recent shipment included 50 radio handsets — referred to almost universally among Syrians as “talkie-walkies” — and an 18-foot antenna that, because of its length, had to be delivered to the border by bus.

The money to buy the equipment comes “from donors outside the country,” said the activist, Abdul Rehman Selwaye. He added that neither he nor others in his group had received U.S. gear, saying that American aid “is all virtual.”

U.S. training program

U.S. officials said Syrian opposition groups may be unaware of how much gear came from the United States because it was largely distributed through nongovernmental organizations. The officials also suggested that activists may be unhappy with the amount they have gotten or convinced that rivals have gotten more.

Edgar Vasquez, a State Department spokesman, said the department had “provided more than 900 pieces of nonlethal equipment, mostly communications gear, to civilian activists and opposition groups.”

He declined to elaborate, saying that “given the Syrian regime’s intense and sophisticated efforts to crack down on opposition activity,” doing so could “put people’s lives at risk.”

An initial $10 million in non­lethal aid was provided through the department’s Middle East Partnership Initiative, officials said. An additional $15 million is being administered by the Bureau of Conflict and Stabilization Operations.

The latter includes the recently created OSOS. The program was set up by a British company under a State Department grant and operates out of an office in the tourist-heavy Taksim area of Istanbul. Its staff members include nine Syrian volunteers who are paid stipends and whose living expenses are covered.

OSOS officials defended its training-first approach, citing the need to ensure gear is going to Syrians who know how to use it and saying that they follow security measures designed to protect their signals from serving as targets for Syrian government strikes. The State Department emphasizes that it provides only nonlethal aid.

In a swipe at critics, an OSOS consultant said the office was created to prepare groups for the aftermath of Assad’s expected fall, not merely to funnel material to “armchair activists” in Istanbul.
OSOS has had 18 trainees go through its two-day instructional course on using satellite kits, which include a laptop, a portable satellite receiver and a 50-meter cable to run a connection from a rooftop to a basement or bunker.

“We were taught when we hear jet fighters to turn off the devices,” as well as using code words and encryption, said one of the recent trainees, a 20-year-old student from Aleppo University who asked to be identified as Abeer. Her only complaint was that her package included “only 100 megabytes” of access to satellite service, barely enough to cover a few sessions on Skype, although OSOS officials said she could receive more.

-This report was published first in The Washington Post in 21/08/2012
-Julie Tate contributed to this report

Sectarian Jihad in Syria: Made in the USA?

By Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed



As the onslaught on Aleppo continues to spiral out of control, the future of Syria looks increasingly uncertain. Clashes between Assad’s forces, including tanks and helicopter gunships, and Free Syrian Army (FSA) rebels have led to an exodus of 200,000 people from their homes. Former Prime Minister Riad Hijab, who recently defected to Jordan, has declared that the Assad regime is collapsing “morally, financially, and militarily,” and now controls only 30 percent of Syrian territory.

What began on March 15th, 2011 as an outbreak of peaceful public demonstrations has now become an armed insurgency complete with suicide bombings. The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reports that over 19,000 have been killed so far, while between 1 and 1.5 million people have been internally displaced.

But what has been largely been reported as a civil war is, in fact, no such thing. In reality, Syria is a geopolitical battleground for rival foreign powers – with the United States, United Kingdom, France, Germany, the Gulf regimes, and Israel on one side and Russia, China, and Iran on the other.

Violence

The brutality of Assad’s regime cannot be underestimated. The Syrian Army has not only routinely fired into crowds of peaceful protestors. It has followed up with heavy artillery bombardments of civilian districts – including the use of fighter jets. Thousands of Syrians have been detained or arrested by Syrian authorities, many held incommunicado at unknown locations where torture and other forms of ill treatment are rife. Amnesty International has accused the regime’s forces of committing war crimes and of conducting a “scorched-earth policy” to root out rebellion by “deliberately ravaging some areas, killing or torturing civilians, shooting livestock and burning crops and homes.”

Such crimes follow from Assad’s institutionalized sectarianism, which has systematically favored Assad’s small Alawi sect – many members of which are relatives and tribal allies – over the larger Sunni population. Since 2001 in particular, Syrian politics has remained authoritarian even by regional standards, while Assad’s focus on IMF-backed market reform has accompanied an increase in unemployment and inequality. His “liberalization” program has worked to undermine the rural Sunni poor while expanding the regime-linked private sector through a sprawling web of corrupt, government-backed joint ventures that empower the Alawite military elite and a parasitic business aristocracy.

One of the most appalling episodes of Assad’s violence was the Houla massacre of May 25th, when at least 108 people were killed in the village of Taldo – including 49 children and 34 women. Initial reports on the massacre were contradictory, with some reports blaming Assad’s shabiha paramilitary forces and others blaming the rebels.

A report in the German daily Frankfurter Zeitung Allgemaine (FAZ), for example, cited anonymous opposition members who had visited the area and canvassed eyewitnesses. FAZ’s correspondent in Damascus, Rainer Hermann, concluded that the massacre had been committed by FSA rebels against “families of the Alawite and Shia minorities of Houla, the population of which is made up of 90 percent Sunnis.”

Other reports in the German national press offered similar accounts. But these were refuted by the UN Human Rights Council’s latest report on the massacre, which concluded based on interviews with about 700 Syrians that the perpetrators were government forces and shabiha fighters. Although the UN investigators had been denied access to Syria, an investigation by Der Spiegel had earlier corroborated the UN’s findings, citing on-the-ground interviews with named local eyewitnesses who confirmed unequivocally that the massacre was committed by Assad’s paramilitary forces. One Syrian Army defector, Col. Tayyib Baqur, said he was asked by Syrian intelligence to pay poor people from Houla to circulate the regime’s version of the massacre in Damascus.

Far from vindicating the Syrian regime, the very existence of these contrarian reports about Houla only underscores the insidious nature of Assad’s war against his own people—and the heinous lengths to which the dictator has gone to blame the victims.

Sectarianism

Although these crimes underscore the moral right of the Syrian people to rise up in the face of such brutality, FSA rebels have been implicated in similar atrocities, including sectarian violence. Worryingly, Assad is not the only one resorting to shameless propaganda to conceal war crimes.

Jon Williams, BBC World News editor, cautioned that “tragic death toll aside, the facts are few. … Those opposed to President Assad have an agenda. One senior Western official went as far as to describe their YouTube communications strategy as ‘brilliant.’ But he also likened it to so-called ‘psy-ops,’ brainwashing techniques used by the United States and other militaries to convince people of things that may not necessarily be true.”

Thus, the UN’s latest report points out that “war crimes, including murder, extrajudicial killings and torture, were perpetrated by anti-Government armed groups,” though not of the same gravity, frequency, and scale as those perpetrated by Assad’s forces.

Sources from the Jacob Monastery, for instance, told Dutch journalist Martin Jannsen that armed rebels had previously murdered “entire Alawi families” in the Houla region. In early April, Mother Agnès-Mariam de la Croix of the Monastery recorded in an open letter that rebel atrocities were being wrongfully repackaged in media accounts as regime atrocities. Rebels had, for instance, gathered Christian and Alawi hostages in a building in Khalidiya, Homs, which was blown up with dynamite and blamed on Assad’s troops. “Even though this act has been attributed to regular army forces,” she wrote, “the evidence and testimony are irrefutable: It was an operation undertaken by armed groups affiliated with the opposition.”

Some have questioned the nun’s credibility, describing her as merely “another Assad propagandist,” though as John Rosenthal points out, there is little evidence for this. After all, Rosenthal wonders, “Why in the world would Catholic priests and nuns want or need to serve as ‘Assad propagandists’? Is not the more simple and obvious explanation for their reports that religious minorities are in fact being threatened and persecuted in rebel-controlled territories?”

Indeed, 90 percent of Christians in Homs — over 50,000 people — have fled since “their homes have been attacked and seized by ‘fanatics’ with links to al-Qaida,” according to the Catholic News Agency.

Alfred Hackensberger in Berliner Morgenpost recounts similar disturbing eyewitness reports from his travels in Homs. According to a Christian resident of Qusayr, all Christians had been expelled from the city, while Muslims refusing to enlist their children in the FSA were shot. Another Sunni resident of Homs witnessed the targeting of Alawites when rebels apprehended a bus full of civilians: “The passengers were divided into two groups: on the one side, Sunnis; on the other, Alawis.” The nine Alawi passengers were decapitated.

Such accounts of rebel sectarian violence have been confirmed by the BBC, which reported on the stream of Iraqi refugees returning to Baghdad from their former homes in Sayyida Zainab, the Shia district of Damascus. “The Free Syrian Army ruined our lives,” said one Iraqi man arriving with his Syrian wife and daughter. “They evicted us,” said his wife. “They are not an army, they’re just gangs. ... [W]e fear for our children. They’re playing the sectarian card, especially in Sayyida Zainab.” One refugee said he had seen leaflets in Sayyida Zainab warning Iraqis there to leave within three days, while others reported FSA rebels shooting Shiites, including whole families, to death.

At least 12,680 Shiite Iraqis have so far fled a “rash of attacks against their community, apparently by Syrian rebel gunmen,” reports the Associated Press, noting accounts of beheadings in the streets and families being gunned down in their apartments. “The gangs of the Free Syrian Army started to spread in the area, killing women and some children as well as men,” reported one eyewitness, Hadi, who had lived with his family in Sayyida Zainab. “The bodies were left on the street for two days because no one could evacuate the casualties. My children were hysterical. They are spreading sectarian violence in Syria.”

To be sure, accounts of rebel violence hardly absolve Assad, whose consistent resort to tactics of collective punishment — exemplified in the recent bombing of an FSA stronghold at a schoolhouse in Aleppo — signify a regime increasingly desperate to hold onto power at any cost. This particular attack failed to takeout the rebel leadership, but instead killed nine members of a family living nearby.

But while Assad’s ruthless air campaign has terrorized Aleppo’s residents, rebel atrocities — though on a far smaller scale — are also alienating Syrian civilians. “The rebel unit’s bid to win the hearts and minds of nearby residents has not gone well,” reports the Guardian. “Guerillas there claimed to have captured three locals – thought to be the only residents to have remained there – whom they accuse of spying for the regime. ... Screams from some captives, particularly those thought to have been members of the loyalist Shabiha militia, have echoed throughout the night in recent days.”

The rebel strategy is apparently to arouse antipathy to the regime by provoking acts of violence. One rebel told The Los Angeles Times that when he heard that two government rockets had hit his neighborhood in northeast Aleppo, his first reaction was “Thank God.” According to the Times, he “believes that only by witnessing wanton destruction by forces loyal to Assad in their own backyard — rather than just watching propaganda on state television — will Aleppo’s residents fully support the rebels.” But many Aleppo residents, including prominent opposition activists, blame the rebels for bringing violence to the city. “What the rebels did was wrong, coming in and forcing all these civilians to flee. ... You came to protect civilians, but now you’re hurting them?” remarked one.

Proxies

The persistence and prevalence of these accounts suggest that those committing crimes amongst the rebels are not a small or isolated contingent. Despite this, the West has decided to ally with them. It recently came to light that the White House had crafted a presidential "finding" for President Obama, a highly classified secret directive authorizing greater covert assistance for the rebels. Although it was not clear whether Obama had signed the directive, it is clear that the United States has chosen to support the rebels indirectly by mobilizing its regional client regimes – Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the UAE, Turkey, and even Libya. “Syrian rebels battling the regime of President Bashar al-Assad have begun receiving significantly more and better weapons in recent weeks, an effort paid for by Persian Gulf nations and coordinated in part by the United States,” reported the Washington Post, which also noted that the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood was playing a major role in financing arms supplies.

“We are in the early stages of contemplating an Assad aftermath,” one senior Obama administration official told CNN. The New York Times reports that the United States is “increasing aid to the rebels and redoubling efforts to rally a coalition of like-minded countries to forcibly bring down the government of President Bashar al-Assad.” U.S. officials, it adds, “have been in talks with officials in Turkey and Israel over how to manage a Syrian government collapse” – including “regular talks with the Israelis about how Israel might move to destroy Syrian weapons facilities.” U.S. diplomats are also meeting with “various Syrian opposition groups outside the country to help map out a possible post-Assad government.”

In fact, U.S. covert intervention began much earlier. A confidential email obtained by Wikileaks, authored by Statfor analyst Reva Bhalla, refers to a December 2011 Pentagon meeting attended by the U.S. Air Force Strategic Studies Group and four military officers. “After a couple hours of talking,” writes Bhalla, “they said without saying that SOF [Special Operations Forces] teams (presumably from US, UK, France, Jordan, Turkey) are already on the ground focused on [reconnaissance] missions and training opposition forces.” The mission of these forces is to “commit guerrilla attacks, assassination campaigns, try to break the back of [Assad’s] Alawite forces, elicit collapse from within.” Covert action was seen as preferable to air strikes, as “Syrian air defenses are a lot more robust and are much denser” than Libya’s – although those air defenses and potential targets had been mapped out extensively in preparation for a potential intervention.

Friends

The seeds of this clandestine alliance go back more than five years, when Seymour Hersh reported in the New Yorker that the Bush administration had “cooperated with Saudi Arabia’s government, which is Sunni, in clandestine operations” intended to weaken the Shiite Hezbollah in Lebanon. “The US has also taken part in clandestine operations aimed at Iran and its ally Syria,” wrote Hersch, “a byproduct of which is “the bolstering of Sunni extremist groups” hostile to the United States and “sympathetic to al-Qaeda.” He also noted that “the Saudi government, with Washington’s approval, would provide funds and logistical aid to weaken the government of President Bashir Assad, of Syria,” with a view to pressure him to be “more conciliatory and open to negotiations” with Israel. One faction receiving covert U.S. “political and financial support” through the Saudis was the exiled Syrian Muslim Brotherhood.

Such intrigue continued post-Bush. According to Alastair Crooke, a former MI6 officer and Middle East advisor to EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana, the Saudis have eagerly played the role of proxy partner in a bid to mobilize Islamist extremists in the service of regional U.S. interests: “US officials speculated as to what might be done to block this vital corridor [from Iran to Syria], but it was Prince Bandar of Saudi Arabia who surprised them by saying that the solution was to harness Islamic forces. The Americans were intrigued, but could not deal with such people. Leave that to me, Bandar retorted.” This region-wide strategy involves the sponsorship of extremist Salafis in Syria, Libya, Egypt, Lebanon, Yemen, and Iraq “to disrupt and emasculate the awakenings that threaten absolute monarchism.”

No wonder that John Hannah, former national security advisor to Vice President Dick Cheney, remarked early last year that “Bandar working as a partner with Washington against a common Iranian enemy is a major strategic asset.” Prince Bandar bin Sultan, the former Saudi ambassador to Washington, knew Osama bin Laden well – indeed, the late arch-terrorist thanked Bandar personally for the Prince’s “efforts to bring the Americans... to help us against... the communists” during the Soviet Union’s occupation of Afghanistan. The same logic still applies. Mobilizing extremist Sunnis “across the region” under “Saudi resources and prestige” can “reinforce US policy and interests,” rejoiced Hannah. They can “weaken the Iranian mullahs; undermine the Assad regime; support a successful transition in Egypt; facilitate Qaddafi’s departure; reintegrate Iraq into the Arab fold; and encourage a negotiated solution in Yemen.”

The strategy is strengthening Islamist terrorists – perhaps deliberately. The wave of suicide bombings in Syria underscores the infiltration of al-Qaeda jihadist ideology into Syria, including an influx of fighters from neighboring Iraq and other parts of the Middle East. “To them,” reports The Globe and Mail, “the real target is Shi’ism, and Iran, and the crescent of Shia forces from Tehran to Beirut.” One former U.S. Army intelligence officer noted the “rapidly evolving prowess” of the FSA, particularly in the “manufacture and use of bombs,” which comes in part from Syrian insurgents “who learned bomb-making while fighting US troops in eastern Iraq.”

According to Israeli intelligence officials, the presence of al-Qaeda fighters in the conflict is not a mere unfortunate accident. NATO and Turkish military authorities have discussed “a campaign to enlist thousands of Muslim volunteers in Middle East countries and the Muslim world to fight alongside the Syrian rebels. The Turkish army would house these volunteers, train them and secure their passage into Syria.”

Despotism

In northern Syria, the concrete impact of this ill-conceived strategy is becoming tangible. In and around the village of Qurqanya, for instance, a rebel-run "shadow state" has emerged. A rebel-appointed council of judges hears cases brought by the people, but applies strict Islamic law – in one case, a man was sentenced to 100 lashes for sex out of wedlock.

It is therefore far from clear that the FSA represents the sentiments of Syrian civil society. Even its civilian benefactor, the Syrian National Council (SNC) – an umbrella body for Syrian opposition groups formally recognized by the West as “a legitimate representative of all Syrians” – is merely a “liberal front for the Muslim Brotherhood,” according to Kamal Labwani, who resigned from his SNC post earlier this year. Labwani slammed the Council’s drift away from “democracy and modernity...towards a renewed form of [religious] despotism,” a complaint corroborated by activists on the ground, including the Council’s own Local Coordination Committees. “One day we will wake up to find an armed militia... controlling the country through their weapons,” warned Labwani.

Another SNC member, Randa Kassis, warned of “insurmountable differences” between “Islamist jihadi fighters and the majority of the population.” The Islamist groups, he said, “which are superbly financed and equipped by the Gulf states, are ruthlessly seizing decision-making power for themselves.” He warns of the danger that the Islamists will “replace the corrupt terrorism of the Assad regime with a religious tyranny.” Although the puritanism of the Islamists “makes a rapid end to the war unlikely,” unfortunately “the Americans have put their money on the Muslim Brotherhood.”

In fact, the Syrian opposition is deeply divided, with one meeting in Cairo in July breaking out into “scuffles and fistfights,” according to Reuters. One observer, an Arab League official, said of the opposition: “They are so different, chaotic and hate each other.” The continued militarization of the conflict only exacerbates internal friction, with opposition groups fundamentally disagreeing on foreign intervention, dialogue with Assad, and relations with the FSA. Andrew Spath of the Foreign Policy Research Institute warns that “A turn to violent opposition of any kind plays directly into the hands of government as it attempts to divide, and thereby weaken, the opposition.”

Many in the opposition know this. Representatives of a dozen Syrian opposition groups, for instance, convened in Rome earlier this month calling for a ceasefire and an internationally mediated national dialogue to craft a viable political solution, firmly rejecting violence. One delegate, Abdul Aziz Alkhayer of the National Coordination Body – who had been imprisoned by Assad for 14 years – said, “weapons just kill people, destroy things. They cannot build anything.” But continued disagreement has weakened the wider opposition movement dramatically.

Games

How liberal democracy will emerge from this process is difficult to imagine. The Syrian people – the driving force of the peaceful protests against Assad’s regime – are faced with a “choice” between Assad’s brutal dictatorship and U.S.-sponsored Islamist rebels allied with an exiled Muslim Brotherhood-dominated opposition. They have become unwitting pawns on a geopolitical chessboard in which the principal players are fighting a proxy war for strategic influence.

While the West steps up its covert support for the rebels, a fleet of Russian warships is now on the Syrian coast, amassing a contingent of marines in the event that Western or Israeli forces launch a direct assault on Assad’s regime. One of Russia’s growing concerns is Assad’s potential deployment of his chemical and biological weapons arsenal. Israel, Turkey, and Jordan would be first on his hit list, which could precipitate a regional war.

For the United States and United Kingdom, the three main goals are complementary and interlocking: first, to shore up the autocratic regional petroleum order in the Gulf against expanding Iranian power, and to defuse the impact of popular uprisings in the wider region; second, to counter the growing reach of traditional rivals Russia and China into the Middle East and Mediterranean; and third, to protect Israel against Iranian influence in the Levant through Syria.

But just as the West’s Islamist gambit during the Cold War (and after) paved the way for the global acceleration of al-Qaeda’s operations, the implications of this ill-conceived strategy could well be even more devastating. According to Michael Scheuer, the former chief of the CIA’s bin Laden unit, the current U.S. strategy is likely to lead to “the slaughter of some portion of Syria’s Alawite and Shia communities”; “the triumph of Islamist forces, although they may deign to temporarily disguise themselves in more innocent garb”; “the release of thousands of veteran and hardened Sunni Islamist insurgents”; and “the looting of the Syrian military’s fully stocked arsenals of conventional arms and chemical weapons.”

Equally, it is clear that Assad – like his contemporaries Mubarak and Gaddafi – is utterly bankrupt, his regime devoid of legitimacy. Unfortunately, foreign powers across the world are exploiting the crisis for their own short-term geopolitical gains. While publicly touting Kofi Annan’s peace plan, they have quietly undermined it by sponsoring violence. In the meantime, the specter of further militarization promises to escalate the bloodshed, empower the most criminal elements of both sides, and alienate the opposition movement’s support base.

So while the road ahead seems unclear, the options are few: While the Syrian opposition needs to overcome its internal differences to develop a more unified national platform, it also needs to exert far more oversight on the FSA to ensure that criminal and sectarian violence by rebels is not tolerated, but firmly prosecuted, so as to uphold the core non-violent character of the revolution that ultimately underpins its popular legitimacy.

The West should also be deeply wary of escalating military support for the rebels, since such intervention will provoke escalating military support to Assad’s regime from Russia, China, and Iran. This “arms race” dynamic suggests that there can be no military solution to the crisis. The Security Council powers should therefore consider coordinating maximum pressure on both sides to cease the use of force and come to the negotiating table through cessation of military and financial assistance, including sanctions on Assad’s regime. But sanctions will lack teeth if they do not also have buy-in from the other members of the Security Council. This is only conceivable if the great powers pull back and recognize that further militarization will thwart their respective geostrategic ambitions by intensifying sectarian conflict, accelerating anti-Western terrorist operations, and potentially destabilizing the whole Levant in a way that could trigger a regional war.

-This commentary was first published in Foreign Policy In Focus on 20/08/2012
-Dr. Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed is Executive Director of the Institute for Policy Research & Development in London, and Chief Research Officer at Unitas Communications Ltd. His latest book is A User’s Guide to the Crisis of Civilization: And How to Save It (2010), which inspired the award-winning documentary feature film, The Crisis of Civilization (2011). Ahmed’s international security research has been used by the 9/11 Commission, the Ministry of Defense Joint Services Command, and the US Army Air University. He has also advised the British Foreign Office, the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, the UK Defence Academy, the Metropolitan Police Service, the Home Office’s Channel Project, and the UK Parliamentary Inquiry into UK counterterrorism strategy

Lebanon's Growing Syria Crisis

By Sulome Anderson



Armed members of the Meqdad family, a powerful Shiite Muslim clan from the Bekaa valley in Lebanon, announced on Wednesday that they had kidnapped at least 40 Syrians and a Turkish national, sparking a wave of similar kidnappings and riots across Lebanon. Although the Meqdads claimed that the Syrians they kidnapped were members of the Free Syrian Army, a spokesman for the FSA denied this, saying that the hostages were ordinary Syrians who had fled to Lebanon to escape the violence in Syria.

In videos aired on Lebanese television and rebroadcast on Al Jazeera English, masked gunmen from the Meqdad family stated that they had taken the hostages in retaliation for the capture of one of their relative, Hassan al-Meqdad, in Syria by a group claiming to be members of the Free Syrian Army. The Saudi-owned television station Al-Arabiya broadcast a video on Wednesday of a bruised Meqdad confessing that he was a Hezbollah sniper sent to Syria to aid the Assad regime.

Both Hezbollah and the Meqdad family have issued statements denying that Hassan al-Meqdad is a member of Hezbollah. His family claims that he was living in Syria for over a year and working for a Lebanese bank. In fact, media reports from June describe the relationship between the Meqdads and Hezbollah to be contentious at best, sometimes erupting into violent clashes. To complicate things even further, a spokesman for the Free Syrian Army denied ever kidnapping Hassan al-Meqdad in an interview with Lebanese television station LBCI.

Following threats made by members of the Meqdad family against nationals from Persian Gulf countries, which they see as aiding and abetting the FSA, the governments of Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, and the United Arab Emirates began evacuating their citizens from Lebanon on Thursday. Rumors of another Lebanese civil war brewing have begun to appear in the media, and Sunni-Shiite tensions appear to be at an all-time high in Lebanon.

But who exactly are the Meqdads, and what is their connection to Hezbollah? A former diplomat who prefers to remain anonymous says that they are one of many Shiite clans from the Bekaa who maintain armed wings. The AP reported on Thursday that some of these clans are reputedly involved with the growth and trafficking of narcotics, but the source says the Meqdads are not major players in this trade.

"The Meqdads are basically a large business empire...not all very legal," he said. "Unlike other major clans they are not much involved in hashish production...but they do petty marketing of drugs over which they at times get in trouble with Hezbollah."

So are they Hezbollah or aren't they? Experts differ on this point. Bilal Saab, a fellow at the Monterey Institute of International Studies, claims that despite past flare-ups between the Meqdads and Hezbollah, the two have always worked closely together.

"The Meqdads have fought alongside Hezbollah since its inception," says Saab. "If they clashed in the past, it might be because Hezbollah overstepped their boundaries, but Hezbollah works to maintain a partnership with the Meqdads because they provide them with recruits, territory, and loyalty. In return, Hezbollah provides them with social services and protection."

Saab stresses that Hezbollah exerts iron-fisted control over Dahiye, the southern suburb of Beirut where the Meqdad's hostages are reportedly being held.

"Nobody holds hostages in the Dahiye without the knowledge and consent of Hezbollah," he says. "I believe that this represents Hezbollah's attempt to support the Syrian regime inside Lebanon."

Asked why both Hezbollah and the Meqdad family have denied a relationship with each other, Saab says that Hezbollah doesn't wish to jeopardize fragile alliances with other factions in Lebanon.

"Maintaining plausible deniability is always important," says Saab. "Hezbollah does not want to portray itself as a group that is heavily involved with the Syrian conflict. They're attempting to create a delicate balance between maintaining their political alliances at home and supporting the Syrian regime."

However, Timor Goksel, former spokesman and senior advisor to UNIFIL in Lebanon and professor at the American University of Beirut, says that although they do maintain ties with each other, the Meqdad clan is a separate entity from Hezbollah and the two are frequently at odds.

"Today, you can find many Meqdads in the national army, police...and Hezbollah," says Goksel. "This is how they survive. As far as I know, Hezbollah maintains cordial, working relations with all the clans without interfering in their lives as long as Hezbollah's interests are not threatened. I am sure Hezbollah is not happy with the spate of kidnappings as they know well that they will be accused. I know they are trying to cool it off by discreet contacts but they won't openly declare war on a major clan that can tear apart the Shiite community."

Goksel doesn't believe that Hezbollah would be willing to take its support for Assad far enough to kidnap Syrians, even if they are thought to be members of the FSA.

"In the Bekaa, kidnappings have always been a traditional way of conflict resolution, long before Hezbollah emerged," he says. "Yes, Hezbollah vocally supports the Assad regime because their vital interests would be compromised should Assad be replaced by an unfriendly regime. But how far would Hezbollah go? It does care about the opinions of its own constituency who are not united in supporting the Syrian regime."

When asked for comment, Hezbollah Member of Parliament Ali Fayyad said that everybody affiliated with Hezbollah was under strict instructions not to speak with any members of the media.

Reuters reported on Thursday that the Meqdads had called a halt to their kidnapping operations and denied that they had ever meant to target Gulf nationals. Although they released 20 Syrians that were determined not to be members of the FSA, the Meqdads held on to a remaining 20 Syrians as well as the Turkish national. According to a report by the Daily Star, a Lebanese newspaper, this announcement followed a dispute that occurred when Ali Meqdad, a Hezbollah member of the Lebanese parliament who also belongs to the Meqdad clan, visited the family compound.

This makes sense, according to Goksel. "When Arab countries stop their nationals from staying in or visiting Lebanon, economically the biggest losers will be the Shiites who provide most of the tourism services," he says.

However, Goksel warns that the spate of kidnappings could lead to larger conflict.

"If the other major tribes decide to support the Meqdads, we are talking 100,000 armed men," he says. "If that happens, you don't want to be here."

Recent events seem to lend credence to this scenario. Although the Meqdads appear to have slowed their kidnapping spree, other Shiite clans have started to take up their cause. The New York Times reported on Thursday that members of the Zeeiter tribe, another large Shiite clan, announced that they had kidnapped four additional members of the FSA from hospitals in the Bekaa.

In the meantime, according to the Daily Star, Turkey, a regional sponsor of the Free Syrian Army, has indicated to Lebanon that any violence against its citizens will result in consequences for Shiites living in Turkey. This was echoed by Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the UAE. The warning was made in response to threats against the Turkish national by members of the Meqdad family.

"If Hassan (al-Meqdad) is killed, the first hostage we will kill is the Turk," Maher al-Meqdad, the clan's spokesman, told Reuters.

In a separate incident, members of a previously unknown group calling themselves the Mukhtar al-Thaqfi Brigade announced that they had also kidnapped 10 members of the Free Syrian Army on Wednesday.

Sunni Muslims also reportedly rioted in the Bekaa valley on Thursday, protesting the kidnappings and expressing their support for the Free Syrian Army. Reuters reported that another Turkish national was kidnapped on Friday, and the U.S. Embassy issued a security warning to its citizens in Lebanon the same day. The Meqdads also announced on Friday that they had kidnapped Abdullah al-Homsi, a spokesman for the FSA.

Despite months of effort on the part of Lebanese politicians to keep violence in Syria from spreading across the border, it appears the Syrian conflict has ignited already simmering sectarian tensions in Lebanon. The next few weeks will determine to what extent happenings in Syria influence its war-weary neighbor.

-This commentary was published first in Foreign Policy on 20/08/2012
-Sulome Anderson is an editorial researcher at Foreign Policy and a recent alumna of Columbia University's graduate school of journalism.

Russian Policy On Iran And Syria In State Of Disarray

By Pavel Felgenhauer



Last month, the Russia Navy announced it was assembling a task force in the Mediterranean: one frigate, two corvettes, five landing craft with Marines on board, two rescue tugs and one tanker. Three of the landing craft were from the Northern Fleet and two from the Black Sea Fleet. It was announced the Russian flotilla will perform exercises and will be prepared “to defend Russian shipping in the event of a naval blockade,” presumably of Syria by NATO naval forces (RIA Novosti, July 11). By the end of July, the two landing ships from the Black Sea fleet returned to Sevastopol, but the rest continued to cruise the Mediterranean (RIA Novosti, July 28). This month, an unnamed Defense Ministry official told journalists in Moscow during a background briefing that the three landing craft from the North Fleet remaining in the Mediterranean “are planned to dock in Tartus” – the Russian naval base in Syria. The official confirmed that each landing craft is carrying “a reinforced company of Marines (120 men) and APCs [armored personnel carriers]” (Interfax, August 3). After docking in Tartus, the Russian military command was reportedly planning to send its ships into the Black Sea to dock at Novorossiysk naval base. According to the Defense Ministry official, “while Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is in power,” Russia may keep the strategically important base in Tartus, but it would be lost if the opposition wins, “since they will not forgive Moscow’s support of Assad.” The eviction from Tartus “would mean the loss of any influence in the Mediterranean” and be almost as bad as a possible eviction from Sevastopol (Interfax, August 3).

A couple of days later and without explanations, the navy announced its ships will not go to Tartus. Instead, after receiving fuel out at sea from a naval tanker “Ivan Bubnov” that in turn picked up the fuel in Limassol, Cyprus, the small Russian flotilla in the Mediterranean will go directly to Novorossiysk – its arrival expected on August 12 (RIA Novosti, August 7). This week, Russian naval plans U-turned again without explanation: The Russian Mediterranean flotilla, decreased in size to 3 landing craft, 2 corvettes, a tanker and a seagoing tug, headed away from Syria not to Novorossiysk, but “to the Western Mediterranean to continue exercises” (RIA Novosti, August 13). At present the Russian amphibious task force passed Sicily and is deployed off Sardinia, “training to defend its convoy order from a sudden air attack or terrorists” (RIA Novosti, August 14).

The true meaning of the seemingly erratic Russian naval maneuvers in the Mediterranean has baffled observers in Moscow and is seen as a sign of weakness and indecisiveness in the face of the US “enemy” (Nezavisimoye Voyennoe Obozrenie, August 3). As the Assad regime is showing clear signs of disintegration, Russia’s ruling elite has seemingly lost a clear vision on what to do next. The Russian warships that seemed posed to land armed Marines in Tartus and a couple of days later sped away toward the shores of Spain may reflect infighting within Moscow. The internal dispute is to ether distance Russia from the Syrian crisis or stand by al-Assad to the bloody end, risking a humiliating exposure of weakness – after all, the small flotilla of outdated Russian ships without air cover and several hindered Marines cannot accomplish much militarily in Syria or the Eastern Mediterranean.

In another possible sign of growing divisions, this week the Saudi daily Al-Wattan published a telephone interview with Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov who, earlier this year, was put in charge of Russian Middle Eastern policies. Al-Wattan quoted Bogdanov as stating the brother of Bashar and commander of the Republican Guard, Mahar al-Assad, was severely wounded (lost both legs) in the explosion in Damascus on July 18 that killed a number of top Syrian generals. The maiming of Mahar, according to Bogdanov, seriously affected Bashar al-Assad, who is considering the possible terms of resigning from power (www.alwatan.com.sa, August 14). Bogdanov is known in Moscow to be a promoter of a more balanced, non-confrontational Middle Eastern policy. The Russian Foreign Ministry dismissed the Al-Wattan publication as “deliberate disinformation and provocation.” The audio file of the interview with Bogdanov, published by Al-Wattan as proof, has been declared “an unprofessional fabrication,” since Bogdanov “did not give Al-Wattan any interview” or speak about Bashar or Mahar al-Assad (RIA Novosti, August 15).

On the Syrian crisis Russia and Iran seemed to be working together, trying to keep the Assad regime in power, but the relationship appears increasingly strained. Last month, it became known that Iran is suing Russia for damages to the tune of some $4 billion in the Court of Arbitration in Geneva for canceling in 2010 a contract to sell five divisions of the S-300 long-range anti-aircraft missile system worth an estimated $800 million to $1 billion (see EDM, July 26). In an interview this month, the Iranian Ambassador in Moscow, Seyyed Mahmoud Reza Sajjadi, announced that Iran was seeking “only $900 million, while the Swiss arbitrators added $3 billion on their own.” According to Sajjadi, Tehran in fact does not want any money at all, but instead Moscow must resume the S-300 contract it canceled because of UN sanctions (Izvestia, August 1).

Again, Russia’s rulers seem to be split on how to proceed. This week, the Foreign Ministry has officially deplored the latest US sanctions against Iran as “unilateral and unacceptable blackmail.” Moscow insists it is complying with existing UN sanctions and that ”bilateral relations will be seriously affected” if Russian companies and banks doing legitimate business with Iran will be punished by the United States (www.mid.ru, August 13). Moscow is angry at Tehran too: Sources in the Kremlin are quoted as threatening to “stop supporting Iran on the nuclear issue” if it does not stop litigation on the S-300 immediately. Sajjadi’s explanations have not been accepted, and Moscow is planning to send to Tehran a top delegation to demand the case in Geneva be dropped, or “the Iranians will be on their own in dealing with the nuclear issue and the contact group of six [the five permanent UN Security Council members and Germany]” (Kommersant, August 10). President Vladimir Putin has maneuvered Russia into a position in which it seems to have virtually no friends left at all.

-This commentary was published first in Eurasia Daily Monitor Volume: 9, Issue: 157, on 16/08/2012

Zone Of Insanity

Are Bibi Netanyahu and Ehud Barak really crazy enough to bomb Iran -- against the wishes of the United States and their own people?

BY JAMES TRAUB


Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netenyahu

It must drive Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu crazy that scarcely anybody outside his immediate circle of advisors -- oh, and Mitt Romney -- understands the imperative for war against Iran. Israel's retired security chiefs uniformly consider a war unnecessary right now. Israel's president, Shimon Peres, agrees. A poll released this week found the Israeli public opposed to war by a solid 46 percent to 32 percent. As for the United States, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta insists that "the window is still open to try to work toward a diplomatic solution."

We know this drives Netanyahu crazy because the last few days have seen a frenzy of leaking and spinning by senior Israeli officials. Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon told an interviewer that the world must halt Iran's nuclear program within "several weeks." An unnamed "decision maker" -- transparently Defense Secretary Ehud Barak -- told Ari Shavit of the Israeli daily Haaretz that Israel cannot afford to wait for the United States to take action. And Shavit came up with another big scoop: A new U.S. intelligence report, he asserts, demonstrates conclusively that "within about a year Iran will be capable of becoming a nuclear power."

It's unclear whether Netanyahu is trying to prepare domestic public opinion for an imminent Israeli strike on Iran, or hoping to bully U.S. President Barack Obama into making some sort of ironclad promise to launch airstrikes -- should Iran cross some stipulated red line or should diplomacy fail to deter the Iranians by a stipulated date. Netanyahu would plainly prefer an American attack, which would do far more damage to Iran's nuclear infrastructure than an Israeli one would, but he may have concluded (as Barak intimated) that Israel will have to act alone rather than risk American inaction. Yet Netanyahu has put Obama in the almost impossible position of having to reassure Israel that the United States will act if necessary -- thus reassuring American swing voters that he has Israel's back -- without binding himself to fight Israel's war on Israel's terms. Obama has already allowed Israel to back him into a corner by saying that he would go to war rather than accept a nuclear Iran, but apparently Netanyahu and Barak don't believe him.

You wouldn't know it from the way the Israelis have turned the air blue, but absolutely nothing has happened to change the view of U.S. intelligence about Iran's intentions or capacities. In January, James Clapper, director of national intelligence, said in congressional testimony: "Iran is keeping open the option to develop nuclear weapons.… We do not know, however, if Iran will eventually decide to build nuclear weapons." Iran, that is, continues to enrich nuclear fuel to a purity consistent with weaponization, but has yet to resume work on the technology needed to make a bomb. That remains the U.S. view. Indeed, as Jeffrey Lewis argues elsewhere on ForeignPolicy.com, it seems that the devastating new intelligence report does not exist.

The difference between the United States and Israel is not, as Shavit charmingly put it in his account of the nonexistent report, that "the post-traumas of Afghanistan, Iraq and the economic crisis have prevented America from taking a hard straight look at" Iran's nuclear strategy. It is, first, that the United States can wait longer to act than Israel can because it has superior military technology and, second, that so long as diplomacy has a chance of working, the Obama administration is unwilling to risk the terrorist attacks, missile strikes, oil shocks, and grave reputational damage that a war on Iran is likely to provoke. Of course, that's also why the Israeli public opposes a war whose chief victims might well be themselves. What's more, bombing would only delay, not eliminate, Iran's apparent march toward a nuclear bomb -- though Michael Oren, Israel's ambassador to Washington, recently said that this was "not an argument against."

The problem with the Obama administration's position is that diplomacy isn't working. While it is probably true that the vise of sanctions that the United States and its allies have applied has forced Iran to the negotiating table, there is little evidence that economic pain has made the leadership reconsider its commitment to the nuclear program. The so-called P5+1, as the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council and Germany are known, have not been able to furnish either carrots or sticks powerful enough to change Iran's calculus. The most recent round of negotiations in Moscow this June ended in failure. Israel thus has good reason to fear that Iran will string along the P5+1 until it has placed its precious hoard of highly enriched uranium beyond the reach even of American bombs -- what Barak describes as Iran's "zone of immunity."
Israel, of course, wants sharper sticks -- either a U.S. promise to attack if diplomacy fails by June 2013, according to one unlikely report, or an explicit declaration of red lines, according to another. I can't imagine that Obama will back himself yet further into a corner by making his red lines public. The White House has tried to mollify Israel's bellicose leader, as well as send a blunt message to Tehran, with a stream of tough assertions about rapidly closing windows, as well as by sending two aircraft carrier battle groups to the Persian Gulf.

Washington does need to wave a big stick, but amid all the preparations for war, the idea of inducing Iran to change its behavior appears to have been forgotten. In Moscow, the P5+1 made Iran a very modest offer, including help with nuclear safety and a medical research reactor, in exchange for the bottom-line demand that Iran stop enriching fuel to 20 percent purity. It's hardly surprising that the Iranians spurned the deal.

The P5+1 should have offered a much more comprehensive package. A number of U.S. diplomats with long experience in Iran, including Nicholas Burns and Dennis Ross (of the George W. Bush and Obama administration, respectively) argue that negotiators must test Iran's bona fides by offering the country what it claims to want -- the right to enrich uranium for civilian purposes. Burns recently proposed that the next president, whoever he is, open direct negotiations with Iran "with all issues on the table." Burns added that the United States must not "remain hostage to Prime Minister Netanyahu's increasingly swift timetable for action" -- the kind of home truth you can offer once you're an ex-diplomat.

I can already hear the reminders of Neville Chamberlain coming from the favored journalists and columnists of the war faction. Lest you think I'm kidding, the Washington Post's Colbert I. King recently wrote, "The Iranian government is as anti-Semitic as the Third Reich" -- an exercise in hyperbole that produced a surprise phone call from an admiring Netanyahu.

The real danger, of course, is that Netanyahu might conclude that Israel has to go it alone. The smart money still thinks he's bluffing, but Ross told me that the "decision-maker" interview convinced him that Barak and Netanyahu really are prepared to fight their own war. The Obama administration has prepared for this eventuality with a series of statements paying elaborate deference to Israel's sovereign right to defend itself as it sees fit. I can only say that I hope that officials are sending a different message in private -- making it very clear to their Israeli counterparts that they will not be drawn into a war with Iran and that a unilateral decision by Israel will do very grave harm to relations with the United States. If Netanyahu wants to go ahead anyway and pay that price on top of everything else -- if "an existential threat" means that it's irresponsible to balance benefits with costs -- then it's up to the Israeli public to decide what to do about their fearless, feckless leader.

-This commentary was published first in Foreign policy on 17/08/2012
-James Traub is a fellow of the Center on International Cooperation

Reversing The Anti-American Sway In Yemen

By Danya Greenfield


John Brennan's, President Obama's chief counterterrorism advisor

While John Brennan's, President Obama's chief counterterrorism advisor, recent speech on U.S. policy in Yemen still echoed in the halls of the Council of Foreign Relations, the rebel Houthi movement was busy planning an anti-American demonstration galvanizing hundreds of supporters across the country. Although the Houthis are by no means representative of the Yemeni public, they are tapping into a widespread sentiment in order to garner sympathy and support. Originally emerging as a geographically-contained, rebellious movement seeking autonomy and independence from Sanaa's central government and former President Ali Abdullah Saleh, they are now positioning themselves as a revolutionary force that seeks to advocate for the downtrodden and overturn injustice.

Their tactics are not new, but what is notable is the wide disconnect between what Brennan asserts in Washington and what is felt in the hills and valleys throughout Yemen, not only among the Houthis, but among opposition party activists, youth activists, and the otherwise disgruntled masses. The gap is profound, despite concerted U.S. attempts to support Yemen's democratic transition and provide emergency food assistance. To its credit, the Obama Administration has exerted great effort to increase the amount of non-military assistance for development and humanitarian aid -- reaching more than $175 million of a total $337 million package for FY2012 -- and has recognized the need for a long-term, development-focused strategy in Yemen not narrowly limited to drone strikes. The United States actually provides more humanitarian assistance to Yemen than any other country, and yet, the perception remains that the United States is focused solely on eliminating terrorist networks (which could alternatively be classified as a local insurgency) and sustaining a military arrangement that benefits its interest to the detriment of the Yemeni public.

When the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) Administrator Rajiv Shah visited Yemen in June, including a much appreciated trip to the southern war-torn Abyan province, he announced a new $52 million package in humanitarian assistance, a significant increase given the tight budget climate in Washington. This initiative should help demonstrate to Yemenis the seriousness of American intentions, but it will take time for the projects to get underway. As it does, the embassy and its interlocutors should not be shy about touting concrete projects that will help provide infrastructure, new wells, and electricity generators. Even with this positive overture, the international and local press is far more likely to place stories about drone strikes or military trainers on the front page instead of highlighting the softer success stories of bilateral partnership; the old truism sticks that what bleeds leads.

Part of the challenge in shifting this perception is that Yemenis have watched U.S. attention to Yemen rise and fall over the years, the ebb and flow of assistance rising to a peak, then nearly zeroing out, then rising again after the Christmas Day bombing attempt in 2009. In order to make the administration's efforts credible, it must drive home the point that the United States has a long-term, sustained commitment to Yemen's development that is not driven only by the presence of extremists in its midst. Many are still skeptical of U.S. intentions and see that former President Saleh used (and exaggerated) the al Qaeda card to manipulate support and money from the Americans, who were all too inclined to pour money into counterterrorism units. Now that al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) is actually a real and growing threat emanating from Yemen -- not only to the U.S. homeland, but more immediately to Yemeni institutions, soldiers, and civilians -- there is a renewed opportunity to forge a coordinated, comprehensive approach between Yemen and the United States to address what is clearly a shared priority.

While the United States may not be able to reverse anti-American sentiment in short order while drone strikes continue, there are a number of steps the administration can take at this extremely critical moment to build greater credibility and underscore its commitment to a successful political and military transition. To begin with, U.S. and Yemeni leadership must make consistently clear that the fight against AQAP and Ansar al Sharia is a Yemeni fight and that the United States is assisting efforts led by President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi and his military command. Targeted strikes by U.S. aircraft should be understood as a joint endeavor, and greater transparency to both the American and Yemeni publics about what is being done and why it is necessary. During a visit to Sanaa in early July, I spoke with many Yemenis who recognized the legitimacy of U.S. involvement, and even acknowledged the necessity of targeted strikes, but deeply resented what they felt as an American violation of its national sovereignty. The ability for Yemeni forces to "own" this campaign will undercut claims that the United States is overstepping.

President Hadi has started the painful process of upending the status quo and reorganizing the military and security establishment, and the United States has an important role to play in this particularly sensitive moment. This is perhaps the most dangerous and most important aspect of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) deal that set forth a roadmap for Yemen's transition and could bring about a genuine transition to a post-Saleh period. In the spring, Hadi removed the former president's nephew, Tariq Saleh, and several other commanders connected to the family from their military positions. Just this week, he made an extremely bold move by transferring several units from the Republican Guards and the First Armored Division to alternative command, which serves to weaken the two most powerful centers of military power, that of General Ali Mohsen and Ahmed Ali, former President Saleh's oldest son. In response, more than 200 Republican Guards surrounded the defense ministry and battled with government troops, a direct threat to Hadi's authority and efforts at reorganization. This fight goes to the heart of privilege, power, and politics; it is a major undertaking that will require the fortitude to withstand significant internal pressure. The United States should continue to provide robust support to President Hadi in his efforts to restructure the security forces, both rhetorically and materially, as appropriate. The success of Yemen's transition rests on his ability to wrest control from Saleh and his family.

However, even while supporting Hadi, the United States must ensure that the thrust of its support is oriented toward building strong military and civilian institutions to guarantee Yemen's security, not individual figures in the security establishment. It would be far too easy to replace Ali Abdullah Saleh, Ahmed Ali, Tariq, Yahya, and the rest of the Saleh cohort with another set of thugs to fight AQAP, but that is not what hundreds of Yemeni youth died for in Change Square. Financial assistance to the military should be channeled through central institutions and not individual commanders, oriented to building their capacity, ultimately with an eye toward assuming operations that the United States is currently conducting.

Looking ahead to the coming month, the United States should use the opportunity of the upcoming donors meeting in Riyadh on September 4 and 5 and the Friends of Yemen meeting at the U.N. General Assembly in New York on September 27 to rally international financial and diplomatic support for Yemen's precarious transition. The United States, its European allies, and other interested parties should provide assistance for an inclusive national dialogue process, constitutional development, the creation of a new voter registry, and elections support. Perhaps most importantly, the administration should pressure Gulf states and other allies to follow its lead and contribute significant economic and food resources to address Yemen's critical humanitarian conditions. President Hadi has taken important steps to move the GCC process forward; now the United States, the European Union, and the GCC countries need to carry their end of the bargain to ensure that Yemen has the tools and resources to capitalize on this narrow opening.

-This commentary was first published in Foreign Policy on 16/08/2012
-Danya Greenfield is the deputy director of the Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East at the Atlantic Council