Feb. 15 TIP Conference Call: "Rise of the Muslim Brotherhood and What it means for Israel"

 

10 am Central time on Wednesday, Feb. 15.

 "The Rise of the Muslim Brotherhood and What it means for Israel."

 

 Follow link to register for the conference call.    http://bit.ly/zCqR5D

 

Conference Call with David Pollock-The Israel Project

www.theisraelproject.org

The Israel Project (TIP), an international non-profit organization, provides journalists and leaders accurate information about the Middle East. TIP is not related to any government or government agency

 

Clapper: Iran a threat to U.S. on many fronts

Iran a threat to U.S. on many fronts

By Suzanne Kelly   http://security.blogs.cnn.com/2012/02/16/iran-a-threat-to-u-s-on-many-fronts/        February 16, 2012

Iran poses a laundry list of threats to U.S. national security, according to top officials in the intelligence community.

Director of National Intelligence James Clapper told the Senate Armed Services Committee on Thursday that Iran poses a threat on a number of fronts, including its ability to develop a nuclear weapon, and the fact that any nuclear attack would likely be delivered by a ballistic missile.

"Iran already has the largest inventory of ballistic missiles in the Middle East, and it is expanding the scale, reach, and sophistication of its ballistic missile force, many of which are inherently capable of carrying a nuclear payload," Clapper said during his opening remarks to the committee.

The question for the intelligence community remains whether Iran, in particular Supreme Leader Sayyed Ali Khamenei, either already has decided or will decide to pull the trigger when it comes to taking the country's nuclear knowledge and applying it to the actual development of a nuclear weapon.

"Iran's technical advancement, particularly in uranium enrichment, strengthens our assessment that Iran has the scientific, technical, and industrial capacity to eventually produce nuclear weapons, making the central issue its political will to do so," Clapper said.

There are a number of indicators that the intelligence community is looking for that Clapper refused to detail during the public hearing that would indicate that the decision has already been made, and Clapper added that there is no indication yet that the decision has been made.

But Iran is not giving up the potential either. Lt. Gen. Ronald Burgess, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, said Iran is also "not close to agreeing" to abandon its nuclear program.

Under questioning by Sen. Kelly Ayotte, R-New Hampshire, Clapper and Burgess verified that Iran remains a significant threat on a number of fronts, including its continued support of organizations such as Hezbollah, which is deemed a terrorist organization by the United States, as well as its indirect support of Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

Burgess added that Iranian weapons have been found in Afghanistan, and that Tehran is attempting a "dual-track strategy" in Afghanistan and Iraq - working against U.S. and coalition desires while making efforts to "put forward the government" in both countries.

"They are walking both sides of the fence" said Burgess, who confirmed that it is the intelligence communities' belief that Iran is supporting the killing of U.S. soldiers.

"Iran is a big problem," Clapper added. He said recent bombing attempts in Thailand, India and Georgia targeting Israeli interests may not have been a technical success, but they still had a psychological impact.

Iran also poses a threat to U.S. interests and can close the Strait of Hormuz, the entryway to the Persian Gulf, at least temporarily, Burgess said. While Iran has substantial reach with its ballistic missiles, it would likely only use them if provoked, according to the U.S. intelligence assessment.

"Iran is unlikely to initiate or intentionally provoke a conflict," Burgess said.

Sen. John McCain, R-Arizona, who co-chairs the committee, listed his own ideas about the Iranian threat during his remarks to open the hearing, noting that Iran's believed involvement in a recent plot to assassinate a Saudi ambassador on U.S. soil has changed the nature of the threat.

"The rulers in Iran clearly pose a more direct threat to us than many would have assumed just a year ago," McCain said. "And that is on top of the hostile actions in which Iran has been engaging for years, including killing Americans in Iraq and Afghanistan, supporting terrorist groups across the Middle East, destabilizing Arab countries, propping up and rearming the Assad regime in Syria, and continuing their undeterred pursuit of a nuclear weapons capability.  The threat posed by the Iranian regime could soon bring the Middle East to the brink of war, if it has not already."

 

Dennis Ross: Give Diplomacy with Iran a Chance

Iran Is Ready to Talk

By DENNIS B. ROSS  [ Advisory Board member, UANI,  United Against Nuclear Iran ]

Washington   February 14, 2012   New York Times http://t.uani.com/yXoT0q

SPECULATION about an Israeli strike against Iranian nuclear facilities is rife, but there is little discussion about whether diplomacy can still succeed, precluding the need for military action.

Many experts doubt that Tehran would ever accept a deal that uses intrusive inspections and denies or limits uranium enrichment to halt any advances toward a nuclear weapons capability, while still permitting the development of civilian nuclear power. But before we assume that diplomacy can’t work, it is worth considering that Iranians are now facing crippling pressure and that their leaders have in the past altered their behavior in response to such pressure. Notwithstanding all their bluster, there are signs that Tehran is now looking for a way out.

Much has changed in the last three years. In January 2009, Iran was spreading its influence throughout the Middle East, and Arab leaders were reluctant to criticize Iran in public lest they trigger a coercive Iranian reaction. Similarly, Iran’s government wasn’t facing significant economic pressures; Iranians had simply adjusted to the incremental sanctions they were then facing.

Today, Iran is more isolated than ever. The regional balance of power is shifting against Tehran, in no small part because of its ongoing support for the beleaguered government of Bashar al-Assad in Syria. The Assad regime is failing, and in time, Iran will lose its only state ally in the Arab world and its conduit for arming the militant group Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Iran’s Arab neighbors in the Persian Gulf, and even the United Nations General Assembly, no longer hesitate to criticize Tehran. Gone is the fear of Iranian intimidation, as the Saudis demonstrated by immediately promising to fill the gap and meet Europe’s needs when the European Union announced its decision to boycott the purchase of Iran’s oil. Even after Iran denounced the Saudi move as a hostile act, the Saudis did not back off.

Iran cannot do business with or obtain credit from any reputable international bank, nor can it easily insure its ships or find energy investors. According to Iran’s oil ministry, the energy sector needs more than $100 billion in investments to revitalize its aging infrastructure; it now faces a severe shortfall.

New American penalties on Iran’s central bank and those doing business with it have helped trigger an enormous currency devaluation. In the last six weeks, the Iranian rial has declined dramatically against the dollar, adding to the economic woes Iran is now confronting.

Grain is sitting on ships that won’t unload their cargoes in Iranian ports because suppliers haven’t been paid; Iranian oil is being stored on tankers as Iran’s buyers demand discounts to purchase it; and even those countries that continue to do business with Iran are not paying in dollars. India plans to buy 45 percent of its oil from Iran using rupees, meaning that Iran will be forced to buy Indian goods that it may not want or need.

The Obama administration initially sought genuine engagement with Iran, but it understood that if Iran’s leaders rebuffed such efforts, America would have to apply unprecedented pressure to halt Tehran’s nuclear ambitions.

Beginning in 2010, Washington worked methodically to impose political, diplomatic, economic and security pressure, making clear that the cost of noncompliance would continue to rise while still leaving the Iranians a way out. This strategy took into account how Iranian leaders had adjusted their behavior in the past to escape major pressure — from ending the war with Iraq in 1988 to stopping the assassinations of Iranian dissidents in Europe in the 1990s to suspending uranium enrichment in 2003.

The Obama administration has now created a situation in which diplomacy has a chance to succeed. It remains an open question whether it will.

Israel worries that it could lose its military option, and it may be reluctant to wait for diplomacy to bear fruit. That said, Israeli leaders, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, have consistently called for “crippling sanctions,” reflecting a belief that Iran’s behavior could be changed with sufficient pressure. The fact that crippling sanctions have finally been applied means that Israel is more likely to give these sanctions and the related diplomatic offensive a chance to work. And it should.

Still, it is unclear whether Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, whose regime depends so heavily on hostility to America, is willing to make a deal on the nuclear issue. Nonetheless, Iran is now signaling that it is interested in diplomacy. Its foreign minister, Ali Akbar Salehi, has declared that Iran will resume talks with the five permanent members of the Security Council and the Germans. He recently said that Iran would discuss Russia’s step-by-step proposal to defuse the nuclear standoff, which Iran refused to entertain when a variation of it was first broached last year.

Now, with Iran feeling the pressure, its leaders suddenly seem prepared to talk. Of course, Iran’s government might try to draw out talks while pursuing their nuclear program. But if that is their strategy, they will face even more onerous pressures, when a planned European boycott of their oil begins on July 1.

Moreover, given Mr. Obama’s stated determination to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, Iran’s leaders may actually be making the use of force against their nuclear facilities more likely by playing for time.

Iran can have civilian nuclear power, but it must not have nuclear weapons. Ultimately, Ayatollah Khamenei will have to decide what poses a greater threat to his rule: ending his quest for nuclear weapons or stubbornly pursuing them as crippling economic pressures mount.

With Iran reeling from sanctions, the proper environment now exists for diplomacy to work. The next few months will determine whether it succeeds.

Dennis B. Ross, a former State Department and National Security Council official, was a special assistant to President Obama for the Middle East, Afghanistan and South Asia from 2009 to 2011. He is now a counselor at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

 

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Cohen: America's red lines in the sand on Iran

America’s red lines in the sand on Iran

By Richard Cohen, Published: February 6, 2012        The Washington Post

There are three red lines when it comes to Iran’s nuclear program. The first is the moment when Iran tunnels so deeply underground that Israeli bombs will be incapable of doing real damage. The second is when the tunneling goes even deeper, and the United States’ “bunker buster” bombs will be insufficient. And the third — well, that has already passed. It is the conviction that the current Iranian regime will never let Israel live in peace.

That third red line is of utmost importance. It explains why Israel is more likely than not to strike Iran, even if it triggers a conflagration that involves U.S. as well as Israeli targets — and shoots the price of oil through the ceiling. That last may cause even steadfast supporters of Israel to wonder if a little Jewish state is worth $15-a-gallon gas. For Israel, that’s a small price to pay.

The fact is that the Iranian regime is doubly unstable. It faces considerable domestic opposition, but it also can be astonishingly violent. In addition to the attempt on the life of the Saudi ambassador to Washington, Iran had its own former prime minister stabbed to death in a Paris hotel room, allegedly was behind the bombing of a Buenos Aires Jewish center (85 dead) and is blamed for the bombing of Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia in which 19 U.S. airmen were killed. This is a dangerous regime.

The Obama administration operates as if these incidents are departures from the norm. The Israelis see them as the norm — and more to come. President Obama wants the Iranian regime to turn its nuclear sword into a plowshare. The Israelis would welcome such a development, but they would not trust it. The regime they know will, sooner or later, revert to its nuclear weapons program. It’s in its DNA.

In his State of the Union address, Obama was pretty clear about U.S. intentions: “Let there be no doubt: America is determined to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon, and I will take no options off the table to achieve that goal.” The next sentence had a different, more forgiving, tone: “But a peaceful resolution of this issue is still possible, and far better, and if Iran changes course and meets its obligations, it can rejoin the community of nations.”

This — the vaunted carrot — is startlingly naive. Where is the evidence to suggest that the men who now run Iran will slap their foreheads, say zowie (in Farsi) and conclude that they were wrong to pursue a nuclear weapons program? More likely, they will conclude that North Korea survives because it defied the United States and continued to develop nuclear weapons. And Iran will further conclude that if it had had a nuke in 1980, Saddam Hussein would never have invaded — leading to a war that lasted eight years and cost Iran as many as 1 million lives. Israelis are not the only ones who say, “Never again.”

The Obama administration announced the Iranian attempt on a Saudi diplomat in Washington — and then did nothing about it. Washington seems neither angry nor the least bit annoyed. This is a serious miscalculation — reasonableness gone amok. The lesson for Iran is stall and prevaricate, because Washington lacks the stomach to be ugly. In the view of the Saudis, it even abandoned Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, a dictator but more pro-American than the authoritarian regime that’s likely going to replace him.

The real danger for Israel and the Middle East in general is not an Iranian nuclear attack on Israel — although the use of a proxy to do something like that cannot be ruled out. (How to retaliate against a terrorist organization?) Instead, the danger is that Israel will lose its nuclear monopoly, and Iran can loose Hezbollah (50,000 or so rockets) from the north and Hamas (even more rockets) from the south on Israel. A nuclear Iran would probably mean a nuclear Turkey, Egypt and Saudi Arabia as well. An increasingly unstable Middle East would become even more so. There’s no sleep here for anyone.

The ultimate remedy is Iranian regime change. This is not as improbable as it sounds. The Tehran regime is hardly popular and will become even less so as economic sanctions bite even harder. In the meantime, Obama must ensure that Iran perceives no daylight between the United States and Israel, and no chance that Washington will become naive about Iran’s intentions. This looming crisis is not only about Israel. It’s about America, too. There are more red lines coming.

cohenr@washpost.com

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/americas-red-lines-in-the-sand-on-iran/2012/02/06/gIQAr6W5uQ_story.html?wprss=rss_opinions

 

 

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jcrc@dmjfed.org

 

 

Arielei in DMRegister: Why should Iowa care if Iran obtains nuclear weapons?

2/8/12 Op Ed in the Des Moines Register by Shahar Arieli, Israel's Deputy counsel General in Chicago. Contact: press@chicago.mfa.gov.il

Guest columnist: Why should Iowa care if Iran obtains nuclear weapons?

www.DesMoinesRegister.com

Clearly, the Islamic Republic of Iran is a bitter rival of the United States. Iran supports terrorism, promotes radicalism and does everything in its power to get more and more of the Middle East under its influence.

 

Source:

http://www.desmoinesregister.com/article/20120208/OPINION01/302080029/Guest-columnist-Why-should-Iowa-care-if-Iran-obtains-nuclear-weapons-

 

 

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Jeffrey Goldberg: What is at the root of the Israel-Iran confrontation?

Jeffrey Goldberg: "Ahmadinejad is not just an average spewer of anti-Israel invective, he is the Robert Browning of hate. It is not clear why some people won't give him his due."

What is At the Root of the Israel-Iran Confrontation?

www.theatlantic.com

The Atlantic covers news and analysis on politics, business, culture, technology, national, international and life on the official site of The Atlantic Magazine.

http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/02/what-is-at-the-root-of-the-israel-iran-confrontation/252024/

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Iranian leader vows to cut out 'cancer' of Israel

Pro-Iranian regime apologists in Des Moines apparently see nothing wrong, nothing provocative, and nothing they'd like others to know about, with the following. Is all concern about Iran's belicose Regime "all orchestrated propaganda?"

Iranian leader vows to cut out 'cancer' of Israel

www.smh.com.au

Iranian leader vows to cut out 'cancer' of Israel

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