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DEBKAfile Exclusive Analysis
October 17, 2009
With friends like these...
The Netanyahu government's slow-moving, lackadaisical handling of the Goldstone commission mandated for accusing Israel of war crimes in Gaza, played into the hands of a coalition formed to strip the Israeli military of legitimacy as a defensive strike force against Iran's fast-moving nuclear weapons program and its Middle East allies' missile arsenals. Those missiles are poised to strike Israel's population centers if Iran is attacked. Israel had - and still has - plenty of moral, diplomatic and strategic tools for defending itself. They were not applied and so this hostile coalition was allowed to strike Israel on three fronts in the last fortnight: Turkish prime minister Tayyep Recip Erdogan's unleashed an unbridled assault on the Jewish state; Muslim riots suddenly flared on Temple Mount; and the Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas changed his mind and pushed for a special UN Human Rights Commission session Friday, Oct. 16, to endorse the Goldstone report, after first accepting its...
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DEBKAfile Exclusive Analysis
October 3, 2009
Pulling the wool over international eyes
After the hype evaporates from the Geneva encounter between the six powers and Iran and the raw emotions fade from the videotaped sight of kidnapped Israeli soldier Gilead Shalit, Israel is left to take stock of where it stands in relation to its enemies, Iran and the Hamas. The score is Israel - nil; Iran and its ally Hamas - two up. In the first place, Iran has gained substantially from the Obama administration's decision to abandon the US demand for Iran to freeze uranium enrichment as the precondition for talks. This US surrender has awarded Tehran the legitimacy for retaining its "nuclear right." Then, too, the Geneva conference became the platform for the world powers to agree to hold up sanctions if Iran transferred three-quarters of its low-enriched uranium (1,179,4 tons out of 1,451,4) to a Russian plant for further enrichment to 20 percent grade. The product would then be referred to France for "further technical modifications" - meaning probably a process which would...
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DEBKAfile Exclusive Analyis
September 26, 2009
The day US president Barack Obama announced he was abandoning plans for a missile shield and radar position in Poland and the Czech Republic Thursday, Sept. 17, Israeli defense minister Ehud Barak was quoted as saying in a press interview: "Iran does not constitute an existential threat against Israel" and "I am not among those who believe Iran is an existential issue for Israel." Responding to a question about Iran's nuclear program, he went on to say: "Israel is strong, I don't see anyone who could pose an existential threat," although he did view Iran as a challenge to the whole world. Asked in private what he meant, Barak shifted slightly by explaining: At this minute, Iran does not threaten Israel's survival." Brig. Tal Rousso, head of operations in the IDF chief command, echoed the minister's theme in a radio interview Saturday, Sept. 19, Are we to understand from these statements that the Iranian menace has suddenly gone away? Hardly, when Friday, Sept. 18, the Israeli...
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DEBKAfile Special Analysis
October 14, 2009
Turkish-Syrian strategic cooperation
Tuesday, Oct.13, Syrian defense minister Gen. Ali Habib made the triumphant announcement: We held our first joint land military exercise (with Turkey) last spring. And today we have agreed to do a more comprehensive, a bigger one. He spoke at a ceremony declaring a free trade zone between the two countries and opening their borders for the passage of their citizens without visas. Present were the two foreign ministers, Ahmed Davutoglu and Walid Mualem. The next day, Today's Zaman provided Ankara's explanation for its last-minute decision to cancel Israeli participation in the annual multiple air maneuver with NATO under the caption: Delay in delivery of Herons behind drill crisis, not politics. A senior Turkish military source was quoted as saying: "Israel has failed yet again to deliver the Israeli-made surveillance drones known as Herons to Turkey. Turkey needs those vehicles in its fight against terror. What led to the recent crisis between Turkey and Israel was the delay in...
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DEBKAfile Special Analysis
September 26, 2009
Sound and fury signifying what?
Maestro Barack Obama's histrionics in New York and Pittsburgh Thursday and Friday, Sept. 24-25 - and his threat of "confrontation" for Iran's concealment of its nuclear capabilities - were water off a duck's back for Tehran, whose nuclear weapons program has gone too far to stop by words or even sanctions. The Islamic regime only responded with more defiance, announcing that its second uranium enrichment plant near Qom would become operational soon. The US president's tough words and willingness to step out of his axiomatic insistence on dialogue and turn to economic warfare against Iran may be impressive but it is no longer effective. Tehran is too close to its goal of a nuclear weapons capability to be deterred by offers of engagement or economic penalties. Obama certainly knows this. He also understands that Iran is now unstoppable except by force. His performance was therefore directed at another target: Israel, whom he is determined to dissuade from resorting to military...
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August 24, 2009
US diplomat Fred Hoff spent year cultivating Syrian connections
Syrian president Bashar Assad like the leopard has not changed his spots. After Washington opened the door wide to reconciliation, lavishing goodwill gestures and a procession of emissaries over several months, Assad has abruptly slammed it shut. Wednesday, Aug. 12, he announced he was off to Tehran next week to congratulate his good friend Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on his reelection as president and further cement their ties. He left behind him a trail of dashed hopes in Washington. The Obama administration had made a serious bid to detach Assad from his strategic bonds with Iran and make him the keystone for the president's comprehensive Middle East program. Assad first knocked this plan on the head on July 26 in a long conversation he had with US Middle East envoy George Mitchell in Damascus, DEBKAfile's Middle East sources disclose. It was then that the Syrian ruler turned round and rejected an American role in the next stage of his peace talks with Israel in favor of Turkey. He...
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