The latest DEBKA-Net-Weekly out Friday expands on its disclosure of last week that during his visit to Israel, US President Barack Obama struck a deal with Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu for military action against Syrian chemical weapons. The new issue fleshed out that core decision with exclusive revelations on NATO’s role in setting up the expedition, its participants, targets and ramifications, including likely responses by Moscow and Tehran.
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The Turkish-Israeli reconciliation effected by Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s apology was urged strongly by US President Barack Obama, because Ankara urgently needed to revive the military cooperation it cut off with Israel in 2010. debkafile:  Without access to Israeli military technology, Turkey’s armed forces are hamstrung. And without full Israeli, Turkish and Jordanian coordination, Obama’s plan for a joint US-led command center against a Syrian chemical warfare contingency can’t take off. But the apology also went down as a gratuous affront to Israeli military pride.

President Barack Obama persuaded Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu in their talks in Jerusalem this week to give Tehran three more months to work through nuclear diplomacy with the P5+1 group of world powers, debkafile discloses. This grace period expires after Iran’s June 24 presidential election, although military action against its nuclear sites may not necessarily follow the next day. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, however, warned Thursday, March 21, that if attacked, “the Islamic Republic will raze Tel Aviv and Haifa to the ground.”

Obama has revamped the alliance to fully utilize what he calls Israel’s high-tech innovativeness as more important to the United States even than their security ties. He has even promised Israel a defensive shield in its hostile neighborhood so long as it keeps working.

The US and Israel have agreed on the circumstances that would warrant their intervention in Syria’s use of chemical weapons. For now, they are holding off even though Assad promises more air attacks on Lebanon to bully President Michel Sleiman into expelling Syrian rebels.

Obama pledges to extend the US military assistance program for Israel for another decade when it expires in 2017. Netanyahu said he would not order an attack on Iran without first consulting with Washington.

On Day One of his visit to Israel, President Barack Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu put to rest their long dispute over an Israeli strike on Iran. In principle, Israel had the right to independently defend itself, they acknowledged, but in practice would not exercise this principle without first consulting with Washington. The president reciprocated with a pledge of expanded military aid to Israel. Both deferred military intervention in the Syrian civil conflict – even for containing its expansion into chemical warfare.

President Barack Obama was greeted on his arrival in Israel midday Wednesday, March 20 with unprecedented ceremonial honors and fanfare. However, the omens augured major differences with his hosts. In the 48 hours before his arrival, Syria for the first time bombed targets inside Lebanon and fired a chemical warhead at Aleppo. While Israel is acutely concerned by this escalation just across its frontiers, the Obama administration withheld a practical response. The two governments are also divided on the handling of Iran’s nuclear program.

debkafile reports from western military sources that present in the rocket which exploded in the Aleppo neighborhood of Khan al-Assal Tuesday March 19 were phosphorus, chlorine and Agent 15 or BZ. Although the Assad regime and the Syrian rebels charged each other with firing the rocket, which killed 15-31 people and injured more than a hundred, it was not possible to verify which side was responsible. The White House denied it was the rebels, while Moscow backed Damascus by insisting that it was.

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu slotted two Likud stalwarts, Silvan Shalom and Yuval Steinitz, into his last two vacant cabinet posts in time to present his third government to the Knesset Monday, March 18. In the final reckoning, Netanyahu retains ultimate decision-making power for security, foreign relations, national strategy, intelligence and Palestinians, along with Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon. Yaalon opposes Israeli military action against Iran without US cooperation. But he and the cabinet offer short shrift for the Palestinians and sympathy for the pro-settlement lobby.

Iran had two bellicose messages for President Barack Obama, The were offered by Deputy Chief of Staff of the Iranian Armed Forces Brig. Gen. Massoud Jazayeri: 1 “Our commanders have been authorized to respond to any kind of hostile move by the enemy.” debkafile notes that Iranian officers are also deployed in Syria and Lebanon. 2. A mocking “Mr Obama, make no mistake. We too have all our options on the table. Before you get deeper in the region’s quagmire, go back home!”

Britain and France have for the first time parted ways with the US on its policy against sending Western arms to Syrian rebels fighting Bashar Assad. As the EU summit in Brussels voted March 14 against their motion to lift the Syrian arms embargo, debkafile reveals that Jordan’s top soldier arrived in Brussels to discuss shipping British arms through his country – and select the rebel recipients. France’s Francois Hollande used this issue to even the score for Barack Obama’s lack of military support for his Mali expedition. 

Al Qaeda and its affiliates have retired to five African and Middle East deserts as safe, remote launching pads for their re-energized campaign of terror in the Middle East and beyond.

Assad has asked Moscow for large numbers of attack helicopters to compensate for his lack of loyal troops. Washington has advised the Russians to think twice before assenting since he may not last beyond summer.

Al Qaeda’s Syrian wing, Jabhat al-Nusra, led a Syrian rebel operation Wednesday, March 13, to occupy Golan and cleanse it of Syrian troops, so as to be prepare for its use for cross-border attacks on Israel and Jordan – possibly during US President’ Barack Obama’s visits on March 20-22.  debkafile: An Iron Dome battery will be installed at Israel’s Ben Gurion Airport to secure Obama’s arrival, making him the first US president to be guarded by Israel’s anti-missile system against possible al Qaeda attack from More...