Israel’s Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu kicks off his campaign for reelection in the January election on the wrong foot having played the losing horse in the US presidential election.

US President Barack Obama aims to launch direct, fast-track nuclear talks with Tehran in December with a three month deadline for their conclusion, debkafile reports. His advisers warn him that Iran’s campaign for its June 14 presidential election kicks off in March and Tehran cannot be expected to commit to a resolution of their nuclear controversy by then.  Iranian strategists would prefer to hold off nuclear diplomacy for eight months until after their election “just as Tehran waited for the US vote.”

The latest DEBKA-Net-Weekly out last Friday offers an expert forecast of how Barack Obama is approaching the region’s hot-button crises in his second term as US President. First, he will go for a “Grand Bargain” with Iran on its nuclear program – then, fast deals with Moscow and Beijing to cool the crises of a war-torn Syria, a burgeoning Muslim Brotherhood and a rampant al Qaeda. Will he keep US ties with Israel and other allies ambivalent? And will Obama diplomacy work better this time?
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Some Middle East nations, including the Persian Gulf and Israel, view with trepidation four more years of Barack Obama. They envisage the continued hitching of US regional influence on the Muslim world – Sunni and Shiite alike – through the acceptance of a nuclear Iran and the sponsorship of Muslim Brotherhood rule of Sunni Arab nations. Israel is caught in a vise between Iran, whose leaders call openly for Israel’s extinction, which is achievable only by nuclear aggression, and the hostile Muslim Brotherhood.

Sources in Tehran put out word Sunday, Nov, 4, that Iran had suddenly suspended 20-percent uranium enrichment. An Iranian lawmaker called it a "goodwill" gesture ahead of a new round of talks with the US directly after the presidential election. Two days before the vote, Tehran is transparently throwing its weight behind Obama by suggesting to the American voter that he can solve the nuclear crisis without resorting to war and is Iran’s preferred partner for talks.

Because the powers concerned about Syrian bloodshed stick to a hands-off policy Assad and al Qaeda win a free field to fight it out.

Washington acted fast to hold back Lebanon’s anti-Syrian Lebanese forces from avenging the assassination of Lebanon’s top intelligence chief, Brig. Gen. Wissam al-Hasan to save Lebanon from being ripped apart by a civil war. Assad and Nasrallah were allowed to get away with it.

Obama’s tactics for blocking Binyamin Netanyahu’s options for attacking Iran are now being applied to the Turkish prime minister Tayyip Erdogan to hold him back from direct military intervention on the side of the rebels in Syria and dragging American in too.

An Iranian ex-diplomat and a lawmaker provide unknown details of the four years of secret American-Iranian exchanges on solving the controversy over Iran’s nuclear program which ended without results.

Both US presidential contenders, Barack Obama and Mitt Romney, pledged to stand with Israel if attacked in their foreign policy debate in Boca Raton, Florida Monday, Oct. 22. But neither agreed in reply to the question to formally declare that an attack on Israel would be tantamount to an attack on America, especially in relation to a nuclear Iran. Romney and Obama agreed that a military option must be a last resort, although Romney, unlike Obama, said even a “nuclear-capable Iran” was unacceptable.

Barack Obama has agreed to hold direct talks on Iran’s nuclear program with its leaders, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Is this a surprise? On April 16, 2012, debkafile disclosed that Washington and Tehran were conducting back-channel talks in Paris and Vienna. Obama hopes that a summit will lift his chances of reelection. debkafile: He has so far accepted Iran’s right to enrich uranium, erasing all Israel’s red lines. His last demand is for 24/7 inspections which Tehran refuses.

The car bomb which murdered anti-Syrian Lebanese security chief Brig. Gen. Wissam al-Hasan and seven others Friday, Oct. 19, in Beirut also dissipated hopes in the West and Israel of the Syrian civil war sundering the Tehran-Damascus-Hizballah axis, or that liquidating Iran’s nuclear scientists and cyber warfare would turn Tehran away from a nuclear bomb.  The Syrian bloodbath grows wider and more malignant and Tehran is closer than ever to a nuclear weapon. A reduced joint US-Israel war game begins Sunday.

Barack Obama this week clued Binyamin Netanyahu in on the latest US intelligence confirming Iran will have enough enriched uranium for 4-6 bombs by March 2013, debkafile reports. It was the first time Obama acknowledged that sanctions and diplomatic pressure are not working. Also revealed was that Iran had doubled the enrichment centrifuges at Natanz to 6,000, and that Iran needs no more than 2-3 weeks to upgrade enriched uranium from 20% to weapons grade. Obama still objects to an Israeli pre-emptive strike.

US President Obama wants a settling of accounts with the terrorists who murdered four diplomats in Benghazi before his next debate with Mitt Romney orbefore the Nov. 6 election at latest. Counter-terrorism and intelligence chiefs explain the operation requires time-consuming planning for coordinated attacks on multiple targets in several ...

The revised estimates compiled by US and French intelligence agencies on the relative strength of Syrian government and rebel forces have given Washington and Arab capitals backing the Syrian opposition pause.  The Obama administration built its policies around an estimated 70,000 rebel fighters, whereas the new figure, disclosed by debkafile’s intelligence sources, appears to be around 30,000 – one tenth of them Al Qaeda-linked jihadis. Challenging Washington, French President Frances is urging direct intervention now to save the Syrian revolt.

French President Francois Hollande convinced President Barack Obama to reverse his position against intervention in the Syrian with all possible speed to prevent Assad winning the war against the rebels. Turkey was given the green light to pursue steps against Syrian flights and airspace with a view to clearing ...

Netanyahu was in touch with Barack Obama and Mitt Romney before his UN speech last month and reached agreement with both that he would set up a centrist government with Labor after Israel’s January election and join them n getting set for a showdown with Iran in March.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s decision to run for election on the stop-nuclear-Iran ticket opens the door for President Barack Obama, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and Hizballah’s Hassan Nasrallah to put an oar in to determine its results. Obama may seek a breakthrough with Iran to impress the American voter and put a spoke in Netanyahu’s wheel; the Iranian and Hizballah leaders may fabricate a grave security crisis to test Netanyahu with a major predicament in mid-campaign. They are all are playing for high stakes.

Israeli Patriots were not deployed against further Iranian drone incursions but potential Iranian/Hizballah missile attacks from Lebanon or Syria. debkafile: US intelligence now warns President Obama that Iran’s nuclear breakthrough will be much earlier than predicted - late November, only seven weeks off. A Congressional Research Dept. report concludes Israel has sufficient air force and refueling capacities to strike Iran’s nuclear facilities, including Fordo, alone. The two findings led to the new Foreign Policy proposal of a joint US-Israeli “October surprise.”

As US intelligence gropes in the dark in Syria – unable to pin down the rebel leader or a suitable candidate to follow Sadat - Saudi secret service chief Prince Bandar uses Al Arabiya TV to release “classified Syrian security documents” for his propaganda campaign against Assad and other ...