As the US and Israel continued to bicker over an attack on Iran, their war preparations continued apace. debkafile's military sources report that flight after flight of US warplanes and transports were seen cutting eastward over Sinai on their way to Gulf destinations, presumably Saudi Arabia, at a frequency not seen in the Middle East for many years. Sunday, Feb. 5, Alireza Forghani, strategic adviser to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said, "It would only take nine minutes to wipe out Israel."

Some 20,000 marines, seamen and air crews from six countries, a US nuclear aircraft carrier strike group and three US Marine gunship carriers are practicing an attack on a fictitious mechanized enemy division which has invaded its neighbor in the largest amphibian exercise seen in the West for a decade. "Bold Alligator 2012" simulates an Iranian invasion and a marine landing on the Iranian coast. debkafile: It is the prelude to the stationing of this aircraft carrier and marine force opposite Iran.

US Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta has been outspoken about a possible Israeli offensive being launched against Iran from April, but has not leveled about massive US war preparations. The question is no longer if armed hostilities are afoot, but when. Tehran too is gearing up with a new three-week "exercise" and calling allies to the flag, including Syria. There, the appalling bloodbath has reached a scale – 350 Saturday, Feb. 4 alone – which potentially rivals nuclear Iran as the trigger for a Middle East confrontation.

Israel's military (the IDF) is no longer hiding from view its preparations for an attack on Iran's nuclear program – most probably from the spring – and its expectation of armed hostilities erupting consequently on at least three fronts, Syria, the Lebanese Hizballah and the Palestinian Hamas in Gaza. On Jan. ...

US stealth drones stay out of Iranian skies since the RQ-170 was downed now that American intelligence knows that a Chinese cyber team was responsible. The Obama administration is avoiding a reckoning with Beijing because Washington needs the Chinese on America's side – especially in a presidential election year.

A senior US emissary promised Israel that its X-band radar station in Turkey would share data with Israel on a coming Iranian missile attack – contrary to the Turkish foreign minister's assurances to Tehran.

Iran has completed the development of a nuclear weapon and is only waiting for a sign from Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to start assembling its first nuclear bomb, said Israeli Military Intelligence Chief Maj. Gen. Aviv Kochavi on Thursday, February 2. By the end of 2012 or early 2013 Iran may have a single nuclear bomb, he said, but by 2015 the figure would jump to four or five. Deputy Prime Minister Moshe Yaalon: None of Iran's nuclear installations are immune from attack.

A hurried decision not to de-commission the USS Ponce helicopter marine carrier after duty in Libya - but to refit it for deployment in the Persian Gulf by May as a floating base for SEAL commando teams - was confirmed by the US Pentagon and Navy Sunday, Jan. 29. This base will expand the commandos' range in coastal areas, especially against Iranian speedboats, and support counter-measures against mines which Iran threatens to plant in the Strait of Hormuz for the US-EU oil embargo. 

By early March, the US will have amassed 100,000 troops within reach of Iran, roughly equal to the 2003 Iraq invasion force, and enough to back up Barack Obama's pledge to stop Iran acquiring a nuclear bomb with military force.

The Obama administration saw in the unimpeded passage of the Abraham Lincoln carrier through the Strait of Hormuz a signal that Tehran may be amenable to nuclear talks. Preparatory feelers are going forward on three tracks via Baghdad, Ankara and Vienna between the emissaries of the US President and ...

The new round of European sanctions will not stop Iran's pursuit of a nuclear weapon, Israel's Defense Minister Ehud Barak warned in a radio interview Tuesday, Jan. 24.  debkafile: The Obama administration and EU delayed oil sanctions to July 1 for back-channel contacts to ripen and produce a fresh round of nuclear talks with Tehran. Barak stressed Israel's hand was always near the trigger and advised taking "very seriously" Israel's military option which had not been taken off the table.

Three weeks after Tehran threatened action against any US aircraft carrier entering the Strait of Hormuz, Washington made two moves: US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta disclosed Sunday, Jan. 22, that the USS Enterprise Carrier Strike Group would steam through the strait in March; a few hours later, the USS Abraham Lincoln carrier transited Hormuz without incident. Defusing the Hormuz dispute set the scene for resumed US-Iranian nuclear talks and the suspension of tough sanctions as Israel was preparing to strike Iran's nuclear facilities.

 

Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu advised visiting Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Martin Dempsey Friday, Jan. 20 that the time for action against Iran was now - for two reasons: First, Iran has passed the point of no return for developing a nuclear weapon; second, the US-led embargo on Iranian oil is not catching on. debkafile: China, Japan, South Korea, India, Turkey and the European Union members which buy 85 percent of Iran's exported crude are dilly-dallying over a ban.

China took advantage of the US oil embargo on Iran to bid for Saudi oil instead. Riyadh agreed to provide oil in return for Chinese assistance in building a Saudi nuclear weapon program. Beijing no longer calls Iran its only strategic partner in the Middle East; Riyadh shares that privileged status with Tehran.
Until this week, the ayatollahs were sure Iran would play solo as the Persian Gulf region's only Muslim nuclear power. Now Sunni Saudi Arabia is about to share the stage.  
Meanwhile neither the ...

Benjamin Netanyahu refuses to wait for US-led sanctions to take hold before making unilateral decisions about preempting Iran's development of a bomb. He believes time is running out too fast to hold back for much longer.

Iran will avoid a full-dress confrontation with superior US military might and trust to pinpoint harassment and provocations to carry the day. Tehran believes the apparent US-Israeli rift it’s a subterfuge to camouflage US-Israel war preparations against its nuclear sites.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu disclosed Thursday night, Jan. 19 that Iran had opted to become a nuclear state.  He called for action to stop Iran before it is too late and iran completed the construction of a nuclear weapon. . His statement at the end of talks in Holland gave Gen Martin Dempsey, on his first visit to Israel as Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, the message he will be asked to take back to President Barack Obama.   

debkafile's sources disclose exclusively that, contrary to reports in Washington, Jerusalem - and this site too - it was Israel Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, not the Obama administration, who called off the joint US-Israeli military exercise Austere Challenge 12, a step unprecedented in Israel-US relations. Netanyahu acted when he judged the Obama administration's resolve to preempt a nuclear Iran to be flagging. His action also aimed at freeing Israel's hands for a unilateral strike on Iran's nuclear sites - if necessary.

US-Israeli discord over Iran went into overdrive Sunday, Jan. 15 when the White House called off Austere Challenge 12, the biggest joint war game the US and Israel have every staged, in reprisal for a comment by Israeli Deputy Prime Minister Moshe Yaalon in an early morning radio interview. He said the United States was hesitant over sanctions against Iran's central bank and oil for fear of a spike in oil prices and Israel must be ready to defend itself. Yaalon exacerbated the row over US objections to any Israeli role in military action against Iran.  

The unattributed killing of Iranian nuclear scientist Mostafa Ahmadi-Roshan last Wednesday, Jan. 11, was the subject of an angry phone call from US President Barack Obama to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu the next day, debkafile reports.  Washington is concerned, the Wall Street Journal reported Saturday, that Israel may strike Iran's nuclear sites and has bolstered the defenses of US facilities in the region. In Jerusalem, Washington's strong and unusual slamming of the attack was deeply resented.