The US army is completed its planning for an Israeli war on Iran in October at the latest. Its tasks will be to destroy Iranian missiles geared for reprisals against US military sites and Israel, defend Saudi oil and keep the Strait of Hormuz open to oil traffic.

US, Israeli, Saudi and Iranian war preparations are on fast forward, as the coming issue of DEBKA-Net-Weekly discloses in detail next Friday. All their leaders face agonizing decisions in the weeks ahead. US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta is on a tour of inspection to make sure US Middle East military forces are ready for an operation against Iran. Its timeline is now pared down to weeks because Iran's ongoing mega-fortifications threaten to make its nuclear facilities indestructible - even by American super-weapons.
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Disquiet in Washington, Jerusalem and a row of Middle East capitals is gaining ground the longer the Saudi government stays silent on the reported assassination of the newly-appointed Saudi intelligence chief Prince Bandar bin Sultan, purportedly in a revenge operation by a Syrian intelligence death squad.  Saudi rulers are feared too traumatized to respond to the report by the fear of clandestine Iranian penetration of the highest and most closely guarded circles of their government, possibly climaxing in Bandar’s assassination.

New Crown Prince Salman is determined to bring his Sudairi clan to the fore of the royal stakes in Riyadh. The king’s appointment of his kinsman Prince Bandar gives Salman, who is already defense minister a strong in to the intelligence apparatus as well.

Shiite unrest is bursting its bounds in the oil-rich Eastern Provinces of Saudi Arabia, dangerously close to the largest oil installations in the world. Tehran is signaling Riyadh that they can be disrupted by sabotage and not just by Iranian missiles.

The new Egyptian president is trying to carve out a niche for himself independent of his own Muslim Brotherhood. For this he needs to make terms with the Supreme Military Council. It is too early to determine his chances of success.

The Saudis, not invited to join negotiations either on Syria or Iran, have gone ahead with their own plans for beating Iran to the nuclear draw.

The US is piling up military strength in the Persian Gulf against potential Iranian attempts to block the Gulf of Hormuz, or otherwise retaliate for the European oil embargo in force since July 1. As the Revolutionary Guards staged a missile exercise against “enemy air bases,” more than 40,000 US troops were massed on two strategic islands facing Iran. The drums of war came with curtains on nuclear diplomacy. Iran and six world powers met for the last time in Istanbul Tuesday. Oil topped $100 for the first time in three weeks.

The Saudi royal house has set preparations in motion for a US attack on Iran in October. Its military is organizing defenses of government and oil terminals, as well as a counter-offensive if attacked by Iran. A new oil pipeline bypasses the Strait of Hormuz.

In the wake of failed diplomacy, US President Barack Obama is in the process of “reconsidering” his decision to hold off on military action against Iran. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta was in Riyadh to sound out Saudi rulers on a combined US-GCC operation.  In its latest issue, out last Friday, DEBKA-Net-Weekly explores the prospects of this operation, along with revelations about President Vladimir Putin’s talk with Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu. From Jerusalem, Putin issued his “most striking warning to Obama.”

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The US has confirmed the supply of weapons to the Syrian rebels and the presence of CIA officers controlling the flow from Turkey. However plans for persuading Bashar Assad to quit run hard up against his gains on the battlefield where the rebels, despite broad backing, are losing ground.

The Saudis offered Beijing $60 billion plus an oil bonanza for a single nuclear warhead.  China has agreed in principle to sell the Saudis medium-range Dong-Feng 21 ballistic missiles in return for the cash and/or having its oil requirements for the next 23 years guaranteed by Riyadh. The deal was ...

Results of the final round of the presidential vote in Egypt depends on two things: The candidates’ ability to organize their campaigns and funding from the Arab world and American sources.

US President Obama recently vetoed a detailed Franco-Saudi plan for ending President Bashar Assad’s rule by means of a massive air strike against his palace that would wipe him, his family and top leadership circle out, debkafile reports. French warplanes from the Charles de Gaulle aircraft carrier off Syria and Saudi and United Arab Emirates bombers flying in through Jordan would devastate the palace atop Mount Qassioun northeast of Damascus. The US was asked to pitch in by disrupting Syrian air defenses.

A new US battle strategy against Iran (ASB) hinges on tightly coordinated air, land, sea, undersea, space and cyberspace capabilities for defeating closure of the (Hormuz) strait, cyber attack, mines, cruise and ballistic missiles. US and Israeli Air Forces, Navies and their special forces are operating on the ABS concept after an Israeli drill which ended in its navy setting up a dense defensive line against enemy sea assault by unconventional weapons. Monday, a large US amphibious marine vessel anchored in Jedda.

Foreign intervention in Syria is expanding, hemming the Assad regime in with escalating bombing attacks, rebels armed with heavy weapons or a 17-nation special forces “exercise” across the border in Jordan. How will his backers in Tehran and Moscow react?

Word of upgraded underwear bombing devices and double agents should never have been released because without inside intelligence, the key PETN explosive is undetectable by airport security scanners. Running double agents inside terrorist cells is the most tricky and hazardous of undercover operations because no one ever has the whole picture. Compromising the penetration of al Qaeda’s Yemen cell has therefore caused inestimable damage to the counter-terror efforts against al Qaeda. Hence the dismay in US intelligence agencies on both these counts.

Saudi Arabia and Turkey agree to set up a joint command for coordinating preparations for a combined invasion of Syria and the creation of buffer zones protected by their air forces. Ankara is putting pressure on NATO to help defend Turkish borders against Iranian reprisal. Both partners ...

Obama’s Grand Diplomatic Offensive for using a pacified Syria to persuade Iran to be accommodating at the coming nuclear negotiations is not yet in the bag. It is dogged by Saudi objections and problems with its policy Syria due to flawed US intelligence both about Assad’s survivability and the ...

Riyadh sees Iran counting its profits from sanctions-boosted oil prices regardless of extra Saudi pumping. Washington blocked the sale of arms for a Saudi strike against Iran and shut the Jordanian route for Saudi troops to enter Syria. The two Kings Abdullah are at odds.