The US President has tacitly indicated to the Iranian leader that if elected to a second term he will have more room for maneuver and a freer hand for pursuing policies agreed in their back-channel dialogue. So please, Iranian officials, speak more kindly about America.

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 ...

Erdogan won an ultra-cool welcome in Tehran after he was discovered pumping anti-tank missiles to the Syrian rebels after Bashar Assad began helping Turkey’s PKK Kurdish faction. His Iranian hosts gave him the runaround before he was received by Khamenei to hand over Barack Obama’s message.

Israel boosted its Syrian and Lebanese border units as special flights carrying thousands of pro-Palestinian activists from Tehran touched down in Damascus for the international Global March to Jerusalem Friday, March 30. Before takeoff, they were split into small groups and tutored by Iranian Al Qods Brigades officers in tactics for breaching Israeli border barriers, bursting through and challenging the Israeli military forces defending the border. They go into action on Palestinian-backed Israel-Arab Earth Day to match disturbances in Israel and the West Bank.

Despite Israeli warnings, the Palestinian Authority is for the first time making the annual Israeli-Arab Earth Day Friday, March 30 a joint Palestinian-Israel Arab event, organizing mass anti-Israel disturbances in Jerusalem, Jaffa and other places, while also instigating West Bankers to smash through Israeli border checkpoints. Syria too will bus thousands of Palestinians to storm Israel’s northern border on the Golan. Both also aim to shake up the Arab summit in Baghdad. The PA is broke after Arab aid was cut off.

The 23rd Arab summit, the first to be held in Baghdad in more than two decades, opens Tuesday March 27 after Iraq’s Shiite Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki bowed to Saudi and Gulf Emirates’ demand not to invite Iran and receive only a low-ranking Syrian official.  Although the city is in lockdown, Western security sources doubt it is 100 percent safe from terrorists, whether al Qaeda or Bashar Assad’s henchmen in revenge for  the arms and aid certain Arab rulers tender Syrian rebels.

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.

Russia like Iran was the prime helper and is the prime beneficiary of Bashar Assad’s success in crushing the armed revolt against him and gives Vladimir kudos at the start of his presidency. His foreign minister Sergey Lavrov was enabled to call the shots for the 22-member ...

Iran and Russia poured out every kind of assistance to shore Assad up – military, intelligence, financial, diplomatic and strategic as well as a supply of arms for crushing the opposition. Iran’s reward is the substantial strengthening of its alliance with Syria, Hizballah and Palestinian extremists. Hamas ...

Iran and Russia both won ground on the Syrian battlefield at America’s expense with this week’s Assad victory over rebels in Idlib, say DEBKA-Net-Weekly’s strategic analysts in its next issue out Friday.  The indecisive way the Israeli confrontation with Iran’s Palestinian proxy Jihad Islami wound down also added points to Tehran - and Moscow less directly - after Washington backed away from the Gaza episode and Israel threw in the sponge. These players were testing the ground for a possible Israeli-Iranian clash.
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When the Saudis discovered the US was backing off military operations against both Iran and Syria, they retaliated by letting oil prices float upward without lifting a finger. This week oil prices hit an all-time high carrying the message to Barack Obama: Either attack Iran, or we’ll let oil ...

Opposite the fragmented Free Syrian Army rebels, Assad’s army is suffering from the spreading malaise of “defections in place,” a mutiny of complete units with their officers who defy orders but refrain from crossing to the opposition. Why did the Syrian ruler prevent two Iranian warships from entering Tartus ...

The upgrading and interconnection of two Russian-equipped Middle East electronic and surveillance stations – on Jabal Al Harrah south of Damascus opposite Israel’s Sea of Galilee, and Lebanon’s Mt. Sannine - are tailored by Moscow to give Tehran early warning of a US or Israeli attack, debkafile reports. The two facilities now cover all of Israel and Jordan, the Gulf of Aqaba and northern Saudi Arabia, as well as US and Israeli naval and aerial Mediterranean movements up to Cyprus and Greece.

The US Pentagon and Israel’s high command are taking Tehran’s threat of preemptive action with the utmost seriousness as changing the rules of the standoff. It was issued to provide Iran with grounds for claiming international legitimacy for any preemptive military action launched against Israel or American targets as ...

Middle East capitals are puzzled by the Obama administration’s willingness to cast the Arab bloc and its Syrian concerns aside and collaborate with Turkey on the Assad issue. Why is non-Arab Turkey the blue-eyed boy in Washington and not the Gulf Arabs? The answer in some Middle East capitals is that ...

Russia needs a presence in Syria to promote its interests in the Middle East, to keep the lid on Caucasian unrest and to pave the way to challenge the United States in the global arena.

Bent on Bashar Assad’s ouster, the US and the Gulf Arab powers are swinging around an array of options – all of them military. The coming DEBKA-Net-Weekly out Friday weighs the chances of, say, an international militia, protected zones, a Western-Arab air umbrella for the Syrian resistance or, most probably, arming the Syrian Free Army with heavy weapons.
Decisions hinge heavily on the regional and international frictions pulling the US, Russia, the Sunni powers, Iran and Israel into the Syrian maelstrom.
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A successful joint exercise carried out Friday, Feb. 10, demonstrated the interoperability of the US Aegis and Israel's Arrow 2 Block 4 ballistic missile defense systems and, most importantly, of their radar systems: the two US AN/TPY-2 X-band stations in Israel's Negev and Turkey's Kurecik air base, and Israel's new EL/M-2080 Super Green Pine. debkafile's military sources report the test proved to be a key milestone in the development of the US missile shield's Middle East capabilities ahead of a potential war with Iran.

Turkish Prime Minister Tayyin Erdogan has an ambitious new plan for a combined coalition effort to end the violence in Syria. But it all depends on President Obama's willingness to back it up with an air and naval umbrella against Syrian missile and air might backed by the Russian ...

Russia has a comprehensive long-term plan to overtake - or at least match - America as a world superpower and it therefore extends a helping hand to any Middle East and Arab power, principally Syria and Iran, willing to defy Washington. Moscow is also betting on Bashar Assad winning the Syrian ...