Iran Deal Will Trigger Major War in Middle East - http://www.jewishpress.com/indepth/analysis/iran-deal-will-trigger-major-war-in-middle-east/2015/08/25/
If someone had asked you a year ago what would be the most efficient way to cause a major war in the Middle East, you might well have said: Giving the mullahs in Iran the opportunity to get advanced conventional weapons, ICBMs, nuclear weapons and tens of billions of dollars to fund terrorist organizations and destabilize other countries in the region. You might have argued that a regime that does not hesitate to attack targets in Washington or Berlin might not be the most prudent one to shower with gigantic quantities of money and the deadliest weapons.
If one knows anything about the regime in Iran, it is difficult to understand how U.S. President Barack Obama's agreement with Iran could create anything other than chaos and war in the Middle East.
The content of the Iran nuclear agreement creates the perfect conditions for a major war in the Middle East - one that could spread and start a major regional conflict.
Despite what President Obama likes to say, it is not true that the agreement "permanently prohibits Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon" or "cuts off all of Iran's pathways to a bomb". The agreement means that the U.S. has accepted that after 15 years, or sooner, Iran may build as many bombs as it likes.
The Islamic Republic of Iran, since its founding in 1979, has had an ideology that seeks to "export the Islamic revolution." The phrase is not just a catchword for the mullahs. They have done it in practice, if necessary by force. After coming to power in 1979, the leader of the revolution, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, called on the Shi'ite Muslims in Iraq to revolt and establish an Islamic republic. The mullahs' effort to export the Islamic revolution to Iraq was one of the causes of the Iran-Iraq War, which lasted eight years and resulted in possibly a million deaths. Despite intense resistance from Arab countries, Khomeini's Islamic revolution has been successfully exported to Lebanon, Gaza, Yemen, Syria and Iraq.
Iran is not a country busy trying to preserve its own sovereignty. Iran, instead, undermines other countries' sovereignty. In the case of Israel's, the regime in Iran is threatening the nation's entire existence. Even more astonishing is that the president of the United States gets peevish - and threatens American Jews - when Israel's prime minister reminds the public of that.
The regime in Iran has carried out terror attacks against Americans in Lebanon[1] and in European cities. A German court has stated that Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, organized terrorist attacks in Germany. Several times, Iranian agents have been arrested in Europe when they were attempting to organize terror attacks.
Iran was behind the World Trade center attacks.
As late as 2011, Iran planned to assassinate the Saudi ambassador and attack the Israeli and Saudi embassies in Washington.
Iranian forces, both directly and through Hezbollah proxies, have been responsible for over 1,000 American military fatalities over the last decade and a half. Iran has continuously backed the Lebanese terror group Hezbollah, providing it with money, training, and weapons.
Iran's regime is, contrary to rumors, extremely pragmatic: it sees that no matter what it does, its survival is not threatened even slightly. Iran's regime sees - as does everyone else - that even the worst transgressions are, on the contrary, rewarded.
The regime is simply following Khomeini's original ideology to "export the revolution" and to fight against Western influence, which he called "Westoxification."
Iran's regime has always done what it says it will do. Experience shows that when the mullahs in Iran say "Death to America," they mean it with actual and real consequences. When the mullahs first shouted "Death to America," a slogan that started in 1978-1979 in response to American support for the Shah, they followed that up by having the Iranian-backed Hezbollah kill 241 American soldiers in Beirut on October 23, 1983. Iran then continued to ensure that Americans died in Iraq and Afghanistan during the Iraq- and Afghanistan wars.
In the same vein, when the Iranian regime shouts "Death to Israel," it sends weapons and resources to Hamas and Hezbollah, while organizing a conference for the world's anti-Semites who deny that the Holocaust happened.
This is the Iranian regime with which the current U.S. administration would like seal a deal, under which Iran will, after 10-15 years - or sooner - be legitimately able to enrich sufficient quantities of uranium to produce many nuclear weapons.
For each of the 36 years the Iranian regime has been in power, despite strong resistance from Arab countries, Turkey, Israel and the United States, its influence and ambitions have increased. There is no reason to think that with an infusion of $150 billion, the regime in Tehran will not be even more aggressive and proceed to build its nuclear bomb.
The regime in Iran has demonstrated no plans to become less militant, create a democracy, or even to release the American hostages it continues to hold on trumped-up charges in unspeakable Iranian prisons.
Part of the regime's triumph even seems to consist in humiliating the United States as exhaustively as it can.
The P5+1 (China, France, Russia, the UK, and the US; plus Germany) have agreed that Iran can buy conventional weapons after five years, and ICBMs after eight years. But why would any civilized nation allow a country that arms terrorist groups such as Hezbollah and Hamas to buy advanced conventional weapons? They will simply be passed on to Hamas and Hezbollah. Iran does not even deny that it supports Hamas and Hezbollah.
Iran already has missiles that can reach Israel and parts of Europe. Iran already has supplied missiles, such as the Fajr 5, to Hezbollah. Why would anyone allow a country that gives missiles to terrorists to get hold of ICBMs that can be fired from one continent to another?
It is also Iran's official government policy that Israel should be destroyed. Why does the U.S. wish to allow a regime that wants to destroy America's closest ally in the Middle East to get more advanced conventional - and later, nuclear - weapons?
If you listen to the mullahs in Tehran, Americans and Israelis are the targets. Therefore, these conventional weapons will be directed against the Americans and Israelis, wherever they are.
That the mullahs, thanks to this deal, will get $150 billion is not rational. When a country or organization supports terrorism, you freeze its assets. Iran continues openly to support terrorism; this deal gives Iran access to $150 billion dollars to support more terrorism.
Under the agreement, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) can inspect only Iran's declared nuclear facilities - and that only with a 24-day delay, in addition to having to disclose to the Iranians what evidence has caused the site to be inspected.
The IAEA, however, even at its best, has never found anything. Iran's secret nuclear program was discovered by an Iranian opposition group, the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), in 2002. There is nothing that says Iran will not have more secret nuclear programs unavailable to the IAEA.
The entire agreement is based on these mullahs showing goodwill towards the West, which they no doubt see as a threat that could lure their people away from the righteous course of Islamism. President Obama's approach seems to be based on the hope that one of the most fanatical regimes in the world will suddenly become honest and peaceful - that the same regime that shouts "Death to America" will actually present all its military installations and secrets to its archenemy, the United States, through the good offices of the IAEA.
Let us not ask President Obama to care about all those wrongly imprisoned, tortured and hanged in Iran every year. Let us not ask President Obama to care about Iranians who would like the same democracy and the freedom they begged him for in 2009. President Obama needs only to maintain peace and stability in the Middle East. But allowing these mullahs to get advanced conventional weapons in five years, ICBMs in eight years, and nuclear weapons in 15 years - or sooner - is to create the conditions for a larger regional conflict that, in this era of globalization, will surely spread to the West.
If this agreement were about peace, why do the Iranians need more weapons? If Iran wants peace, why don't they scrap their missile program and stop supporting terrorist organizations that want to destroy Israel? If Iran wants peace, why does it want weapons that can reach other continents? Which country is threatening Iran's sovereignty today that makes Iran want more advanced weapons?
If anyone has ICBMs and says "Death to America", what do you think he will do with those ICBMs?
There are those who compare the Iran deal to the Munich Agreement of 1938. The Iran deal is much worse. Hitler duped Chamberlain and presented himself as a man of peace. No one has duped President Obama. The mullahs openly say "Death to America" and "Death to Israel," and have backed up their words with actions.
It was the Iranians who helpfully exposed inconsistencies in the nuclear deal, which the U.S. government had presumably hoped to hide from Americans, such as two side-deals Iran has with the IAEA.[2]
Why would an American president do this? Does he not know at whom the Iranians will point their ICBMs?
This deal, combined with the expansionist policies of the Islamic Republic of Iran, can only lead directly to the biggest war of the 21st-century - Obama's War, even if he is not in office any more. The mullahs will not start loving Israel. The Saudis, Turks, Egyptians and Emiratis are not just going to sit and watch Iran get nuclear weapons. No Arab country wants to be the next Syria, Lebanon, Yemen or Iraq, and Israelis have no desire to be, as threatened, wiped off the map.
The alternative is to walk away from the deal. Instead of a major war becoming the only scenario, the worst-case scenario would become a limited bombing campaign now to prevent the Iranian regime from obtaining nuclear weapons.
Even if the results lasted, as critics charge, "only" two or three years, at least Iran - and global onlookers - would understand that there are real consequences for rogue behavior; and that there could always be further rounds later, if needed.
At the very least, massive damage to select nuclear facilities would not be seen as a reward. In the worst-case scenario, walking away from the deal still leaves the world in a position of deterrence that offers it better choices before Iran becomes nuclear, not after.
Even no deal with Iran leads to a more peaceful and stable Middle East than President Obama's bad deal.
[1] In 1983, a U.S. Marines barracks was attacked by terrorists from Hezbollah, who were backed, supported, and directed by Iran.
[2] A Persian-language statement that described the original agreement with Obama had a number of inconsistencies with the English version, some of which go completely against the agreement itself.
Defiant Iran Says No One Will Stop It from Developing Ballistic Missiles - By Patrick Goodenough - http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/patrick-goodenough/defiant-iran-says-no-one-will-stop-it-developing-ballistic-missiles
Iran reaffirmed at the weekend that it will scorn any international attempts to restrain its missile program, unveiling a new missile and announcing it will soon hold large-scale ballistic missile war-games.
President Hasan Rouhani said Iran would seek no one's permission to buy or develop the weapons it needs.. Appearing on state television,he said that only when Iran is "powerful and capable" can it negotiate constructively with other countries.
War and aggression are imposed on weak countries and they can never sustain their security, he said.
Rouhani unveiled the Fateh 313, an Iranian-designed solid fuel surface-to-surface missile boasting a range of 500 kilometers (310 miles). The presidency said the missile has been successfully tested, and will now be mass-produced by the defense ministry.
Also speaking on state TV, Defense Minister Brig. Gen. Hossein Dehghan shrugged off any international pressure aimed at reining in the missile program.
"We will design and produce any missiles that we want proportionate to threats and we will conduct drills and tests in due time," he said. "No element can weaken our resolve in the defensive field."
Tehran's focus on missiles comes as the Obama administration lobbies to win congressional support for the nuclear deal which the U.S. and five other powers reached with Iran last month - an agreement that set an eight-year expiration date on U.N. sanctions relating to Iran's ballistic missile program.
Even ahead of that point in eight years' time, Iran maintains that there are no constraints on its missile development program, pointing out that the U.N. Security Council resolution that endorsed the nuclear agreement refers only to missiles capable of carrying a nuclear warhead.
(The resolutions states: "Iran is called upon not to undertake any activity related to ballistic missiles designed to be capable of delivering nuclear weapons, including launches using such ballistic missile technology" - for eight years.)
"In the new resolution they have asked Iran not to design nuclear-capable ballistic missiles, something that we are not looking for at all," Dehghan said.
"We design ballistic, cruise, and defensive missiles in accordance with our needs and the range of our missiles will be proportional to the threat element."
Despite Iran's assertion that its ballistic missiles are not designed to carry non-conventional payloads - and so are not covered by the Security Council resolution - Director of National Intelligence James Clapper has reported to Congress that the intelligence community assesses Iran's ballistic missiles to be "inherently capable of delivering WMD."
"We judge that Tehran would choose ballistic missiles as its preferred method of delivering nuclear weapons, if it builds them," Clapper said in the latest worldwide threat assessment, released earlier this year.
"Iran's ballistic missiles are inherently capable of delivering WMD, and Tehran already has the largest inventory of ballistic missiles in the Middle East.
Iran's progress on space launch vehicles - along with its desire to deter the United States and its allies - provides Tehran with the means and motivation to develop longer-range missiles, including intercontinental ballistic missiles."
The commander of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) aerospace force, Brig. Gen. Amir Ali Hajizadeh, said on Friday the force is following supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's orders to continue developing defense capabilities and military might, and is planning ballistic missiles war-games soon, "to be a thorn in the eyes of our enemies."
Iran's medium-range ballistic missile capabilities include the Soumar ground-launched cruise missile (reported range about 1,500 miles); Qadr/Khadr (reported range of 1,120 miles); surface-to-surface Sejjil missile (reported range of about 1,242 miles; and the Shahab-3 (reported range about 1,242 miles), which experts say is a variant of the North Korean Nodong missile.
Meanwhile Dehghan, the defense minister, also announced that the delayed delivery of Russian S300 surface-to-air missiles would take place before the end of the year. Russian President Vladimir Putin last April lifted a five year-old ban on the sale.
The Russian system is designed to protect military bases and infrastructure against attack by enemy aircraft, and Iran has long wanted to deploy it to shield its nuclear infrastructure from the possibility of Israeli or U.S. strikes.
Focus on a nuclear Iran obscures other developing nuclear threats - Yonah Jeremy Bob - http://www.jpost.com/Middle-East/Iran/Analysis-Focus-on-a-nuclear-Iran-obscures-other-developing-nuclear-threats-413266
The US and the West have done little to update their defense doctrines for dealing with the burgeoning and evolving nuclear threats posed in other corners of the world.
The world is distracted.
The Iranian threat, as serious as it is, continues to overshadow the nuclear threats posed by the North Korea- South Korea fault line and the Pakistan-India fault line - both active this week - not to mention what experts say are new and increasingly likely scenarios of limited nuclear weapons use by Russia or China.
North and South Korea regularly have conventional military flareups, with Pyongyang frequently ready to rattle the nuclear saber as an ultimate threat.
The most recent spat over North Korean land mine blasts causing South Korean soldiers' injuries, followed by South Korean broadcasting propaganda into the North, appears to have been resolved.
North Korea has back-handedly apologized for the injuries from the land mines and the South is due to cease the broadcasts.
But many say that the opacity of the North's still relatively new leader Kim Jong- Un wielding multiple nuclear weapons still warrants more global attention than is being given.
Pakistan and India's most recent spat is still unresolved, with Monday's scheduled talks on ongoing terrorism emanating from Kashmir against India and recent heavy gunfire between the countries canceled by India at the last moment due to its anger with Pakistan for meeting with Kashmiri rebels.
In response to India's canceling the talks, Pakistan on Tuesday rattled its nuclear saber, reminding India that "it is a nuclear power" and cannot be intimidated.
Pakistan is a country with top intelligence officials who conspire with terrorists against the West. A top Pakistani nuclear scientist was likely the largest nuclear proliferator in recent memory and it already possesses 100- 120 nuclear warheads.
Yet the world has given little attention to addressing the Pakistani nuclear threat generally or even when there are blow-ups, like the recent dispute with India.
Then there are the newly unpredictable and assertive Russia and China fronts.
Russia, with up to 7,700 nuclear weapons, was thought to be stable until its Ukraine campaign. But both its conventional use of force and nuclear doctrines appear more aggressive in this new era.
Analysts are now speculating about the possibility of Russia using tactical nuclear weapons as part of a "de-escalation doctrine" if it tries to grab another former territory back, like Estonia or Latvia citing the need to protect ethnic Russians.
If the US and NATO started to rally for a counteroffensive to finally draw a line in the sand on Russian expansion, what if Russia threatened a limited nuclear response against Western military forces that crossed into the Baltic region to halt the Russian offensive? In 1995, Chinese Gen.
Xiong Guangkai famously mocked the entire NATO collective security commitments among allies, stating that the US would never risk Los Angeles to save Taipei in Taiwan from the Chinese.
Would the West really risk calling Russia's bluff simply to stay loyal to commitments to countries that left Russia's grasp 25 years ago and are not central to the EU, like Germany or France? This brings the conversation to China, holding an estimated 250 nuclear weapons, and maybe the most unpredictable of all with its rapidly expanding power.
In 1996, China fired missiles into the Taiwan Straits in response to pro-independence voices emanating from Taiwan and possibly as a planned prelude to greater action.
At the time, China ended its moves when the carrier USS Nimitz and additional ships sailed into the Straits.
Still, what if China threatened a limited nuclear strike against any US naval vessels "interfering" with an "internal" Chinese matter between China and Taiwan - since China still views Taiwan as a renegade province? Last week, China reportedly had another successful test launch of the DF-41 mobile fired nuclear missile, indicating it is near deployment.
Until now the US could count on knocking out China in a first nuclear strike, but the new mobile missile plus new submarines may upend any first strike knock-out strategy for the US.
In recent years, China has enforced a new Air Defense Identification Zone, made louder claims on parts of the South and East China Sea, including building manmade islands, one equipped with a runway for military aircraft to land.
China has also been increasing rocket and naval capabilities, such as a July report of building the largest aircraft carrier in the world, which could be used for an invasion of Taiwan - a scenario which is always part of its war games.
What if China follows Russia's lead in Ukraine and makes a sudden grab for Taiwan, challenging the West to do more to protect Taiwan than its impotent efforts to assist Ukraine? Few really fear, at least in the upcoming decades, either Russia or China promoting world conquest the way that the Soviet Union did. That means that the full-scale nuclear exchange which preoccupied Cold War theorists is still pretty much off the table.
But precisely for that reason, some say possibly too little thought has been given to countering Russian and Chinese more aggressive military moves for more limited expansion, their nuclear advancements and their potential more limited use of their nuclear capabilities.
Whether for or against the nuclear deal, no one questions the dangers of a nuclear Iran. But possibly hoping that nuclear stability will drag on as it has in recent decades, some say that the US and the West have done little to update their defense doctrines for dealing with the burgeoning and evolving nuclear threats posed in other corners of the world.
Israel's military response to Iran's rocket salvo was too short on deterrence - http://www.debka.com/article/24832/Israel's-military-response-to-Iran's-rocket-salvo-was-too-short-on-deterrence-
The four rockets fired from Syria into Israel's Galilee and Golan Thursday, Aug. 20 were Iran's way of testing how far Israel's government and military leaders were willing to go militarily in support of their political campaign against a "bad nuclear deal" in the US congress and Iran's bad intentions in general. Tehran needed to test the credibility of the warning issued by Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu during his visit to the IDF Northern Command on Aug. 18.
Seen in that light, Israel's artillery, missile and aerial strikes Thursday night and Friday against Syrian military targets in the Quneitra district and contradictory rhetoric were the right reaction. They were confused enough to leave the Iranians totally at sea, wondering if that was the sum total of Israel's response to the first unprovoked rocket attack from the Syrian Golan in 42 years.
But the Iranians chose to voice their thoughts in another arena. Saturday, they unveiled their new Fateh 313 short-range, surface missile, which is highly accurate at a range of 500 km. They also displayed new satellite launch engines. Tehran clearly judged the Israeli response to the rocket attack to be deficient in strategic value and it stood ready for the next round.
This episode exposed the real muddle governing government Israel's policies for Iran and Syria. Official spokesmen first accused Iran of staging the rocket attack, then the Palestinian Islamic Jihad - funded and armed by Iran's Al Qods Brigades. Israel next leveled its counter-strikes against Syrian military positions around Quneitra. Why? Because the rockets were fired from territory controlled by Bashar Assad's army, the spokesmen explained.
But Assad's army has lost control of large stretches of Syria, and Israel claims that the Iranians alone call the shots in Damascus these days. Striking Syrian army positions on the Golan was therefore a pointless exercise.
And if the real culprits were the Islamic Jihad - hence the Israeli air strike Friday which claimed to have killed the four-man rocket cell - then why not go for this terrorist group's primary bases in the Gaza Strip and Lebanon?
The Iron Dome batteries deployed last week to protect Ashdod and Beersheba from Gaza rockets must have sent a strong message to Tehran that Israel prefers to avoid offensive action and would rather stay on the defensive against its enemies.
This Israeli posture has produced four repercussions:
1. Iran can continue to engineer rocket attacks from Syria against northern Israel and is in fact free to calibrate their intensity to suit its wider strategy. The first attack last Thursday deliberately targeted open ground and avoided causing casualties or major damage. But Iran's finger remains poised over the tuning button.
2. The Iranians and their Hezbollah pawns are not losing a moment's sleep over the damage Israel's counter-attacks inflicted on Assad's army.
3. Tehran has grounds to presume from the experience of the past seven years that Israel is highly reluctant to employ military action in support of its campaign against a nuclear-armed Iran. This conclusion is a crucial element in Iran's decisions to continue to pursue diplomatic steps against the US, military steps against Saudi Arabia and the rest of the Gulf emirates, and, above all, carry on with its nuclear aspirations undisturbed.
4. Domestic politics are a major contributor to the Israeli government's muddled policies. The rocket episode was still not resolved when a bombshell from past government controversies exploded Friday night.
TV Channel 2 aired tapes of Ehud Barak, former prime minister and defense minister, who was recorded as reporting that Israel had stepped back from attacking Iran's nuclear program three times in the past.
Barak was heard accusing the incumbent Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon, and another minister Yuval Steinitz of voting against an attack in an inner cabinet forum, while Netanyahu and Barak himself were all for going ahead.
The tapes were released by two writers of a new book.
Our political sources suggest that the leak came from a domestic political source bidding to discredit Ya'alon as too timid for the job. The culprit may even be Barak himself, who retired from politics last year and may be keen to get his old job back as defense minister in the Netanyahu government coalition.
Khamenei urges Islamic unity against real enemies: US and Israel - By Itamar Sharon -
http://www.timesofisrael.com/khamenei-urges-islamic-unity-against-real-enemies-us-and-israel/
Leader suggests Iranians use Mecca pilgrimage to spread truth about 'bullying powers' to Muslims worldwide
Iran's supreme leader claimed Saturday that Islamic nations were being manipulated into internal strife by the world's "bullies" and urged Islamic unity in the face of what he identified as the Umma's two greatest enemies: the US and Israel.
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said the US had long sought to incite "third-party" states against Iran but "such third parties are only deceived puppets," the Islamic republic's Fars news agency reported.
"The root cause of the problems returns to their real enemies, the US and Israel," he said.
The bullying powers, as he called them, are conspiring "against the Quran and not Shiism and Iran, because they know that the Quran and Islam are the center of awakening nations."
Iranians, he said, "have realized that their real stubborn enemy is the world arrogance and Zionism and that's why they chant slogans against the US and Zionism."
Khamenei was speaking to Iranian officials in charge of the Hajj - the annual pilgrimage to Mecca that Muslims from all over the world undertake.
He explained to them that the pilgrimage to Mecca was a prime opportunity for Iranians to convey their aforementioned insights to other Muslims and thus encourage Islamic unity against its true enemies.
"The world bullies are fully, seriously seeking to stir violence and discord under the name of Islam and are trying to disrepute the religion of Islam, foment internal fights among Islamic nations and even among the people of one nation to weaken the Muslim Ummah, and transferring the Iranian nation's experience about unity and recognition of the enemy to other nations in the Hajj season can defuse these plots," he said.
Since the signing of the nuclear deal between Iran and world powers in July, Khamenei has repeatedly spoken out against Tehran's main negotiating partners in Washington.
Earlier this week he strongly impugned the motives of the US in the talks, saying "their intention was to find a way to penetrate into the country.
Khamenei, who has final say on all state matters in Iran, has not publicly approved or disapproved the deal, though he repeatedly offered words of support for Iran's nuclear negotiators during the course of the talks.
Last Saturday a prominent Iranian hard-liner, journalist Hossein Shariatmadari, said he believed Khamenei was in fact opposed to the accord. However, an editorial appearing Sunday in the Tasnim news agency, thought closely tied to the Iranian regime, derided Shariatmadari for claiming to speak for Khamenei.
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