Iranians at the gates - By Avi Issacharoff -
With Russia happy to see Assad bolstered and the US uninterested, Tehran is free to pump cash, troops and missiles into areas bordering Israel, which Jerusalem will not abide
Unless something changes, Israel is sprinting headlong into another violent confrontation along its northern border, this time against either Iranian troops or Iranian backed fighters with missiles made to order from Tehran.
Unless something changes, Israel is sprinting headlong into another violent confrontation along its northern border, this time against either Iranian troops or Iranian backed fighters with missiles made to order from Tehran.
At the same time, massive numbers of Hezbollah troops loyal to Iran have entrenched themselves in southern Lebanon, whether in visible lookout points or "environmental protection" posts, according to Israeli military officials.
Israel won't abide by this. The presence of Shi'ite forces on the border, be they Hezbollah or other Iran-backed militias, together with Iran's efforts to bring in game-changing weapons, signal that the era of calm that Israel has enjoyed since the summer of 2006 is coming to an end.
On Saturday, Iran's new defense minister said the country was prioritizing boosting the country's missile program and export weapons to shore up neighboring allies.
"Wherever a country becomes weak, others become encouraged to raid it... Wherever necessary, we will export weapons to increase the security of the region and countries, to prevent wars," General Amir Hatami said, without naming the countries.
Jerusalem has warned against Iranian efforts to set up missile production facilities in Lebanon, with Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman telling United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres in a meeting in Israel last week that Iran is "working to set up factories to manufacture accurate weapons within Lebanon itself."
Liberman did not explicitly threaten to attack the Iranian missile factories in Lebanon, but he said that "the Lebanese government and the citizens of southern Lebanon should know" that Israel will be forceful in future conflicts.
The presence of at least two Iranian missile manufacturing facilities was revealed by Israel earlier this summer. On Monday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told Guterres that Iran was also involved in the construction of another missile base in Syria.
Yet no need to enter the bomb shelter yet. Despite media reports, by all accounts, Iran has not yet begun production at its missile plants - which will purportedly produce rockets that have a greater accuracy than Hezbollah's current arsenal. However, it won't be long. Contracts between Syria and Lebanon on one side and Iran on the other to establish the factories are nearly complete, as is a deal for Iran to build a seaport in Syria, giving it access to the Mediterranean.
The Russian model
Israeli officials say that Iran is trying to adopt the model Russia used in getting permission to put a seaport in Tartus, which was reached with the approval of both houses of parliament and is acceptable in any international court.
These contracts can be cancelled only with the agreement of both parties, not just one. The Iranians want to make sure that they, too, will have their Syrian seaport, which is why they are taking such meticulous care regarding the legalities.
Iran's investment is more than just a seaport and a rocket-production plant. Tehran has also been pumping money and resources into various economic projects such as a cellular network and quarries.
Assad, knowing that this is the only way to ensure the survival of his Alawite dynasty, has given the set-up his blessing.
For now, the Iranian presence in Syria is actually limited officially to Revolutionary Guard advisers. But it cuts a wider swath once taking into account all the thousands of Shiites in Tehran's pay who are deployed throughout Syria.
Hezbollah, the militia most loyal to Iran, has already placed one-third of its available combat troops in Syria on a permanent basis, and despite the severe losses that it has suffered there, it seems to have no plans to leave the country anytime soon.
In Lebanon, where the money is in the hands of large and well-known Sunni and Christian businessmen and families, the Iranians are less interested in investing in infrastructure and wish only to build a plant to produce precise rockets.
America the silent
Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri, whose government includes Hezbollah despite the fact that he blamed Syria for the assassination of his father, Rafik Hariri on February 14, 2005, is too weak to confront Hezbollah and its supporters.
Tehran is investing enormous resources in order to transform Syria into an Iranian province, while the United States and Russia have decided to disregard this region-altering drama.
The Russians are really the only ones who can make a difference. But they have no intention of doing so. The opposite is true: For them, the presence of thousands of Shi'ites will shore up Assad's regime.
Last month's meeting between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Russian President Vladimir Putin in Sochi is not expected to change that calculus. Russia wants to see Assad bolstered, even if it means allowing Tehran to do the bolstering.
Washington, together with Netanyahu's close ally, President Donald Trump, could have put pressure on Russia. But Trump, who is busy with his own affairs, has chosen to ignore what is happening in Syria - a dangerous thing to do.
On Thursday, the Asharq al-Awsat daily reported that the US conceded to Russia on several issues during talks in Amman over a cease-fire in southern Syria and the Golan Heights.
First, the Americans agreed that Russian inspectors would keep track of the implementation of the cease-fire, in essence letting the cat guard the cream and be the "judges" in conflicts between the pro-Assad/Iran forces and their opponents.
Second, the Americans agreed that Shiite (pro-Iranian) militias would have to stay 10 miles from the border with the Israeli Golan and Jordan, and not the 20 miles buffer Washington and Amman had initially sought.
According to the report, the buffer zone in some places will be only five miles.
If the report is true, once can't help but feel that the Trump administration has turned its back on Israel's security.
But it's not only Trump who should be blamed. Iran's massive investments are likely an outgrowth of increased financial stability thanks to the Iran nuclear deal, reached under Trump's predecessor Barack Obama.
The Iranian army's budget is now $23 billion and the Revolutionary Guards have seen an approximately 40 percent bump in their budget compared to last year.
Without sanctions relief, could Tehran have even dreamed of building a new Persian Empire, stretching from Yemen to Lebanon, via Iraq and Syria?
The North Korean Threat: Rationality, Intentionality, and Nuclear War - By Prof. Louis Ren� Beres -
To deal with the growing nuclear threat from North Korea, US policy will need to be drawn from theoretical decision models. Four such models should be constructed along the axes of rationality and intentionality. With these models in hand, President Trump and his senior strategists would be better prepared to assess and counter the threats posed by Kim Jong-un to the US and its allies. In the latter regard, the North Korean leader maintains ties to some of Israel's core enemies in the Middle East, including Syria, Hezbollah, and Iran.
To best prepare for any impending nuclear crisis with North Korea, the US must approach the problem in a systematic and intellectually disciplined manner. This means factoring into any assessment (a) the expected rationality or irrationality of principal decision-makers in Pyongyang and Washington; and (b) the intentional or unintentional intra-war behaviors of those same decision-makers.
If a distinction is made regarding the rationality and intentionality variables, four logically possible and analytically useful scenarios will result. These scenarios should be considered by Trump's senior military planners and strategists. All four can subsequently be nuanced by the introduction of additional factors.
The four scenarios are as follows:
(1) Rational/Intentional
Both Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un are fully rational (i.e., each values national survival more highly than any other preference or combination of preferences). Any nuclear exchange between them would be the result of deliberate decisions by one or both of them.
(2) Rational/Unintentional
Both Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un are fully rational, and any nuclear exchange between them would be the result of unintended decisions made by one or both of them.
(3) Irrational/Intentional
Either Donald Trump or Kim Jong-un is irrational, or both are. Any nuclear exchange between them would be the result of deliberate decisions by one or both of them.
(4) Irrational/Unintentional
Either Donald Trump or Kim Jong-un is irrational, or both are. Any nuclear exchange between them would be the result of unintended decisions made by one or both of them.
Such comprehensive policy models can help guide President Trump and his counselors beyond otherwise vague or "seat-of-the-pants" appraisals of North Korean nuclear conflict possibilities.
The complex security issues facing the US should never be dealt with as mere matters of bombast (e.g., non-specific threats of "fire and fury") or "common sense." At the same time, although the proposed pattern of more systematic inquiry suggests a promising American approach to any North Korean nuclear crisis, nothing strictly scientific can ever be said about the probabilities of war.
The reason is simple. Science-based probabilities must always be drawn from the frequency of past events. Here, clearly, there are no pertinent past events. Any nuclear crisis between these asymmetrical enemy states would be unprecedented. It follows that President Trump and his advisors ought never to become too confident about either their own expectations of the likely outcome of any North Korean crisis or their own expertise. No one at the Pentagon or the White House is an expert on nuclear war.
Furthermore, the evident nuclear superiority of the US over North Korea suggests little of consequence about America's overall capacity to protect its national security in the event of a clash. North Korea, inferior though its capacities may be, can nevertheless lay waste to vulnerable US allies in northeast Asia, to US military forces in the region, and perhaps even to American cities.
US strategic analysts must identify a core distinction between intentional or deliberate nuclear war and unintentional or inadvertent nuclear war. The derivative risks ensuing from these two very different types of conflict are apt to vary considerably. Analysts who remain too focused on a deliberate nuclear war scenario could vastly underestimate the cumulative nuclear threat North Korea can pose to the US and its allies.
Much of the nuclear threat could result from miscalculation or inadvertence, whether by Pyongyang, by Washington, or by both.
American strategists who remain too focused on comparative nuclear weaponry, alternatively, could overlook other hazards. For example, one often hears the allegedly "common sense" argument that Kim Jong-un would never consider striking first because he appreciates that any such aggression would elicit an immediate and overwhelming US nuclear reprisal. This argument only makes sense if it is first assumed that Kim is rational.
Pyongyang's growing nuclear threat will depend significantly on the rationality or irrationality of both the North Korean leader and President Trump. Whether we like it or not, this issue must be considered as two-sided in any American assessment of US nuclear posture. Furthermore, in any such inquiry, scientific assessments must take account not only of conspicuous and inconspicuous facts, but also of almost every imaginable synergy between Trump and Kim Jong-un.
There is one more conceptual distinction that should be included in the American analytic mix: inadvertent versus accidental nuclear war. By definition, any accidental nuclear war would have to be inadvertent. Conversely, however, inadvertent nuclear war need not necessarily be accidental. False warnings, for example, which could be generated by mechanical, electrical, or computer malfunction or sparked by adversarial or third-party hacking, would not fit on the list of causes of unintentional or inadvertent nuclear war. Instead, they would represent narratives of accidental nuclear war.
Most critical among causes of inadvertent nuclear war are errors in calculation by one or both sides. The most blatant example, perhaps, would be misjudgments of either enemy intent or enemy capacity that might emerge as the crisis escalates. Such misjudgments would likely stem from the understandable desire of each party to achieve "escalation dominance."
Still other causes of inadvertent nuclear war with North Korea could include flawed interpretations of computer-generated attack warnings; an unequal willingness to risk catastrophic war; an overconfidence in deterrence and/or defense capabilities on either or both sides; an adversarial regime change, including outright revolution or a coup d'�tat in Pyongyang; and poorly conceived pre-delegations of nuclear launch authority.
Pre-delegations of launch authority are made to ensure that any threats of nuclear reprisal can actually be executed. In part, such pre-delegations are designed to enhance a country's nuclear deterrence posture - but this works only to the extent that they are sufficiently apparent and recognizable.
Problems of overconfidence could be exacerbated by "successful" tests of a missile interception system by either side (notably THAAD, on the US side) that overstate operational efficiencies. They could also be encouraged by too-optimistic assessments of alliance guarantees. An example would be the intra-crisis judgment by Pyongyang that Beijing stands firmly behind its every move vis-�-vis the US. It is reciprocally conceivable that Washington's decisions could be affected by its own perceptions of the Chinese commitment to North Korea.
For a start, American analysts need to pinpoint and conceptualize all vital similarities and differences between deliberate nuclear war, inadvertent nuclear war, and accidental nuclear war. As explained above, there will need to be related judgments concerning expectations of rationality and irrationality within each affected country's core decision-making structure.
Correspondingly, a potential source of inadvertent nuclear war could be a backfiring strategy of "feigned irrationality." A rational Kim Jong-un who has managed to convince his American counterparts of his own irrationality could spark an otherwise avoidable US military preemption. Conversely, a North Korean leadership that begins to take seriously President Trump's self-aggrandizing unpredictability could be frightened into striking first.
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North Korea's ultimatum to America - By Caroline B. Glick -
Washington and Pyongyang exchange threats as the latter continues to evoke the wrath of world powers with its latest nuclear test.
The nuclear confrontation between the US and North Korea entered a critical phase Sunday with North Korea's conduct of an underground test of a thermonuclear bomb.
If the previous round of this confrontation earlier this summer revolved around Pyongyang's threat to attack the US territory of Guam, Sunday's test, together with North Korea's recent tests of intercontinental ballistic missiles capable of reaching the continental US, was a direct threat to US cities.
In other words, the current confrontation isn't about US superpower status in Asia, and the credibility of US deterrence or the capabilities of US military forces in the Pacific. The confrontation is now about the US's ability to protect the lives of its citizens.
The distinction tells us a number of important things. All of them are alarming.
First, because this is about the lives of Americans, rather than allied populations like Japan and South Korea, the US cannot be diffident in its response to North Korea's provocation. While attenuated during the Obama administration, the US's position has always been that US military forces alone are responsible for guaranteeing the collective security of the American people.
Pyongyang is now directly threatening that security with hydrogen bombs. So if the Trump administration punts North Korea's direct threat to attack US population centers with nuclear weapons to the UN Security Council, it will communicate profound weakness to its allies and adversaries alike.
Obviously, this limits the options that the Trump administration has. But it also clarifies the challenge it faces.
The second implication of North Korea's test of their plutonium-based bomb is that the US's security guarantees, which form the basis of its global power and its alliance system are on the verge of becoming completely discredited.
In an interview Sunday with Fox News's Trish Regan, former US ambassador to the UN John Bolton was asked about the possible repercussions of a US military assault against North Korea for the security of South Korea.
Regan asked, "What are we risking though if we say we're going to go in with strategic military strength?... Are we going to end up with so many people's lives gone in South Korea, in Seoul because we make that move?" Bolton responded with brutal honesty.
"Let me ask you this: how do you feel about dead Americans?" In other words, Bolton said that under prevailing conditions, the US faces the painful choice between imperiling its own citizens and imperiling the citizens of an allied nation. And things will only get worse. Bolton warned that if North Korea's nuclear threat is left unaddressed, US options will only become more problematic and limited in the years to come.
This then brings us to the third lesson of the current round of confrontation between the US and North Korea.
If you appease an enemy on behalf of an ally then you aren't an ally.
And eventually your alliance become empty of all meaning.
For 25 years, three successive US administrations opted to turn a blind eye to North Korea's nuclear program in large part out of concern for South Korea.
Presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama all sought to appease North Korea's aggressive nuclear adventurism because they didn't believe they had a credible military option to deal with it.
In the 1980s, North Korea developed and deployed a conventional arsenal of bombs and artillery along the demilitarized zone capable of vaporizing Seoul.
Any US military strike against North Korea's nuclear installation it was and continues to be argued, would cause the destruction of Seoul and the murder of millions of South Koreans.
So US efforts to appease Pyongyang on behalf of Seoul emptied the US-South Korean alliance of meaning. The US can only serve as the protector of its allies, and so assert its great power status in the Pacific and worldwide, if it prevents its allies from being held hostage by its enemies.
And now, not only does the US lack a clear means of defending South Korea, and Japan, America itself is threatened by the criminal regime it demurred from effectively confronting.
Regardless of the means US President Donald Trump decides to use to respond to North Korea's provocative actions and threats to America's national security, given the nature of the situation, it is clear that the balance of forces on the ground cannot and will not remain as they have been.
If the US strikes North Korea in a credible manner and successfully diminishes its capacity to physically threaten the US, America will have taken the first step towards rebuilding its alliances in Asia.
On the other hand, if the current round of hostilities does not end with a significant reduction of North Korea's offensive capabilities, either against the US or its allies, then the US will be hard pressed to maintain its posture as a Pacific power. So long as Pyongyang has the ability to directly threaten the US and its allies, US strategic credibility in East Asia will be shattered.
This then brings us to China.
China has been the main beneficiary of North Korea's conventional and nuclear aggression and brinksmanship.
This state of affairs was laid bare in a critical way last month.
In mid-August, Trump's then chief strategist Steve Bannon was preparing a speech Trump was set to deliver that would have effectively declared a trade war against China in retaliation for its predatory trade practices against US companies and technology. The speech was placed in the deep freeze - and Bannon was forced to resign his position - when North Korea threatened to attack the US territory of Guam with nuclear weapons. The US, Trump's other senior advisers argued, couldn't declare a trade war against China when it needed China's help to restrain North Korea.
So by enabling North Korea's aggression against the US and its allies, China has created a situation where the US has become neutralized as a strategic competitor.
Rather than advance its bilateral interests - like curbing China's naval aggression in the South China Sea - in its contacts with China, the US is forced into the position of supplicant, begging China to restrain North Korea in order to avert war.
If the US does not act to significantly downgrade North Korea's offensive capabilities now, when its own territory is being threatened, it is difficult to see how the US will be able to develop an effective strategy for coping with China's rise as an economic and strategic rival in Asia and beyond. That is, the US's actions now in response to North Korea's threat to its national security will determine whether or not the US will be in a position to develop and implement a wider strategy for maintaining its capacity to project its economic and military power in the Pacific in the near and long term.
Finally, part of the considerations that need to inform US action now involve what North Korea's success in developing a nuclear arsenal under the noses of successive US administrations means for the future of nuclear proliferation.
In all likelihood, unless the North Korean nuclear arsenal is obliterated, Pyongyang's nuclear triumphalism will precipitate a spasm of nuclear proliferation in Asia and in the Middle East. The implications of this for the US and its allies will be far reaching.
Not only can Japan and South Korea be reasonably expected to develop nuclear arsenals. Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan and other inherently unstable Arab states can be expected to develop or purchase nuclear arsenals in response to concerns over North Korea and its ally Iran with its nuclear weapons program linked to Pyongyang's.
In other words, if the US does not respond in a strategically profound way to Pyongyang now, it will not only lose its alliance system in Asia, it will see the rapid collapse of its alliance system and superpower status in the Middle East.
Israel, for one, will be imperiled by the sudden diffusion of nuclear power.
Monday morning, North Korea followed up its thermonuclear bomb test with a spate of threats to destroy the United States. These threats are deadly even if North Korea doesn't attack the US with its nuclear weapons. If the US does not directly defeat North Korea in a clear-cut way now, its position as a superpower in Asia and worldwide will be destroyed and its ability to defend its own citizens will be called into question with increasing frequency and lethality.
Iran, Turkey, and Russia Aren't Natural Friends. It's Up to the U.S. to Keep It That Way - Dov Zakheim -
One of the more curious and troubling developments in the course of the Syrian civil war has been Turkey's rapprochement with Russia and cooperation with Iran.
For centuries, Turkey and Russia were enemies, regardless of who ruled each country. To begin with, Russia considered itself (and still considers itself) the custodian of the true Eastern Orthodox Church after the fall of Byzantium to the Turks. The Ottomans regularly fought the czars, especially over Russian attempts to gain access to the Mediterranean Sea. Turkey remained neutral in World War II, which benefitted Nazi Germany as much if not more than Soviet Russia. And Turkey joined NATO, giving the alliance its longest border with the Soviet Union. There was never much love between the two countries.
Turkish relations with Iran were nearly as antagonistic for some 150 years, but subsequently transformed into mutual caution and suspicion. After all, Shia Persia never came under the control of the Sunni Ottomans. That the three countries have begun to work closely together to contain the Syrian civil war is more a function of their perceived perception of American weakness than of any upsurge in mutual love.
While the Trump administration has been more active in Syria than its predecessor, supplying weapons and support to the Syrian Kurdish People's Protection Units, or YPG, and responding to Syrian use of chemical weapons with the April 2017 cruise missile attack on Syria's Shayrat airbase, the memory of the Obama "red line" still lingers. It is not at all clear how much further Washington is willing to get enmeshed in Syria in the short-term, much less in the medium and long-term.
Russia, on the other hand, has new, long-term leases for its bases in Syria. Iran has a much deeper vested interest in Syria and the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad than Washington does in the ever-weaker Syrian opposition. And Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan fears Russia far less than his Ottoman and republican predecessors did, while his relations with NATO and the EU continue to deteriorate, commensurate with the increase in Turkey's human rights violations. Erdogan has actually threatened to review Turkey's alliance with NATO, something that would have been unheard of during the Cold War.
Russian relations with Turkey have grown increasingly warmer since a Turkish F-16 shot down a Russian Su-24M all-weather attack aircraft over the Turkish border on Nov. 24, 2016. Turkey's relations with Iran remain proper, if cautious. And the Astana agreement that the three countries reached in May 2017, without active American involvement, has already resulted in three de-escalation zones in Syria.
It is certainly possible that this three-way partnership will be short-lived. The national interests of the three are not congruent. Much will depend on the United States, however. Should Washington remain active in Syria, or increase its efforts there, Turkey will be far less likely to abandon the West for other partners. If, however, the United States washes its hands of Syria, the Turkish-Russian-Iranian connection may be the start of a beautiful friendship.
The brewing storm of North Korea and Iran - Bill Wilson - www.dailyjot.com
North Korea is once again threatening the nuclear annihilation of America. In testing yet another nuclear bomb, however, it may be North Korea at grave risk-not just from a possible preemptive military action from the United States. Chinese scientists, who have monitored the North Korean bomb tests, say the tests have occurred in the same site which now risks implosion and releasing toxic radiation across the region. While the world debates what to do with this terrible situation, it is important that we realize the history behind the North Korean nuclear program that history does not repeat itself. President Bill Clinton originally gave North Korea nuclear technology.
President Bill Clinton's long-held belief on nuclear weapons was that if everyone had them, nobody would use them and the world would be a safer place. On June 11, 1993, the US agreed to not use force or nuclear weapons against North Korea if it remained in the nonproliferation treaty. North Korea continued to develop its nuclear weapons program. On October 18, 1994, after 17 months of negotiations, Clinton signed a deal to give North Korea light water reactor nuclear technology if it stopped building nuclear weapons, saying, "Today all Americans should know that as a result of this achievement on Korea, our Nation will be safer and the future of our people more secure."
In his commitment to communist North Korea, Clinton is quoted as saying, "This US-North Korean agreement will help to achieve a long-standing and vital American objective: an end to the threat of nuclear proliferation on the Korean peninsula." Heritage Foundation archives document in an October 20 letter to North Korean strongman Kim Jong Il, (father of current dictator Kim Jong Un) Clinton vastly expanded America's commitments under the formal agreement to finance fuel shipments and reactors, ease its long-standing trade embargo and move toward first-ever diplomatic relations with North Korea. North Korea went on to develop nuclear weapons and to assist Iran in its nuclear weapons program.
Instead of having a safer future, the world is far more dangerous because of Clinton's reckless shenanigans. President Donald Trump is now faced with using military force and there is even a more far-reaching risk of radiation for the region. Thanks to Clinton, North Korea has lethal power, and future peace might only be secured with the price of many lives. Romans 12:18 says, "If it be possible, as much as lies in you, live peaceably with all men." Peace is a two-way street, especially when millions of lives are at stake. Sadly, Trump may be forced to end what Clinton foolishly began. Sadly, history already is incubating a repeat for what the immediate past "president" did in Iran-another storm brewing.
IDF holds largest exercise in 20 years to prepare for imminent Hezbollah threat - By Anna Ahronheim -
IDF holds largest exercise in 20 years to prepare for imminent Hezbollah threat
The IDF is set to launch a large-scale exercise in preparation for a potential faceoff with the Shi'ite terror group, that continues to pose an imminent danger to the country's security.
Amid rising tensions on Israel's northern border, the IDF will be launching Monday evening its largest drill in close to 20 years, with tens of thousands of soldiers from all branches of the army simulating a war with Hezbollah.
The drill is unique and unprecedented in scope, the army has affirmed, and it will enable forces to maintain a high level of readiness in an ever-changing region.
According to military assessments, while it is unlikely that Hezbollah attack Israel in the near future, the northern border remains the most explosive and both sides have warned that the next conflict between the two would be devastating.
The IDF is preparing itself for a different kind of war on the northern front. According to the military, while the drill itself is set to focus only on the border with Lebanon, a potential future altercation would not be contained only in the part of the border and would spread to the entirety of the northern border.
While the primary threat posed by Hezbollah remains its missile arsenal, the IDF believes that the next war will see the terror group trying to bring the fight into the home front by infiltrating into Israeli communities to inflict significant civilian and military casualties.
The two-week long drill will focus on countering the increased capabilities of Hezbollah and is expected to include simulations of evacuating communities which sit on the border with Lebanon.
During the drill, soldiers will play the role of civilians being evacuated, but with close to 1 million Israelis living in Israel's north, an estimated quarter million would be evacuated in case a war breaks out with the Shiite Lebanese terror group.
Named after Meir Dagan, the former head of the Mossad, the exercise will see thousands of reservists and all the different branches of the IDF- Air Force, Navy, Ground Forces Intelligence, Cyber- drilling their ability to work side by side in case such a war should break out.
In an attempt to secure the exercise but also simulate what it would be like in case of a real war, no soldiers will be allowed to bring in their phones or any other digital devices.
Hezbollah has rebuilt its arsenal since the last war fought between the group and Israel back in 2006, with at least 100,000 short-range rockets and several thousand more missiles that can reach central Israel. According to some Israeli analysts, the next war with Hezbollah might see 1,500-2,000 rockets shot into Israel per day, compared to the 150-180 per day during the Second Lebanon war 10 years ago in which 121 soldiers and 44 civilians were killed and over 2,000 injured.
In addition to having rebuilt their arsenal, Hezbollah has changed from a terror group fighting guerilla style targets to an army with battalions, brigades and over 40,000 fighters who have gained immeasurable battlefield experience from fighting in Syria on the side of President Bashar al-Assad.
But while the threat still looms large, Israel has made it clear that it will continue to work to prevent the group from acquiring advanced weaponry, striking weapons convoys in Syria destined for the group at least 100 times in the past five years.
North Korea and Iran -
North Korea offers Iran a test case in the wonders of obtaining nuclear weapons. And it offers the world a sharp rebuke for past inaction and a foreboding warning for the future.
The situation playing out now with North Korea is a nightmare scenario of the dangers of nuclear proliferation.
It offers a partial preview of the sorts of dangers the world would face if Iran ever obtained nuclear weapon capability. And it vindicates the use of preemptive military strikes to keep nuclear weapons out of the hands of autocratic regimes, like the one that was launched - according to foreign news sources - by Israel a decade ago, on September 6, 2007.
On Sunday, North Korea, a country run by a madman, conducted its biggest nuclear test to date, setting off an explosion that Pyongyang said was caused by the detonation of an advanced hydrogen bomb. The tremor that resulted was said to be 10 times more powerful than the tremor picked up after the last test a year ago. Since 2006 North Korea has conducted six nuclear tests.
US President Donald Trump immediate reaction was registered, as is his custom, on his personal Twitter account.
"North Korea is a rogue nation which has become a great threat and embarrassment to China, which is trying to help but with little success."
And, in a more strident message, Trump wrote: "South Korea is finding, as I have told them, that their talk of appeasement with North Korea will not work, they only understand one thing!" French President Emmanuel Macron urged the UN Security Council to react quickly and decisively.
"The international community must treat this new provocation with the utmost firmness, in order to bring North Korea to come back unconditionally to the path of dialogue and to proceed to the complete, verifiable and irreversible dismantling of its nuclear and ballistic program," he said.
China, Russia and the International Atomic Energy Agency also weighed in.
But what can any of them do? No one wants to play chicken with Kim Jong Un and risk a nuclear Armageddon.
Iran's mullahs, meanwhile, are carefully monitoring the developments. True, North Korea and Iran are radically different culturally. Iran is governed by religious fanatics who look to usher in a messianic age ruled by Shi'ites.
North Korea, in contrast, is run by a secular tyrant.
However, North Korea offers Iran a test case in the wonders of obtaining nuclear weapons. And it offers the world a sharp rebuke for past inaction and a foreboding warning for the future.
A small but aggressive nation with limited economic and military means has succeeded in leveraging its power to intimidate while remaining utterly immune to the influence of the international community - all accomplished by simply obtaining nuclear weapons.
Tehran has an opportunity to watch how the international community reacts - or rather fails to react - when Pyongyang fires a missile over Japan, as it did in August, or when it detonates a hydrogen bomb, as it did Sunday.
Trump might tweet, Macron might threaten, but the real danger of sparking a nuclear war will have a chilling effect on rational decision-making with regard to using military options to stop Pyongyang.
The Islamic Republic's leadership did not need Sunday's hydrogen bomb test to become convinced of the merits of obtaining an atomic bomb. As a nation of Shi'ites surrounded by a Sunni majority, Tehran's motivation from the outset in obtaining nuclear weapons was first and foremost an insurance policy against being bullying around.
Libya's lesson was not missed by the Iranians. The US's toppling of Saddam Hussein's regime under the pretext that he had weapons of mass destruction scared Muammar Gaddafi into disarming his country from nuclear weapons. Less than a decade later he was overthrown.
We do not want to think about what would have happened if Syria had succeeded, with North Korea's help, in obtaining nuclear weapons instead of reportedly being stopped by a preemptive attack. President Bashar Assad had no qualms about using chemical weapons against his own people. We don't know what he would have done had he obtained nuclear weapons.
There is a lesson to be learned from North Korea by the international community as well. Nothing came of the more than two years of negotiations with Pyongyang. No country stopped North Korea. The West ultimately accepted a North Korea with nuclear weapons capability. The same mistake must not be made again with Iran.
Iran: 'If attacked, war won't be limited to our borders' -
Addressing a group of officers in Tehran, Iranian military chief Mohammad Baqeri says even the arrogant West is smart enough to know that a ground war will cost them dearly.
Enemies are unlikely to attack Iran, especially on the ground, the country's military chief predicted on Saturday, saying even "unwise" leaders in the West know that any such conflict would have huge costs for them.
US President Donald Trump, adopting an aggressive posture towards Iran after its test launch of a ballistic missile, said in February that "nothing is off the table" in dealing with Tehran, and the White House said it was putting Iran "on notice."
"In the remote case of an aggression (by enemies), this won't be on the ground because they would face brave warriors," Iran's semi-official news agency Tasnim quoted military chief of staff General Mohammad Baqeri as saying.
"Thank God, even the unwise who lead world arrogance (the West)... can conclude that attacking the Islamic Republic would entail heavy costs," Baqeri said at an air defense exhibition.
"Even if they would control the start of an aggression, they would not have a say about its end and they won't even be able to limit the war to Iran's borders," Baqeri added.
The United States imposed unilateral sanctions against Iran last month after saying the ballistic missile tests violated a UN resolution, which endorsed a 2015 nuclear deal between Tehran and world powers to lift sanctions.
The resolution called upon Tehran not to undertake activities related to ballistic missiles capable of delivering nuclear weapons, including launches using such technology. It stopped short of explicitly barring such activity.
Iran denies its missile development breaches the resolution, saying its missiles are not designed to carry nuclear weapons.
The Next War Against Israel - By Jed Babbin -
Israel's national existence is again being threatened, this time by a three-front war being engineered by Iran.
Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited the Russian city of Sochi on August 24 to attempt to persuade Russian President Vladimir Putin to restrain Iran's actions.
Iran is extending its expansion in Syria, to which Russia is a party, from western Syria up to Israel's doorstep on the Golan Heights. Iran, already heavily involved in Syria, is also deeply involved in Lebanon, Iraq and Yemen. Most of its involvement is through its Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) forces and proxy terrorist networks. As a result Israel is, justifiably, feeling surrounded.
What both leaders know, and Mr. Putin wouldn't admit, is that Russia's power to restrain Iran is limited. Gone are the days when America and Russia could exert a superpower's near-total control over the actions of their allies and dependent or satellite states.
Russia's power to influence Iran while considerable, will not be determinative. Russian influence in Iran is deeply embedded both economically and militarily. Russian trade with Iran doubled over 2016. Iran is on an infrastructure building binge mostly funded by Russia. But Mr. Putin isn't about to threaten to cut off that aid to help Israel.
Unsurprisingly, Mr. Putin reportedly gave no hint about what he would do.
Mr. Putin's restraining Iran, if it occurs at all, will have only a temporary effect. Iran may proceed more slowly in Syria, but its actions will continue.
Israel sees another war coming. This time, it will most likely result from attacks by a combination of terrorist networks supported by Iran. Hezbollah, an Iranian proxy terrorist force, has more than 100,000 rockets and missiles now, some of which can reach from Lebanon to every Israeli town.
Days after the Sochi meeting, Mr. Netanyahu met with the new U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres. He reportedly told Mr. Guterres that Iran is building missile manufacturing sites of "precision-guided missiles" in Syria and Lebanon to supply its terrorist proxy forces.
Israel rightly fears a two-front war in Lebanon and Syria. Mr. Netanyahu reportedly told Mr. Guterres that Iran's efforts amounted to placing a noose around Israel's neck, which Israel could not, and the U.N. should not, accept.
When it comes, this will be a three-front war. On the day that Mr. Netanyahu met with Mr. Guterres, Yehiye Sinwar, the new leader of Hamas, another powerful terrorist network dedicated to Israel's destruction, met with reporters. He announced that Hamas had mended fences with Iran and that Iran is now Hamas' largest financial and military backer.
Hamas had broken with Iran in 2012 when Iran had refused to back the Assad regime in what was then a Syrian civil war. Since then, Iran and Russia (and Turkey, our former ally) have all intervened to protect Assad's regime. Hamas will be a recipient of the "precision-guided missiles" manufactured in Syria and Lebanon for use against Israel.
Hamas, which governs the Gaza Strip, constantly excavates tunnels into Israel to enable its terrorist fighters to slip into Israel undetected and murder Israeli citizens. Iran's aid can greatly enhance their capabilities to tunnel and to fire rockets and missiles into Israeli population centers.
The greatest danger Israel faces is Hezbollah rockets and missiles. The Israeli "Iron Dome" missile defenses have proven effective against the kinds of rockets that Hamas and Hezbollah have used in the past. But it has never been used against the ballistic missiles Hezbollah has. Those missiles, supplied by Iran, may be able to attack Israeli population centers with explosive, chemical or even biological weapons.
Facing the combined threats of Iran in Syria as well as Hezbollah and Hamas, Israel might decide to strike pre-emptively against the missile bases in Lebanon and Gaza as well as the missile production facilities in Lebanon and Syria. It is very unlikely that Russia would intervene in their defense, but Iran might.
Hezbollah and Hamas, at Iran's instigation, might attack before Israel can pre-empt them. If the Israelis appeared in danger of defeat America would intervene just as we nearly did in the 1972 war when Israel appeared on the verge of defeat.
If the Iron Dome system defeats Hezbollah's missile attacks, the war will be confined to Lebanon, Syria and Gaza. If not, Iran - regardless of Russian efforts to stop it - almost certainly try to deliver a killing blow to the Jewish state. At that point, we should not hesitate to throw all our military might against Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran.
Iran, as Henry Kissinger wrote in "World Order," is a revolutionary power that means to overturn the old world order
Who hit North Korean-linked Syrian chemical plant? -
Syrian opposition media named Israel as responsible for air strikes over Syria before dawn Thursday, Sept. 7 - in particular the attack which targeted the Scientific Studies Researchers Center, or Centre D'Etudes et de Recherches Scientifiques (CERS), at Masyaf, 38km west of Hama in central Syria.
This facility has overseen the government's chemical warfare and missile programs since the 1970s. Casualties were reported in this attack. The reports were accompanied by photos showing high flames from an explosion, although there were no signs that it took place at the Masyaf plant.
debkafile's military sources note that the Masyaf plant lies 70km southeast of the Russian Khmeimim air base in Latakia, which also houses advanced S-400 air defense missiles.
There was no official word on the attack until later Thursday, when the Syrian government charged that a military position near Masyef was struck by Israeli warplanes and missiles and two of its soldiers were killed.
On Aug. 24, the German Algemeiner cited a confidential UN report confirming that two North Korean shipments were intercepted in the past six months on their way to Syria, with reason to believe that their cargo was part of a Korea Mining Developing Trading Corp. (KOMID) contract with Syria. KOMID is Pyongyang's primary exporter of prohibited chemical, missile engines and conventional arms. It was blacklisted by the UN Security Council in 2009 along with its two representatives in Syria.
The UN report, according to the German newspaper, did not name the two nations which intercepted the North Korean shipments or specify their contents. According to other sources, North Korean engineers or technicians were employed at the Syrian CERS plant, which the UN experts had reported as cooperating with KOMID in previous transfers of prohibited items. It is not known whether they were working on a Syrian project or an outsourced North Korean program.
A major precedent was exposed exactly a decade ago by an earlier Israeli attack, which destroyed a Syrian nuclear plant built by North Korea on Sept. 7, 2007. That plant, hit while still under destruction, was destined to produce plutonium for the nuclear programs of North Korea and Iran.
If it is confirmed that the target of the latest air strike was the Syrian research center at Masyaf, which was the recipient of the North Korean shipments, Israel would automatically be suspected of a repeat operation. However, the United States would also have a strong interest in conducting a strike.
After the US Tomahawk attack on the Syrian Sharyat air base on April 7, punishment for the Assad regime's use of chemical weapons that killed 90 people in Idlib, US President Donald Trump vowed that never again would Syria be permitted to wage chemical warfare against its citizens. The US has directly accused the CERS facility of helping to develop the sarin gas used in that attack.
debkafile's analysts suggest that since the confidential UN report strongly indicates that Syria and North Korea have long collaborated in the development of chemical and other prohibited weapons of mass destruction, the Trump administration would have more than one justification for going after the Syrian CERS facility. Indeed, with all eyes on the highly inflammable tensions over North Korea's nuclear and missile tests, the US would have found it more convenient to get at Kim Jong-un through his back-door partner, rather than going for a direct military attack.
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