Update on Israel, Iran, EU, US, UN and the Rest

There were a few seemingly minor events this week which likely had a huge effect on the actions by the many varied players in the near future. Unfortunately or fortunately, depending on your views and proclivities, a confrontation with Iran has a likely rough time frame finally in place though only the decision-makers know for sure the exact timing. So, what were the events and influences and what are the likely ramifications?

The first item was seemingly a response to a prediction made right here at Beyond the Cusp where we predicted a high level Obama Administration person would be making a visit to Israel due to comments made by the Israeli defense minister in an article titled  Iran Nuclear Crisis Pits Barak Against Barack. The high level Administration official was Secretary of Defense Panetta who was already set for a trip to North Africa and Turkey, so a quick stop in Israel for a curt reprimand against self-inspired actions and a laying down of reasons why Israel was to heed and not try to run off leash. So, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta made his obligatory stop in Jerusalem, though how he found the Israeli Capital City using Obama Administration issued maps is simply an amazement, and apparently informed the Israeli leadership that his boss, President Barack Obama, did indeed have a plan for when military action vis-à-vis Iran would be deemed necessary. Panetta’s revelations were presumed to assuage any concerns which may have been irritating Israeli leaders into doubt of American resolve which might have them believing the United States is putting undue confidence in the efficacy of sanctions. The catch was the actual time-frame where sanctions might be brought into doubt and spur a more forceful persuasion was eighteen months, that’s right, a year and a half. For some unknown reason, upon hearing this news I have the distinct feeling the Israeli leadership was anything but assuaged.

In the days since our prediction of an imminent trip of an Administration enforcer to Israel there have been numerous hints and comments from any and every direction conceivable. There have been comments from the United States, almost all from unofficial sources, that have, with near uniformity, reinforced the theme that Israel has nothing to worry about as the United States is on the job of assuring that Iran will never possess nuclear weapons. The United States has been said to be so dependable on this that the Israelis can simply lay back and leave the prevention to US. As one might expect, these assurances and the Defense Secretary’s assuaging, even when reinforced by numerous unofficial sources, have not had the desired effect upon many in Israel.

This leads to the comments from the far side of the Mediterranean Sea which probably has been viewed by the White House as being less than helpful. Former Mossad chief Efraim Halevy indicated on Thursday that Israel is likely to strike Iran’s nuclear facilities in a matter of weeks. Aharon Ze’evi-Farkash, former head of the Israeli Military Intelligence Directorate, predicted on an Israeli attack on Iran Friday stating, “It could happen within weeks or months. There is a need to stop Iran’s nuclear program. I do not know if Israel plans to attack soon, the Prime Minister said the issue has not yet been decided. But the way I understand the big picture, it seems it will happen soon.” And for the topper, it was rumored that Prime Minister Netanyahu has reached a point of comfort with the necessity for him to make the decision concerning Iran and the Israeli responses, if any. And the European Union has pressed Catherine Ashton, as the lead of the P5+1, to persuade, nay, implore Iranian Chief Negotiator Dr. Jalili into further negotiations. There will be another round of negotiations which will result in the same standoff as before with Iran decrying that the West is simply dragging their heels in reaching the unavoidable conclusion that negotiations must recognize Iran’s right to nuclear research and utilization.

Making any prediction would be difficult, but the one thing that is becoming obvious is that the United States under the leadership of President Obama will not be taking any actions against Iran within a timeframe that would prevent their achieving nuclear status. The question, as far as the Administration of President Barack Obama is concerned, is can Israel be kept on leash and away from attacking Iran before the November elections. They are asking the wrong question for two reasons. The first is that as long as Israel has not attacked Iran all will be well going into the election. But, if it appears that Israel is still on the verge of taking action against Iran but being restrained by President Obama, many may be forced to consider President Obama’s foreign policy with an emphasis on his actions with Israel and interactions with Prime Minister Netanyahu. This could very well pose a problem for his reelection. Secondly, if Israel were to attack in September and be successful in destroying a reasonable percentage of the Iranian nuclear facilities with minimal losses of life on both sides and yet not start a huge war in the Middle East, then Iran will be completely off the table. This could even work in President Obama’s favor for reelection if he also took a position such that his threat of enforcing the Israeli attack should Iran respond, and Iran stand-down, then he could claim this was the plan all along with fair assurance that the Israelis would back his claim in gratitude for his backing, even if forced by circumstance. So, against the going logic and opinions of most of political punditry, an Israeli attack could be turned to President Obama’s favor. We will be able to see whether the second premise turns out to be true, as it is the most likely.

Beyond the Cusp

Mr. Abbas Goes to Paris

Mahmoud Abbas is reportedly heading to Paris in order to meet with United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton as well as new elected French President Francois Hollande as well as a possibility of meeting with European Union Foreign Affairs Chief Catherine Ashton, and the British, German and Norwegian foreign ministers. Along with a group of representatives of several Arab Countries, this virtual cornucopia of diplomatic officials will be in Paris for a “Friends of Syria” meeting in hopes of bridging differences between Arab and Western positions over the Syrian Civil War. Mahmoud Abbas will be in Paris seeking assistance in placing pressure on Israel to surrender to as many of his plethora of unilateral demands as preconditions before he will deign sit and pretend to negotiate before, as was the precedent set by Yasser Arafat, stalking briskly from the negotiations claiming loudly and vehemently he will not continue to be insulted. Of course, should he not achieve gaining the full accommodation of pressuring Israeli compliance with his every demand, then he will still demand for every single precondition his imaginations can fancy accumulating them as each second passes. Saeb Erekat has stated that Mr. Abbas will stress the importance of releasing Palestinian Authority murderer, terror master, bomb maker, and violent jihadist all of whom have the blood of innocent Israeli civilians upon their hands who serve sentences, even those serving numerous life sentences, jailed in Israeli prisons. Maybe a quick look at a short list of some of the preconditions which Mr. Abbas seeks to have the entire world assist him in shoving down Israel’s throat should be up next.

The likely best known one was the one first introduced early in President Obama’s Presidency when President Obama stated that Israel should freeze all building of any sort anywhere in Judea, Samaria or East Jerusalem in order to entice the return of Mahmoud Abbas and the Palestinians to the negotiations. This has never been previously mentioned or even dreamed of in anybody’s wildest imaginations and once stated there was no way in which Mahmoud Abbas or any other member of the Palestinian Authority could hold a position less favorable to the cause of the Palestinians than the President of the United States had shown to be. Under increasing pressures, Prime Minister Netanyahu relented and met the demand placed upon him by President Obama and announced a complete building freeze on Judea and Samaria (aka West Bank) but not East Jerusalem maintaining that Jerusalem will remain the undivided Capital City of Israel. The building freeze was not set to be open ended as was initially implied by President Obama in his speech but was set for ten months as a preliminary time frame to observe what developed. What developed was absolutely nothing anywhere near as was claimed would result should Israel simply comply with this one small stipulation. Instead, for almost nine full months all that was heard from both Mahmoud Abbas, President of the Palestinian Authority, and Saeb Erekat, lead negotiator for the Palestinian authority, were a series of additional preconditions and some extremely inventive definitions of the idea of preconditions. The additional preconditions were defined as anything except a demand, simply obligations the Palestinian Authority expected from Israel, steps Israel would need to take to convince the world of their sincerity, investments in the peace process, or steps that are obviously in the interest of the Israelis if they desire peace among other even more twisted definitions depending on which news source you used.

Some of the lesser preconditions can be grouped together for your ease of reading and so your patience is not tested are; pulling all IDF units out of the West Bank leaving the Jewish residents under Palestinian authority protection, permitting the Palestinian authority to import weapons and weapon systems in order to upgrade their capabilities, the repeated demand for prisoner releases of varying numbers or sometimes particular prisoners such as Mustafa and Marwan Barghouti who are both terror masters, and always the final deal-breaker of Right of Return for as many as five and a half million Palestinian refugees. Add to this the continuing claim by both the Palestinian Authority and Hamas that despite Israel removing every civilian and IDF troop from Gaza that it is still occupied territory. These are in addition to the Palestinian Authority government constant honoring terrorists and terror masters by naming streets, parks, children’s camps, soccer tournaments, public buildings, schools, and numerous other places with great fanfare and publicity. This is also despite the glorification of martyrdom in schools, on television, in film, and in public celebrations. Add to all of this the fact that the Palestinian Authority has yet to modify their Charter by removing its clause demanding the total and complete destruction of the Jewish State or lived up to the vast majority of other obligations and agreements. And the last item is the Palestinian efforts to achieve recognized statehood through whatever route which can be utilized unilaterally such as acceptance into the United Nations, incorporation into United Nations organizations such as UNESCO, thus avoiding negotiations with Israel as stipulated in the Oslo Accords. The Palestinian Authority, like the PLO before it, and Mahmoud Abbas, like Yasser Arafat before him, have attempted to utilize any deceit, prevarication, avoidance, or any available means to avoid negotiations as there has never been and never will be an honest desire by the Palestinian to make peace as that would require, at least temporarily, recognizing Israeli existence.

What the world needs to understand is that the conflict currently going under the name of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict is simply a rebranding of the original Arab-Israeli Conflict which began all the way back near the beginning of the last century. It has had many violence filled events such as the riots in Hevron and Jerusalem in 1922, 1929, 1933, 1936, and 1939. Then there was the first Arab Israeli War which is usually referred to as Israel’s War for Independence in 1948 and 1949. There was the Six Day war in 1967 followed by its second staging in 1973. There has been the terror war from the early 1920’s which continues today which too has had some special events. Other than the numerous riots mentioned earlier there was also the founding of the PLO in 1964, three full years before the War of 1967 and any presumably occupied territories, numerous kidnappings, attacks across the northern border by Hezballah, and the near countless rockets launched from Gaza and recently out of the northern Sinai Peninsula. The rebranding of the Arab Israeli Conflict into the Palestinian Israeli Conflict was implemented as the former made Israel to appear to be the weaker side of the conflict and the new moniker placed the Arab cause as the little David fighting the massive Israel Goliath. Do not believe anything has changed. This change came about when the Arab countries, realizing they likely could not defeat Israel in a straight up military versus military war decided to change tactics and try to wear Israel down and eventually either gain the necessary weapons or military strength and abilities to once again try the frontal military conflict route.

Then there is one last item which needs to be understood before any real solution can be implemented. It has never been and will never be for the foreseeable future the Arab, Muslim, Palestinian or whatever name is placed to struggle against Israel idea to settle for anything less than the complete subjugation of the Israeli Jews or the complete annihilation of every Jew in Israel (or, as Hamas has in their Charter, the world). Should by some major mishap the Palestinian find themselves in a position where they have to accept and sign a peace with Israel and establish Palestine, this will not be the end of the conflict. There have been numerous times that both Arab and Muslim leaders as well as Palestinian leaders and spokespeople have stated plainly that even should they attain a state in all of the land lost in the 1967 War, that is just the first stage towards the elimination of the Zionist State. This is almost always said in Arabic or Farsi but on a few rare occasions somebody has slipped and plainly said in English the truth that the only solution acceptable is a Final Solution. All the efforts to establish a Palestinian State are fruitless endeavors which will bear no fruit and will only change the starting point of the eventual next Middle East War when it is thought Israel has been brought low enough for her defeat. That is so very unfortunately the real truth of which everybody prefers to deny and pretend that all these efforts will truly end the drive to undo the founding of the Jewish State. It is simply appallingly amazing that in so much of the world there are calls for removing the Jews from within countries as happened in numerous Muslim countries between 1948 and 1953 yet in many of these same countries they also call for the destruction, or secretly work towards the destruction of Israel, of the only Jewish State. That begs an obvious question, if the Jews should be sent packing from countries where they are a minority and the only Jewish country should be wiped out, then where do these haters pretend that the Jews should live. And yes, that was a rhetorical question put forth simply to provoke thought. One can always hope to point out insanity so that it can be rectified and a real and truthful discussion free of pretenses may take place. Now that is something that would be so very welcome.

Beyond the Cusp

Iran Nuclear Talks Conducted by the Blind and Deaf

Somewhere a decision was made which placed European Union Foreign Policy Chief Catherine Ashton in the lead for the P5+1 negotiating team who are presumably talking with intent to curb the Iranian nuclear program before they attain nuclear weapons capability. It has been reported that the Iranians have graciously granted the P5+1 mediators another meeting in Moscow in order to discuss the demands regarding nuclear uranium enrichment and the offers to Iran should they comply. This was accomplished after Lady Catherine Ashton held a one-hour phone conversation with Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili where she managed to convince him to allow the meeting. This meeting was originally scheduled during the negotiations in Baghdad last month and was touted as a great achievement as it was the sole accomplishment to result from the meetings. Since then the Iranians, as stated by Ahmadinejad as well as chairman of the Iranian Parliament Ali Larijani, Iran claimed that to continue with the negotiations with the P5+1 was simply assisting the West in wasting time. This is what made it necessary for Lady Ashton to beg for Iran to return to negotiations and resume their meetings as scheduled in Moscow. I am sure this will be touted as a great step and a sign of progress and the seriousness with which Iran is treating the negotiations. Does anybody outside of the governments of the P5+1 honestly believe that any amount of negotiations with Iran will produce any results other than an eventually nuclear armed Iran?

Today there was a report coming out of Iran where the Fars News Agency published a commentary that stated, “The Islamic World should rise up and shout that a nuclear bomb is our right.” Since the Fars News Agency is under the complete control of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps, they often are utilized to release trial balloons as a method of releasing official views and judge the reactions before formally having the Supreme Leader the Grand Ayatollah Sayyed Ali Hosseini Khamenei or other high officials announce them as laws or objectives. For some reason I find this statement released by the Fars News Agency to be more than just simply troubling. Stating that the Islamic World needs to fully insist and achieve possession of nuclear weaponry makes the efforts by Lady Ashton to be simply a waste of time. This information should leave the P5+1 with no alternative other than to place a direct challenge demanding Iranian immediate complete compliance. This Fars News Agency statement is nothing short of a direct statement that it truly is a complete waste of time holding negotiations with Iran. It proves beyond any shadow of a doubt that Iran is negotiating simply to talk endlessly and never actually make any progress. Their previous actions have been proving this ever since the entire charade started back in 2006. Despite this being obvious even to the most casual of observers, the P5+1 have chosen the Lady Catherine Ashton to lead the talks. This is the same woman who sounded like a love-struck teenager when describing how enthralled she was and what a magnificent gentleman and accomplished statesman the Iranian head negotiator had appeared to be in her judgment.

As far as the Islamic World having to demand their incontestable right to produce and stockpile nuclear weapons, it is a completely ignorant demand. The Islamic World already possesses and has a stockpile of well over one-hundred nuclear weapons which are located and owned by Pakistan. The truth of their declaration has nothing to do with the Muslim World possessing and having available for Islamic use of nuclear weapons. They are not demanding, or requesting if you wish me to be more polite, for Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Morocco, Egypt, Somalia, Eritrea, Syria (though they might settle for Syria), Sudan or any other Islamic Country to attain nuclear weapons. Their demand is for Iran to be equipped with their own stockpile of nuclear weapons, and not simply a few but sufficient nuclear weapons to intimidate the entire Islamic World into allowing Iran to establish a new Caliphate with Iran as the sole and unchallenged leadership. They want sufficient nuclear weapons for Iran to completely obliterate Israel, the United States, and any other country which they feel is not showing the Iranian leadership sufficient deference. There are those who hold some power within Iran who would even like to have sufficient nuclear weapons to cause a complete and total conflagration throughout the entire globe in order to cause the conditions necessitated to cause the return of the Mahdi, the Twelfth Imam. Yet we still are allowing Iran to talk and talk and make promises that they only intend to break.

Just to add one last example of the fruitlessness of dealing with the Iranians was made evident this week. Over the last few weeks the IAEA has been holding talks in Tehran in order to attempt to coerce Iran into allowing them access to both the known nuclear installations and also to gain access to some military controlled locations where it is suspected that work, research and possible production of nuclear trigger and high explosive shaped charge tests have been conducted which are necessary for both gun and compression style nuclear weapons. Late last week progress was announced and hope was expressed that possibly the clean-up of one of the military locations may not have destroyed all evidence the IAEA sought. Over the past three days Iran has come up with some preconditions and then excuses and finally a total reversal reneging on every agreement the head of the IAEA had announced to great fanfare last Friday. This was announced by The Hindu who wrote “Iran has announced that it is ready to open up its Parchin military facility for inspections by the IAEA.” This has been the exact modus operandi from Iran throughout the entire tortuous, strange, fruitless excuse for serious talks. It has been two steps forward, three steps backwards, install ten more centrifuges. I must honestly congratulate the Iranian negotiators as they have thus far resisted breaking into uncontrolled laughter right into the faces of the negotiators of the P5+1. Such restraint is a rare talent, even if it is being used to conceal through and through deceit.

Beyond the Cusp