DEBKAfile Exclusive Analysis November 13, 2011,
The potential for a regional flare-up shot up Friday and Saturday, Nov-11-12, with the blasts at two Iranian arms bases which killed at least 32 Revolutionary Guards men including Iran’s top missile expert, and the Arab League Foreign Ministers’ decision to suspend Syria’s membership over Bashar Assad’s brutal military crackdown on civilians.
As windows shattered in Tehran, the streets were awash with rumors that Iran was under attack, or that the regime had staged a failed nuclear test. Foreign businessmen were said to be fleeing the country.
In Kuwait, lawmakers demanded an urgent debate on the potential fallout from an attack on Iran three days after British ministers were briefed on a possible US-backed Israeli strike against Iran’s nuclear sites in the last week of December or early next year. Hopes faded for effective international sanctions in the wake of nuclear watchdog evidence of Iran’s nuclear capabilities, even as US President Obama tackled Russian and Chinese leaders at .
Hours after the base explosions in Iran, the Arab League decided to suspend the membership of its ally Syria and impose political and economic sanctions on the Assad regime. Members were advised to withdraw their ambassadors form the Syrian capital until their Nov. 2 peace plan was implemented. The AL decision was praised by US President Barack Obama and backed by the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon.
This penalty hurts Bashar Assad more than would a threatened Turkish invasion and seizure of a buffer enclave to serve the Syrian opposition. It conveys the Arab world’s rejection of the legitimacy of Bashar Assad’s regime. The Syrian ruler has got away with defying the UN Security Council, NATO and even Washington. He will find it much harder to survive being cast out of the fold by his Arab brethren who are punishing him for the contempt he showed for the peace deal they initiated and he signed by having his troops kill another 250 civilians in ten days.
Indeed the Qatari foreign minister Hamad bin Jassim, reading out of the decision, warned Assad that further non-compliance would result in “more steps to protect the citizens of Syria” by the Arab League – a broad hint at military intervention to aid the beleaguered opposition as Assad tried ineffectually to brand the Arab bloc American puppets.
Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Jordan are already arming Syrian opposition groups and Turkey is hosting their command and training facilities. The scenario is beginning to resemble the Libyan format. There too, Qatari, Jordanian and Turkish military elements took part in the NATO operation to overthrow Muammar Qaddafi. And Bashar Assad may be nearing the end of his tether.
No one any longer credits his word after his repeated promises in the nine-month uprising against him to pull his troops out of city centers, release prisoners and enact reforms, while only piling on the savagery. His army is turning against him. Even before the Arab League struck home, the tens of trained fighters going over to the opposition in the early months of the conflict were swelling in the last two weeks to hundreds, taking their arms with them. The ruling Assad clan and military command have reached a crossroads in the pact they concluded in March to extinguish the uprising regardless of the cost in blood.
That pact may now prove unsustainable confronting its parties with three broad options:
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1. The army’s top commanders may decide they can no longer get away with the slaughter committed in the name of the regime and the time has come to get rid of Bashar Assad. A coup d’etat would be one way.
2. Assad may get in first with a preemptive coup of his own to install in Damascus a military junta composed of trusted loyalists which he and his family will manipulate behind the scenes. This move would ease some of the Arab and Western pressure on him to step down.
3. He could make good on his threat to start a Middle East conflagration along with Iran and Hizballah. Most of the action would be aimed against Israel forcing the Arab League to go along with Syria and restore its status.
The war rumors sweeping Tehran after the explosions at the Revolutionary Guards bases and the hard choices confronting the discredited Assad regime have generated a highly perilous climate in the region. All its capitals are on edge for trouble. This time, the usual conspiracy allegations from Tehran and Damascus won’t wash.
Israel should never turn over any Jew to the gentiles unless its a capital crime and the country seeking extradition can show enough evidence that they have a strong case based on Israeli law.
Even then I would not turn over to America any Jew for any reason until Pollard is free and in Israel.
I don’t think American Jews are into showing solidarity with other Jews especially those funny looking Jews dressed in black.
As for the Haredim what ever goes down against them is well deserved. They have no business being in America.
“And they scorned the desirable land.” (Psalms 106)
“‘… You shall not stand aside while your fellow’s blood is shed — I am HaShem. … You shall love your fellow as yourself — I am HaShem.'” (Leviticus 19:16-18)
We still live in a land governed by laws as does Israel who had no choice but to carry out the extradition order. That was Israel’s responsibility. Now what is the responsibility of Crown Heights Jewery, of American Jewery?
For an answer we might consider what Brooklyn blacks would do, and have done — a massive outpouring of Jews protesting the lack of police protection accompanied by legal suits against the Brooklyn police forces for dereliction of duty and anti- Semitic bias. Accompany this with electoral political pressure and we might be surprised at what would happen. As Jillel wrote “If I am not for myself who will be”. If we do not have enough self-respect to stand up for our own self-interest then we are truly fools and deserve what we get. Right now in the US the only organization who supposedly is to speak up for Jewish rights is Foxman’s ADL — and you know how useless he and his organization is.
THE ONLY THING THAT POLITICIANS RESPECT IS THE POSSIBILITY THAT THEY WILL BE THROWN OUT OF OFFICE.
Enough said.
from IUN:
No defensive system is 100% effective. There are several ways of beating it like massive volley of ICBM’s with all but 5-10 conventional warheads. Some may reach their targets.
Iran between 2000-2005 purchased an unknown number of X-55 cruise missiles from the Ukraine. They can be armed each with a 200kt nuclear warhead and can;t be brought down by Arrow missile defenses. They can be brought to Lebanon and fired at close range or from ships even freighters in the Med off the Israeli coast. By the way this same scenario applies equally to America. One strategically placed nuke over America could create an EMP and shut America down, everything electronic and electrical would be fried and wipe out half of all Americans with one shot.
If Pakistan, N Korea, Russia, China,Germany, France and England to name the most prominent have helped Iran develop directly or indirectly her Nuke program it is a given that at least two of these countries (Pakistan and N Korea)are not above selling off the counter nukes to Iran for a sizable fee.
They can Harm us and that is the overriding premise Israel and America should use as the basis in all policy formulations and subsequent actions. To do otherwise is treasonous.
Re: Jews around the world and in America? They may be the most vulnerable of any of this but if they trust their home nations to protect them they are deserving of anything that befalls them. Israel can’t do or even should do much of anything to help them. That they are there is their conscious choice and for that it’s there responsibility not ours. Maybe we can donate money to help them out, like creating a UJAA. (United Jewish American Appeal).
Defending Jews?
From IUN:
Joe,
Israel is not as invulnerable as you appear to think. Iran can launch a simultaneous salvo of missles at Israel — some nuclear, some dummies. Arrow 2 probably cannot discern the one from the other, and it cannot down them all. Israel has to knock out Iran’s nuclear weapons production capability before they have the warheads in stock. The Iranians know this, which is why they and their useful idiots have been warding off an Israeli attack through subterfuge.
There is no power on earth that can come close to what Hitler and the Nazis did in WWII. Israel has 400+ nukes some with yields of up to 100 Hiroshima bombs. Israel is the only nation with a comprehensive anti-ballistic missile defense system ARROW 2
IRAN CANNOT HARM ISRAEL EVEN IF THEY POSSESS A FEW NUKES . This is 2011 not 1940 . If the Sand Nazis try to harm Jews in other countries, Israel should organize self defense for threatened Jews.
I LOVE JEWS LIKE Sol. 6.5 million Jews are threatened to be incinerated and all Solly cares about is his own fat tokhes/tukhus. Way to go Solly!!! 🙁
Do you know what a chickenhawk is, Laura? If Israel does attempt to take out Iran, one can be sure that Jewish instituitions (shuls, schools, etc.) within the U.S. will be bombed. You might even be taken out, Laura. Sounds like fun, huh?
Not really, Laura. Israel will probably be attacked, yet again. It will be about as “fun” as living in Europe during WWII. For my family, that meant forced labor, deportation to Siberia and death by machine guns and the gas chamber — for both my Jewish relatives and goy relatives, the one as much as the other. My American relatives, meanwhile, had the fun of producing armaments for the war effort.
This time around, the Jews have their own country. It’s about the size of a big bulls-eye. Jews living there periodically don gas masks and huddle in bomb shelters. Less frequently, they get to fight their enemies. This coming year, it may be deadlier than that. Interesting? Yes. Exciting? Probably. Fun? Probably not. Perhaps in America, it will be sort of fun — for a little while. For the Iranians, etc., I hope they receive everything they’ve said they would give to Israel — something of a hell on earth.
I hope so.
Sounds like fun.
Thanks, Yamit, for informing us that we know even less of the Chinese than the little we thought we knew. Meanwhile, the following is “interesting”:
“Buffett goes big in Big Blue
November 14, 2011: 9:21 AM ET
Non-techie Warren Buffett buys more IBM shares for Berkshire Hathaway than Watson could probably guess.
I just came across this while surfing. What impressed me was that while Iranian ammunition dumps are exploding, Obama eschews Hawaiian shirts at the APEC summit and the US goes into mourning over the sex live of some coach in Pennsylvania, life goes on. Warren Buffet, so far a seeming survivor of interesting times, a definite “1%-er” in Occupy Wall Street parlance who backed B. Obama for President in 2008, has made news by shuffling some of his billions from one place to another.
I got to thinking, as Democrat mayors across the country are each taking their turn bashing in heads, squirting pepper spray and otherwise moving the OWS people around like cattle, all the while those demonstrators are lambasted for being puppets of the Democrats as well as promoting a Republican victory in 2012, one of those they oppose — who massively supported the President, who many say is behind the movement and whom they also oppose — is going about his business thoroughly oblivious to events in either Oakland or Tehran, in a completely nonpartisan manner; doing things he does every day, things hundreds of thousands of others also do every day without notice, and getting his name in the headlines as the Patriots take control of AFC East as Brady throws 3 TD passes in 37-16 win… and atheist activists from around the world plot a massive propaganda assault which they propose to unleash against Israel in a few months.
In the meantime, check your gas mask to see that it works, do the dishes and the laundry, and spend some quality time with the wife and children. It might not hurt, as well, to read a verse or two from the Bible, to try to get a handle on what’s going on: because it’s going and going, and will soon be gone; but everyone will still have to deal, in this life or the next, with who they are.
All the best, Yamit.
Shalom shalom 🙂
Source: Hundreds of N. Korean nuclear and missile experts working in Iran
Iran nuclear bomb threat: Russia and China ‘refuse’ to back Obama | Mail Online
“May You Live in Interesting Times”
In a speech in Cape Town, South Africa, on June 7, 1966, Robert F. Kennedy said, “There is a Chinese curse which says, “May he live in interesting times.” Like it or not, we live in interesting times…” Journalists picked up the phrase and it has become a commonplace.
However, the popularity of this “Chinese curse” puzzles Chinese scholars, who have only heard it from Americans. If it is of Chinese origin, it has somehow escaped the literature, although it may be a paraphrase of a liberal translation from a Chinese source, and therefore unrecognizable when translated back to Chinese.
It might be related to the Chinese proverb, “It’s better to be a dog in a peaceful time that be a man in a chaotic period.”
Stephen DeLong, who has been researching this quotation for several years and details his quest on his own website, has traced the quotation back to a 1950 science fiction story: “U-Turn” by Duncan H. Munro, a pseudonym for Eric Frank Russell.
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“It is better to be Herod’s pig than his son.”
As the Chinese say: “may you live in interesting times”.
What will Assad do with all those chemical weapons when his back is truly against the wall. Mossad blowing up Iranian missile depots.
Strap your seat belts on everyone; we are in for a wild ride.