Levitt Letter Extra News

Two stories follow, provoking a little less sympathy for the OPEC oil sheiks’ request.

Story 1:

Sheik flies Lamborghini 6,500 miles to Britain for oil change

By Neil Syson, The Sun www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/article1493291.ece

Flashy ... the Lamborghini is same model as Batman’s

Oil be blowed ... the supercar at Heathrow with Qatar Airways jet

A rich Arab sent his Lamborghini on a 6,500-mile round trip to Britain for a service.

The £190,000 supercar was put on a scheduled flight from Qatar to Heathrow – then flown BACK after the oil check.

Money was no object as the flight would have cost the owner – thought to be a Sheikh – around £20,000.

The move sparked fury from green campaigners.

An airport worker said: “This car doesn’t have a carbon footprint – more of a crater.”

The overall cost of sending the Lamborghini to London for the oil change would have cost more than £23,000.

His black-and-gold supercar costs £3,552 to service at an approved dealer – on top of the £20,000 to freight from Qatar to Britain.

The Murciélago LP640 – driven by Batman in movie The Dark Knight – arrived from the Middle Eastern country on Friday.

It cleared customs and was trucked to specialist mechanics in London for the service.

On Monday it was flown back 3,250 miles to the oil-rich state where it was collected by the owner.

A cargo handler at Heathrow blasted the car’s environmental damage.

He said: “It would have been far more efficient to fly mechanics out there.”

And Jenny Evans, of pressure group Plane Stupid, said: “This horrifies me. It is another example of how rich people exploit and pollute the planet because of their money.”

She said the role of the super-wealthy in climate change was not properly recognised – while poor people were rapped for going on holiday.

Friends of the Earth’s transport campaigner Richard Dyer said: “Flying a car thousands of miles for a service is ludicrous when planes are one of the most polluting ways to transport goods. We urge the individual to get their car serviced closer to home.”

But David Price, of Lamborghini Club UK, said: “If an owner wants to service his car in that way, it is his choice.

“I’m not surprised. Thankfully the age of excess in some areas continues.”

Lamborghini UK spokeswoman Juliet Jarvis said there could be “kudos” for a Middle Eastern owner in servicing a car in London.

She said the exclusive Italian brand had a network of authorised dealers around the world – and most cars were looked after in the country where they were bought.

But she added: “This sort of thing is not unheard of.”

Qatar Airways confirmed it carried the Lamborghini.

The cars are popular with celebs including Rod Stewart and David Beckham.

Story 2:

The Sultan’s 5,000 personal vehicles

www.sacarfan.co.za/2009/02/whos-personal-car-collection-numbers-over-5000/

If you were rich enough to drive any car you wanted, absolutely any car, and money is no object, what would you go for? A Lamborghini, Bugatti, Mercedes, Aston Martin, or how about something outrageous like a Formula 1 car.

Sultan’s palace

But what if you were truly rich, not just “getting by” like Bill Gates or Sir Richard Branson, but truly rich. The Sultan of Brunei is the richest man on earth; he is not counted on rich lists because he does not earn his money it comes from his tiny country’s oil reserves which are essentially his. Estimates of his wealth pop up from time to time but the truth is that no one really knows how much money he has.

Sultan of Brunei

So which car do you think the richest man in the world drives, well if you said Lamborghini, you’d be correct, if you said Aston Martin that would be right too, and if you guessed F1 Race-car you would have been nearly right because he owns every Formula One championship-winning car for the last thirty years.

Sultan’s garage

These cars fit very nicely into his garage which is a bit bigger than your garage at home, it has to be to be able to accommodate the estimated 5000 personal vehicles owned by the Sultan. If he picked one car to drive down to his local corner café for bread and milk each day, it would take him thirteen and a half years to use each one.

Outside the Sultan’s garage

He seems to quite like the Rolls Royce range he has over 500 hundred of those, if you tried unsuccessfully to buy a Rolls during the 1990’s that would be because he accounted for over half of their entire sales for that decade.

Ferrari FX

His collection, which may well be far more than 5000 vehicles, is estimated to have cost over US$4 billion. Filling them all up may be a little expensive, at $1 per litre that’s estimated at a minimum of half a million US dollars.

Mercedes F400

Those that voted for the Lamborghini will be happy to know that he has 20 of those, but he seems to prefer the sleeker appearance of the Ferrari’s as he opted for 367 of those, Jaguars are nice little run-arounds, all 177 of them, as are the 362 Bentleys.

Mercedes CLK-GTR

He’s also not into buying boring, run-of-the-mill BMW’s (185 of them) and likes something a bit more exotic such as the Bentley Dominator 4X4 and Bentley Java, Ferrari FX (6), the worlds only right hand drive Mercedes CLK-GTR and the Cizeta Moroder V16T (3).

Cizeta Moroder V16T

Added to the burden of deciding which car to use each day a visitor of the sultan’s garage’s once said: “It can take an hour and a half just to get a certain car out if it’s been parked right at the back.”

By Farnaz Fassihi and Chip Cummins,  online.wsj.com

Nov 4 — Iranian security forces battled with opposition protesters in Tehran Wednesday, after demonstrators used the 30th anniversary of the storming of the U.S. Embassy as cover for their first significant protest in weeks.

Iranian demonstrators burned an U.S. flag outside the former U.S. Embassy in Tehran. Raheb Homavandi/Reuters

The scale of the opposition protests — and the government crackdown — was unclear early Wednesday, but wire services and state-controlled media reported police using tear gas and clashing violently with protesters. Iran has largely banned media coverage of non-sanctioned rallies and protests, and international newswires with reporters in the country must rely on eyewitness accounts.

Still, initial reports suggest large antiregime protests erupted in several locations across Tehran. Large crowds of demonstrators gathered in central districts of the capital near the former U.S. embassy, where an annual pro-government rally was also taking place, according to eyewitnesses and video posted on Iranian websites.

Antiriot police on motorcycle and on foot chased the crowd with batons and plain-clothed Basij militia attacked demonstrators with wooden sticks, according to these accounts.

At one point, one crowd of protesters turned its message toward the American President Barack Obama, chanting, “Obama, Obama, you are either with us or with them.”

Basij forces attacked opposition leader and former presidential candidate Mahdi Karroubi, firing teargas at him, according to Mohamad Taghi Karroubi, the cleric’s son, in a post on the opposition’s “Mowjcamp” Web site. Mr. Karroubi suffered light skin injury, but one of his bodyguards was seriously injured and was take to the hospital, according to the account. It wasn’t possible to immediately verify the incident.

“Today the government of the coup proved once again that it will stop at nothing to crush the massive wave of demonstrations,” said a statement by the opposition posted on their Web site.

Some marchers through Tehran’s streets wore green clothing that symbolized the campaign of opposition leader Mir Hossein Moussavi. It wasn’t clear whether Mr. Mousavi was among the protestors.

At Tehran University, students brought down President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s picture to whooping cheers and chants of “God is Great,” according to video posts circulating on the Internet.

Witnesses told the Associated Press that security forces, mainly paramilitary units from the elite Revolutionary Guard Corps, swept through several hundred demonstrators at Haft-e-Tir Square in central Tehran, clubbing, kicking and slapping protesters.

The unrest provides another significant challenge for Mr. Ahmadinejad and Iran’s conservative clerical leadership, headed by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. For months, the regime has struggled to put a lid on simmering unrest, which erupted after contested presidential elections in June, in which Mr. Ahmadinejad was declared the landslide victor.

Mr. Ahmadinejad’s attempts at enforcing domestic calm come amid unrest along its restive border with Pakistan and Afghanistan, where antigovernment rebels have stepped up a violent campaign against the regime, killing several senior Revolutionary Guard commanders last month.

Antigovernment protestors chanted slogans on the sidelines of state-sanctioned rallies. Associated Press

At the same time, Tehran officials are negotiating with Western powers over Iran’s nuclear program. The fresh protests come as Mr. Ahmadinejad and other leaders have tried to present a unified front in its deliberations with the West.

After appearing to agree to a deal to send out the bulk of its fissile material for enrichment in Russia, Iranian officials have balked at ratifying the agreement, frustrating Washington and its allies. Western officials have warned they won’t wait forever for progress in talks, suggesting an end-of-year deadline.

After that, Washington has suggested it will push for tough new economic sanctions, and Israeli officials have long suggested they would consider a military strike if they felt Iran was close to building a nuclear weapon. Iran says its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes.

In the days immediately following the election, supporters of presidential candidates Mr. Moussavi, a former prime minister, and senior cleric Mahdi Karroubi, took to the streets, staging the regime’s largest antigovernment demonstrations since the founding of the Islamic Republic thirty years ago.

Mr. Ahmadinejad’s government cracked down violently, clashing with protesters and jailing scores. Government officials put the death toll at several dozen, though human-rights groups have claimed the number of deaths was much higher. The government has put on trial more than a hundred people it alleges agitated against the regime, in cahoots with foreign powers such as the U.S. and Britain.

The bloody crackdown quieted most large street protests by the end of the summer. But opposition leaders, organizing underground, have increasingly hijacked state-sponsored holidays and rallies to come back out on the streets in force. In September, antigovernment protesters spilled out into the streets during Quds Day, a state-sponsored holiday aimed at rallying support for the Palestinians and condemning Israel.

By Gwen Ackerman and Calev Ben-David, www.Bloomberg.com

Nov. 4  – The Israeli navy intercepted a ship heading for Syria and seized an unprecedented 500-ton haul of weapons from Iran intended for the Shiite Muslim Hezbollah militia in Lebanon, the army said.

“This is the largest cache of smuggled weapons ever to be seized by Israel,” army spokeswoman Avital Leibovitz said in a phone interview today. “The cache includes thousands of rockets as well as hand grenades and mortar shells.”

Israel seized the ship 100 miles off its Mediterranean coast and discovered 40 containers carrying the weapons, Leibovitz said. The vessel was flying the flag of Antigua and was stopped late yesterday due to “suspicions” about the vessel, she added.

The seizure reflected “a well-known Iranian technique, taking advantage of cargo ships flying different flags in order to smuggle containers loaded with large amounts of highly volatile weaponry to terrorist organizations such as Hezbollah,” the army said in a statement. Israeli officials have accused Iran and Syria previously of supplying weapons to Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Islamic Hamas movement in the Gaza Strip.

“This is another success in the continuous struggle against attempts to smuggle weapons and military equipment with the goal of strengthening terrorist elements that threaten the security of Israel,” Defense Minister Ehud Barak said in an e- mailed statement.

‘Supplier of Arms’

In December, Israel launched a three-week military initiative against Hamas to stop cross-border rocket attacks from Gaza. It fought a monthlong war against Hezbollah in 2006 after two soldiers were abducted.

“Iran is the major supplier of arms to Hezbollah, usually via Syria by air or over land,” Ephraim Kam, deputy director of Tel Aviv University’s Institute for National Security, said today in a telephone interview. “Maybe they used a sea route this time because of the types of weapons involved.”

In 2002, Israel seized the ship Karine A, which it said was bringing arms from Iran to the Gaza Strip. In January, Cyprus seized an Iranian ship that it said may have been taking arms to Gaza in violation of United Nations sanctions.

Israeli officials said yesterday that Hamas had tested a rocket with a range of 60 kilometers, enabling it to reach from Gaza to the Tel Aviv metropolitan area. “This is the type of weapon that could not be made in Gaza, and had to be brought in from outside,” Kam said.

By Amro Hassan, LATimesblogs.LATimes.com

Gamal Mubarak

Opposition leaders and political parties have started a new front to challenge the prospect that President Hosni Mubarak’s son, Gamal, an untested politician with limited domestic and international experience, will succeed in the 2011 elections.

Talk of succession has gripped the country in recent months as Gamal Mubarak’s profile has risen, including a trip to Washington with his 81-year-old father. Gamal is an influential voice in the ruling National Democratic Party. But many Egyptians, who have suffered under the government’s economic programs and repressive human rights policies, don’t want the presidency kept in the Mubarak family.

The new front took the name Mayehkomsh — Egyptian slang for “You don’t have the right to rule” — as its slogan. The question, however, remains: How can a disparate group of opposition parties successfully come together to challenge a police state that has pressured them for years with intimidation and arrests?

The anti-succession coalition, initiated by former presidential candidate and founder of El Ghad party, Ayman Nour, gained momentum in a conference held October 14 among representatives from the Muslim Brotherhood, the Egyptian Movement for Change (Kefaya), the Democratic Front, the Egyptian Communist party, and the Justice and Development party.

“This is a campaign to confront this irregular and illogical state, where a president-in-waiting is practicing all the duties of the president already,” Nour said at the conference. “Our constitution is for a republic, not a kingdom,” he said.

Hassan Nafee, a professor of political science at Cairo University, was chosen to be general coordinator of the campaign. “Fighting the succession is only part of a bigger project targeting the establishment of a democratic ruling system,” Nafee said.

Nour, who was runner-up to Hosni Mubarak in Egypt’s first contested elections, in 2005, received a five-year imprisonment in December of that year after the government accused him of forging signatures in order to establish his party. He was released on health grounds in February this year and has been strongly calling for democratic reforms and fighting succession plans. He can’t run in the next elections because of his earlier conviction.

Iran’s proxy army in Lebanon will think twice before launching another round of missile attacks.

By Ronen Bergman,

On October 12, a secret Hezbollah munitions bunker in South Lebanon blew up under mysterious circumstances, injuring a senior official in the organization. This is the second such incident in recent months. The first occurred on July 14, when an explosion destroyed a major Hezbollah munitions dump in the South Lebanese village of Hirbet Salim. Hezbollah immediately pointed fingers at the Mossad. Whether or not Israel was to blame, the explosion caused Hezbollah considerable discomfort by proving that it was in flagrant violation of U.N. Security Council Resolution 1701, which forbids stockpiling weapons south of the Litani River.

The U.N. issued a strongly worded rebuke and sent representatives to investigate. But their efforts were thwarted by Hezbollah fighters, who, with the assistance of Lebanese troops, prevented the foreigners from examining the site. This caused further embarrassment to Lebanon, as it exposed the army’s lack of neutrality and the active aid that it extends to Hezbollah.

The episode also led to heightened tensions on the Israel-Lebanon border. The specter of renewed fighting between Israel and Hezbollah looms as large today as it has at any time since the end of the Lebanon war in August 2006. Yet senior military officers in Israel’s Northern Command are confident that the embarrassing outcome of the last round will not be repeated.

“By all means, let the Hezbollah try,” one officer told me two weeks ago when I asked if he was concerned about the possibility of warfare. “The welcome party that we are preparing for them is one that they will remember for a very long time.” That sentiment is shared by many of his colleagues.

The recent explosions have highlighted the weakened geopolitical status of Hezbollah, a diminishment which no one could have foreseen at the end of the last war. In 2006, on both sides of the border—and elsewhere in the Middle East—Hezbollah was seen as having triumphed. Not only was it able to withstand the vastly superior invading Israeli force, but it also inflicted heavy military casualties and brought civilian life in northern Israel to a standstill with its rockets. At the end of the war, a commission of inquiry was set up in Israel to investigate the military and political failure. A number of senior army officers resigned, and Israel’s deterrence power was seen as having sustained a severe blow.

If the 2006 war underlined the military might of Hezbollah—a repeat, in a sense, of Hezbollah’s success in driving out the Israeli occupying forces from South Lebanon in May 2000—it also forced Israel to include Hezbollah in any assessment of possible responses to an Israeli attack against Iranian nuclear installations.

As part of its combat doctrine, which eschews reliance on reinforcements and resupply, Hezbollah has stockpiled its weapons throughout Lebanon, but particularly near the Israeli border. According to current Israeli intelligence estimates, Hezbollah has an arsenal of 40,000 rockets, including Iranian-made Zelzal, Fajr-3, Fajr-5, and 122 mm rockets (some of which have cluster warheads), and Syrian-made 302 mm rockets. Some of its rockets can reach greater Tel Aviv. Hezbollah also has a number of highly advanced weapons systems, including anti-aircraft missiles, that constitute a threat to Israeli combat aircraft.

But all is not rosy for Hezbollah. After the war, considerable dissatisfaction with the organization was voiced inside Lebanon. Many blamed its leader, Hassan Nasrallah, for Israel’s retaliatory bombardments that caused widespread damage. Nasrallah stated that had he known Israel would respond as forcefully as it did, he would have thought twice before ordering the abduction of the two Israeli soldiers—the act that sparked the conflict.

Harsh criticism of Hezbollah also came from an unexpected source: Tehran. The Iranian strategy calls for Hezbollah to play two roles. One is to instigate minor border provocations. The other is to launch, on Tehran’s command, a full-scale retaliatory attack should Israel target Iran’s nuclear facilities. The 2006 war met neither criterion, and, as the Iranians complained, merely served to reveal the extent of Hezbollah’s military capabilities.

Then, in February 2008, Imad Mughniyeh, the organization’s military commander and Nasrallah’s close associate, was killed in a car bomb in Damascus. The assassination of the man who topped the FBI’s most-wanted list prior to Osama bin Laden was a severe blow to morale, as well as to Hezbollah’s strategic capabilities. Nasrallah was convinced that the Mossad was responsible, and vowed to take revenge “outside of the Israel-Lebanon arena.”

The Shin Bet, Israel’s internal security agency, which is also responsible for protecting the country’s legations abroad, has been on high alert ever since. But as of today, Hezbollah has not exacted its revenge. This fact was a topic of discussion at a high-level, secret forum of Israel’s intelligence services that took place from late July to early September.

Israeli officials raised four possible reasons for Hezbollah’s failure to act, all of which reflect its current weakness.

First, no replacement has been found for Mughniyeh, whose strategic brilliance, originality, and powers of execution are sorely missed by Hezbollah.

Second, Israel’s intelligence coverage of Iran and Hezbollah is far superior today to what it was in the past. Planned attacks, including one targeting the Israeli Embassy in Baku, Azerbaijan, have all been foiled. The Israeli security services have warned Israeli businessmen abroad of possible abduction attempts by Hezbollah. They also shared information with Egyptian authorities that led to the arrest of members of a Hezbollah network who intended to kill Israeli tourists in Sinai. The arrest of these operatives resulted in sharp public exchanges between Egypt, Hezbollah, and its Iranian masters when Nasrallah admitted that these, in fact, were his men.

Third, Nasrallah cannot afford to be viewed domestically as the cause of yet another retaliation against Lebanon. Any act of revenge that he contemplates needs to be carefully calibrated. On the one hand, it needs to hurt the enemy and be spectacular enough to stoke Hezbollah pride. On the other hand, it cannot be so murderous as to cause Israel to respond with force. To complicate matters further, Israel has made it clear that because Hezbollah is part of the Lebanese government, despite the fact that the party that it backed lost in the recent election, any Hezbollah action against Israel would be viewed as an action taken by the Lebanese government. Thus Israel would regard Lebanese infrastructure as a legitimate target for a military response.

Finally, there are the Iranians. Their primary focus is on proceeding with their nuclear program without unnecessary distractions. Tehran’s main concern is that a terror attack that can be linked to Iran would result in the arrest of its agents overseas, who are currently procuring equipment for its uranium-enrichment centrifuges.

Tehran has avoided direct involvement in foreign terrorism ever since 1996, when a group of Iranians were convicted in Germany of murdering political opponents of the Iranian regime. And unlike in the past (as, for instance, in the case of the 1992 bombing of the Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires in retaliation for the assassination of Nasrallah’s predecessor), it is now reluctant to place intelligence resources at Hezbollah’s disposal. This is a serious blow to Hezbollah, which is not yet able to function internationally as a full-fledged independent operational organization.

Hezbollah is also clearly aware of the severe blow in terms of power and prestige that the Iranian mullahs suffered as a result of the massive protests following June’s presidential election. Automatic support from Tehran is no longer a certainty. For now, at least, the Iranian hardliners have troubles of their own.

In short, despite the fact that Hezbollah today is substantially stronger in purely military terms than it was three years ago, its political stature and its autonomy have been significantly reduced. It is clear that Nasrallah is cautious and he will weigh his options very carefully before embarking on any course of action that might lead to all-out war with Israel. There are some experts in Israel who believe that even Hezbollah’s retaliatory role in the Iranian game plan is currently in question.

Whether or not this is the case, all of this is being considered in Jerusalem as part of Israel’s calculations about whether to strike Iran’s nuclear facilities.

Mr. Bergman, a correspondent for the Israeli daily Yedioth Ahronoth, is the author of the “The Secret War With Iran” (Free Press, 2008).

www.nydailynews.com

Dare defend yourself from terrorist attacks and risk international war crimes prosecution.

That is the lesson of the October 16 action by the UN Human Rights Council, which voted 25 to 6, with 11 abstentions, to endorse the Goldstone Report, a document that brands Israelis as war criminals for trying to stop deadly rocket-fire from Gaza 10 months ago.

Ever since Israel’s 2005 pullout from Gaza, Israeli civilians were battered by thousands of mortars and rockets launched by Hamas in its war to destroy the Jewish state and kill its people.

And, straight from the terrorist textbook, Hamas was assembling and launching its rockets from civilian neighborhoods, near mosques, near schools, near hospitals.

Late last year, Israel finally launched a military offensive to stop the terror. Wherever and whenever civilians might be harmed, Israel’s military dropped leaflets to urge civilians to clear out. An innovative new technique of “knocking” on roofs with non-exploding noisemakers was employed as well, to give ordinary Palestinians every opportunity to save themselves.

Because, it was Israel’s objective to punish and disarm the terrorists, no one else.

For this, the Human Rights Council – already known for its anti-Israel bias – opened an investigation, producing a report calling the terrorists and the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) equally culpable. Equally guilty of crimes against humanity.

The Council has now formally ratified this libel and urged Israeli and Palestinian authorities to demonstrate that they are investigating the alleged crimes. Or else the charges will be referred to the International Criminal Court in the Hague.

In fact, Palestinian Authority officials recenlty visited that court to argue for its jurisdiction over these matters.

Which means Israeli commanders who set out to defend innocent people from indiscriminate attacks, with painstaking plans to protect civilians in the process, could wind up alongside the butchers of Darfur, alongside those tried at Nuremberg.

Only five nations stood with the U.S. in opposition: Hungary, Italy, Netherlands, Slovakia, and Ukraine. Good for them.

We have to ask, again, what’s the use of Americans sitting on the Council, spitting into its hurricane-force winds? 25 nations are party to the crime—among them: Egypt, Saudi Arabia, China, and Russia. Shame on them. Do you see a pattern?

France and Britain were among the abstainers. Unlike the abstaining dictatorships, the democracies should have known better; so, double shame on them.

As Elie Wiesel once said, “Silence in the face of evil is always on the side of the aggressor.”

Retired General Says Israeli Attack to Take Out Iran’s Nuclear Facilities Not Only Possible, the U.S. Should Join In

By Dan Raviv, www.CBSnews.com

Expect the unexpected at a conference of Middle East experts.

Several hundred spent a recent weekend at a resort hotel 30 miles northwest of Washington, D.C., forced by cold rain to focus on nothing but Iran and the nearly moribund Israeli-Palestinian peace process.

At this annual gathering of financial backers of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy – joined by diplomats, journalists, and analysts – many had expected a feisty debate between proponents and opponents of a military attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities.

Instead, the crowd heard experts suggesting the military option is a very realistic one; and a retired U.S. Air Force general said Israel might open fire first – and that the United States would find it wise to join in.

Gen. Charles Wald, former head of strategic planning and policy for the Air Force who also had been deputy commander at U.S. European Command, said a bombing campaign – while “unpalatable” – could set back Iran’s nuclear work for many years.

“I don’t think Israel can do it alone,” Wald added. “They have a fantastic military, but not big enough for weeks or months of attacks – hundreds of sorties per day.”

Wald said the U.S. would not exactly be dragged into air strikes on Iran, but if “our great ally Israel” decided that it “can’t take it anymore” – the prospect of an Iranian nuclear bomb – then “pressure will mount for us to stand by Israel.”

The general said that after commanding the air portion of the post-9/11 invasion of Afghanistan, he thought deeply about neighboring Pakistan and the possibility that it might one day use its nuclear arsenal. “I asked my staff to look into what would happen if there were a Pakistani-Indian nuclear exchange. They said there’d be tens of millions of dead at the low end, and 300 million dead at the high end.”

Wald said he soon discovered what the Pakistani leaders’ reaction to that analysis was: They had not thought of that.

Wald suggested Iran, Israel, and other Middle Eastern nations that were likely to feel compelled to acquire nuclear bombs might also be failing to face facts.

“In 2003, General Jim Jones [now President Obama's National Security Adviser] and I sat down with our Strategic Advisory Group for Europe. I couldn’t get anyone interested in talking about Iran. The subject was always Iraq. And now Afghanistan is sucking all the oxygen out of the room.” Wald added that Arab governments along the Persian Gulf, however, have for years had Iran as their main concern.

Sitting near Wald, a former head of Israel’s military intelligence – retired General Aharon Farkash – agreed that the U.S. Air Force could be far more effective than Israel in crippling Iran’s nuclear program. “The U.S. can destroy the nuclear capacity, and the war would not be long,” Farkash said, though he cautioned that Western intelligence still might not know about all of Iran’s nuclear sites.

Like other Israelis, Farkash stressed the importance of making Iran believe that U.S. and Israeli threats are real. Harsh sanctions might lead to a decision by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, to stop nuclear enrichment.

“The Teheran regime doesn’t seek suicide,” said the Israeli, who heads a new high-tech security company. “When they realize we mean business this time, they won’t want to lose their regime.”

David Makovsky, a senior analyst at the Washington Institute and co-author (with Obama administration official Dennis Ross) of a book on Middle East policy, commented that the generals gave the impression of two different attack philosophies: “The U.S. believes ‘do it huge, and make it overwhelming,’ while Israel would do what it can because not acting is so much worse.”

Makovsky asked General Wald to comment on the suggestion by Jimmy Carter’s former national security advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski – in a Daily Beast interview last month – that the U.S. shoot down Israeli warplanes if they try to fly over Iraq to attack Iran.

“The chance of that,” Wald replied, “is zero. No, less than zero.”

Earlier, the same audience heard a former vice-president of the Islamic Republic of Iran argue that if his country is attacked, the pro-democracy “Green Movement” would be extinguished. Ata’ollah Mohajerani, who resides in London but is considered close to opposition candidate Mehdi Karoubi, said he strongly supports the reform movement, and considers Ahmadinejad’s re-election illegitimate. But he said a military strike or severe sanctions would serve to strengthen the regime.

The Iranian politician’s unexpectedly long speech included references to books by Dostoevsky, Kafka, Walt Whitman, Elie Wiesel, and even Britain’s chief rabbi Jonathan Sacks. Mohajerani claimed that any good Muslim would not want nuclear weapons, but he made a point of saying that most of the nations putting pressure on Iran now have their own nuclear arsenals, alleging also that the United States and Israel wanted Iran to have atomic bombs when the late Shah was in power.

Responding to questions from supporters of Israel at the conference, Mohajerani refused to condemn Iranian-supported terrorism and declined to say if he thought Israel has a right to exist. Many in the crowd, believing that Mohajerani’s goal in this rare appearance near Washington was to raise money and support for the Green Movement, said they were bitterly turned off. It looked to them like a Green-led Iran would not necessarily be much different from Ahmadinejad’s regime.

Based in Washington, CBS News correspondent Dan Raviv is host of radio’s “CBS News Weekend Roundup,” and co-author of “Every Spy a Prince: The Complete History of Israeli Intelligence.”

By Dudi Cohen, www.YNetNews.com

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Monday, Sept 21,  he was proud he had managed to enrage the West by denying the Holocaust during a speech he made in Tehran in honor of Jerusalem day [actually, al-Quds Day, the last Friday of Ramadan when Muslims protest Zionism. Begun in 1979] .

Ahmadinejad was quoted by the Iranian News Agency (IRNA) as saying that the angering of “professional man-slayers is a source of pride for us and will not stand in our way”, apparently in reference to Israel and the West.

“The more these imperialists, enemies of humanity and those whose hearts have no love for the human kind run wild, screaming and throwing accusations, we know our path is correct,” said Ahmadinejad.

Al-Quds day protest against Israel in Tehran (Photo: AFP)

During his speech last Friday in Tehran University, the president once again questioned the existence of the Holocaust: “If the Holocaust was planned by the west, why won’t they let anyone investigate it? They have turned the holocaust into a black box and won’t let anyone open and examine it…if this event is so important why don’t they let us expose the truth to the whole world?”

Ahmadinejad continued to attack Israel, saying that “Zionists are the biggest criminals in history, and resisting them is a national duty, a religious commandment and a human obligation. The Zionist regime is a tree with rotten roots.”

“It is obvious this deceptive regime was founded to fulfill colonialist aspirations, and that there is no logic behind its establishment,” added the president, to which the crowd replied: “Death to Israel.”

Ahmadinejad’s words received condemnations from around the world; Britain announced that the Iranian President’s Holocaust denial is repulsive and is a sign of ignorance, adding that the national community must stand against him united.

The German foreign minister said that Ahmadinejad brings shame to his country, while the White House said his words only increase Iran’s isolation from the rest of the world.

Russia, Iran’s ally, also condemned Ahmadinejad’s speech, saying that “his words oppose the truth and are completely unacceptable. The attempt to deny history, especially in the year that marks 70 years to the beginning of the war, desecrates the memory of the victims and all who fought against fascism.”

By Michael Ledeen– www.PajamasMedia.com

By Amy Teibel, Associated Press

JERUSALEM — Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned Lebanon on Sunday that Israel “will not hold back” when attacked and holds the Lebanese government responsible for any assault on his country.

Netanyahu delivered the warning after two rockets fired from Lebanon struck northern Israel on Friday. Israel responded immediately with artillery fire, and the exchange ratcheted up persisting tensions between the two countries.

“We view this very gravely,” Netanyahu told his Cabinet. “We will not hold back when Israeli territory comes under fire, and will not reconcile ourselves to missile fire or any other form of terror directed at Israeli citizens.”

It was not immediately known who fired the rockets Friday. But radical Palestinian factions in Lebanon have been blamed in four firings at Israel this year.

The Israel-Lebanon border has been tense since Israel mounted a monthlong war against Lebanese Hezbollah guerrillas in the summer of 2006. More than 1,200 people in Lebanon and 160 Israelis died in that conflict, which ended in a United Nations-brokered truce.

On Sunday, Netanyahu put the onus of maintaining the cease-fire squarely on the shoulders of the Lebanese government.

“We see it responsible for all these violations and hostilities directed at our territory that originate from Lebanese soil,” he said.

Hezbollah has a large rocket arsenal, but is not believed to have used them against Israel since the 2006 fighting. It has denied involvement in previous rocket attacks on Israel.

But friction between Israel and Hezbollah has escalated as Lebanese politicians wrangle over the formation of a new government. The Hezbollah-led opposition would likely be a part of that cabinet.

In mid-July, a suspected Hezbollah arms depot exploded near the Israeli border. Israel said this was proof the group was rearming and stashing weapons in populated villages.

Lebanon’s An-Nahar newspaper reported Sunday that the U.N. force in Lebanon, which was beefed up significantly after the war to monitor the border, had been warned of a possible attack 10 days earlier.

The U.N. force relayed this information to the Lebanese army two days before the attack, the report said.

A spokesman for the U.N. force, Milos Strugar, said an investigation under way “is pointing in the direction of some extremist groups.” He did not elaborate.