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By Janine Zacharia www.slate.com

Israel is on the verge of bombing Iran. Discussions of whether Israel has the bunker-busting bombs or planes to destroy underground Iranian nuclear facilities, abound. Loose talk of when such a strike could take place frequently refers to a matter of months. The head of Israel’s Mossad spy agency recently traveled to Washington to ask what the U.S. reaction would be if Israel disregarded American objections and started bombing. The United States is so worried about a forthcoming Israeli attack that the chairman of the U.S. military’s Joint Chiefs of Staff went on CNN to say a military strike now would be “premature.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu came to Washington last week hoping to reach agreement with President Barack Obama over what nuclear “red lines” Iran shouldn’t be allowed to cross. Instead, Obama encouraged Netanyahu to allow more time for diplomacy and sanctions to work. Netanyahu told the powerful, pro-Israel American Israel Public Affairs Committee that Israel couldn’t wait much longer.

Then again, maybe we shouldn’t be surprised to learn of this imminent attack. It seems as if Israel has been about to strike Iran every six months for the past three years. Before the May 2009 meeting between Obama and Netanyahu, there were reports that Israel was getting impatient and wanted to hit Iran’s nuclear facilities. In September 2009, the Los Angeles Times, citing “Israel watchers,” reported that Netanyahu would give the West until the summer or fall of 2010 to get results. “After that, the likelihood of an Israeli military strike against Iran goes up,’’ the newspaper reported. In September 2010, Jeffrey Goldberg, who interviewed President Obama to talk about Iran last week, wrote an Atlantic cover story under the headline: “Israel is Getting Ready to Bomb Iran” and predicted it would happen by the end of the year if sanctions failed to halt the program.

There’s little doubt that Israel is making preparations for the possibility. But there’s also a better chance that Netanyahu is bluffing, hoping that all the media hype about an attack will somehow prod the United States and its allies to take stiffer action or perhaps scare Tehran into compliance with international demands. Netanyahu’s language remains tough. But unless the Israeli government is trying to keep the element of surprise — certainly a possibility—there isn’t much evidence that an attack is actually imminent.

Consider the issue that concerns Israelis most of all: the safety and security of fellow Israelis. Some people in Tel Aviv, I’m told, are quietly stocking up on water, cash, and groceries, and getting their own gas masks. That is understandable, given the dire warnings in the media. But hundreds of thousands of Israelis still lack gas masks, according to a December report by Israel’s state comptroller, and there has been no public urging for Israelis to get one. Tel Aviv, a metropolis of 2 million people, unveiled a new underground shelter this month for 2,000 people. But the same state comptroller report found that most Israelis have no designated shelter.

Of course, these shortcomings could be remedied. It may be that Israel is afraid to make too many public preparations to avoid tipping off Tehran. But this is a matter no Israeli government could afford to bungle. The debacle of the Second Lebanon War, when Hezbollah’s Katyusha rockets rained down on northern Israel, is too fresh of a memory to neglect the home front before any major military operation. In that unanticipated, 34-day summer campaign, Israelis were caught by surprise and authorities were scathingly unprepared, as an inquiry later showed. Thousands of Israelis fled the bombardment for a makeshift beach camp further south, near the coastal city of Ashkelon, a tent compound that cost $200,000 per day to operate and was paid for by a rich Russian-Israeli oligarch. The war left the Israeli economy paralyzed, wreaked psychological havoc by showing Israel’s profound vulnerability to what previously had been considered an inferior foe, and led to Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s downfall.

Any war with Iran would be expected to cause far greater mayhem. Iran has medium-ranged ballistic missiles that could hit Israel. But Iran’s proxy, Hezbollah, already has an estimated 40,000 rockets positioned across south Lebanon to strike as far south as Tel Aviv. In a clear sign of how serious Israel considers that threat, senior Israeli Defense officials summoned me to the Defense Ministry in Tel Aviv last year to give me a classified map of the sites when I was working for the Washington Post. Israeli military officials believe the arsenal to be four times as large as what Hezbollah had in the 2006 war thanks to Iranian generosity and Syria’s smuggling help. When it comes to the home front, Israel, even with its advances in anti-missile missile technology, is simply not prepared for another air war.

Nor does the Israeli public see the immediate threat. When you have respected voices like Meir Dagan—the recently departed former head of the Mossad spy agency—saying Iran won’t reach the point of no return in its nuclear program until at least 2015, it will be hard to find Israelis clamoring for a strike now. In fact, the Republican presidential primary candidates, with their promises to attack Iran if elected, seem far more hard-line than concerned Israeli citizens. Only 19 percent of Israelis surveyed last week said Israel should attack Iran even without the support of Washington.

The Iran issue, despite all of Netanyahu’s warnings of the dangers of an Iranian bomb, is simply not topping the domestic agenda. Israelis feel more outraged about soaring rent and gas prices than they feel threatened by Iran’s nuclear program. “Here, no one seems to be talking about Iran except journalists,” a friend of mine in Jerusalem told me in an email this week. “Israelis are more into Kochav Nolad”—the Israeli version of American Idol—“and Bar Refaeli’s latest bikini.’’

Of course, there are times when heads of state ignore public opinion and must act in their view of the country’s national interests. Anyone who has spoken to Netanyahu wouldn’t doubt the depth of his concern about Iran achieving a nuclear weapon, and the nightmarish consequences for the Jewish state. But here we need to remember who we are dealing with: Bibi is first and foremost a politician. Like Obama, who would be disinclined to launch an air war nine months before an election, Netanyahu has his eye on Israeli elections set to take place next year. A costly, risky military operation that could cause mass casualties is not an option he is likely to undertake until all other options are exhausted.

And those options seem far from spent. Tougher American financial sanctions, which Netanyahu himself praised, have just been imposed and a new European Union oil embargo is slated to take effect in July. The new sanctions, along with a series of spectacular covert measures including assassinations of Iranian scientists and malicious computer viruses, have all served to set back Iran’s nuclear program, experts say. It is precisely because of Israel’s lack of an appetite for a strike that all these measures are being taken.

Amid all of this, there is truly something farcical—and dangerous—about all the hyperbolic discussion over an Israeli strike. The Obama administration clearly feels spooked enough about the prospect that it sees the only surefire way to halt it is to preach against a strike publicly.

Israel believes to be feared it needs to speak often and loudly about its readiness to bomb. But the trouble here is that Israel’s leaders have resorted to such talk so often that it is hard to know when they are serious. If they are indeed on the verge of war, portions of the Iranian government probably see it as more bluster. Or worse, if they take it on its face, it may have the inadvertent effect of provoking a war that never had to happen.

Janine Zacharia, formerly the Jerusalem bureau chief of the Washington Post, is the Carlos Kelly McClatchy visiting lecturer at Stanford University.

By Amy Teibel | Associated Press

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel halted its airstrikes against Gaza Strip militants early Tuesday (Mar 13) and rocket fire from the Palestinian territory ebbed as a cease-fire ending four days of clashes appeared to be taking effect.

Both sides had indicated they have no interest in seeing the fighting spiral into all-out war, and an Egyptian security official reported that Egyptian intelligence officials had brokered a truce.

There was no official truce announcement from Israel or Gaza’s Hamas rulers, but Israeli Cabinet Minister Matan Vilnai told Israel Radio the latest outbreak of violence “appears to be behind us.”

And Daoud Shihab, a spokesman for the Islamic Jihad group responsible for much of the rocket fire, said that “the Egyptian efforts succeeded this morning and a deal was reached.”

Months of quiet along the Gaza-Israel border were shattered on Friday with Israel’s killing of a militant commander in Gaza whom it accused of plotting to attack Israelis.

Israeli police engineers look at a camera as they examine the site after a rocket fired by Palestinian militants from the Gaza Strip hit the city of Ashdod, southern Israel, Monday, March 12, 2012. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)

At least 24 Palestinians, including at least four civilians, died in the cross-border fighting that followed, with the cause of another civilian’s death in dispute. There were no Israeli fatalities, but the lives of 1 million people living in southern Israel were disrupted by frequent sirens warning them to take cover from incoming rockets.

A Palestinian woman reacts during the funeral of Islamic Jihad militant Hamada Mataleg, killed in an Israeli air strike Sunday, in Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, Monday, March 12, 2012. (AP Photo/Hatem Moussa)

Israeli police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said more than 200 rockets were fired at Israel between Friday and early Tuesday, when the truce went into effect. Israel’s new short-range rocket interceptor, the Iron Dome, destroyed dozens of rockets headed for southern Israel. The military said it carried out no airstrikes after the cease-fire took hold. Rosenfeld said eight rockets and mortars were fired at Israel after that deadline, but caused no injuries.

Sporadic rocket fire from Gaza would not necessarily compromise the truce because militant groups are splintered and orders do not trickle down from a single commander. Still, as a precaution, schools in southern Israel that serve 200,000 students remained closed for a third day.

Although the fighting on the ground subsided, verbal sparring over the terms of the cease-fire persisted.

The Egyptian security official, speaking early Tuesday on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject, said Israel had agreed to stop targeting militants as a condition of the truce. Islamic Jihad leader Khaled Batch said the same.

“They gave the Egyptians a pledge they would stop the assassinations,” Batch said. “This was a surprise not only to Egypt but a surprise to all parties.”

Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak brushed away that assertion. “The Israeli military remains committed to acting against anyone who plots or plans attacks on Israeli citizens or Israeli soldiers operating along the border,” Barak said.

And senior defense official Amos Gilad, who was involved in the truce talks, said no such commitments were given. “Quiet will be met with quiet,” Gilad told Army Radio. But “if Israel has to defend its citizens, it will do so without hesitation.”

Because the two sides shun each other, the truce is not formal and there is no signed document that can serve as a reference.

Gaza’s Hamas rulers had kept out of the fighting, letting militants from the Islamic Jihad and Popular Resistance Committees carry out the attacks on Israel. Hamas wants to avoid a full-scale offensive against Gaza like the one Israel launched in December 2008, fearing a major conflict could undermine its control of the territory it violently overran five years ago.

But Israel considers Hamas responsible for all attacks from Gaza and notes that the militant group, which refuses to renounce violence against Israel, has amassed a bigger and better weapons stockpile since the war.

By Max Fisher www.TheAtlantic.com

It’s not revolution, exactly, but wearing a Toby Keith t-shirt is more subversive than you might think.

A young man votes in Tehran / Mehr News Agency

In the mass theater piece that was Friday’s parliamentary election in Iran, one of the players showed up with an unwelcome prop. A young man voted in Tehran, as shown in the above photo, while wearing a t-shirt that would be considered ironic in the U.S., but seems downright rebellious in Iran. In case you can’t make it out, the shirt reads, “God Bless America / Toby Keith / Pre-Concert Party / October 8, 2004.” There’s an American flag on the shirt, which is a bold fashion choice any day in Iran, but especially on a day when the state-run media are out and the security services are likely to be even touchier than usual.

The photo is funny — this kid’s got chutzpah — but it’s also a reminder of the challenges of protesting Iran’s political system, and even of the complex and sometimes contradictory nature of cultural tension between Iran and the West.

This is Iran’s first election since the rigged 2009 vote that reinstated Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and launched the “green movement” protests, and the government is taking them very seriously. We in the West often take Iranian elections as a farce, and it’s true that the country is not a democracy, but it does have some modest democratic features. Elected legislatures have actual powers (though not many), reformist parties are represented (though not well), and while the unelected Supreme Leader dominates the government, citizens do expect a say. After Iran’s global humiliation in the 2009 election, everyone is eager to see how Iran’s “democracy” functions.

Ahmadinejad called on Iranians to vote in order to “smack the face” of foreign “enemies,” an unintended admission that Iran’s autocratic backsliding is an embarrassment to the country and a sign of the regime’s weakness. Wouldn’t you know it, state media report 65% turnout, almost exactly the number that Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei stated as his official goal. Meanwhile, an anonymous source in Tehran told PBS, and the BBC also found, that polling stations were deserted. So are the streets: unlike in 2009, the regime seems to have successfully deterred or prevented mass protests, most likely by a combination of imprisoning and intimidating activists and preemptively deploying security forces.

An Iranian democracy activist doesn’t have any good choices today. Protesting seems to be off the table, and after the violence many activists suffered in 2009, it’s not hard to understand why. Voting is an unattractive option, since the regime is clearly using today’s vote in an attempt to boost their own legitimacy, and participating would help them out. But boycotting is never an effective choice, since it only ensures the activists will further marginalize themselves. And, even if candidates range on the ideological spectrum “from pitch black to dark gray,” as Karim Sadjadpour told the New York Times, that’s still a chance to effect some tiny change. The dilemma seemed to trouble even opposition figure and former President Mohammad Khatami, who first called for a boycott and then ended up voting, enraging some activists who saw it as a betrayal.

So you’ve got to hand it to the young man in this photo, who seemed to figure out a clever way to protest the election — wearing the flag of his government’s #1 enemy — while still making sure his vote is included. It’s a small but brave way to thumb his nose at the system without excluding himself entirely, as boycotters did Friday.

There are also some subtle, though perhaps unintended, cultural factors at play in this photo. Yes, the Iranian government regularly and consistently depicts America and all things Western as the most severe mortal threats to Iran. It’s not enough to hate American foreign policy: Western music, Western literature, even Western hairstyles are treated as tentacles of the great American menace. And, yes, Iranian nationalism is a real cultural force, including among reformers and democratic activists, and that nationalism often includes a certain hostility toward the U.S., which is after all destroying their economy with sanctions. Wearing an American flag on election day suggests a rejection of the anti-Americanism that undergirds Khamenei’s narrative of the Iran-West conflict, and that conflict after all undergirds much of the regime’s legitimacy.

Or maybe he just thought it would be funny to wear a Toby Keith shirt on election day. Because foreign media in Iran were even more restricted than usual Friday, and because Iran’s repressive laws and cruel security services make honest public discussion so difficult, we can’t really know.

By Laura King, www.LATimes.com

Six months ago, in a moving ceremony held during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, President Hamid Karzai went on Afghanistan television to pardon two dozen boys, the youngest only 8 years old, who had been caught trying to carry out suicide attacks.

In mid-February, authorities in Kandahar province reported that two of the children, 10-year-olds, had been rearrested last week, apparently intending again to carry out bombings.

Provincial spokesman Zalmay Ayubi said that the boys each had a vest full of explosives when they were detained along with three adult militant suspects, and that they told intelligence officers they had been recruited for suicide missions.

A statement from provincial authorities in Kandahar quoted one of the boys, who was named Azizullah, as saying the pair had undergone training at a madrassa, or religious school, in Pakistan. The mullahs told them that the boys would be unharmed by the blast when they set off their bombs, Azizullah reportedly said.

The other child, called Nasibullah, told authorities he had been taught how to detonate a vest full of explosives. “They showed me how to press the button in my hand,” he said, according to the statement issued by the provincial government. The intelligence service said that one of the boys was from Pakistan’s Baluchistan province, across the border from southern Afghanistan, and that the other was from Afghanistan’s Paktia province, which borders Pakistan’s tribal areas.

During the emotional televised pardon of the would-be bombers in August, Karzai was shown talking with the boys about their experiences. Before the pardon, the youngsters had been held in a juvenile detention center in the capital.

The children told Karzai of having been told to try to approach foreign troops and set off their explosion and of receiving drugs beforehand, which they were told was medicine to make them strong.

Authorities in Kandahar said the rearrested boys expressed regret and said they hoped they would be pardoned again.

Human rights groups have strongly denounced the use of children in attacks, and at least a dozen such incidents have been documented in recent years.

A spokesman for the NATO force, Lt. Col. Jimmie Cummings, said the coalition is “outraged by the Taliban’s continued use of children” as potential suicide bombers.

Karzai’s office said an investigation had been launched to find out how the two boys were induced to again attempt suicide bombings, and that it was hoped they could be given an education and retraining. Officials at the Kabul juvenile detention center said at the time of the mass pardon that the boys had been brainwashed and that it was difficult to make them see that their actions were wrong.

By Matthias Williams and Manoj Kumar

(Reuters) – Iran has turned to India for wheat supplies as other sellers divert grain cargoes away from the Middle East country because of sanctions-related payments problems that have caused palm oil imports to grind to a halt.

Indian tea was also added on Thursday, Feb 9, to a growing list of Iran’s food imports that are being disrupted by U.S. and European Union sanctions aimed at forcing Tehran to scrap a suspected nuclear weapons programme.

India’s Trade Secretary Rahul Khullar said a private Iranian buyer is interested in importing “a very large quantity” of wheat, which the world’s second-biggest producer of the crop has in surplus.

Khullar, the most senior official in the ministry, suggested India was considering the sale. India wants to step up exports to Iran in a range of goods to settle part of its oil due to Tehran.

“There are UN sanctions which India honours, those don’t cover the export of vast range of products which India can export to Iran,” Khullar told reporters.

“If the EU and the U.S. both want to stop exports to that country, please tell me why I should follow suit? Why shouldn’t I take up that business opportunity?”

“If Europe and the U.S. believe they wish to sanction exports of a large number of items to that country that is their choice. But for us we shall continue business,” the trade secretary said.

In recent days more evidence has emerged showing that Iran is having problems buying rice, cooking oil, and other staples for its 74 million population.

U.S. financial sanctions imposed since the beginning of this year and targeted at Iran’s central bank are playing havoc with the OPEC producer’s ability to buy imports and receive payment for its oil exports, commodities traders said.

Trading sources said that Singaporean firms have stopped supplying Iran with Indonesian palm oil on concerns over the country’s ability to make payments, a day after traders said Malaysian exporters had taken a similar action.

Indonesia and Malaysia account for 90 percent of the global production of palm oil. Most deals for Indonesian palm oil are conducted in Singapore.

“I can confirm that Singaporean firms have stopped. We don’t want to go anywhere near Iran at this moment, it is too risky,” said a trader with a listed Singaporean firm that ships Indonesian palm oil cargoes to the Middle East and Iran.

A trading source from Saudi Arabia whose firm runs a 16,000 tonne a year edible oils refinery in Iran said the refining sector was barely operating.

The halt in palm oil supplies comes on top of Iranian payment problems for Indian rice and European grain to Iran.

Iran imports around 4.5 million tonnes of grain a year, including about 3.5 million tonnes of maize, which is mainly used in animal feed.

It relies on imports to meet more than 60 percent of its maize needs, about 45 percent of its rice demand but only 3 percent of its wheat, figures from the U.S. Department of Agriculture showed for 2010-11.

However, wheat could be used by Iran to replace maize as animal feed, which may explain the approach to India, especially after news last week that Ukrainian maize shipments had been cut in half.

India is expected to harvest a record 88.31 million tonnes of wheat in 2012, while government stocks on January 1 stood at 25.7 million tonnes, more than three times the official target for the quarter ending March 31.

Khullar said Indian tea exports to Iran face payment problems as well. India exported more than 15 million kilograms of tea to Iran worth over $50 million, India state-run Tea Board figures show.

That adds to news that Iran had defaulted on rice payments worth $144 million.

“There were just handful, or a clutch of rice payments which are stuck … more important than the rice payment is the tea payment,” Khullar said.

“Private traders are not dumb. They stop exports when the payment system run into trouble. The actual shipments of rice to Iran are much lower than they had been in previous years,” Khullar said referring to rice exports.

“There are a handful of guys … who have actually exported, whose payment settlement has got stuck in transit.”

While some Asian buyers have cut crude imports from Iran due to payment issues, the sanctions have prompted a plunge in the rial and raised costs of imports for Tehran. The sanctions have also made it more difficult for Dubai-based middlemen to process payments.

A senior lawmaker says Iran is considering a plan to cut off the country’s economic transactions with South Korea’s Samsung. This commercial is from an Israeli cable company offering new subscribers a Samsung Tablet with apps. The Mossad agents in disguise (veils), arrive at the Isfahan nuclear facility and meet up with another Mossad agent who shows them his new Tablet with apps. When one of them pushes the wrong app, the nuclear facility in the distance explodes.

Video sound: The sound doesn’t kick in until the actual ad begins at 0:50.

A comment on the YouTube website protests with this explanation: “The bug is nicknamed khumeni (NOT Khomeini). Its nickname derives from the Hebrew word ‘khum’, which means ‘brown’. Its similarity to the Iranian name Khomeini is a mere coincidence.” The explanation doesn’t detract from the humor at the end as an agent swats a buzzing khumeni.

www.upi.com/Business_News

TEL AVIV, Israel, (UPI) — The Israeli government plans to build a floating liquefied natural gas terminal with a sea-based defense radar system off its Mediterranean coast while forming a naval force to protect its rich offshore gas fields against terrorist attack.

The terminal, which is scheduled to pump 87.25 billion cubic feet of imported gas into Israel’s energy network annually, is intended as a stopgap until the Jewish state’s new fields go on-stream in 2013 at the earliest.

The new fields, Leviathan and the smaller Tamar field, hold an estimated 25 trillion cubic feet of gas. Major new strikes are expected as Noble Energy Co., which has its headquarters in Texas, and its Israelis partners, extend exploration.

The U.S. Geological Survey reported that the Levant Basin–which covers Israel, Syria, Lebanon, Cyprus, and the Gaza Strip–contains around 122 tcf of gas and at least 1.7 billion barrels of oil.

Israel’s big finds, which are likely to extend into Cypriot and Lebanese waters, significantly alter the strategic energy picture in the eastern Mediterranean.

Given the region’s history of war — the Arab-Israeli conflict and the historical Greece-Turkey rivalry which resulted in the 1974 division of Cyprus — there are fears this abundance of energy wealth could trigger new battles.

Lebanon, with which Israel is technically at war — they clashed in a 34-day war in the summer of 2006 — claims Israel’s Leviathan field extends into Lebanese waters.

Israel’s plans to defend its gas fields reflects its concerns that they are highly vulnerable to attack by terrorists using anti-ship missiles, frogmen, or suicide bombers in boats packed with explosives.

In this regard, the main worry is the Iranian-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon, which Israel’s military says possess 42,000 missiles and rockets, including Chinese-designed C-802 anti-ship missiles that seriously damaged an Israeli corvette in the 2006 fighting.

Syria recently took delivery of 72 supersonic Russian-built P-800 Yakhont anti-ship missiles with a range of 190 miles and powerful enough to sink a large ship. Israeli leaders say they fears these could possibly be passed on to Hezbollah for use against the Israeli gas production platforms.

On top of that, in 2011 the Israeli navy seized an Iranian arms shipment, including six Nasr-1 radar-guided anti-ship missiles it claimed was bound for the Palestinian Hamas organization in Gaza.

Military commanders say the production platforms and associated installations will be prime targets if a new Middle East war erupts between Iran and the West currently confronting each other in the Persian Gulf.

Concerns have been heightened by a recent foray into the eastern Mediterranean by the Iranian navy. Two vessels transited the Suez Canal to visit the Syrian port of Tartus in Iran’s first naval mission into those waters since the Islamic Revolution of 1979.

Tehran has said it plans to deploy warships in the Mediterranean on a more regular basis. Most of the Israeli navy is deployed in those waters.

The strategic importance of the gas fields, which are expected to transform Israel’s economy and earn it billions of dollars in energy exports, is underlined by the plan to strengthen the navy at a time when the hard-pressed government is slashing the defense budget.

No details of the cost of the naval program have been disclosed. But The Jerusalem Post said some of it will be underwritten by state-owned companies tasked with constructing and operating the sea-based LNG facility several miles off the northern city of Hadera.

Up to now, Israel has been importing gas from neighboring Egypt, with which it signed a landmark peace treaty in 1979, supplementing gas from Israel’s only working gas field that’s nearly depleted.

The Egyptian gas supplies are problematical. The gas pipeline across the Sinai Peninsula has been attacked 12 times since the uprising in Egypt that erupted in January 2011. The latest bombing Sunday ruptured the line again.

Israel imported 43 percent of its gas from Egypt and that’s now been largely cut off. But that’s just half the problem.

The interim government in Cairo, installed after President Hosni Mubarak was driven from office Feb. 11, 2011, claims the fees for the gas were far too low. It wants hefty increases.

Israel’s reluctant to agree to that even though the Tamar field isn’t expected to begin production until 2013 at the earliest.

By Anne Gearan AP National Security Writer

WASHINGTON – Additional U.S. sanctions on Iran are more significant for their timing than their immediate effect on Iran’s economy, coming as the United States and its allies are arguing that Israel should hold off on any military strike on Iranian nuclear facilities to allow more time for sanctions to work.

The U.S. ordered tough new penalties Monday to give U.S. banks additional powers to freeze assets linked to the Iranian government and close loopholes that officials say Iran has used to move money despite earlier restrictions imposed by the U.S. and Europe.

Like previous economic penalties, these are intended to persuade Iran to back off what the West contends is a drive to build a nuclear bomb. Israel increasingly is concerned that sanctions will never be enough to make Iran drop what has become a national priority for a clerical regime that has vowed to wipe Israel off the map.

The faster and more effectively the sanctions can be seen to work, the better the case to shelve any plan by Israel to bomb Iran, a pre-emptory move that could ignite a new Mideast war. Taking this initial step against the Iranian Central Bank, the first time the U.S. has directly gone after that major institution, is one way the Obama administration can show momentum now.

Israeli officials have been open about their worry that Iran could be on the brink of a bomb by this summer and that this spring offers the last window of opportunity to destroy bomb-related facilities [before they go deep underground]. Many Israeli officials believe that sanctions only give Iran time to move its nuclear program underground, out of reach of Israeli military strikes.

Israel considers Iran to be its most dangerous enemy and has vowed to prevent it from going nuclear.

Israel’s hawkish foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman, was in Washington this week and will meet with Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on Tuesday. He refused questions following a meeting on Capitol Hill on Monday, and an Israeli official in Jerusalem said the country’s prime minister has told Cabinet members not to be so outspoken about the possibility of attacking Iran.

The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was discussing a closed meeting.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu himself often has commented about keeping all options on the table in dealing with Iran.

The new, stricter sanctions, authorized in legislation that President Barack Obama signed in December, will be enforced under an order he signed only now.

The U.S. and Europe want to deprive Iran of the oil income it needs to run its government and pay for the nuclear program. But many experts believe Iran will be able to find other buyers outside Europe.

The European Union announced last month it would ban the import of Iranian crude oil starting in July. The U.S. doesn’t buy Iranian oil, but last month it placed sanctions on Iran’s banks to make it harder for the nation to sell crude. The U.S., however, has delayed implementing those sanctions for at least six months because it is worried about sending oil prices higher at a time when the world economy is struggling. Iran exports about 3 percent of the world’s oil.

White House spokesman Jay Carney denied that Monday’s unexpected announcement of new banking sanctions was a sign of heightened worry about an Israeli attack.

“There has been a steady increase in our sanctions activity and this is part of that escalation,” he said.

Carney said U.S. sanctions on Iran already are squeezing Iran’s economy and have exacerbated tensions within the Iranian leadership.

“There is no question that the impact of the isolation on Iran and the economic sanctions on Iran have caused added turmoil within Iran,” he said.

Iran is the world’s third-largest exporter of crude oil, giving its leaders financial resources and leverage to withstand outside pressure. Last year, Iran generated $100 billion in revenue from oil, up from $20 billion a decade ago, according to IHS CERA, an energy consulting firm.

If Iranian oil is prevented from getting to market, other suppliers could make up the difference. The U.S. has been pressuring other Middle East and African nations to step up production for sale to Europe. Saudi Arabia has said it could increase production to make up for any lost Iranian crude.

Iran’s disputed nuclear program became a global concern more than five years ago, when the extent of the country’s research and uranium enrichment began to be known. Since then, a web of international economic and other sanctions have failed to stop Iran’s progress toward a point when it could build one or more nuclear devices.

U.S. intelligence agencies say Iran is indeed close to that ability but has not yet decided to go ahead. Iran says its nuclear program is peaceful and denounces sanctions as aggression.

The White House previously had said it would take months to evaluate the likely effect on the fragile global economy before taking the next large steps, including new penalties on the Central Bank.

Now, U.S. institutions are required to seize any Iranian state assets they come across, rather than rejecting the transaction involved.

The value of Iranian assets affected by the new order was not clear. Iran does almost no direct business with the United States after three decades of enmity, but its money moves through the world financial system and its oil is sold in dollars.

Leon Neal / AFP / Getty Images

Associated Press
www.TheDailyBeast.com

Protesters were so angry over Syria’s latest and most brutal crackdown on dissent—more than 200 people were killed in Homs over the weekend—and the failure of the United Nations to pass a resolution calling on President Bashir al-Assad to step down, that they attacked seven Syrian embassies all around the world Saturday. The embassy in Cairo was set on fire, and mobs trashed the diplomatic offices in London and Canberra, Australia. Similar scenes played out in Athens, Berlin, Kuwait, and Libya. Russia and China’s veto of the U.N. resolution has been called shameful, and the Syrian opposition said it amounts to providing the Assad regime a “license to kill.”

By Barry Rubin www.PJMedia.com
(posted January 26, 2012)

The radio superhero The Shadow had the power to “cloud men’s minds.” But nothing clouds men’s minds like anything that has to do with Jews or Israel. This year’s variation on that theme is the idea that Israel is about to attack Iran. Such a claim repeatedly appears in the media. Some have criticized Israel for attacking Iran and turning the Middle East into a cauldron of turmoil (not as if the region needs any help in that department) despite the fact that it hasn’t even happened.

On the surface, of course, there is apparent evidence for such a thesis. Israel has talked about attacking Iran and one can make a case for such an operation. Yet any serious consideration of this scenario — based on actual research and real analysis rather than what the uninformed assemble in their own heads or Israeli leaders sending a message to create a situation where an attack isn’t necessary — is this: It isn’t going to happen.

Indeed, the main leak from the Israeli government, by an ex-intelligence official who hates Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, has been that the Israeli government already decided not to attack Iran. He says that he worries this might change in the future but there’s no hint that this has happened or will happen. Defense Minister Ehud Barak has publicly denied plans for an imminent attack as have other senior government officials.

Of course, one might joke that the fact that Israeli leaders talk about attacking Iran is the biggest proof that they aren’t about to do it. But Israel, like other countries, should be subject to rational analysis. Articles written by others are being spun as saying Israel is going to attack when that’s not what they are saying. I stand by my analysis and before December 31 we will see who was right. I’m not at all worried about stating very clearly that Israel is not going to go to war with Iran.

So why are Israelis talking about a potential attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities? Because that’s a good way – indeed, the only way Israel has — to pressure Western countries to work harder on the issue, to increase sanctions and diplomatic efforts. If one believes that somehow pushing Tehran into slowing down or stopping its nuclear weapons drive is the only alternative to war, that greatly concentrates policymakers’ minds. Personally, I don’t participate — consciously or as an instrument — in disinformation campaigns, even if they are for a good cause.

Regarding Ronen Bergman’s article in The New York Times (see preceding article), I think the answer is simple: Israeli leaders are not announcing that they are about to attack Iran. They are sending a message that the United States and Europe should act more decisively so that Israel does not feel the need to attack Iran in the future. That is a debate that can be held but it does not deal with a different issue: Is Israel about to attack Iran? The answer is “no.”

Why should Israel attack Iran now? Because one day Iran will have nuclear weapons that might be used to attack Israel.

Does Iran have such deliverable weapons now? No.

If Israel attacks Iran now, does that mean Iran would never get nuclear weapons? No, it would merely postpone that outcome for at most a year or two more than it would take otherwise. And then it would ensure an all-out, endless bloody war thereafter.

If Israel attacks Iranian nuclear installations, would that ensure future peace between the two countries? Would it make it less likely that the Tehran regime uses such weapons to strike at Israel in the future? No. On the contrary, it would have the exact opposite effect. Again, it would ensure direct warfare between the two countries and make Iran’s use of nuclear weapons against Israel 100 percent probable.

Why is this different from Israeli attacks on Iraqi and Syrian nuclear facilities? Because in those cases a single strike by a small number of planes would be sufficient to destroy a single building. And the two regimes, precisely because of the strategic situation, would and could not respond. And if you believe Iran’s regime to be so totally irrational, then factor that point into how it would respond to a direct attack like that.

If Israel attacks Iran, would it have backing from anyone else in the world? No, in fact the United States strongly opposes such an operation. Iranian retaliation against oil shipping and terrorist attacks would lead (not overly brave and already appeasement-oriented) Western governments to blame Israel, not Iran. Launching such an attack would ensure a level of international isolation for Israel far higher than what exists today. The idea that a U.S. withdrawal from Iraq makes an Israeli attack more attractive is absurd. U.S. forces and interests are in the Gulf and an Israeli attack would — according to the Obama administration — endanger U.S. interests there.

Would such an attack by Israel be likely to succeed even in doing maximum damage to Iranian facilities? No, a great deal could go wrong, especially against multiple hardened targets at the planes’ maximum range. Planes could get lost or crash or have to turn back. Planes arriving over the targets could miss, or accidentally drop their bombs on civilians, or simply not do much damage. Many targets would remain unscathed.

Additional waves of attack would be needed in a situation where Iran would be better prepared to shoot down the planes. And the second wave would face huge Western opposition. But it would be too late either way since Israel would now be in a full war with Iran.

So given all of these factors, why should Israel possibly attack Iran? It is an absurd idea.

The counter-argument is this: Iran’s regime is irrational and wants to destroy Israel even if the resulting counterattack would kill millions of Iranians and wreck the country. Yet while that analysis should not be totally ruled out, it is far from a certainty. Tehran is seeking nuclear weapons to make itself invulnerable to the costs of its non-nuclear subversion and support for terrorist and revolutionary forces. And a lot of what the Iranian leadership says is demagoguery to build support for itself at home, and to convince the masses to ignore its incompetence and mismanagement.

Moreover, while you may have met Iranians whose grasp of reality is — let me put this politely — somewhat creative and even though the Iran regime evinces an extremist anti-Western, anti-American, and anti-Semitic ideology, the actual history of Iran (or more narrowly of the Iranian regime) does not show it to be an irrational actor. In other words, Iran tries to implement highly radical, nasty, and terrorist-supporting actions in a careful and cautious manner. Islamist Iran did not invade any of its neighbors and it has not taken big foreign policy risks. In saying this, I’m not being naive or ignoring what Iran’s leaders say or want but focusing on what they actually do.

Why does Iran want nuclear weapons? So it can go on sponsoring terrorism, spreading radical ideology, killing Americans through covert actions, and building a sphere of influence without anyone doing anything about it. In other words, the real threat is Iran’s conventional foreign policy safeguarded by nuclear weapons. Are there precedents for this? Sure. More recently, Pakistan and North Korea; going back further in time, the Stalinist USSR.

Yet given the points made above, even the Iran-as-irrational analysis — and even assuming it to be correct, the probability of being right about Iran ever trying to launch a nuclear attack is far lower than 100 percent — does not justify an Israeli attack at this time.

And, finally, Israel has other options. The alternative is this: As the Iranian regime works hard to get nuclear weapons and missiles capable of carrying them, Israel uses the time to build a multi-level defensive and offensive capability. These layers include:

U.S. early-warning stations and anti-missile missile installations in the Gulf; Israeli missile-launching submarines; Israeli long-range planes whose crews have rehearsed and planned for strikes at Iranian facilities; different types of anti-missile missiles capable of knocking down the small number of missiles Iran could fire simultaneously; covert operations, possibly including computer viruses and assassinations, to slow down Iran’s development of nuclear weapons; improved intelligence; help to the Iranian opposition (though the idea of “regime change” in the near future is a fantasy); and other measures.

If and when there was a clear Iranian threat to attack Israel, then Israel could launch a preemptive assault. And if no such threat ever materializes, Israel need never attack. Any future Iran-Israel war will happen if Iran’s regime makes it unavoidable, not in theory but in actual practice.

Note that attacking a limited number of missiles and launch facilities, that must be located closer to Israel within Iranian territory, is easy. Attacking multiple nuclear facilities buried deep in the ground anywhere in Iran is hard.

Ah, but what if Iran gives small nuclear devices to terrorists? Well ask yourself two simple questions:

1. Would an Israeli attack on Iran ensure that this didn’t happen? Answer: Not at all.

2. Would an Israeli attack on Iran ensure that Iran would definitely give nuclear devices to terrorists and try to strike against Israel as quickly and as frequently as possible? Absolutely yes.

Does an Israeli strategy of not launching an attack assume that Iran’s regime is “rational” and “peace-loving” and will be deterred by Israel’s ability to strike back? Absolutely not. Indeed, quite the opposite. No such assumption is required. Israel will simply be ready and alert based on the assumption that Iran might attack some day. But such a war, however possible, is not inevitable. And since Israel cannot prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons by attacking, there is no point in doing so.

Whether you hope for or fear an Israeli attack on Iran, it isn’t going to happen.

Warning against tough sanctions is a way of avoiding tough sanctions. The effort to use U.S. leverage will be presented as triggering war or an anti-American explosion among Muslims. Thus, for example, whatever the Egyptian regime does toward Israel or its own people, we will be told that reducing U.S. aid is not an option.

Going to war with Iran is a mistake and the hysteria on this issue, including claims the regime is about to fall, that it can easily be brought down, or that an Iranian nuclear attack on others is inevitable, should be reined in. That’s precisely why sanctions and other measures should be applied to the fullest extent possible.

And there isn’t going to be any war unless Iran’s regime tries to use nuclear weapons or makes a big mistake. It could, as Egypt did in 1967 or Saddam Hussein did in the late 1990s, rattle “nuclear sabers” enough to convince Israel that an attack is imminent. Even if it did not intend to attack, Tehran might push too hard and trigger an Israeli attack. By the same token, some Iranian attack on Western forces or on oil traffic in the Gulf — more likely triggered by a local commander without regime permission — could produce a slide into war with the United States.

But here’s what’s most likely going to happen: Iran will get nuclear weapons. Iran is not going to stop its nuclear drive (though it could stop short of actually building bombs or warheads ready to go). Western policies are not so bold or adventurous as to go to war; Israel’s interests and capabilities do not make attacking sensible. An attack would not solve but increase problems.

And no matter how crazy you think Iran’s regime is, the inescapable, predicable threat is not high enough to force policymakers to risk getting hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions of people killed, when the chance of avoiding such an outcome is very high. I am not talking here about Hezbollah firing a few rockets (Hamas might well do nothing) but a long-term war that would guarantee the use of Iranian nuclear weapons.

PS: One reader has asked and others are no doubt thinking: But don’t you have to stop the possibility of an Iranian nuclear weapon being handed to terrorists against Israel or somehow against the United States? Let’s be clear: An attack on Iranian facilities will not prevent this from happening and indeed will make such an event more likely than it would be otherwise. You can think up any scenario you want, but if there is a war going on, the Tehran regime (or various parts of it) has a much greater incentive to order or allow nuclear weapons to be used when it obtains them within a year or two of the initial attack.

Update: A number of sources are now saying that Iran’s retaliation to an attack should not be exaggerated. I agree that Iran can and will do little in the immediate aftermath. At most, Hezbollah will fire rockets. The problem is the long-term effect, the opening of an Iran-Israel war that will go on for many years. In addition, the idea of Israel bombing Iran to prevent it from getting nuclear weapons should take into account that the attack will not stop Iran from getting nuclear weapons. What’s the point of an attack that doesn’t achieve its stated goal?

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Barry Rubin is director of the GLORIA Center at IDC.