Green With Envy?

Even God has a sense of humor: "While creating wives, God promised men that good and obedient wives would be found in all corners of the world. And then He made the earth round."
---
Is the Obama Administration laying the foundation for recognizing the possibility Israel may be preparing to attack Iran?

More commentary regarding Iran, Israel and the IAEA Report soon to be released. (See 1, 1a and 1b below.)
---
Obama found a way to transfer green dollars to his green friends. Does that make you green with envy? (See 2 below.)
---
Strange bed fellows? (See 3 below.)
---
Obama's entire foreign policy approach can be likened to the dandelion game we played when kids, ie. blow on it and ask does she love me does she not love me. Lot of wind, sound and fury, ie. verba non acta?

However, author Rothkopf believes the world misreads Obama vis a vis Iran. (See 4 below.)
---
The Nov. Issue of "Commentary Magazine" has some of the most interesting articles by a variety of authors on the topic: "Are You Optimistic or Pessimistic About America's Future?"

The conclusions and messages range all over the street and almost to an author each offer a provocative insight.


Most of the articles, whether optimistic or pessimistic, discussed some of my own concerns regarding America's decline in education and disintegration of our culture.

None, however, touched on what I consider is much of the root cause of our problem which began with the moral and economic ravages brought about by slavery and the consequent outgrowth of an underprivileged sub culture and economic sub-class.

I urge everyone to buy and read this issue, then come to your own conclusions.
---
Dick
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1)US sources: Israel ministers who opposed Iran strike are now for it

American sources told Fox television early Sunday, Nov. 6 that all the senior Israeli ministers who were formerly against attacking Iran's nuclear sites are now for it, having been updated on Iran's clandestine progress toward building a nuclear weapon. This information is due to be borne out when the IAEA publishes its next Iran report Tuesday, Nov. 8. The ministers are said to have changed their minds in the belief that the next round of sanctions will not be tough enough and point to the precedent of Israel's 1981 attack on Iraq's nuclear reactor which was never rebuilt.

According to Washington sources, the Obama administration attributes the change of heart by those ministers to a conviction that Iran already has a nuclear weapon.
And so after ten days after feverish, unattributed Israeli news reporting on an imminent attack, the administration has drawn certain lines: Israel should go forward with its plans to strike Iran, while Washington will stress "diplomatic strategy."
This phrase, new in official US language on the nuclear controversy with Iran, does not rule out the military option. It was first aired last Thursday, Nov. 3 by US Deputy National Security Adviser for Strategic Communications Ben Rhodes, a member of the Barack Obama party attending the G-20 summit in Cannes.

All in all, public US administration responses to the prospect of Israel taking military action on Iran in own its hands have been unusually mild.

Friday, Nov. 4, another American television station CNN quoted a "senior US military official" as commenting that the administration is no longer sure that Israel would give the US warning of an attack.

However, while voicing concern and reporting stepped up "watchfulness" of both Iran and Israel, the official's tone was not critical of Israel, despite the fact that Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu had been understood to have assured the US president when they met in the past year that Israel would not attack Iran without prior warning to Washington.

A second US military official stressed that Iran is the largest threat to the United States in the Middle East.

These US officials appeared to be warning Tehran that because of the level reached by its weapons-geared nuclear program, the Obama administration could no longer hold Israel back from exercising its military option.

On the issue of Israeli action against Iran, the tone from US official sources has undergone a marked change.

The former routine putdowns from Washington sources asserting: a) that Israel was not up to a lone military operation and that anyway b) it would only have the limited effect of putting the Iranian weapons program back four years, are no longer heard - especially since the US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta visited Israel last month.

1a) Coping with Iranian Nuclear Capabilities
The assumption that Iranian rationality would follow traditional Western
assumptions may be unfounded.

The hope for a radical regime change in Iran is currently little more than
wishful thinking.

Israel should not rely on international responses to a de facto nuclear
Iran.

The public must be made aware that a nuclear attack is not an existential
threat. No doubt the effects of a nuclear attack are very serious and the
number of casualties could be high, but the radius of damage would still be
limited, and the nation would certainly survive such an attack. Preparing
the population for such a possibility would also become part of Israel’s
deterrence, since good preparations minimize the effects, and effects are
the ultimate purpose of such an attack.

[AL: If Iran gets an atomic bomb will you consider leaving Israel?
Yes 11% No 84% Don't know 5%

Poll carried out Wednesday night 2 November 2011 by Dialogue for Haaretz of
a representative sample of 495 adults Israelis (including Israeli Arabs).
Statistical error +/- 4.6 percentage points and published in Haaretz on 3
and 4 November 2011 ]

Coping with Iran's Nuclear Capabilities
By Ephraim Asculai

INSS Strategic Assessment - Volume 14 No. 3 October 2011
http://www.inss.org.il/upload/(FILE)1320323852.pdf
Dr. Ephraim Asculai is a senior research associate at INSS.

While the world's attention, at least judging by media coverage, is pointed
elsewhere, Iran has proceeded relentlessly with its nuclear project. Iran's
reasons for wanting to acquire nuclear weapons have been discussed
extensively elsewhere,1 but certainly producing nuclear weapons has become
more of a political decision than anything else. This essay describes in
general terms Iran's nuclear capabilities, and reviews the various Iranian
options and their ramifications, the active and passive ways of dealing with
these capabilities, and the implications of a nuclear Iran for Israel.

Iran's Nuclear Capabilities

Iran has the capability to enrich uranium to any degree it wishes. By mid
August 2011 it had enriched more than 4.5 metric tons of uranium to 3.5
percent of uranium 235; of this, 320 kilograms were further enriched to
produce some 70 kilograms of about 20 percent enrichment.2 For the
production of 25 kilograms of 90 percent enriched uranium metal, a quantity
required for a first core, an amount of approximately 1.3 metric tons of 3.5
percent enriched uranium is needed.3 If the starting point is 20 percent
enriched uranium, the required amount of this material is 0.19 tons. The
step from 20 percent to 90 percent enrichment is technically very short.
Taking all the available information into account, it appears that Iran
currently has the potential to produce some four cores for nuclear explosive
devices. This estimate does not take into account the possibility of the
production of fissile materials in any concealed or undeclared facilities, or
materials obtained from external sources.

Two more steps are needed to turn the missile material cores into nuclear
weapons: manufacturing the explosive mechanism, and packaging this mechanism
into a military warhead, either aircraft or missile borne.

Although the evidence is scant there are strong indications, including in
the IAEA reports, that Iran has been working on the explosive mechanism and
on the delivery systems. In any case, these two latter steps take much less
time to complete in comparison with the first and much more complicated
enrichment stage.

It thus seems that all that is needed for Iran's acquisition of nuclear
weapons is a political decision to utilize the existing stocks of 3.5 and 20
percent enriched uranium and enrich them to the desired level, around 90
percent. Although estimates vary as to how long it would take Iran to
achieve this aim should it decide to do so, the common wisdom is that it
would take several months to produce the first weapon and a shorter period to
produce each subsequent one.4 There is little doubt that all the while Iran
would continue to enrich uranium, and probably at an increased rate. This
“breakout” scenario would likely be detected eventually by the IAEA
inspectors if they were still actively verifying the Iranian nuclear
installations. However, because of the inherent difficulties in verifying the
inspectorate findings, the lag time between the actual activities and their
reporting could be quite long.

Therefore, given what is known as of mid 2011, Iran can have 1-2 operational
nuclear weapons within a year or so from the moment its leadership decides
to make them. Unless Iran makes any move to change its nuclear status, this
could remain the assessment for years to come. Coupled with its tested
delivery systems, these weapons could reach all West Asian countries,
southern Russia, and southeastern Europe.

The Iranian Options

While by all indications Iran is attaining all necessary technical
capabilities for the production of nuclear weapons, presuming what Iran's
next steps will be is folly. There is a range of options open to Iran; some
have been discussed in the past and some seem particularly valid at the
present time.5

a. Iran could continue on its current course: accumulating quantities of
3.5 and 20 percent enriched uranium, while remaining under IAEA inspections.
However, Iranian officials have started obliquely to adopt a policy of
ambiguity, 6 and theoretically this could continue for a long time. The
benefit of this course of action is that Iran will accumulate a growing
inventory of source material while not overtly breaching the boundaries of
permitted activities.

b. Iran may have a parallel concealed uranium enrichment program, or may
have managed to divert materials under inspection and produce fissile
materials.

c. Iran's leaders may decide to openly pursue its nuclear capabilities
and announce that should the conditions be right (e.g., an actual threat to
their state), Iran could produce a nuclear weapon in order to enhance its
security. It could also either threaten or actually withdraw from the NPT.7
Although such a withdrawal does not put an end to IAEA inspections, it could
certainly complicate matters for the inspectors and extend the period until
the world receives adequate warning in case Iran wanted to break out.

d. Either in the next step or in an unrelated one, Iran could carry out an
underground nuclear test. Iran would thereby declare its nuclear
capabilities to the world, while still not carrying out an overt act of
aggression against a foreign state. It would then be in violation of several
treaties and obligations, notably the NPT and the CTBT, to which it is a
signatory.

e. If the Middle East situation of mid 2011 persists and Bashar Asad
retains his presidency, Syria and Iran could be tempted to strengthen their
relationship and extend it to military nuclear cooperation, perhaps going as
far as stationing Iranian nuclear forces on Syrian territory.

f. Another possibility is Iran's transfer of a nuclear explosive device
to Iranian-supported terrorist organization such as Hizbollah or Hamas.
Although far less likely, this possibility is not completely out of the
question, and blackmail by these organizations (even if the threat does not
specifically emanate from Iran) could create havoc in the Middle East.

Would Iran use its nuclear weapons against another state? The common
wisdom is that nuclear weapons serve mainly as deterrents. Many researchers
postulate that the Iranian regime is rational and would act accordingly.
However, Iranian reasoning and decision making processes demand much more
extensive study, and the assumption that Iranian rationality would follow
traditional Western assumptions may be unfounded.8

Preventing a Worse Situation

The first stage, preventing Iran from gaining its nuclear potential, has
passed. Iran has reached that objective. Even if Iran were to halt any
further development of its nuclear capabilities, the possibility of rollback
is not realistic.9 Therefore, tackling the situation means preventing a
deteriorating situation and preparing for eventualities, both politically
and militarily, should Iran decide to use its potential for political gains
or even decide to produce nuclear weapons. Regime change in Iran might bring
about the desired result, but this cannot be assured.

How can the situation be prevented from deteriorating? Creating technical
difficulties for the nuclear project has its tactical benefits, but with
increasing Iranian achievements these decrease as time goes on. Thus
any such difficulties must increase in proportion to the achievements in
order to have any discernible effects.

On an overt level, the UN Security Council (SC) imposed several rounds of
sanctions on Iran, with most economic and some designed to prevent Iran from
increasing its technical capabilities. By their nature, economic sanctions
have effects over the long term. Their success is not assured and there is
no guarantee they will have any tangible effect on Iran's nuclear program.10

Moreover, although some important countries went beyond SC sanctions,
others, notably Russia and China, did much less and thereby helped Iran.11
It is also quite certain that although the sanctions are having an
economic effect on Iran, the international pressure exerted on Iran did
not significantly affect the way the nuclear project has proceeded,
especially not on the visible part of this project“ the production of missile materials. Whether the international pressure had any effect on the
weaponization part of the program and halted it in 2003 is irrelevant, since
there is no doubt that Iran is proceeding with this part of the program
independently of the others.

In a covert mode, where details are scant, the more prominent method is
the thwarting of Iranian procurement efforts. The extent of successes is not
known, and Iran probably succeeds in getting most if not all the equipment
and materials it needs, albeit with delays, at very high prices, and in
reduced purchase quantities. Another method, extensively reported in the
media, is sabotage, in this case the Stuxnet cyber attack on the gas
centrifuge uranium enrichment operations. Apparently this did succeed in
slowing down the operation by limiting the increase in enrichment potential,
but did not stop the operation for any significant length of time.

Overall, however, most see regime change in Iran as the most promising
way to proceed in stopping the Iranian nuclear project, or at least making
it more palatable. Although there is the South African precedent of
dismantling a nuclear weapons arsenal, it is uncertain whether any new
regime in Iran would accept this, in particular since some of the regime's
opposition strongly supports the nuclear project.12

Once a country acquires a military nuclear capability, it most likely wants
to keep it. The hope in this case would be to witness a change in Iran's
foreign policy to a non-belligerent posture, which would reduce the threat
to Iran's neighbors in particular and to the world in general. Here the
relevant precedent is Japan. Yet while at present the regime is encountering
significant internal unrest, the hope for a radical regime change in Iran is
currently little more than wishful thinking. The Iranian regime still enjoys
strong backing, reinforced by military and paramilitary forces. Although the
Iranian people are affected by the sanctions, these measures are not aimed
directly at them and hence do not force widespread anti-government protests.
There is no overt support for a regime change by outside governments, and
thus prospects for imminent regime change are minimal.

The one remaining option for stopping or at least delaying the Iranian
nuclear project is the use of physical force. This has proved successful in
the cases of Iraq and Syria (and Libya, in a way), but would be much more
difficult in the case of Iran. In the first two cases, single targets were
involved. In the case of Iran, several targets would need to be destroyed,
and it is not certain that all targets are known to the potential attackers.
Some of these targets are placed deep underground and are well protected.
Thus it would seem that only a superpower such as the US or an alliance of
states such as NATO would be able to achieve a strategic result in military
attacks. At present, the consensus opposes military strikes against Iran's
nuclear installations, including its military potential.

The remaining option, then, is to learn to live with the Iranian threat.

Dealing with a Nuclear Iran: Deterrence

If prevention fails or does not cause a substantial delay to Iran's nuclear
ambitions, the world will have to cope with the new situation in ways that
would hopefully deter Iran from furthering its plans and moving towards a
full fledged nuclear capability or achieving a regional military superiority
dependent on military nuclear power.

One indication of things to come occurred when a senior member of the Saudi
establishment indicated that Saudi Arabia would develop its own nuclear
weapons to counter the Iranian threat, should it materialize.13

This is not an empty threat. It is generally assumed that Saudi Arabia
assisted Pakistan financially in the construction of its military nuclear
capability, with returns perhaps in the form of a nuclear umbrella or even a
shared nuclear arsenal. Other regional states that might consider
establishing their own nuclear weapons project in response to the Iranian
threat include Egypt, Turkey, and perhaps Iraq.

Another way to counter an Iranian threat is to deter it through strong
defenses that would destroy missiles with non-conventional warheads before
they reach their destinations. If a high degree of success is assured, Iran
stands to lose much more than it can gain by launching an attack. A failed
attack would put Iran in a very vulnerable position and make it ripe for
retaliation and preemptive attacks from its neighbors, mainly in but also
outside the Gulf region. An indirect yet potentially effective way of
deterring Iran is to reduce its capability of operating from foreign
bases or operating through proxies. The three main potential proxies are
Syria, Hizbollah, and Hamas. Weakening these alliances is almost imperative
if Iran's potential for striking Israel is to be significantly reduced.
Indeed, as long as Syria's Asad remains in power and Syria serves as the
bridge between Iran and Lebanon, this front remains potentially dangerous.
Although this may appear to be a regional/local issue, it has the potential
to ignite a more general conflict. The world would do well to defuse this
potential.

The Import for Israel

Certain basic assumptions underpin planning for a nuclear Iran. One, the
future is here. Despite the many estimates of the Iranian time frame, it is
still a matter of Iranian decision making processes more than anything else.
Thus, one cannot further delay the preparations for this eventuality in the
hope that something will delay, suspend, or even completely arrest
Iran's nuclear project. Two, all Iranian options are possible. Therefore,
profound thought and well-considered preparations are in order, and Israel's
past experience suggests that contingency plans, at least for the obvious
scenarios, are not necessarily prepared adequately in advance. The complex
situation at hand demands much thought and preparation, at least in defining
the more general responses to the Iranian developments.

Finally, Israel should not rely on international responses to a de facto
nuclear Iran. The world has reacted to but not countered Iran's developing
nuclear project. The world should have forecast the developments and
prepared for them. The response time has been so prolonged that it has
become almost irrelevant, leaving the world in a defensive mode and with
little to show in the way of results. Given the past international reaction
to Iranian developments, it is difficult to view any political activities
(e.g.,engagement) as anything but helpful to Iran. The US economic crisis
and the weakness of the administration in its response to other Middle East
developments is evidence of this. Past regional experience has proven that
guarantees are temporary at best and are easily abandoned with changes in
governments. The concept of extended deterrence is inviting, but there is no
assurance that it would withstand the test in real time.

A nuclear Iran will bring about a major change in Middle East regional
politics and alliances. It is possible that Israel will take part in forming
new political and military alliances. Regional developments in the
nuclear yield will also have to be considered. Israel's policy of ambiguity
will also probably come under discussion as a part of the overall Middle
East nuclear scenario.

A completely different aspect of coping with a nuclear Iran is civil
defense“ preparation of the population for the possibility of an Iranian
attack. Although the common wisdom is that Iran would never attack Israel
directly, with or without nuclear weapons, no Israeli government can afford
to assume this. There are two main aspects of preparations: the technical
aspects and the psychological preparation of the population for the
possibility of having to respond to a nuclear weapons emergency situation.
Although of a much lesser scale, the public has been made aware of the
possibility of having to respond to a military attack on a nuclear
reactor.14 In addition, Israel is preparing to deal with two potentially
large scale emergency situations: a major earthquake and an attack with
chemical warfare agents. In preparing for these, the authorities are
planning, training, and drilling the public as to the proper response and
behavior for these events. Thus, the ground is being prepared for dealing
with emergency situations, including a possible nuclear attack.

The public must be made aware that a nuclear attack is not an existential
threat. No doubt the effects of a nuclear attack are very serious and the
number of casualties could be high, but the radius of damage would still be
limited, and the nation would certainly survive such an attack.15
Preparing the population for such a possibility would also become part of
Israel's deterrence, since good preparations minimize the effects, and
effects are the ultimate purpose of such an attack.

Conclusion

Since the world is divided on the ways of preventing Iran from
becoming a full fledged nuclear state, and since the current Unites States
administration is reluctant to take any overt action other than sanctions,
prevention of this situation hinges on the political decisions of the
Iranian regime.16 Most likely in the short range, the Iranian regime will
assume a posture of ambiguity, while slowly increasing the visibility of its
potential for acquiring a military nuclear capability. Without Iran taking
overt military action against other states, it is difficult to foresee that
the US or any other state or group of states will take military action
against Iran. Thus, it is imperative that Israel's government prepare for
the new developing situation.

Today's reality indicates that regime change is the only way to materially
change the situation in Iran, with persuasion of the new regime to become a
rational member of the international community much in the way that
Japan, for example, is accepted. Although a legitimate wish, it is too
much to hope for a complete dismantlement of the military nuclear project,
following the pattern of South Africa in the 1990s. Israel must assume that
this will not happen, and must prepare itself to cope with all possible
scenarios emanating from the eventuality of a nuclear-capable Iran. The
better it is prepared, the better it will be able to cope with the
situation.

Notes
1 The reasons most often given for Iran wanting a military nuclear
capability are Iran's threat perception; its regional hegemonic ambitions;
and regime survival.
2 See IAEA report GOV/2011/54, 2 September, 2011. All amounts relating to
the enrichment processes are given as uranium hexafluoride (UF6). When
referring to cores of explosive devices, the amounts are given in kilograms
of uranium metal.
3 This quantity is probably needed only for the production of the first
core of a nuclear explosive device. For the production of any subsequent
core less than 25 kilograms is necessary. See, e.g., Thomas B. Cochrane and
Chris- topher E. Paine, The Amount of Plutonium and Highly Enriched Uranium
Needed for Pure Fission Nuclear Weapons, Washington, DC, Natural Resources
Defense Council, Inc. 1995. All calculations in the present article were
made with the uranium enrichment calculator, http://www.wise-
uranium.org/nfcue.html.
4 For an up-to-date detailed discussion of this period see David
Albright, Paul Brannan, and Christina Walrond, Critique of a Recent
Breakout Estimates at the Natanz Fuel Enrichment Plant (FEP), ISIS,
September 20, 2011,
http://isis-online.org/isis-reports/detail/critique-of-gregory-joness-breakout-esti-mates-at-the-natanz-fuel-enrichment/8
.
5 Ephraim Kam, A Nuclear Iran: What Does it Mean, and What Can be Done?
Memorandum No. 88 (Tel Aviv: Institute for National Security Studies, 2007).
6 There is no unequivocal definition for nuclear ambiguity. Intended here
is that there are two or more possibilities of action, with the choice
between them and the intentions on how to proceed shrouded in secrecy.
7 This is permissible under Article X of the NPT.
8 Defining Western rationality is itself a challenge, given the history of
the past 100 years. Many rationality-based assumptions in decision making
processes did not withstand the test of reality.
9 The swap deal that crops up from time to time, whereby Iran would
trade some of its enriched uranium for nuclear fuel for its small Tehran
research reactor, would cause only a minor setback in its timetable and not
accomplish the aims of the removal of the Iranian threat. See, e.g., Iran
Ready to Halt 20% Nuclear Enrichment: Ahmadinejad, October 4, 2011,
http://www.
spacewar.com/reports/Iran_ready_to_halt_20_percent_nuclear_enrich-ment_Ahmadinejad_999.html
.
10 Ephraim Asculai, Can the Iran Sanctions Succeed?” in Iran's Ambitions
for Regional Hegemony, S. Daniel Abraham Center for Strategic Dialogue,
November 2010, pp. 53-68.
11 In early September 2011 it was reported that under pressure from the US,
China withheld investments in Iran's oil industry, much needed given Iran's
aging equipment and underdeveloped oil fields. Still, Iran is China's largest
trading partner, and the supply of Iranian oil to China has not suffered
because of the sanctions. See China Curbs Oil Investments in Iran to Avoid
US Sanctions at
http://www.cnbc.com/id/44368708/China_Curbs_Oil_Investments_in_Iran_to_Avoid_US_Sanctions.
12 Ayatollah Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, a leader of the opposition in
Iran, is one of the strongest proponents of the nuclear project in Iran and
used his term as president to advance it.
13 See the report that quoted Prince Turki al-Faisal, a former Saudi
intelligence chief and ambassador to Washington and Britain, and other
officials that indicated that Saudi Arabia would develop its own nuclear
weapons if the situation demands it, in “Saudi Will Seek Nuclear Arms if
Iran Gets Them “ Report,
http://uk.reuters.com/article/2011/06/29/uk-saudi-iran-nuclear.
14 Yaakov Katz, IDF to Simulate Missile Attack on Dimona Nuclear Reactor,
Jerusalem Post, May 9. 2011,
http://www.jpost.com/Defense/Article.id 236779 .
15 See also why a nuclear Iran is not an existential threat” where the
author postulates that Israel's missile defense guarantees a second strike
capability, in Jonathan Paris, Prospects for Iran, London, Legatum
Institute, January 2011.
16 It is not even certain that all states, and this includes Russia and
China, are emphatically opposed to a nuclear Iran, since this could serve
hegemonic interests in the Middle East and their interest in the global
energy marketplace.


1b)Israel is unwise to raise the nuclear stakes
The Observer

As we await the report on Iran's nuclear capability, Israel is posturing dangerously.


This week, the International Atomic Energy Agency is expected to release its latest report on Iran's nuclear weapons ambitions. If the leaks are to be believed, that report will accuse Iran of constructing a steel tank at the Parchin military complex for testing explosives associated with atomic weapons design. The allegation is hardly new. Since 2004, there have been suspicions of work at Parchin related to weapons design and in May this year the agency listed a series of research projects it suggested could not make sense unless related to weapons research.

If the report is significant, it is because with each new IAEA report on Iran comes a familiar diplomatic ritual of threatened new sanctions from the US and its allies and reports of threatened military strikes from Israel. If there is a difference this time, it is in the strong impression, after years of veiled threats from Israel, that it will act alone if necessary to stop Iran acquiring a nuclear weapon, that the country's prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, and his closest allies in a cabinet split on the issue would like to launch a pre-emptive military strike, a view opposed by other senior figures in Israel's security establishment.

There are many reasons for the international community to oppose Iran's acquisition of nuclear weapons, not least the fact that nuclear arms proliferation is a dangerous and retrograde step in a world that has been reducing its stockpiles. Indeed, there is much merit in calls by many Arab states for the Middle East to be a nuclear-free zone whose major sticking point, ironically, is Israel's insistence on maintaining a substantial and undeclared nuclear stockpile.

Despite that caveat, the doctrine of pre-emptive retaliation – being invoked to justify a possible attack on Iranian nuclear facilities – is one with a dangerous and disreputable history. It was used most recently by President George W Bush and his allies to launch the invasion of Iraq.

To have any justification for its use, it requires an immediate and proximate threat, as existed when Israel was faced with Egyptian tank divisions manoeuvring on its borders to the loud drum beat of war, which persuaded Israel to attack first in the 1967 Six Day War. For the suggested pre-emptive strike against Iran, however, no such justifications exist.

While those favouring an attack on Iran's nuclear facilities hope that this week's IAEA report will contain conclusive proof that Iran is engaged in weapon design, ownership and use are very different issues. Tehran, despite its recent history of interference in the region and its support for groups such as Hezbollah, Hamas and Shia militias in Iraq, has avoided overt aggression against any of its neighbours.

Indeed, Iranian regional power, far from being on the rise as seemed to be happening only a handful of years ago, has been eclipsed by recent events, not least the repositioning of Turkey, the events of the Arab Spring and its own failed Green Revolution which has focused its attention inwards.

It is true that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has voiced a profound antipathy for Israel, which has been interpreted in many quarters as threatening the existence of the Jewish state. But behind the rhetoric Iran's clerical elite is well aware of the consequences that an Iranian nuclear attack – or Iranian-sponsored attack – on Israel would provoke, not least retaliation from a US that has committed itself to the defence of Israel.

The reality is that Iran's acquisition of nuclear weapons is seen as a threat for reasons partly of Israel's own making – foremost its absolute reliance on a policy of military supremacy and deterrence to underpin security. A nuclear-armed Iran would hole that policy below the waterline, making it far more difficult, for instance, to launch the kind of war it waged against Hezbollah in Lebanon in 2006.

Israel's recent posturing ahead of the IAEA meeting, which included testing a new long-range missile and launching a long-range air strike exercise, is a doubly dangerous game. For while some senior Israeli air force officers are understood to support Netanyahu's desire to strike Iran sooner rather than later, other independent analysis is far more sceptical of Israel's ability to cause lasting damage on Iran's nuclear programme, suggesting that it might require up to a fifth of the country's operational aircraft to inflict serious harm, which could still fall short of Israel's desired outcome. Some experts have estimated that even a successful raid on Iran would buy Israel only four years at best while encouraging Iran to redouble its efforts to acquire nuclear weapons.

If that is the short-term analysis, then in the medium term the risks for Israel perhaps would be greater still. With its regional alliances with friendly states quickly unravelling in the fall-out from the Arab Spring, from Israel's botched attack on the Turkish-flagged MV Mavi Marmara and from its war against Gaza, an attack on the scale required to halt Iran's nuclear programme is unlikely to improve either its relations with its neighbours or Israel's security environment.

All of which leads to the question – if the consequences carry such risk for so little benefit, why are Netanyahu and his defence minister, Ehud Barak, pushing the plan?

One possibility is that Netanyahu is determined to impose the terms of the debate about the issues raised by the IAEA report at a time when it is clear that both Russia and China are lukewarm on the prospect of further sanctions against Tehran. If that is Netanyahu's aim – to use the threat of war to leverage diplomatic effect – it is the behaviour of a tinpot state, not the mature democracy Israel claims to be.

Far more worrying is the notion that Netanyahu, who has long chafed against President Obama's strictures on settlement building and the peace process, and is said to be obsessed with the issue of Iran, is contemplating an attack having calculated he has sufficient friends in Congress to defy the White House.

Whatever Netanyahu is thinking, he is playing a high-risk game for even higher stakes, betting Israel's security and international prestige against an uncertain outcome, even by allowing it to be suggested that Israel might strike. After Israel's failure to defeat Hezbollah in Lebanon in 2006, its failure to break Hamas in Gaza in 2009 – and with the international opprobrium that followed that operation – Israel risks talking itself into a corner where it appears weak if it doesn't act and perhaps weaker if it does, a country increasingly bereft of any notion of how to manage relations with its neighbours except through the threat of aggression.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2) Green Energy: Damn the Facts, Full Speed Ahead!
By Neil Snyder


In 2008, a group of more than 31,000 scientists signed a petition dissenting from the position of the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) that man-made CO2 emissions are destroying our planet. More than 9,000 of them have Ph.D. degrees in fields like atmospheric science, climatology, earth science, and environmental science. That's fifteen times more Ph.D. scientists than are involved in the IPCC campaign.

One of the group's leaders, the late Professor Frederick Seitz, said:
The United States is very close to adopting an international agreement that would ration the use of energy and of technologies that depend upon coal, oil, and natural gas and some other organic compounds. ... This treaty is, in our opinion, based upon flawed ideas. Research data on climate change do not show that human use of hydrocarbons is harmful. To the contrary, there is good evidence that increased atmospheric carbon dioxide is environmentally helpful.

Seitz was a first-rate scientist who served as president of Rockefeller University and president of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences. Seitz was also a recipient of the National Medal of Science. The agreement to which he referred is the Kyoto Protocol.

Ivar Giaever, a Nobel Prize-winning physicist, resigned from the American Physical Society because of its position on global warming. So did University of California professor Hal Lewis. When Lewis resigned, he said that the global warming movement was a "scam" and a "pseudoscientific fraud."

Even so, our government is imposing strict controls to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in hopes of staving off global warming even though earth's atmosphere is cooling. Meanwhile, the cost to you and me is higher energy prices, higher inflation, a lower standard of living, and fewer new jobs, since every product we buy has an energy cost component. Under orders from the president, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is moving ahead aggressively with regulations to reduce CO2 emissions. President Obama's misguided effort to stay the course by fiat or by executive order is very expensive, and it's a price that we can ill afford to pay -- especially now, as our economy is struggling to recover from the Great Recession.
Global warming alarmists have resorted to fixing data, hiding data, and other things to keep people from learning the truth. They are motivated by blind faith in a theory that isn't supported by the facts. It's a perfect example of anti-science at work in the scientific community. To deny that our climate is cooling, you have to ignore a mountain of hard data, and the facts are mounting year by year. For example, it was comical to watch the participants at the December 2010 U.N. Global Warming Summit in Cancún, Mexico dress for winter as temperatures plunged to a 100-year record low. That kind of thing is happening all over the world, and it's not anecdotal data. It's a global trend that only die-hard global warming alarmists refuse to accept.

Did you know that the number of global weather tracking stations has been reduced, and disproportionately, the eliminated stations are in colder regions? Global warming alarmists have continued to report data showing global temperatures rising despite the fact that colder locations have been taken out of the data set, and they haven't bothered to divulge that fact. If you take cold readings out of the data set, average temperatures rise, but it has absolutely nothing to do with the climate. Similarly, if you included the temperature inside my oven in the data set, average temperatures would rise...but it would be an act of fraud.

The climate is cooling, and it's been cooling since 1998. Eventually, the truth will prevail, but in the meantime, President Obama continues to retard progress at great cost to the American people. The only people profiting from global warming hysteria are global warming alarmists who are selling a pig in a poke. President Obama is firmly in their camp. In fact, he is their champion.

The United States has been blessed with enough resources to meet our energy needs and to export our surpluses, but we have not developed them the way we should. Instead, we have been cowed by liberal progressives who would rather see our economy go down the tubes than develop what they consider "dirty energy."

In 2008, the U.S. imported almost 13,000,000 barrels of oil per day, or about 57% of our total oil consumption. Although our energy needs have been increasing rapidly, the U.S. didn't build a new refinery between 1998 and 2008, even then over the strong objections of liberal progressives. In 2008 alone, the U.S. spent almost $500,000,000,000 on imported oil. That's half a trillion dollars that we didn't need to spend. Our dependence on foreign oil is putting our economy (not to mention our national security) at risk.

Saying that the U.S. is rich in energy resources is an understatement. At today's consumption levels, we have enough coal to meet our needs for the next 500 years. We have 22,450,000,000 barrels of proven oil reserves, and we are finding new oil reserves all the time. The U.S. has 250 trillion cubic feet of proven natural gas reserves. We are finding new gas reserves daily, and we are discovering new ways to tap into hard-to-get gas deposits. Putting that in perspective, the U.S. has more energy in natural gas than the entire Middle East has in oil. It's disgraceful that we're putting our economic and national security at risk to import strategic resources that we have in abundance.

T. Boone Pickens, one of the world's leading oil and gas men and an energy investor, has launched a campaign to reduce our dependence on foreign oil by developing our natural gas reserves. His plan is called the Pickens Plan. Pickens deserves our support, but we need to do more. We must develop our coal, oil, and natural gas reserves. We also need to develop wind energy, solar energy, and hydrogen energy. There is absolutely no excuse for the United States to import oil and gas from another nation.

We have already spent more than $2,000,000,000,000 on a vast array of stimulus programs since President Obama took office. That's several times more than will be needed to fully develop all of our energy resources. We have squandered our wealth to reward individuals and groups that supported candidate Obama in 2008 while our critical economic and security needs have gotten scant attention.

Green energy alternatives may satisfy our energy needs one day, but this much is certain: today, green energy is little more than a way for President Obama to dole out federal dollars to his favorite firms at the expense of coal, oil, and natural gas producers. The science and technology do not exist in green energy areas to meet even a smidgen of our energy needs. That's what the facts tell us, and ignoring the facts is costing us jobs and tax revenue.

Neil Snyder is a chaired professor emeritus at the University of Virginia.
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3)Obama becomes 'Silent Cal' on Libya, sharia
By Gregory Kane

With each passing day, we're learning more and more about the people President Obama tossed us into bed with in Libya.

Here's a headline from the London Daily Mail, a British newspaper:

"Now the rebels impose Shariah law as Islamic rules become 'basic source' of Libyan legislation."

In the story below the headline, readers learn from the chairman of Libya's National Transition Council that the country's new parliament will have "an Islamist tint," that "any existing laws contradicting the teachings of Islam would be nullified" and that men would be allowed to have as many as four wives.

Again, the question must be put to Barack Hussein "American Values" Obama, president of the United States: exactly how do Shariah law and polygamy reflect American values?

Remember, when Obama justified American and NATO airstrikes in Libya to support the rebel forces that toppled the regime of Moammar Gadhafi, he claimed that preventing bloodshed was an "American value."

But there was bloodshed aplenty, as least on the side of Gadhafi forces. Gadhafi himself was a victim of the bloodshed, and the circumstances of his death that have come to light shed more light on what a sham Obama's claim of acting to preserve American values really is.

In a separate London Daily Mail story about Gadhafi's death, the paper printed the photo of an unidentified rebel who claimed he was the one who killed Gadhafi.

"We grabbed [Gadhafi]," the young man said. "I hit him in the face. Some fighters wanted to take him away and that's when I shot him, twice, in the face and in the chest."

Later, it was revealed that more was done to Gadhafi than this young rebel merely shooting him in the face and chest.

Some reports say that, before he died, Gadhafi was sodomized with either a knife, bayonet or some other sharp object.

So let's recap:

1. Obama commits American forces -- as part of NATO -- to supporting a rebel faction in Libya whose goal is to overthrow Gadhafi. Obama does this while having absolutely no clue about what kind of people make up this rebel faction.

2. The rebel forces prevail, primarily through NATO airstrikes. It was a NATO airstrike that took out a Gadhafi convoy fleeing Sirte that allowed rebel forces to capture the deposed Libyan leader.

3. Gadhafi ends up in the hands of what can only be considered a mob. He is beaten, tortured, possibly sodomized, and fatally shot in what has been oxymoronically described as "mob justice." His body is then put on public display in a meat store.

4. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton flies into Libya and announces, with the smug arrogance we might expect from an official from Obama's administration, "We came, we saw, he [Gadhafi] died."

5. Leaders of Libya's National Transition Council announce that Shariah law will prevail in Libya.

6. Obama is mum on No. 5.

He hasn't said one word about the blatantly false account of Gadhafi's death that interim Libyan Prime Minister Mahmoud Jibril initially gave reporters.

He hasn't condemned the "mob justice" that led to Gadhafi's death, the beating, the torture, the alleged sodomizing. He hasn't mumbled so much as a syllable about Gadhafi's body being put on display in a meat store.

Obama hasn't said one word about Shariah being the law of the land in the new Libya. The man who was unavoidable for comment when it came to justifying American intervention in Libya has now pulled a complete Harpo Marx act.

On this issue, Obama has made "Silent" Cal Coolidge look like a motor mouth.

Examiner Columnist Gregory Kane is a Pulitzer-nominated news and opinion journalist who has covered people and politics from Baltimore to the Sudan.
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4)The world is misreading Obama on Iran
By David Rothkopf

The government of Iran, much like many across the Middle East, believes that the Obama administration is so consumed with a desire to undo the wrongs of the Bush era and get out from under the costs of two difficult, hard-to-justify wars in the region that it would never intervene against them militarily. Iranian leaders seem to believe that the United States would not risk another war in the region just to stop their development of nuclear weapons.

The government of Israel, also worried that its number one ally has lost its appetite for complex entanglements in the region, seems to think that by playing the Iran card it can goad the U.S. into action that will restore the bonds between the two nations. Israeli leaders believe that they can translate their perception of Iran as an existential threat against them and a brazen, rising regional hegemon into a new renewed U.S. commitment to the region and closer ties with Israel.

Both are wrong.

According to the U.K. newspaper the Guardian, which has an extraordinary package of stories on the growing Iran risk and the escalation of that risk associated with an upcoming International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) report that will reveal game-changing progress by Iran in its efforts to gain nuclear weapons capabilities, even America's closest allies in Britain believe "President Obama has a big decision to make in the coming months because he won't want to do anything just before an election." Wrong.

Here in the U.S., analysts believe that Obama would not risk being drawn into a war in the region or the upheaval a series of attacks might cause. Even though tensions are definitely rising and those familiar with the IAEA report that will be circulated next week say, "It is going to be hard for even Moscow or Beijing to downplay its significance," there is a sense that Obama won't pull the trigger. Iran analyst Karim Sadjadpour was quoted by the Guardian as saying, "A U.S. military attack on Iran is not going to happen during Obama's presidency. If you're Obama, and your priority is to resuscitate the American economy and decrease the U.S. footprint in the Middle East, bombing Iran would defeat those two objectives. Oil prices would skyrocket." While an attack is no sure thing yet, the analysis is wrong.

Certainly no one in the Obama Administration is eager to launch an attack on Iran. Taking steps that would risk being drawn into another war or that might damage the global economy further or could distract from the world at home would be vigorously opposed by several of the President's most senior advisors, and he undoubtedly would be deeply divided on the issue himself.

But in the end, as dangerous as an attack might be militarily and politically, if the President believes there is no other alternative to stopping Iran from gaining the ability to produce highly enriched uranium and thus manufacture nuclear weapons, he will seriously consider military action and it is hardly a certainty he won't take it. From a domestic political perspective, right now Obama's strong suit is his national security performance. For the first time in years, he has taken the issue away from the Republicans. Right now they simply cannot attack him as being weak or assert they understand defense better. That is why they are so silent on the issue. Obama has only four real areas of vulnerability on this front. First, if he pushes too hard for defense budget cuts before the election, the Republicans will go after him. He won't. He will seek cuts but will be comparatively cautious. Next, if there were a terrorist attack of some sort and the administration seemed unprepared or responded weakly, that would create a problem. But that is a perennial wild card. Third, if he distances himself from Israel, the Republicans will seek to capitalize on the sense some supporters of that country have that Obama is not a committed friend. There is already plenty of activity in that area ... and the Israelis are eager to take advantage of their perceived election year leverage. And finally, if Iran were to detonate a nuclear bomb, Obama would be blamed and fiercely attacked for a policy of engagement that ultimately proved to be toothless.

As a consequence, the President and his advisors are acutely aware of the Iran issue. But their concerns go much deeper. The President and his national security leadership are deeply worried about the potential consequences associated with an Iranian nuclear breakthrough. It would likely trigger an arms race in the region at a time of considerable instability. It would immediately ratchet up tensions between Iran and Israel ... but also between Iran and its historic enemies in the Gulf. It would both raise Iran's perceived clout and underscore the absence of a counterweight either from the U.S., the West, or the international community at large.

While an attack on Iran's nuclear weapons facilities almost certainly would produce a spike in oil prices, those prices would stabilize if the attacks were successful and did not produce a protracted war. Further, with the world economy in a slump, prices are feeling less upward pressure anyway these days. However, if Iran gained nuclear weapons, it might trigger a kind of uncertainty that would be protracted and would have a longer-term effect on oil prices.

The British assumption that the President would not take this action close to the election is mistaken on two levels. First, from the most cynical perspective possible, a strong action right before the election in response to a genuine threat after an extended effort to pursue more peaceful options to resolving the issue might well work very well for the President politically. The American people's reaction to an attack at any time is likely to give the President the benefit of the doubt. That said, it would be a mistake to think this President would make such a cynical analysis. Should he act on an issue like this, he will do so without making any political calculus. He's a politician to be sure. But on national security matters he has grown both increasingly self-confident and proven himself to be exceptionally disciplined. Indeed, the calculus as to what he might do needs to factor in that he has achieved some success taken strong military actions of a focused nature. The "no more Middle East wars" notion went out the window with Libya. The "Obama is timid on these matters" thesis was actually silently put to an early death when the President, just in office, ordered the ultimately successful effort to eliminate Osama bin Laden.

Finally, the Israelis are wrong if they think that U.S. cooperation on this issue will restore the bond between the two nations. They may work side-by-side on this as they did on the Stuxnet intervention. They share close ties. But so long as Israel pursues settlements and other policies that inflame the Palestinian situation and make a solution less likely, this administration will be more divided internally in its views on Israel than its public statements may suggest. Further, the reality is that history is moving against the Israelis. Not only are America's strategic priorities shifting -- the end of the Cold War and the War on Terror were both blows to the "indispensability" of Israel to the U.S. -- but other countries, like China and India, are gaining more influence in the region as they become more important consumers of the region's oil. And they view the Israeli-Palestinian issue as an irritant, a risk to their interests and a matter that needs to be disposed of, one way or another, whichever serves their ultimate goal of stable, cheap supplies of energy. In fact, paradoxically, it is probably a nuclear Iran that stands the best chance of keeping Israel more relevant to America.

None of this means America will act. But it would be a mistake to bet against it or to consider U.S. threats to be mere posturing.
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