President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. is inheriting a landscape of challenges and ill will toward the United States in many countries.Credit…Erin Schaff/The New York Times

U.S. relations with China are the worst since the countries normalized ties four decades ago. America’s allies in Europe are alienated. The most important nuclear anti-proliferation treaty is about to expire with Russia. Iran is amassing enriched nuclear fuel again, and North Korea is brandishing its atomic arsenal.

Not to mention global warming, refugee crises, and looming famines in some of the poorest places on earth, all amplified by the pandemic.

President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. is inheriting a landscape of challenges and ill-will toward the United States in countries hostile to President Trump’s “America First” mantra, his unpredictability, embrace of autocratic leaders, and resistance to international cooperation. Mr. Biden also could face difficulties in dealing with governments that had hoped for Mr. Trump’s re-election — particularly Israel and Saudi Arabia, which share the president’s deep antipathy toward Iran.

Outside the United States Consulate in Chengdu in July, after China ordered the United States to close the consulate there.Credit…Ng Han Guan/Associated Press

The Middle East: Shifts on Israel, Saudi Arabia, and Iran?

Mr. Biden has vowed to reverse what he called the “dangerous failure” of Mr. Trump’s Iran policy, which repudiated the 2015 nuclear agreement and replaced it with tightening sanctions that have caused deep economic damage in Iran and left the United States largely isolated on this issue.

Mr. Biden has offered to rejoin the agreement, which constricts Iran’s nuclear capabilities if Tehran adheres to its provisions and commits to further negotiations. He also has pledged to immediately nullify Mr. Trump’s travel ban affecting Iran and several other Muslim-majority countries.

Whether Iran’s hierarchy will accept Mr. Biden’s approach is unclear. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, has said the United States is untrustworthy regardless who is in the White House. At the same time, “Iran is desperate for a deal,” said Cliff Kupchan, chairman of the Eurasia Group, a political risk consultancy.

Still, Mr. Kupchan said, Mr. Biden will face enormous difficulties in any negotiations with Iran aimed at strengthening restrictions on its nuclear activities — weaknesses Mr. Trump had cited to justify renouncing the nuclear agreement.

“The substance will be tough — we’ve seen this movie and it’s not easy,” Mr. Kupchan said. “I think Biden’s challenge is that it will not end up blowing up in his face.”

Mr. Biden’s Iran policy could alienate Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, who leveraged Mr. Trump’s confrontational approach to help strengthen Israel’s relations with Gulf Arab countries, punctuated by normalization of diplomatic ties with the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain. How Mr. Biden manages relations with Saudi Arabia, which considers Iran an enemy, will also be a challenge.

“There’s a very hard square to circle here,” Mr. Kupchan said.

Mr. Trump’s extremely favorable treatment of Israel in the protracted conflict with the Palestinians also could prove nettlesome as Mr. Biden navigates a different path in the Middle East. He has criticized Israeli settlement construction in occupied lands the Palestinians want for a future state. And he is likely to restore contacts with the Palestinian leadership.

“Benjamin Netanyahu can expect an uncomfortable period of adjustment,” an Israeli columnist, Yossi Verter, wrote Friday in the Haaretz newspaper.

At the same time, Mr. Biden also has a history of cordial relations with Mr. Netanyahu. Mr. Biden has said he would not reverse Mr. Trump’s transfer of the American Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv — a relocation that deeply angered the Palestinians.

“We had differences, but there was never a basic mistrust about having common views of the world,” Gro Harlem Brundtland, the former prime minister of Norway, told The New York Times last month. Over the past four years, she said, European leaders had learned they could “no longer take for granted that they can trust the U.S., even on basic things.”

A photo released by the official North Korean government news service shows a test launch of a Hwasong-14, one of North Korea’s intercontinental ballistic missiles.Credit…Korean Central News Agency

Confronting North Korea’s nuclear threat

Mr. Trump has described his friendship and three meetings with Kim Jong-un, the North Korean leader, as a success that averted war with the nuclear-armed hermetic country. But critics say Mr. Trump’s approach not only failed to persuade Mr. Kim to relinquish his arsenal of nuclear weapons and missiles, it bought Mr. Kim time to strengthen them. Last month the North unveiled what appeared to be its largest-ever intercontinental ballistic missile.

“On Trump’s watch, the North’s nuclear weapons program has grown apace, its missile capabilities have expanded, and Pyongyang can now target the United States with an ICBM,” said Evans J.R. Revere, a former State Department official and expert on North Korea. “That is the legacy that Trump will soon pass on to Biden, and it will be an enormous burden.”

Mr. Biden, who has been described by North Korea’s official news agency as a rabid dog that “must be beaten to death with a stick,” has criticized Mr. Trump’s approach as appeasement of a dictator. Mr. Biden has said he would press for denuclearization and “stand with South Korea,” but has not specified how he would deal with North Korean belligerence.

As vice president, Mr. Biden pushed for sanctions against Russia over President Vladimir V. Putin’s annexation of Crimea.Credit…Pool photo by Mikhail Klimentyev

A likely tougher approach to Russia and Putin

Mr. Biden has long asserted that he would take a much harder line with Russia than Mr. Trump, who questioned NATO’s usefulness, doubted intelligence warnings on Russia’s interference in U.S. elections, admired President Vladimir V. Putin, and said that improving American relations with the Kremlin would benefit all. Mr. Biden, who as vice president pushed for sanctions against Russia over its annexation of Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula in 2014 — the biggest illegal land seizure in Europe since World War II — might seek to extend those sanctions and take other punitive steps.

While tensions with Russia would likely rise, arms control is one area where Mr. Biden and Mr. Putin share a desire for progress. Mr. Biden is set to be sworn in just a few weeks before the scheduled expiration of the 2010 New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty. He has said he wants to negotiate an extension of the treaty without preconditions.

A migrant from Honduras, near the border in Juárez, Mexico, seeking asylum in the United States.Credit…Daniel Berehulak for The New York Times

A return to the Paris Agreement and international commitments

Mr. Biden has said one of his first acts as president will be to rejoin the Paris Climate accord to limit global warming, which the United States officially left under Mr. Trump on Wednesday. Mr. Biden also has said he would restore U.S. membership in the World Health Organization, which Mr. Trump repudiated in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, describing the W.H.O. as a lackey of China.

More broadly, Mr. Biden is expected to reverse many of the isolationist and anti-immigrant steps taken during the Trump administration, which are widely seen by Mr. Trump’s critics as shameful stains on American standing in the world. Mr. Biden has said he would disband Mr. Trump’s immigration restrictions, stop construction of his border wall with Mexico, expand resources for immigrants and provide a path to citizenship for people living in the United States illegally.

Nonetheless, many of Mr. Trump’s policies had considerable support in the United States, and it remains to be seen how quickly or effectively Mr. Biden can change them. The convulsions that roiled American democracy and the divisive election have also sown doubts about Mr. Biden’s ability to deliver on his pledges.

“There is relief at a return to some kind of normalcy, but at the same time, history cannot be erased,” said Jean-Marie Guehenno, a French diplomat who is a fellow at the Brookings Institution’s Foreign Policy Program and a former under-secretary-general for peacekeeping operations at the United Nations. “The kind of soft power that the United States has enjoyed in the past has largely evaporated.”

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/07/world/americas/Biden-foreign-policy.html?action=click&module=RelatedLinks&pgtype=Article

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Smoke billows from targets in Tel Abyad, Syria, during bombardment by Turkish forces. Photograph: Lefteris Pitarakis/AP

By invading northern Syria last week, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan achieved what many thought impossible – uniting all the regional countries and rival powers with a stake in the country in furious opposition to what they see as a reckless, destabilizing move.

A truculent nationalist-populist with dictatorial tendencies, Erdoğan has often cast himself as one man against the world during 16 consecutive years as Turkey’s prime minister and president. Now he really is on his own.

Fighting along the border is limited, so far, but that could quickly change. “Should hostilities intensify, a broader Turkish advance into densely populated areas could entail significant civilian casualties, displace many inhabitants and fuel local insurgency,” the International Crisis Group warned.

Even as the EU, the US, Russia, Iran, and the Arab states voice their differing objections to the invasion (Turkey terms it a “peace operation”), each is simultaneously trying to adjust to it, looking for advantage or leverage as the balance of power in Syria shifts again.

Erdoğan doubtless anticipated Europe’s hostile reaction. His response – a threat to send 3.6 million Syrian refugees westwards – was contemptuous. He knows the EU’s words are not matched by action. Nor is he fazed by calls to suspend Turkey from Nato.

Turkey’s relations with Europe were already at a low ebb because of its abysmal human rights record and thwarted EU membership bid. Now European leaders are paying a high price for past attempts to normalize Erdoğan’s authoritarianism. His latest actions prove he is no democrat, no ally and no friend.

While Europe has scant influence over what happens next, the US has plenty – but seems determined to throw it away. Despite denials, it is clear from the White House statement issued on 6 October that Donald Trump rashly agreed to Erdoğan’s invasion, without consulting his allies, and facilitated it by withdrawing ground forces.

It was a disastrous decision the US is belatedly scrambling to correct. Betraying the Kurds, comrades-in-arms in the fight against Isis, was bad enough. Appearing to abandon Syria to Russia and Iran, America’s rivals and the main backers of Bashar al-Assad’s criminal Damascus regime, was a big strategic own goal, capping eight years of post-Arab spring US policy failures.

It might be thought the Russians would be happy. After all, pushing the US out of Syria (and the wider Middle East) is their long-held aim. Yet Moscow’s reaction to the invasion has been largely negative, as was the case after Turkey intervened in Syria’s Idlib province last year.

When Vladimir Putin sent forces to Syria in 2015, he put his money on Assad to win, but victory has proved elusive, while costs – political and financial – have mounted. Erdoğan’s move further complicates matters by obstructing the peace settlement Russia, Iran (and Turkey) have been pursuing via the so-called Astana process.

That’s why Russia is urging the Kurds, now the US has abandoned them, to agree to a mutual defense pact or some kind of federal arrangement with Assad. And that’s why regime forces and pro-Iran militia are edging towards Kurdish-held areas from the south. Assad sees a chance to recapture lost territory. Erdoğan’s fatuous “safe zone” wheeze has no appeal for him.

Iran is not happy either, but for different reasons. It, too, wants to see the back of the Americans and has no love for the Kurds, a troublesome minority inside Iran. But Turkey’s move threatens Tehran’s hopes of controlling a northern territorial corridor linking it with its Shia allies in Lebanon – what Israel calls a “corridor of terror”.

After struggling to establish a pro-Tehran, Shia-dominated government in post-2003 Baghdad, Iran does not want to face another Sunni uprising across Syria and Iraq.

“The US withdrawal will kindle fears in Iran of a galvanized Sunni insurgency through a renascent Islamic State (Isis),” wrote regional analyst Bilal Baloch.

Worries about an Isis revival, considered more likely thanks to Turkey’s move, are common to all the regional players. Strangely, in this respect at least, the US, Iran and Saudi Arabia, on the brink of war a few weeks ago, now find themselves on the same side.

Arab governments including Egypt, Jordan, Bahrain, Lebanon, and the UAE, as well as the Saudis, have all condemned Turkey. After initially backing Syria’s rebels, several have pursued a cautious rapprochement with Assad in recent months, based on a shared interest in regional stability and upholding the principle of territorial sovereignty.

Arab leaders also object to Erdoğan’s support for the Muslim Brotherhood and his neo-Ottoman ideas about Turkish regional dominance. Like Russia and Iran, they calculate, reluctantly but pragmatically, that the only way to end Syria’s war and contain Isis, is to back Assad. Erdoğan has now got in the way.

The crisis has produced another cautionary lesson: that American alliances cannot be trusted. The Kurds already knew this. They were betrayed in Iraq in 1991 when the US left Saddam Hussein in power at the end of the first Gulf war.

But US unreliability is new for the Saudi regime which, like Israel, ultimately depends on Washington for its security. The more the Saudis realize they cannot count on America, the more likely they are to mend fences with Iran. By some accounts, this is already happening.

How ironic if Trump’s Syrian cop-out – providing a reality check about the limits of American power – led indirectly to peace in the Gulf, an end to the Iran-Saudi proxy war in Yemen, and spiked the guns of US and Israeli hawks who have pushed so hard for war with Tehran.

Source: https://www.theguardian.com/world/commentisfree/2019/oct/12/turkey-invasion-syria-trump-withdrawal-gulf-rivals-unite

The post Erdoğan has managed the unthinkable: uniting all the other Middle East rivals first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

Russian warplanes pounded opposition areas in southwest Syria early Sunday, monitors said, providing air support for the first time to an offensive by President Bashar Assad’s regime to retake one of the rebel’s last strongholds in the south of Syria.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Russian warplanes carried out at least 25 sorties northeast of the city of Deraa.

Bordering on Jordan and the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights, the southwest Syria battlefront is one of the seven-year war’s most complicated.

The Assad regime launched a ground and aerial offensive on opposition-held parts of Daraa, Quneitra and Sweida governorates earlier this week, endangering a one-year-old, tri-lateral “de-escalation” agreement guaranteed by Russia, the United States and Jordan.

An escalation of fighting in the southwest threatens to destabilize Jordan, displace tens of thousands of civilians and draw in regional and international powers, including raising the specter of a direct confrontation between Israel and Iran.

With rebel areas in Idlib and the northern Aleppo countryside under Turkish protection, and the United States backing Kurdish and Arab forces in the northeast against the “Islamic State,” the Assad regime had been expected to launch an offensive in the southwest after retaking rebel strongholds around Damascus and western Syria in recent months.

Russian air power alongside Iranian ground forces and Iran-backed militia have been critical in helping Syrian forces retake territory from rebels and turn the tide of the war in favor of the regime.

Read more:  Iran’s military power: What you need to know

The Syrian regime has used similar tactics against other rebel enclaves: relentless bombings and sieges followed by “reconciliation agreements” that see Damascus reassert control over territory and opposition forces submit or move to jihadi-dominated Idlib or Turkish-controlled areas.

Around 50 rebel groups under the banner of the Free Syrian Army-associated Southern Front had received support from the US, Jordan, the UK, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia from an operations center based in Amman.

This backing ended in early 2018 after the Trump administration last year announced it was pulling the plug on rebel groups seeking to oust Assad.

Read more: Iran and Israel’s Syrian shadow war laid bare 

As Washington sends mixed messages, the Syrian regime offensive risks an intervention from US ally Israel.

Israel has repeatedly carried out attacks on Iranian forces, Iran-backed militia and the regime forces as it seeks to enforce red lines to keep Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and Iran-backed forces from encroaching on its territory.

According to a report by the International Crisis Group this week, “the risk of Israeli intervention and a broader escalation between Iran and Israel stands out as the most consequential uncertainty inherent in a south-west offensive, whose destructive potential may give Damascus and its allies pause.”

Russia’s military involvement in the southwest provides a cover for advancing Syrian forces, as the best deterrence against Israel is the risk that they hit Russian military assets.

At the same time, Russia’s policy involves complex diplomatic maneuvering, with Moscow playing a key role in trying to reduce the threat of escalation that could endanger its Syrian ally or risk conflict between Israel and Iran.

Russia has reportedly been in diplomatic talks with Israel, whereby Moscow would ensure Iran and Iran-backed forces stay out of a regime offensive in the southwest in exchange for Israel greenlighting the Assad regime’s  reassertion of authority in the southwest.

“Damascus, Moscow and Tehran all appear to understand Israel’s red lines, even if their willingness to respect them remains uncertain,” the International Crisis Group said. “Nonetheless, they seem to have taken steps to address some Israeli concerns and thus smooth the Syrian regime’s return to the southwest.”

Source: http://www.dw.com/en/russian-airstrikes-in-southwest-syria-signal-escalation-of-regime-offensive/a-44368639

The post Russian airstrikes in southwest Syria signal escalation of regime offensive first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

Israeli security officers survey the wreckage of an F-16 that crashed near the Harduf kibbutz, in northern Israel, February 10, 2018. (AP Photo/Rami Slush, File)

Unlike urban areas of the country, the air in southern Lebanon is free from pollution. The hills are lush with early-spring growth and the entire landscape has a rugged beauty that belies the violence it has experienced. The only visible marks of war are martyrs’ posters that line the streets winding through picturesque villages—young local men lost in a decades-long conflict with the neighboring Jewish state of Israel.

Just a few kilometers away from the border, where Israel is in the process of erecting a hotly disputed wall to separate itself from the Hezbollah-controlled south, a local official and brigade leader in the Iranian-backed Shia militant group smoked a slim cigarette as he discussed the prospect of yet another round of violence. Every now and then, a villager wandered into his house, which sometimes doubles as an office, to get documents stamped, and the conversation paused until the visitor was gone.

The last major episode in the conflict took place in 2006, when Israel invaded Lebanon in a retaliatory offensive unsuccessful in eradicating Hezbollah, which has been celebrating its victory over the invaders ever since. The 2006 war was an impressive win for the group, in that it successfully fought the most powerful army in the Middle East until it was forced into a cease-fire, with fewer Hezbollah casualties and more Israeli casualties than expected. Hezbollah has been consolidating power and weaponry ever since, fully funded by its Iranian benefactors and increasingly alarming its neighbor, which is better accustomed to facing the much less imposing Palestinian Hamas.

“The situation is very tense in the south and we are closer than ever to conflict,” the Hezbollah official said. “The Iranians and Hezbollah are now at the borders of Israel in Lebanon and Syria; any upcoming war will be endless.”

The official, like all the Hezbollah members interviewed for this article, asked to remain anonymous because he is not authorized to speak with foreign press. He was referring to the political atmosphere after an Israeli F-16 jet was shot down over Syria on February 10, where Hezbollah is fighting on behalf of Bashar al-Assad’s regime. The jet was responding to an Iranian drone’s incursion into Israeli territory when it reportedly took fire from up to four different kinds of Russian-made antiaircraft missiles and crashed in northern Israel. Israel then launched a second raid, which it claims damaged a significant portion of Syria’s air-defense systems, hitting 12 Iranian and Syrian targets.

All news coverage of the event reported that the Syrian regime fired the barrage of surface-to-air missiles, one of which hit the Israeli plane or exploded close enough to bring it down. Israeli officials and even Hassan Nasrallah, Hezbollah’s secretary-general, credited Syria with the decision to destroy the first Israeli F-16 since the country began using the jets in the 1980s. Analysts agreed that Syrian regime soldiers manned the position from which the surface-to-air missiles were fired.

In an official statement, Hezbollah celebrated the event, saying it marked the end of Israel’s ability to freely exploit Syrian airspace. “[This is the] start of a new strategic phase,” the statement read. “Today’s developments mean the old equations have categorically ended.”

Hezbollah-controlled media also triumphantly covered the downing of the jet. But some Hezbollah members took the celebrations further, privately claiming that their group played a role in the decision to shoot it down. They said the Iranians and Hezbollah wanted to send a message to Israel via the Syrian regime, but the group’s involvement wasn’t made public in order to avoid further escalation. According to two of these men, if it became known that Hezbollah was involved in shooting down one of its planes, Israel would look weak unless it responded forcefully to the Shia militants—and they acknowledged that neither side is ready for an all-out war yet.

Four Hezbollah members separately claimed the Shia group played a role in shooting down the jet. Their identities were individually confirmed by viewing photos and/or video taken during combat in Syria and during the 2006 war with Israel. One Hezbollah captain held up his phone to show off a picture of the Israeli plane falling from the sky, which had been turned into a meme—one of many shared on social media following the incident. “Junk F-16 parts for sale” was written at the bottom in Arabic.

“We broke their wings,” he laughed. “They’ll think twice before flapping them over Syria again.”

Most analysts have said these claims must be merely bravado. But Hezbollah and its supporters certainly treated the downing of an Israeli jet as a victory for their side. Even if the Syrian Arab Army was manning the position from which the plane was shot, Hezbollah is fighting side by side with the regime. Russia, which is heavily involved in the conflict alongside the regime and Hezbollah, has been providing the Syrian government with sophisticated weapons for some time now. That raises the question of just how much advanced weaponry Hezbollah now possesses as a result of its role in the Syrian civil war—particularly in regards to surface-to-air missiles, or SAMs, which would pose a problem for Israel’s air power in a future war.

There have been reports that Russia is directly arming the Shia group, but most experts say that since the Russians are supplying the Syrian regime with advanced weaponry, some of it probably makes its way to Hezbollah indirectly. However it gets there, given the deadliness of Russia’s arsenal, the prospect of Hezbollah moving such weaponry into Lebanon has increasingly concerned Israel since the Syrian war broke out. The Jewish state has responded to this threat by reportedly striking Hezbollah weapons convoys in Syria nearly 100 times in five years. In March 2017, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced that Israel’s air force had launched raids on Syrian-regime targets in order to destroy advanced missiles that were destined for Hezbollah.

Nasrallah claimed in a 2013 speech that the group was receiving “game-changing weapons” from the Syrian regime, so whether Russia is directly arming Hezbollah or the group is receiving gifts from its Syrian allies, it seems likely that advanced Russian weaponry is ending up in Hezbollah’s hands—but how much could be moved into Lebanon is an open question.

According to Phillip Smyth, Soref Fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, a think tank in Washington, DC, despite the number of airstrikes against the group in Syria, it seems impossible that Israel has been able to prevent every movement of Hezbollah weaponry into Lebanon. He said this has likely allowed the group to build up significant arsenals in both Syria and Lebanon—a development that could be quite dangerous for Israel in a future conflict.

“The Israelis have a very efficient air force, but they can’t get everything, so in a war, they’ll need to have air power not just in South Lebanon but also deep into sites in Syria,” said Smyth. “So what happens if [Hezbollah has] access to a longer-range, or even a medium-range, ballistic missile or another kind of advanced rocket system? Since there’s no chance [Israel] can strike all these weapons in transit, what happens if Hezbollah hits Tel Aviv?”

Uzi Rubin, a former brigadier general in the Israeli Air Force and a missile-systems analyst, said he believes Hezbollah has access to most of the Syrian regime’s arsenal. “I think there is no difference between Hezbollah and Syria,” he said. “Whatever Syria has, Hezbollah has. So it’s not important whether at this moment, it is located on Lebanese soil. Hezbollah has [the weaponry]; it’s available to them.”

In Dahiyah, a suburb of Beirut controlled by Hezbollah, a fighter in a Special Forces unit was on leave from deployment in Syria. According to him, Hezbollah has accumulated even more advanced arms than the Syrians. “We have a different set of weapons than the regime,” the fighter said. “Ours are better because we don’t depend on anti-tank and such; we count on antiaircraft, anti-ship, and long-range missiles.”

What these men said about the incident with the Israeli jet placed even more emphasis on the cunning and military prowess of the group and its Iranian sponsors. Asked about the downing of the plane, the Special Forces fighter said that although he wasn’t present, he was told the entire sequence of events, starting with the dispatch of an Iranian drone into Israeli territory, was a setup to bait the Israelis into flying into a trap. “We fired 20 or 25 [low-grade] missiles [at the jet], and among them, one sophisticated missile,” he said. “I think the Israeli air force is not as free as before to fly over Syria.”

The narrative that the Iranians, the Syrians, and perhaps Hezbollah flew a drone into Israel in order to tempt the Israelis into a trap seems far-fetched, but it has some backing by analysts who have studied the scenario. Smyth of the Washington Institute said it’s notable that the Iranians sent that drone in particular, which indicates there may have been some foresight involved.

“They didn’t just send one of these cardboard cutout things, like they would have ten years ago,” Smyth said. “It’s interesting that they sent this one, which was a copy [of an American drone] and probably launched out of the back of a truck. The other interesting factor is that they flew it over the state of Israel for a while.”

According to the IDF, the drone was shot down after traveling three or four miles into Israeli territory, and was indeed a sophisticated copy of a US drone intercepted over Iran in 2011. Iran and Syria denied that the drone violated Israeli airspace and claimed it was on a routine intelligence-gathering mission against ISIS. The Israeli government released a video of its helicopter destroying the drone, but admitted that it remained a mystery why the drone entered Israel. During an interview in Dahiyah, the leader of a small Hezbollah tank unit in Syria also claimed the drone was meant as bait in an elaborate trap. “At the same time [an advanced antiaircraft] missile was fired, many other minor missiles were also fired as a disguise mechanism,” the unit leader said.

The claims of these Hezbollah members do fit with the fact that, according to Israeli media reports, several different types of Russian antiaircraft missiles were fired at the Israeli plane—all of which vary in technological sophistication. Elias Hanna, a retired Lebanese army general and lecturer on military strategy at the American University of Beirut, argued that if the Israeli jet was shot down as the result of an ambush, that would mean Iran, Syria, and possibly Hezbollah likely wanted to engineer a rewriting of the rules of engagement, not spark a full-on conflict.

“The Iranians may have wanted to draw some red lines of their own,” said Hanna. “Things are changing. Now, the Israelis will really try to calculate how they are going to go into Syria and hit a convoy of Hezbollah’s or a convoy of the Iranians.”

But most analysts were skeptical when asked about the Hezbollah members’ claims that the group was directly involved with the decision to shoot down the Israeli jet. Joseph Bahout, visiting scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, another Washington-based think tank, said the idea was ludicrous and dismissed Hezbollah members’ perception of the F-16’s destruction as a victory.

“The result is that the Israelis made raids after that,” said Bahout. “OK, [the Syrians] succeeded in shooting down an F-16, but that’s it. I mean, it stops there…the fact is that every time the Israelis overfly Lebanon to mid-Syria, there is no answer from Hezbollah. So either they can’t or they don’t want to, in order not to unveil their capacity.”

Other experts said the group has certainly built up an impressive arsenal but weren’t convinced they played a role in the downing of the Israeli jet.

“It seems unlikely,” said Matthew Levitt, director of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy’s counterterrorism program. “What I had heard was that…it was different this time because [the Syrians] really wanted to hit something, and they shot up a whole bunch of stuff at once.” He added that although he doesn’t believe Hezbollah is militarily capable of shooting down an F-16 at this point, the fear among Israelis is that they will acquire that capacity as a result of the Syrian conflict.

Asked why these men would be claiming credit for the downing of the jet if Hezbollah was uninvolved, Smyth, who is also skeptical that Hezbollah played a major role, explained that members of the group could be using the incident as an excuse to celebrate Hezbollah’s own surface-to-air missile capacity in another war with Israel.

“In any future conflict, Hezbollah will attempt to do more than simply bloody Israel’s nose,” said Smyth. “In the realm of SAMs, this means constraining Israel’s significant ability to control the air. Air power is always a major, if not the major, game-changer in a conflict. Does bravado tie into this? Sure. It’s highly likely it does. The reason they all said it could [be] that possibly Hezbollah does have a new antiaircraft capability…with this recent incident, they might want to send a stronger signal for propaganda value.”

When pressed on exactly what type of weaponry Hezbollah has acquired, the tank unit leader in Dahiyah smiled enigmatically. “Hezbollah cares most about surprises in the next war,” he said. “We will never say exactly what we have.”

But the Hezbollah official in South Lebanon was much more unconstrained in his assessment of the group’s arsenal, though it was sometimes hard to tell truth from bravado. He sipped a glass of syrupy tea as he talked animatedly.

“As long as Hezbollah is on the ground [in Syria], Russia is giving us weapons,” he boasted. “Russia gave the maximum they could for Hezbollah. Hezbollah has T-90 light tanks in Qusayr [a city in Syria].… In addition, Hezbollah owns S-200 [surface-to-air] missiles.… The hills where we used to fight Daesh [ISIS] and Jabhat al-Nusra in the Qalamoun area and northern Baalbek are equipped with antiaircraft missiles. Now the strategy has changed; fighters are scattered everywhere, fully equipped with advanced weapons and missiles.”

The official also lent credence to another potential flashpoint in a future conflict: reports that Hezbollah and Iran have built missile factories inside Lebanon itself, an action that Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu has called a “red line.” The Hezbollah official said that the factories exist, but claimed they don’t have the capability to actually manufacture missiles, just improve upon the ones they have already acquired. “We only upgrade missiles here [in Lebanon], but we do not make them,” he said.

According to Levitt, that assessment makes sense. “It’s probably not true domestic production,” he said. “It’s probably just enabling Iran to ship the stuff in much smaller pieces. Then you don’t need a big flatbed truck, you know, with these big rockets.… There’s precedence for this idea of finding a way to make it easier to smuggle by just sending smaller components…but for the Israelis, that’s a real problem.”

Rubin said that regardless of capacity, if Hezbollah and the Iranians have established any type of missile factory inside Lebanon, the Israelis would consider it a very serious development.

“That could start a war,” he said. “It was announced by Netanyahu that [missile factories in Lebanon] are a red line, and I believe him. And he will have the support of the country.”

Robert Malley, former National Security Council adviser to President Barack Obama and president of the International Crisis Group, explained that given all these highly combustible components, this conflict is particularly prone to another flare-up—which would almost certainly be much more severe than the 2006 war.

“Both sides profess, and I think it is accurate, that they don’t want a war because they’ve reached a point—not of mutual assured destruction, because I don’t think Hezbollah could destroy Israel—but mutually assured heavy damage,” he said. “But that’s not always a guarantee that things won’t get out of hand…because each side has to regulate how far it can go without going too far in the eyes of the other side. Any system that is based on mutual deterrence runs the risk that one side will misread the other. Each side is constantly probing, and at one point they could make a mistake and it could trigger a reaction by their opponent which exceeds what they can accept without reacting in kind.… That’s the way unwanted wars start.”

In the south, where the impact of an “unwanted war” on Lebanese civilians would be most severe, local residents seemed unconcerned by the potential destruction a new round would bring. Israel has long accused Hezbollah of operating in civilian areas in order to maximize potential casualties, essentially using them as human shields. After experiencing several Israeli invasions in the past few decades, though, most civilians here are enthusiastic supporters of the muqawama—“the resistance,” as they call Hezbollah.

Fatimah, a local woman in her 50s officially unaffiliated with Hezbollah, said that no matter what happens, she would not leave her home. “It is my country, it is my land, and it is my ideology,” she said. “It is not about Hezbollah. Many people stayed here during the 33 days of war [in 2006]. We were living off the vegetables we grew. If we ate a chocolate bar, we did not throw the paper on the ground, because if the [Israeli] jets saw any sign of life, they would hit us.”

She smiled triumphantly. “Israeli people cannot tolerate war. They cannot endure like we do.”

Sulome AndersonSulome Anderson is a journalist and author based between Beirut, Lebanon, and Brooklyn, New York. Her award-winning book The Hostage’s Daughter was published by HarperCollins in October 2016.

Source: https://www.thenation.com/article/israel-and-hezbollah-are-girding-for-war-and-the-next-round-could-be-horrific/

The post Israel and Hezbollah Are Girding for War—and the Next Round Could Be Horrific first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

Earlier this month, for the first time since the signing of the nuclear deal, Iran’s foreign minister, Javad Zarif, has blamed the EU for “appeasing” the US [Francois Lenoir/Reuters]

Following the unexpected sacking of US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, EU foreign affairs chief Federica Mogherini must be more concerned than ever before about the future of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), commonly known as the “Iran nuclear deal“.

Today, the EU is faced with having to make a choice between preserving the Iran deal that it regards as a major diplomatic achievement and breaking away with its most important political ally, the United States of America.

Since the deal was signed in 2015, the EU has been bearing the responsibility of protecting an increasingly fragile balance: safeguarding Iran’s commitment to the nuclear agreement while simultaneously trying to dissuade the US from using a language of containment and sanctions. This task became even harder when the Trump administration started pressuring European leaders into signing a “supplemental agreement” with Iran that would also regulate the Islamic Republic’s ballistic missile programme and its role in Syria.

Trump’s decision to sack Tillerson, who was often depicted as a calming influence in the administration, and to put forward former CIA director Mike Pompeo, who has a history of ruthless partisanship and opposition to the Iran deal, as candidate for US secretary of state only added to these pressures.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Massoumeh Torfeh

Dr Massoumeh Torfeh is a Research Associate at London School of Economics (LSE), specialising in Iran and Afghanistan.

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Source: https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/eu-save-iran-nuclear-deal-180318120229738.html

[Disclaimer]

The post Can the EU save the Iran nuclear deal? first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

Israel has viewed Iran’s growing footprint in neighbouring Syria with alarm [File: Omar Sanadiki/Reuters]

A surge in Israeli-Syrian cross-border incidents has turned into the “biggest” confrontation between the two countries in decades, and confronted Russia with a new dilemma: how to preserve its ties with both sides.

The tit-for-tat attacks, which started on Saturday and continued until the following day, have been accompanied by a war of words, with Benjamin Netanyahu warning that Israel would continue to strike against any aggression.

“We dealt severe blows to the Iranian and Syrian forces,” Netanyahu said, referring to Iranian bases present inside Syria.

The toughest Israeli aerial assault on Syrian and Iranian bases was reportedly in response to Syrian forces shooting down an Israeli fighter jet on Saturday, and claims that an Iranian drone entered Israeli airspace.

The attacks, which killed at least six Syrian troops and allied militia members, targeted areas near the Syrian capital Damascus, with Israel warning about increased Iranian involvement along its borders with Syria and Lebanon.

A statement by the pro-government military alliance in Syria had said that the drones were being used against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) group fighters.

But Israel’s chief military spokesperson said Israel held Iran directly accountable for the incident.

On Saturday, Netanyahu told Russian President Vladimir Putin by phone of Israel’s intention to counter Iran’s actions, while Putin urged the Israeli leader to avoid any steps that could escalate tension.

Russia, a strategic ally of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, has maintained close relations with Netanyahu, who has been blaming Iranian paramilitary units in Syria of breaching its sovereignty by carrying out over-the-border attacks over the last six years.

The frequency of the Israeli raids has intensified since 2012, when Iranian paramilitary fighters entered Syria following the start of the Syrian civil war. Israel has never publicly admitted to such attacks, which vary from rocket fires to air raids.

Experts believe that the latest development had forced Israel into admitting that it had launched attacks due to the shooting down of its F-16 fighter jet – the first time Israel lost an aircraft to enemy fire.

“This was a major loss and defeat for Israel and I don’t think that this is something the [Israeli] regime could cover up,” Mohammad Marandi, an academic at the University of Tehran, told Al Jazeera.

“The Israelis are using Iran as a scapegoat … to be able to carry out attacks on regional countries and justify the continued subjugation of the Palestinian people.”

Iran‘s presence in Syria has officially been aimed at combating ISIL, al-Qaeda and its affiliates. Marandi says Israel is supporting these groups on its borders.

‘Weakening its neighbours’

Both Israel and Syria are constantly at brink of war ever since Israel occupied a part of the strategic Golan Heights that it seized and later annexed following the 1967 Six Day War.

The move played a role in Israel’s decision to refrain from getting involved in the Syrian conflict.

Its occasional attacks against Syrian targets have been to stop what it describes as the delivery of advanced weaponry to the Iranian-backed Hezbollah, whose fighters are present in southern Lebanon.

Marandi says the issue is not Iran and its influence. Rather, it is Israel’s attempt at weakening the Syrian
government, which along with Iran, is attempting to push out al-Qaeda from the country.

In 2016, former Mossad director Efraim Halevy revealed to Al Jazeera that Israel maintained “tactical” relations with al-Nusra Front – al-Qaeda’s former affiliate in Syria.

“It’s always useful […] to deal with your enemies in a humane way,” Halevy said, revealing that Israel used to treat wounded fighters from al-Nusra Front.

He also said that he would not support the treatment of wounded Hezbollah fighters because Hezbollah had targeted Israel.

When asked if a war between Hezbollah and Israel is now imminent, Marandi said that it would not be in Israel’s favour.

However, others believe that Russia – an ally of Syria, Iran, and Israel – is the only party that can limit the possibility of an upcoming regional war.

Following the latest attacks, Israel protested against Iran’s presence and growing power in Syria.

“At the beginning, Israel and the US did not object to its [Iran] presence in Syria because back then, the opposition had the upper hand and the Syrian regime was on brink of defeat,” Omar Kouch, a Syrian political analyst, told Al Jazeera.

“Up until 2016, when Russia intervened, the balance of power shifted in favour of the Syrian regime,” Kouch explained.

“Israel did not want the fall of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s government. Its issue is not with the regime; its issue is with Iran, which threatens its security,” he said.

“This is why several Israeli attacks in 2016, 2017, and today in 2018, were carried out.”

According to Kouch, Iran knew that attacks such as these would occurr.

“Iran and Syria were prepared and several rockets of various kinds were fired,” he said.

On Saturday, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said that his country was ready to defend the region and warned that “increasing terrorism … bombing neighbouring countries” will not achieve Israel’s objectives.

But a full-frontal war is unlikely at this time, Kouch believes, as Russia is trying to maintain its alliance with Iran and Israel simultaneously.

“These two equations [Iran’s influence in the region and Israel’s security concerns] are very difficult to balance – both projects are colonialist projects that are hugely conflicted,” he said.

Source: http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/02/israel-squares-showdown-iran-syria-180212121132930.html

The post Israel squares off for showdown with Iran in Syria first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

JERUSALEM — Israel has flexed its military muscles in recent months as the regional balance of power has pitched further in favor of its most bitter adversaries: Iran and its Lebanese proxy Hezbollah.

Analysts and former senior Israeli military officers say Israel is showing that it will act with force to protect its interests, while using just enough of it to limit its enemies without sparking a war. But it’s a precarious line to tread, and even a small misstep could lead to conflict, they say.

Israel is scrambling to adjust as Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has taken the upper hand in his country’s six-year war, propped up by an emboldened Iran and an array of Shiite militias, including Hezbollah, which has sent thousands of fighters to back him.

The Israeli government had expressed frustration as the Trump administration focused on fighting Islamic State militants without, in Israel’s opinion, sufficiently limiting Iran and its proxies. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu publicly criticized a U.S.-Russia cease-fire deal in southern Syria for not including provisions to stop Iranian expansion.

Israel is now making itself heard. Last week Israeli jets buzzed so low over southern Lebanon that they shattered windows and caused panic. That followed the bombing of a military site in Syria earlier in the month that had been linked to missile production for Hezbollah.

On Tuesday, the army used a Patriot missile to shoot down a drone that neared its airspace.

[Israel is courting Syrian ‘hearts and minds’ to keep Hezbollah away]

Threats have escalated on both sides. “If the Zionist regime makes any wrong move, Haifa and Tel Aviv will be razed,” Iran’s army chief Maj. Gen. Abdolrahim Mousavi warned this week in comments published by Fars news agency, referring to Israeli cities within the range of Hezbollah rockets.

Hezbollah and Israel fought a month-long war in 2006 that caused heavy casualties, and both sides claimed victory. Since then, the Syrian war has provided Hezbollah fighters with a training opportunity, while Israel estimates that it has built up a stockpile of more than 100,000 rockets.

Israel fears Iran will help Hezbollah upgrade to more accurate precision-guided missiles and establish a permanent military presence in Syria, from where they could eventually turn their focus south.

“Generally speaking, this is the kind of threat we can’t live with,” said Brig. Gen. Nitzan Nuriel, a former Israeli Defense Forces officer who was deputy commander of the division responsible for the Lebanese front during the 2006 war. “This is the kind of threat we need to deal with.”

In recent months, Netanyahu has accused Iran of establishing long-range missile-manufacturing sites in both Lebanon and Syria. Satellite images showing one alleged site, near the port city of Baniyas, were shared with the press.

Israel is keen to leverage more favorable outcomes in Syrian cease-fire deals where it feels its interests have been ignored, and public threats and messages are meant as much for Israel’s allies as its enemies, Nuriel said.

“At the same time we will try to keep Hezbollah weak to remind them what happened in 2006,” he said.

After speaking out against the “de-escalation” deal for southern Syria reached by the United States and Russia on the sidelines of the G-20 summit, Netanyahu traveled to Sochi to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin. A high-level delegation was also dispatched to Washington.

Russia’s foreign minister Sergey Lavrov later made a public assurance that Israel’s security interests in southern Syria were being taken into account.

[How far could the dangerous endgame in eastern Syria go?]

In a speech last month, Hezbollah Secretary General Hasan Nasrallah mocked Netanyahu for “crying” over the defeat of Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.

Nasrallah has repeatedly warned Israel against attacking Lebanon.

“If the Israelis think they can now make war in Lebanon, then they are making a big mistake. In Syria we have learned to attack,” said a senior official from the military alliance of Hezbollah, Syria and Iran. He spoke on the condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to speak with the press.

“The rhetoric on both sides is a substitute for action — a way of reinforcing deterrence without having to take military action — and a way of saving face,” said Faysal Itani, a fellow at the Washington-based Atlantic Council. “But I do think things are trending negatively.”

Netanyahu tried to drive his point home at the U.N. General Assembly in New York on Tuesday, saying that “those who threaten us with annihilation put themselves in mortal peril.” Israel will act to prevent Iran from opening “new terror fronts” on Israel’s northern border, he said.

He also pushed for changes to the international deal limiting Iran’s nuclear activities.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addresses the 72nd session of the General Assembly at the United Nations in New York on Sept. 19. (Jewel Samad/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images)

“This is all classic Netanyahu,” said Ofer Zalzberg, a senior analyst at International Crisis Group. “Saying ‘hold me back before I do something,’ but I don’t see Israel launching a preemptive war. The next war between Israel and Hezbollah will be dramatic for Israel’s population and will have consequences for whoever is in power.”

But the prospect is not impossible; there are some Israeli officials advocating intervention, he said, describing Israel as “panicked.” “Advocates are saying bomb now.”

They see a window of opportunity. While Syria has restrained from retaliating against Israeli strikes on its soil, that is likely to change as the war draws to an end, raising the stakes of the occasional intervention with airstrikes that Israel is currently engaged in.

In Lebanon, Hezbollah’s growing strength has come at a cost, one that could cause personnel problems in the event of renewed conflict.

The group does not publish figures for the number of their members who have fought and died in Syria, but more than 1,000 have been killed according to one study of Arabic language press coverage of funerals in Lebanon.

On a recent day in the Beirut suburb of Dahiyeh, a steady trickle of relatives passed through a newly opened cemetery for fighters recently killed in Syria. Marble slabs are adorned with photographs of the men in fatigues, some decorated with roses for Father’s Day.

Sitting quietly at the gravestone of a commander killed last year, a woman named Rukiya said her son died in the battle to recapture the northern city of Aleppo. “He knew he didn’t have to go, but he didn’t listen to me,” she said. “The resistance was everything to him.”

But during the war, Hezbollah has also gained experience. The Israeli military now fears a scenario in which Hezbollah, which formed in the 1980s to fight the Israeli occupation of Lebanon, could raid one of Israel’s 22 border communities as war in Syria winds down.

[Hezbollah accuses the U.S. of putting lives at stake by hounding ISIS convoy]

In April, Hezbollah organized a rare press trip to the area to highlight what appeared to be newly constructed fortifications on the Israeli side of the U.N.-patrolled buffer zone between the two countries.

“The Israeli enemy is undertaking these fortifications and building these obstacles in fear of an advance,” said a Hezbollah commander who went by the nom de guerre Haj Ihab.

Israel’s Defense Ministry confirmed that it was indeed bolstering its defenses, including walls near Israel’s northern communities that are vulnerable to cross-border sniper fire or antitank missiles, Israeli media reported. It also said the project will cost some $34.7 million.

“We are strengthening the border based on the understanding that in any future conflict, Hezbollah would make a concerted effort to cross the border,” said an Israeli Defense Forces official in the Northern Command who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly.

In the meantime, Israel will continue its strategy of “deterrence and prevention,” Nuriel said, managing the risks of escalation.

“You need to ask yourself, if you do this, what will the enemy do?” he said. “Many times we decide taking action is better.”

But Israel’s 2006 war with Hezbollah began when militants launched a cross-border raid on an Israeli patrol, killing three Israeli soldiers and abducting two. Nasrallah later said that if he’d known how Israel would react, Hezbollah would not have carried out the raid. The war left 1,000 Lebanese and nearly 160 Israelis dead. Now the stakes are higher.

“Syria made the machine faster,” said Kamal Wazne, a professor at the American University of Beirut who studies the group. “A confrontation is going to be deadly, destructive and painful for both sides.”

Loveluck reported from Beirut. Ruth Eglash in Jerusalem contributed to this report.

Source: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/with-sharp-words-and-stealth-strikes-israel-sends-a-message-to-hezbollah-and-us/2017/09/20/168282e4-98e2-11e7-af6a-6555caaeb8dc_story.html

The post With sharp words and stealth strikes, Israel sends a message to Hezbollah and U.S. first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.