(April 18, 2022 / JNS) Iran is gradually assembling the building blocks necessary to construct ballistic missiles with very long ranges, an Israeli missile and space expert has said, adding that Islamic Republic’s elite military Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) “can reach space.”

Iran’s space program uses ballistic-missile technology to launch spy satellites into orbit around the earth. It is seen by observers as a guise for the development of future intercontinental Iranian ballistic missiles, which could threaten Europe in the first stage and potentially North America in later development stages.

Tal Inbar, a leading Israeli missile and space expert, told JNS in recent days that despite the existence of an Iranian civilian space program, which operates alongside a space division run by the IRGC (first unveiled in 2020), the IRGC is the entity producing all of the components for both space programs.

Inbar, a former director of the UAV Research Center at Israel’s Fisher Institute for Air and Space Strategic Studies, and co-founder of the Ilan Ramon Space Conference, said “when one examines what the IRGC is doing, it is possible to see the various technologies being developed for long-range missiles, such as solid propellant. They have the building blocks to build an intercontinental ballistic missile.”

On March 8, the IRGC launched the Noor 2 military satellite into orbit, according to Iranian state media.

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Noor (meaning “light” in Persian) 2 is orbiting at an altitude of 500 kilometers (311 miles), Reuters cited Iranian media as saying. Noor 1, Iran’s first military satellite, was launched in April 2020, at an orbit of 425kilometers (265 miles) above the Earth.

The Space Commander of IRGC’s Aerospace Force, Ali Jafarabadi, said after the launch of Noor 2 that Iran will send a series of military satellites into orbit over the coming years, saying, “The space program of the country, of which we are a part, is to stabilize various scientific, research and defense satellites in low-earth orbit and then reach orbit of 36,000 kilometers above land.”

Reuters noted that the United States military “says the same long-range ballistic technology used to put satellites into orbit could also allow Tehran to launch longer-range weapons, possibly including nuclear warheads.”

A three-staged carrier, dubbed Qased (“messenger”), using both liquid and solid fuel, launched Noor 2 into space from the Shahroud space port in Northern Iran.

“Until Noor 1, there was no official declaration by Iran that the IRGC has a space division,” said Inbar. “The IRGC, which is listed as a Foreign Terrorist Organization by the U.S., has a space division. I’m not aware of other terror organizations that can reach space,” he added.

Addressing the connection between Iran’s space launchers and its missile program, Inbar assessed that the long-range technology will not “immediately result in the production of missiles with warheads, but this isn’t very far away either.”

Iran’s Shahab 3 ballistic missile, which has variants that can reach 2,000 kilometers (1,242 miles), capable of hitting Israel, received additional stages in order to extend its ranges, noted Inbar.

“At the end of the day, all missiles, including space launchers, are built by Iran’s military industries, and all of the industries belong to the IRGC,” he said. “So even if the Iranian space agency says it is civilian, it goes to the IRGC for components and approval. The connection was always there to begin with. It is of interest that the Iranians officially declared the existence of a separate IRGC space agency.”

As of now, there are “no limitations” on Iran’s missile and space programs, warned Inbar.

‘Five failed launches in a row’

The United States has pursued a mixed policy of sanctions when it comes to Iranian missile developers.

On March 30, the U.S. Department of the Treasury sanctioned what it said was “an Iran-based procurement agent and his network of companies that procured ballistic-missile propellant-related materials for the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Research and Self Sufficiency Jihad Organization (IRGC RSSJO), the unit responsible for the research and development of ballistic missiles, as well as Iran’s Parchin Chemical Industries (PCI), an element of Iran’s Defense Industries Organization (DIO).”

In 2021, the U.S. Treasury Department delisted Iranian entities that had been previously sanctioned by the Trump administration for being active in Iran’s ballistic-missile program.

In 2019, America placed sanctions on the Iranian civilian space agency and two related research organizations, accusing Tehran of using the entities to advance its ballistic-missile program.

“Perhaps more sanctions will be placed in the future. Of course, Iran can attempt to claim that its development of long-range missile technology is for a legitimate civilian space program,” said Inbar.

As for the satellites themselves, Inbar said their capability is highly limited at this time. Still, he cautioned, if Iran directs further budgets and conducts determined research and development, it can improve in this sector as well.

In December, an Iranian attempt to launch three payloads into orbit failed after the rocket was unable to reach the required speed, Reuters cited an Iranian defense ministry spokesman as saying. “There have been five failed launches in a row for the Simorgh program, another satellite-carrying rocket. A separate fire at the Imam Khomeini Spaceport in February 2019 also killed three researchers, authorities said at the time,” said the report.

“The more that Iran develops long-range missiles, the easier the case of Israel, Saudi Arabia or the United Arab Emirates gets when presented to the world,” said Inbar. “These missiles can target Europe, and later beyond, as their range is extended.”

Source: https://www.jns.org/iran-assembles-building-blocks-for-long-range-ballistic-missiles-says-israeli-space-expert/

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The recent saga surrounding the implications of American withdrawal from Afghanistan has not gone unnoticed in Cairo. Egyptian policy circles believe it has opened the door for Islamist and extremist groups to gain momentum across the region, and regime messaging is framing the situation accordingly.

Since last May, Cairo seemed to be readying itself for the consequences related to the controversial American decision to pull out of Afghanistan. Sheikh Al-Azhar Ahmed al-Tayab changed his rhetoric from his usual emphasis on sticking to traditional interpretations of religious texts and instead called for reform, stating that “it is a source of vitality and dynamism in Islam.” The Egyptian parliament approved legal amendments that expanded the power of government to fire state employees if they were found to have links with organizations that Egypt has designated as terrorist groups, such as the Muslim Brotherhood. In the same vein, judges interrogated in a humiliating way two of Egypt’s most prominent Salafists clerics—Muhammed Hussein Yaqoub and Muhammed Hassaan—during a televised court session.

While Egyptian rhetoric and legal actions against Islamists ramped up in the months preceding the U.S. withdrawal, Egyptian rhetoric since the Taliban took over Afghanistan is characterized by three themes: a heightened concern over radicalization and the view that Western states are not addressing this threat seriously, and a sense that the U.S. withdrawal indicates either American weakness or lack of trustworthiness.

Intellectuals’ discussions within the elite circles of Cairo have focused on nation-state building to enhance Egypt’s regional soft power while maintaining its culture domestically. They have made numerous references to Afghanistan’s past in the mid-20th century, when it had a functioning state system and had good relations with Egypt. One of the most frequently mentioned books in Egyptian media lately has been An Egyptian woman in Afghanistan, which depicts the personal story of the first Egyptian academic to obtain a doctorate degree from Kabul in 1968 during its ‘flourishing times.’

There is also a clear consensus in Cairo is that the American withdrawal from Afghanistan occurred via a deal with the Taliban, and that the Taliban government serves U.S. interests in some capacity. Veteran Egyptian diplomat Mustafa el-Fiky sarcastically described the group’s easy ascendence to power as “arriving on a white horse.” Many Egyptian intellectuals are interpreting the move as a tactical U.S. decision to pressure Russia and China by unleashing the fundamentalist group, a facet of the broader American power competition with the Russians and Chinese. This conspiratorial perspective argues that the United States will also benefit financially, as wealthy Gulf states will be incentivized to purchase more American weaponry to defend themselves from this new threat.

For those who do not buy into this conspiratorial belief, completion of U.S. withdrawal efforts from Afghanistan has cemented the view that an alliance with Washington is not fully guaranteed and American power is in decline. In this line of thinking, more efforts should be directed toward Beijing and Moscow to diversify weapons and diplomatic options. Leftist and nationalist voices are the biggest champions of this strategy, and there appears to be a joyful atmosphere among them because of an American loss. They are hopeful that what happened in Afghanistan will repeat itself when it comes to the Israel-Palestine conflict.

Meanwhile, the internal Egyptian security apparatus is increasingly on the alert in anticipation of Islamists resorting back to violence domestically and potential recruitments among young Egyptians to travel to Afghanistan for the purposes of Jihad. Indeed, the historical term Afghani Arabs—referring to the Arab nationals who fought against the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in the 1980s and return to carry out attacks against their own governments—has reemerged among security experts. According to general Egyptian assessments, they are potentially going to take Sinai mountains, Libya, and Syria as a haven due to the fertile environment to carry out their operations.

Generally, the reduction of U.S. power does not worry Cairo in the same manner as the Gulf states in the region, which have a tight security architecture with Washington. What does concern Egypt is that the vacuum left by America will likely increase the peak of terrorism throughout the region. Hence, further crackdowns on Islamists and further efforts to regional alliances with likeminded states is likely to be the Egyptian strategy in the years to come when navigating these new regional realities.

Source: https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/cairo-acts-its-fears-radicalization-after-afghanistan

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FILE – In this April 14, 2021, file satellite photo provided from Planet Labs Inc. shows Iran’s Natanz nuclear facility. The Biden administration is considering a near wholesale rollback of some of the most stringent Trump-era sanctions imposed on Iran in a bid to get the Islamic Republic to return to compliance with a landmark 2015 nuclear accord, according to current and former U.S. officials and others familiar with the matter. (Planet Labs via AP)

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Biden administration is considering a near wholesale rollback of some of the most stringent Trump-era sanctions imposed on Iran in a bid to get the Islamic Republic to return to compliance with a landmark 2015 nuclear accord, according to current and former U.S. officials and others familiar with the matter.

As indirect talks continue this week in Vienna to explore the possibility of reviving the nuclear deal, American officials have become increasingly expansive about what they might be prepared to offer Iran, which has been driving a hard line on sanctions relief, demanding that all U.S. penalties be removed, according to these people.)

American officials have refused to discuss which sanctions are being considered for removal. But they have said they are open to lifting any sanctions that are inconsistent with the nuclear deal or that deny Iran the relief it would be entitled to should it return to compliance with the accord. Because of the complex nature of the sanctions architecture, that could include non-nuclear sanctions, such as those tied to terrorism, missile development, and human rights.

Biden administration officials say this is necessary because of what they describe as a deliberate attempt by the Trump administration to stymie any return to the deal. Under the 2015 agreement, the United States was required to lift sanctions tied to Iran’s nuclear program, but not non-nuclear sanctions.

Administration officials deny they will remove all non-nuclear sanctions, but have declined to identify those which they believe Trump improperly imposed on terrorism and other grounds.

“Any return to the JCPOA would require sanctions relief, but we are considering removing only those sanctions that are inconsistent with the JCPOA,” said State Department spokesman Ned Price. “Even if we rejoin the JCPOA — which remains a hypothetical — we would retain and continue to implement sanctions on Iran for activities not covered by the JCPOA, including Iran’s missile proliferation, support for terrorism, and human rights abuses.”

When President Donald Trump re-imposed sanctions after withdrawing from the deal in 2018, he not only put the nuclear sanctions back in but also added layers of terrorism and other sanctions on many of the same entities. In addition, the Trump administration imposed an array of new sanctions on previously unsanctioned entities.

This has put the current administration in an awkward position: Iran is demanding the removal of all sanctions. If the U.S. doesn’t lift at least some of them, Iran says it won’t agree to halt its nuclear activities barred by the deal known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA.

But if the Biden administration makes concessions that go beyond the nuclear-specific sanctions, Republican critics and others, including Israel and Gulf Arab states, are likely to seize on them as proof that the administration is caving to Iran. Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has led the charge among Trump alumni to denounce any easing of sanctions.

Former Trump administration officials say all the sanctions are legitimate. Gabriel Noronha, a former State Department senior adviser on Iran, said all the Trump-era sanctions had been approved by career Justice Department lawyers and would have been rejected if they weren’t legitimate.

But a senior State Department official involved in the negotiations said officials now “have to go through every sanction to look at whether they were legitimately or not legitimately imposed.”

The official, who like the others spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the private talks, also said the U.S. would be prepared to lift sanctions that would otherwise deny Iran the benefits of the deal. Those sanctions could include restrictions on Iran’s ability to access the international financial system, including dealing in dollar-based transactions.

“There are sanctions that are inconsistent with the JCPOA and as we have said, if Iran resumes its compliance with the nuclear deal … we would be prepared to lift those sanctions that are inconsistent with the JCPOA,” Price said last week. He declined to elaborate on what might be “inconsistent” with the deal.

Those comments suggest that sanctions imposed on Iran’s Central Bank, its national oil and shipping companies, its manufacturing, construction, and financial sectors are on the block. Deal critics briefed on aspects of the Vienna negotiations say they suspect that is indeed the case.

That’s because the bank, oil, shipping, and other sanctions, all ostensibly imposed by the Trump administration for terrorism, ballistic missile, and human rights concerns, also affect nuclear sanctions relief.

Current officials say no decisions have yet been made and nothing will be agreed in Vienna until everything regarding sanctions relief and Iran’s return to compliance with the nuclear deal has been settled.

But critics of the nuclear deal fear the administration will go beyond even what has been suggested by the administration’s oblique comments. They suspect that sanctions on people, companies, government agencies or other entities identified for nuclear sanctions relief in the 2015 deal will be cleared; even if they were subsequently penalized on other grounds.

“The administration is looking to allow tens of billions of dollars into the coffers of the regime even if it means lifting sanctions on major entities blacklisted for terrorism and missile proliferation,” said Mark Dubowitz, a prominent Iran deal critic and CEO of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

“They’re even looking to give the regime indirect access to the U.S. dollar through the U.S. financial system so that international companies can clear transactions with Iran through the U.S. dollar,” said Dubowitz, who is frequently criticized for his hard-line stance on Iran but has also been asked for his views on sanctions by the administration.

The Obama administration grappled with much the same issue after the conclusion of the nuclear deal in 2015. It took the position that some sanctions previously imposed by it and former President George W. Bush’s administration for terrorism reasons should actually be classified as nuclear sanctions and therefore lifted under the deal.

Still, many countries and international companies were hesitant to jump into the Iranian market for fear that the sanctions relief was not clear-cut and that a future U.S. president could re-impose the sanctions. Now, that that has happened, and even before an agreement has been concluded in Vienna, that concern has resurfaced.

Already, Republicans in Congress and opponents of the Iranian government are stepping up efforts to codify Trump’s hard-line stance on Iran with new legislation. Although a law to bar a return to the nuclear deal is unlikely to pass, there is wide bipartisan support for resolutions encouraging the administration to take a tougher line on Iran.

Such a resolution was introduced on Wednesday with more than 220 Democratic and Republican co-sponsors. In it, they call for the administration to recognize “the rights of the Iranian people and their struggle to establish a democratic, secular, and non-nuclear Republic of Iran while holding the ruling regime accountable for its destructive behavior.”

Source: https://apnews.com/article/iran-middle-east-business-iran-nuclear-government-and-politics-dc498f981c0746cd7c837b969702de28

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U.S. Army Sgt. Anthony Limon (right) and Sgt. Aaron Hestand, both from White Tank, 2nd Platoon, Delta Company, 1st Battalion, 4th Infantry Regiment, keep watch during a patrol near Combat Outpost Sangar, Zabul province, Afghanistan. DoD photo by Staff Sgt. William Tremblay, U.S. Army.

As London left the door open for it and NATO allies to return to Afghanistan in the event any “threat” re-emerges to the free world, the cost to the United States for the nearly two-decade war in the nation has been estimated at US$2.26 trillion and counting.

But even after the last American service member leaves Afghanistan later this year, as the Biden administration has pledged, the costs will continue to rise, according to Brown’s Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs, Military.com reported.

In its Costs of War report released Friday, the Watson Institute tallies the staggering expense of the nation’s longest war, as the Biden administration prepares to withdraw the last few thousand troops from Afghanistan no later than Sept. 11.

The analysis collected the estimated congressional appropriations for the war, including operations in both Afghanistan and Pakistan, Military.com reported.

The greatest single expense — $933 billion, or 41% of the war effort’s total costs — came in the Defense Department’s Overseas Contingency Operations spending, the report states.

The controversial OCO budget, which was used to pay for war efforts, was unaffected by budgetary caps imposed on the rest of the department and grew significantly over the years, Military.com reported.

But the DoD’s base budget also saw its own war-related increases, apart from the OCO budget and the costs of actually waging war in Afghanistan.

The Watson Institute said the military’s overall budget grew by an additional $443 billion, making it the third-largest cost of the war, Military.com reported.

The interest costs, totaling $530 billion, from borrowing money to pay for the war, make up the effort’s second-biggest expense.

Meanwhile, the UK “reserves the right” to send its troops back to Afghanistan, including as part of a “unilateral” action, should it see a “threat” coming from this country again, UK Under Secretary for the Armed Forces James Heappey told MPs, RT reported.

If some part of the Afghan territory turns into “an ungoverned space” providing safe haven to international terrorists and threatening “the UK homeland or to the interests of our allies,” London would not hesitate to act “unilaterally and multilaterally through NATO,” Heappey, himself a former Army officer, who served in Afghanistan, said.

U.S. Sgt. Maj. of the Army Raymond F. Chandler III and International Security Assistance Force U.S. Army Command Sgt. Maj. Thomas Capel depart from Combat Outpost Bari Alai on a UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter near Jalalabad, Afghanistan. U.S. Army photo by Sgt. Christopher Harper

Still, he expressed his hope for a “lasting peace settlement” in Afghanistan, adding that it will “almost certainly” involve the Taliban as part of the Afghan government.

Last week, the UK signaled that it would follow the suit of Washington and withdraw 750 of its troops remaining in Afghanistan to train local forces by September 2021, RT reported.

The news prompted some MPs to express concerns that the drawdown would essentially give the Taliban carte blanche and allow the militants to seize power in a forceful way.

Heappey responded that the Alliance would “go back in if those security situations deteriorate to such extent that our national security is threatened.”

Last week, US President Joe Biden officially announced that American troops will leave Afghanistan by September 11. The pullout will miss the May 1 deadline agreed to by his predecessor Donald Trump. NATO confirmed that it would also begin pulling out its troops on May 1.

Meanwhile, The Watson Institute said in its analysis that the costs are not yet done accumulating, RT reported.

The latter does not include the costs of lifetime care for war veterans or future interest payments on money the US borrowed for the war.

The report estimates that up to 241,000 people died in Afghanistan and Pakistan as a direct result of the war.

The war cost the lives of 2,442 US troops, six DoD civilians, 3,936 U.S. contractors, and 1,144 allied troops, the report states. Between 66,000 and 69,000 Afghan national military members and police, as well as another 9,314 Pakistani troops and police, also died.

More than 71,000 civilians — roughly 47,000 in Afghanistan and 24,000 in Pakistan — died, according to the report. And more than 51,000 opposition fighters died in Afghanistan, as did another roughly 33,000 in Pakistan.

The report said that about 136 journalists and media workers, and 549 humanitarian workers, also died in the war.

Source: https://asiatimes.com/2021/04/cost-of-afghan-war-exceeds-2-26tn-and-rising/

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The post US airstrikes on Iranian-backed forces a ‘good move’: National security analyst first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

The Saudis have used the offensive to confront a terror proxy backed by Iran, which is attempting to develop nuclear bomb-grade uranium.

President Joe Biden announced Thursday the United States was ending support for a five-year Saudi-led military offensive in Yemen to confront the Iran-backed Houthi Islamic extremist group.

President Donald Trump’s administration designated the Houthis as a foreign terrorist organization.

Biden said the was move part of restoring a U.S. emphasis on diplomacy.

“This war has to end,” Biden told diplomats in his first visit to the State Department as president, saying the conflict had created a “humanitarian and strategic catastrophe.”

The Yemen reversal is one of a series of steps Biden laid out Thursday that he said would mark a major change in direction for U.S. foreign policy. That’s after Republican and Democratic administrations sided with the Saudis.

The Biden administration also says it will help Saudi Arabia boost its defenses against outside attacks, as part of maintaining key security, counterterrorism and military ties with Saudi Arabia, a strategic partner, and global oil giant.

Saudi state media focused on that part of Biden’s announcements Thursday.

“We welcome President Biden’s stated commitment to work with friends and allies to resolve conflicts, and deal with attacks from Iran and its proxies in the region,” Saudi Prince Khalid bin Salman, a son of King Salman and the kingdom’s deputy defense minister, tweeted.

In addition to its attempts to develop a nuclear bomb, Iran funds, trains, and fights alongside a group of terror proxies that menace the Middle East, including the Houthis in Yemen.

Iran’s other terror proxies include Hezbollah in Lebanon and Syria and Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad in Gaza.

Recent reports also revealed Iran’s role in assisting the Al-Qaeda, the terror group that perpetrated the 9/11 terror attacks on America in 2001.

According to former U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Iran is the jihadist network’s “new home.”

Yemen, the biblical kingdom of Sheba, has one of the world’s oldest constantly occupied cities — the more than 2,000-year-old Sanaa — along with mud-brick skyscrapers and hauntingly beautiful landscapes of steep, arid mountains.

But decades of Yemeni misgovernment have worsened factional divisions and halted development, and years of conflict have now drawn in increasing intervention by Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Iran.

The Obama administration in 2015 gave its approval to Saudi Arabia leading a cross-border air campaign targeting Yemen’s Houthi rebels, who were seizing ever more territory, including Sanaa. The Houthis have launched multiple drone and missile strikes deep into Saudi Arabia.

U.S. targeting assistance to Saudi Arabia’s command-and-control was supposed to minimize civilian casualties in the Saudi-led airstrikes. But bombing since then has killed numerous Yemeni civilians, including schoolboys on a bus and fishermen in their boats. Survivors have displayed fragments showing the bombs to be American-made.

The stalled war has failed to dislodge the Houthis and is helping deepen hunger and poverty. International rights experts say both the Gulf countries and Houthis have committed severe rights abuses.

Yemeni activist Tawakkol Karman, a co-winner of the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize for her role in Yemen’s unsuccessful Arab Spring popular uprising, urged Biden to stay involved in Yemen peace efforts.

“Deeper U.S. engagement — and a refusal to side with dictators who have chosen bloodshed over democratic change — is vital so that the Yemeni people can return to the project of democracy” that warring parties inside and outside of Yemen interrupted, Karman said in a statement.

U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said the U.S. action will give more space and more hope “not only to the talks but, more importantly, more hope to the people of Yemen.”

Biden called Thursday for a cease-fire, an opening of humanitarian channels to allow more delivery of aid and a return to long-stalled peace talks.

Biden also announced an end to “relevant” U.S. arms sales but gave no immediate details on what that would mean. The administration already has said it was pausing some of the billions of dollars in arms deals with Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia’s main partner in its Yemeni offensive.

The ending of U.S. support for the offensive will not affect any U.S. operations against the Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, or AQAP, group, national security adviser Jake Sullivan said.

In what was seen as the latest in several Saudi gestures toward Biden, the State Department said Thursday the kingdom had conditionally released two dual Saudi-U.S. citizens detained in a crackdown on civil society there, and reduced a sentence for a third, Dr. Walid Fitaihi, convicted of “disobedience” to the government.

The weeks-old Biden administration has made clear that shifting its stance toward the Yemen war, and toward Saudi Arabia over the Yemen offensive and other rights abuses, was a priority. Other measures have included a review of the Trump administration’s categorization of the Houthis as a terror group. Critics say the designation hinders delivery of humanitarian aid to Yemenis.

Biden also announced the choice of Timothy Lenderking as special envoy to Yemen.

Lenderking has been a deputy assistant secretary of state in the department’s Middle East section. A career foreign service member, he has served in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and other countries in the Middle East and elsewhere.

Source: https://worldisraelnews.com/biden-ending-us-support-for-saudi-led-offensive-in-yemen

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Iran and the possible collapse of the Palestinian Authority (PA) are two threats facing Israel, according to Brigadier General Dror Shalom, head of the Research Division of Israel’s Military Intelligence Directorate.

Shalom told Yedioth Ahronoth daily that the threat of terrorism is increasing especially that the youth in Judea and Samaria, in the West Bank, can’t earn a living amid the coronavirus pandemic and its economic repercussions.

He highlighted three main reasons that contributed to maintaining stability including the Israeli army, the “somehow acceptable” economic situation, and the security coordination with the Palestinians before it was suspended.

The official indicated that despite signing two peace treaties with the UAE and Bahrain, the Palestinian cause is a “ticking bomb”.

He explained that the Palestinian cause brings Arab states together, and the two peace treaties were signed because the plans to annex parts of the West Bank were postponed.

“Empowering the Palestinian Authority is within the interest of Israel’s security,” said Shalom, warning that Arabs still hate Israel and “the situation in the region should be improved.”

Asked about the situation in the Gaza Strip, Shalom said it remains a challenge even if it is a “secondary front” now.

The official admitted that the situation could escalate, noting that four years ago, the Israeli intelligence issued a strategic alert on the Strip.

Studies showed there is a civil-economic crisis in Gaza, which would push Hamas to change its policy, noted Shalom.

He also said Hamas chief in the Gaza Strip Yahya Sinwar is a different kind of leader who is interested in showing his success in reconstructing Gaza, adding that Sinwar does not seek a war in the Strip and Hamas is fully aware of the strength of the Israeli army.

Shalom indicated that Tel Aviv managed to push Hamas into “rock-bottom” without engaging in a war, adding that maintaining the current situation in Gaza is favorable so that Israel can focus on Iran.

On Iran, Shalom said that so far, the US withdrawal from the nuclear deal has not served Israel’s interests. He supports a strategy of pressuring Tehran, noting that Iran as a superpower has weakened.

The future US strategy includes exerting maximum pressure until reaching a deal.

Iran is capable of possessing a nuclear bomb within two years of its decision to build one, which worries Shalom, given that the duration is not long.

Source: https://english.aawsat.com/home/article/2556801/israeli-intelligence-warns-pa-collapse

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The post Hezbollah playing with fire: Netanyahu first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

Hezbollah media said it suffered no casualties and that the incident was one simply born of Israeli paranoia. The Jerusalem Post reported that there were three to five fighters in the Hezbollah group. Whatever the outcome, the key issue here is why Hezbollah did this in the first place. The group’s leaders knew that there was a very significant risk that their fighters would be engaged and killed. Considering that Israeli forces are not engaged in a military campaign against Hezbollah, the group’s risk-reward calculation here would seem to skew toward not attacking.

But there are two other factors.

First, Hezbollah has been significantly undermined by recent losses inflicted on it by Israel and the United States. The death, in January, of Hezbollah’s primary Iranian interlocutor, Qassem Soleimani, was a serious setback for the group’s work with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. That work centers on establishing a missile launching capability in southern Lebanon and southern Syria to enable Hezbollah’s targeting of major Israeli population centers. Hezbollah suffered another loss last week when one of its fighters was killed while guarding such a missile stockpile in Damascus. Hezbollah again referenced this loss on Monday, warning Israel, “Our response to the martyrdom of the Mujahid brother Ali Kamel Mohsen… is definitely coming, and the Zionists only have to wait for the punishment for their crimes.”

Were Hezbollah in a stronger position, it might fear an escalation in the form of punitive Israeli strikes. Yet the group’s increasingly precarious domestic situation likely alters that assessment. Lebanon’s economy is collapsing under the weight of decades of artificial currency manipulation and sanctions that have isolated Syrian investors from the Lebanese banking system. An international bailout is desperately needed. Hezbollah, however, is refusing to agree to the necessary economic and political reforms being demanded by the European Union and the U.S. in return for any bailout. The group knows these reforms would undermine the sectarian cronyism in which its power is rooted. But with populist anger growing over its intransigence and the crisis no closer to being resolved, Hezbollah risks its erstwhile political allies forming new alliances without it. And if that happens, the group will truly be in trouble.

It’s in this context that Hezbollah might view an exchange of violence with Israel as serving its short-term interests. Lebanese civil society tends to unify around Hezbollah during the conflict with Israel. Even for those who oppose Hezbollah, populist antipathy toward Israel offers a rare opportunity for a pretense of nationalist unity. So if, for example, Hezbollah kills a few Israeli soldiers, it will hope that any ensuing Israeli retaliation only strengthens its Lebanese nationalist credibility.

Iran’s hard-line leadership is also likely to favor short-term escalation. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is deeply upset at being caught between his own collapsing economy, a coronavirus catastrophe, and restored American deterrence against his escalation. If Hezbollah can give Israel a black eye, even if Israel strikes back far harder, Khamenei and the Revolutionary Guards will see it as boosting their own credibility. Iran will also regard this as delivering a veiled “We’re still powerful” threat to Iraq’s new prime minister, Mustafa al Kadhimi, who is adopting an agenda to mitigate Iran’s influence.

In short, expect new Hezbollah attacks in the days ahead.

Source: https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/why-the-lebanese-hezbollah-is-escalating-against-israel

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