Israel shows abilities for Iran strike

[David]

AP


WASHINGTON - A large Israeli military exercise this month may have been aimed at showing Jerusalem's abilities to attack Iranian nuclear facilities.

In a substantial show of force, Israel sent warplanes and other aircraft on a major exercise in the Eastern Mediterranean, Pentagon officials said Friday. Israel's military refused to confirm or deny that the maneuvers were practice for a strike in Iran.

Russia's foreign minister warned Friday against the use of force on Iran, saying there is no proof it is trying to build nuclear weapons with a program that Tehran says is for generating power.

U.S. officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak on the matter for the record.

"They have been conducting some large-scale exercises — they live in a tough neighborhood," one U.S. official said, though he offered no other recent examples.

The big exercise the first week of June was impossible to miss and may have been meant as a show of force as well as a practice on skills needed to execute a long-range strike mission, one U.S. official said.

The New York Times quoted officials on Friday as saying that more than 100 Israeli F-16s and F-15s staged the maneuver, flying more than 900 miles, roughly the distance from Israel to Iran's Natanz nuclear enrichment facility, and that the exercise included refueling tankers and helicopters capable of rescuing downed pilots.

"It was noticed that a significant exercise took place — dozens and dozens of aircraft participated," one U.S. official said Friday. "We watch globally everyday, and this was noted."

A second U.S. defense official said the maneuver could be taken as a demonstration that Israel is serious about the need to challenge Iran's nuclear program — and could be prepared to do so militarily. "That's one of the assessments you could make out of the exercise," the official said.

Asked to comment, the Israeli military issued a statement saying only that the Israeli air force "regularly trains for various missions in order to confront and meet the challenges posed by the threats facing Israel."

Israeli government spokesman Mark Regev offered no comment beyond the military's statement.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has said he prefers that Iran's nuclear ambitions be halted by diplomatic means, but has pointedly declined to rule out military action. Bush administration officials have said the same.

At the State Department, spokesman Sean McCormack would not comment on whether the United States supports or opposes any future Israeli air strikes against Iran.

"We are seeking a peaceful, diplomatic resolution" to the threat the West sees from Iran's nuclear program. "We have made that clear to the Israeli government; we have made that clear to the Iranian government; we have made that clear to anybody who will listen and who asked about it."

In an interview with the German magazine Der Spiegel published Wednesday, Olmert said the current international sanctions against Iran would probably not succeed alone, saying there were "many things that can be done economically, politically, diplomatically and militarily."

Asked if Israel was capable of taking military action against Iran, Olmert said, "Israel always has to be in a position to defend itself against any adversary and against any threat of any kind."

Israeli military analyst Martin Van Creveld of Jerusalem's Hebrew University said military preparations for a possible attack are indeed under way.

"Israel has been talking about this possibility for a long time, that it would not take an Iranian nuclear weapon lying down. And it has been practicing the operation or operations for a long time," he said.

But though an Israeli strike would likely be able to "paralyze the most important Iranian nuclear installations," it probably wouldn't be able to destroy the program, Van Creveld said. "I would be very surprised if Israel can really knock out every part of this program, which by all accounts appears to be large and well concealed and well dispersed," he said.

There are precedents for unilateral Israeli action in such cases. In 1981, Israeli jets bombed Iraq's Osirak nuclear facility to end dictator Saddam Hussein's nuclear program. And last September, Israel bombed a facility in Syria that U.S. officials have said was a nuclear reactor being constructed with North Korean assistance.

A U.S. intelligence report released late last year concluded that Iran has suspended its nuclear weapons program, but Israeli intelligence believes that is incorrect and that work is continuing.

Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov said Iran should be engaged in dialogue and encouraged to cooperate with the U.N. nuclear monitoring agency.

Lavrov made the statement when asked to comment on an Israeli Cabinet member's statement earlier this month that Israel could attack Iran if it does not halt its nuclear program.

"I hope the actual actions would be based on international law," Lavrov said. "And international law clearly protects Iran's and anyone else's territorial integrity."

[reconeil]

Re: "Israel shows abilities for Iran strike",...I say: "GOOD FOR THEM".
Keep showing Muslim Killers that Israel can't be trifled with or waltzed-around, like The West.

After all, if little tiny Nation of Israel (about size of New Jersey) were Politically-Correctly
governed and/or their Military were similarly & asininely ordered to never hurt Islamic
Enemy's feelings or cause Enemy Collateral Damage as politically ordered American &
Allied Troops,...it's not even slightly likely that Israel would even now exist today.

Basically stated, fight wars by America's post WWII foolish ways & loose or die, or fight
tooth & nail & accepting nothing less than Victory as in WWII,...and win or live.

If not fighting the the old way or WWII way as most enemies usually do anyway,...it would
have been physically impossible for Those Gutsy Israelis to have lasted for over 60 years.
My salute & compliments to those much wiser Tough Cookies.

Remember this and/or if surrounded & vastly outnumbered by Muslim Enemies Avowed to
Allah to destroy you (or not),...political leaders/rulers can never save you.
Only Good Militaries can. No one else.

Neil

P.S. Any compliments aside, I believe that permitting Enemy Enclaves within ones nation,
is about as nationally-suicidal as it gets. Not all that bright, either.

[DeadlyDaring]

http://news.google.com.au/news?hl=en...num=4&ct=title
------------------
Israel's Drill May Curb Iran Nuclear Effort, U.S. Official Says
By Ken Fireman, Janine Zacharia and Tony Capaccio
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?p...x5E&refer=home
June 21 (Bloomberg) -- An Israeli military exercise interpreted as a rehearsal for a strike on Iran will bolster a diplomatic drive to curb its nuclear program, a senior U.S. official said.

The American official, who spoke on condition he not be identified, said the June 2 drill by Israeli warplanes wasn't initiated or authorized by the U.S., which also didn't voice opposition after it was disclosed yesterday.

``We are clearly in a situation where the Israelis and United States are trying to bolster diplomacy but indicating there are other options,'' said Michael Eisenstadt, a defense analyst at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

The U.S. official said the drill may increase pressure on Iranian leaders to meet United Nations demands for a suspension of uranium enrichment. Eisenstadt and other analysts agreed with that assessment.

``A message like this that comes at a time of diplomacy usually will help because it tends to concentrate the minds of everybody,'' said Daniel Kurtzer, the former U.S. ambassador to Israel, in an interview.

Russia's UN envoy, Vitaly Churkin, expressed a different view, saying that even the threat of military action might damage the diplomatic effort.

``If things happen like threats of force and unilateral sanctions outside the framework of the Security Council, it is distracting from the negotiating process,'' Churkin said yesterday. ``A military move would have devastating consequences for the prospect of resolving the Iranian nuclear issue, for the region and internationally.''

Iran's View

Iran insists its uranium enrichment work is peaceful and legal under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. The aim of the effort is to create a commercial nuclear power industry, according to Iranian officials.

President George W. Bush supports offering economic incentives to Iran for cooperation while keeping up pressure through sanctions aimed at Iranian military commanders, arms buying and suspected front companies for the nuclear effort.

The Israeli exercise involved about 100 aircraft and included mid-air refueling missions, according to two U.S. defense officials who are familiar with the broad outlines of the Israeli operation.

The New York Times, which reported on the exercise yesterday, said the drill took place over the eastern Mediterranean and Greece. The newspaper, citing unidentified U.S. officials, said the refueling tankers and helicopters involved flew more than 900 miles, about the same distance between Israel and Iran's uranium enrichment plant at Natanz.

Possible Message

Analysts said the exercise was likely intended to signal to both Iran and the U.S. that an Israeli strike is possible if diplomacy is unsuccessful.

``They want to get us used to it, or at least not be totally surprised by it,'' said Michael O'Hanlon, a foreign- policy analyst at Washington's Brookings Institution. ``They want to be able to say they gave us warning. And they want to dissuade Iran as well. It's also battlefield training. It's all these things simultaneously.''

Anthony Cordesman, an analyst at Washington's Center for Strategic and International Studies, said the scope of the exercise made it inevitable that it would be detected by other countries.

Visibility of Exercise

Israel might have concealed the operation if it had wanted to by breaking it up into smaller components, he said.

``You do something like this as much to send a signal as anything else,'' Cordesman said.

Kenneth Katzman, a Middle East analyst for the Congressional Research Service, said he perceived another Israeli purpose: influencing internal U.S. deliberations.

``Israel is likely trying to strengthen those in the administration who favor military action against Iran's program,'' Katzman said an in e-mailed response to questions.

He said such officials, whom he didn't name, ``are arguing that only the United States can inflict the comprehensive and sustained damage on Iran's program that is ultimately needed, and that the United States must act before Israel does.''

A decision to actually strike Iran is one that Israel won't take lightly, Cordesman said. There is no certainty that an attack would cripple the Iranian program, he said. And Iran has ample means of retaliating through its proxies, the Islamic militias Hezbollah and Hamas.

`Heavy Blow'

A senior Iranian cleric, Ayatollah Ahmad Khatami, said yesterday his country would respond to an Israeli attack with a ``heavy blow.''

Kurtzer said the exercise wasn't unusual for Israel and doesn't signal an inevitable strike, something he said even hard-line Israelis are wary of. ``Nobody's anxious to have to exercise that option,'' he said.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, in an interview with the German magazine Der Spiegel, said there are ``many areas'' in which his country might act to curb the Iranian nuclear program: ``economic, political, diplomatic and military.''

Asked if Israel might act alone, Olmert said: ``I think it's well known to the world what Israel is capable of doing. I don't have to go further into details.''

In 1981 Israeli warplanes bombed an Iraqi reactor complex suspected of a being part of a weapons program. In September, Israel struck a Syrian facility that the U.S. said was a nuclear site being built with North Korean help.

Bunker Bombs

The U.S. Congress approved three years ago the sale to Israel of 100 laser-guided, 5,000-pound ``bunker-buster'' bombs. Many Iranian nuclear facilities may be located underground to make strikes against them more difficult.

News of the Israeli exercise broke just days after a new initiative from the UN, U.S. and European Union offering Iran fresh incentives in return for suspending uranium enrichment. Iran says it is studying the proposal.

The UN Security Council has approved three rounds of sanctions against Iran for its failure to halt uranium enrichment, a process used for making fuel for civilian energy or a bomb. The U.S. and European allies accuse Iran of trying to develop a bomb or the knowledge to make one.

Crude oil rose yesterday following news reports of the Israeli exercise. Crude for July delivery rose $2.69, or 2 percent, to settle at $134.62 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

To contact the reporter on this story: Tony Capaccio in Washington at acapaccio@bloomberg.net; Ken Fireman in Washington at kfireman1@bloomberg.netJanine Zacharia in Washington at jzacharia@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: June 20, 2008 18:58 EDT

[DeadlyDaring]

U.S. says Israel's airstrike exercise might direct at Iran
www.chinaview.cn 2008-06-20 2202

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/20...nt_8409946.htm

WASHINGTON, June 20 (Xinhua) -- U.S. military believed that a major military exercise by Israel earlier this month was a rehearsal for a potential bombing attack on Iran 's nuclear facilities, the New York Time reported Friday.

Some American officials said that the Israeli exercise appeared to be an effort to develop the military's capacity to carry out long-range strikes and to demonstrate the seriousness with which Israel views Iran's nuclear program.

More than 100 Israeli F-16 and F-15 fighters participated in the maneuvers, which were carried out over the eastern Mediterranean and over Greece during the first week of June, U.S. officials said.

The exercise also included Israeli helicopters that could be used to rescue downed pilots. The helicopters and refueling tankers flew more than 900 miles (1.15 kilometers), which is about the same distance between Israel and Iran's uranium enrichment plant at Natanz, American officials said.

A spokesman for the Israeli military said that Israel's air force "regularly trains for various missions in order to confront and meet the challenges posed by the threats facing Israel," but declining to discuss the details of the exercise.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, who visited Washington early June, said that "the Iranian threat must be stopped by all possible means," indicating that military resort can not be excluded.

His remarks about Iran's nuclear threat are believed to be the strongest one the Israeli leader has made on the issue.

In October 2005, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said that Israel should be "wiped off the face of the earth."


Editor: Yan Liang

[82Rigger]

IDF air units have at least 100 of our GBU-28 "bunker busters" that can penetrate up to 20 feet of solid concrete.

Hard targets wouldn't be a problem!

[DeadlyDaring]

Egypt cancels friendly against Iran - Daei frustrated (Roundup)

Jul 18, 2008, 16:36 GMT
http://www.monstersandcritics.com/ne...le_1417947.php

Tehran - Iran coach Ali Daei said on Friday that there was nothing he could do about the political impacts currently affecting the Iranian team, after Egypt were the latest team to cancel a scheduled friendly game against Iran.

'Considering sports apart from politics is nothing but an international slogan and especially football is directly linked to politics,' Daei told the ISNA news agency.

'As a coach I can only do my job as making politics is the job of others,' said the frustrated Daei, who formerly played in the German Bundesliga for Bielefeld, Bayern Munich and Berlin.

The Iranian national team is currently in a training camp in Spain. It was supposed to play against two Spanish teams as well as England's Charlton Athletics, but all three clubs cancelled the game.

Iran accused especially Charlton of having cancelled the game due to political reasons, namely the missile tests made last week and warnings by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards that Israel could be target of these missiles. Charlton officials have dismissed this.

Now the Egyptian Football Association (EFA) on Friday in Cairo cancelled the game with Iran scheduled for August 20 in the United Arab Emirates.

Egypt's shaky relations with Iran took a new bend after the emergence of the Iranian documentary 'Assassination of a Pharaoh', which glorifies the killing of late president Anwar el-Sadat in 1981. The documentary was deemed offensive by the Egyptian government and media.

'We have been discussing the situation with the Egyptian Foreign Ministry during the past few days and we finally decided to cancel the match so it would not provoke in one way or another, further tensions,' EFA president Samir Zaher was quoted by al-Jazeera news channel as saying.

Due to the Iranian nuclear programmes and anti-Israeli statements by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in the last two years, many national teams have refrained to play test games against Iran.

Iran is preparing itself for the next 2010 World Cup qualification games and desperately needs test-games before the next qualifier match against Saudi Arabia on Septemb

[DeadlyDaring]

The consequences of war against Iran

By Afshin Shahi
First Published: July 13, 2008
http://www.thedailynewsegypt.com/art...rticleID=15029

Recollections of the past are indeed subjective and history can often sharply illuminate the conditions of the present as well as the particularities of the past. Today, the recurring patterns of historical precedent are echoing down the timeline of the past, as once more Iran is under possible threat of invasion.

In the early days of the Islamic Revolution, the ideological antagonism of the new regime towards the East and the West, left the country in extreme isolation during some of the most sensitive years of the Cold War.

At the same time, heavy sanctions were crippling the country’s economy and infrastructure. The internal political chaos and the campaign of assassination of new leaders by the opposition, led to assumptions that the political lifespan of the Islamic Republic would be short. At that time of uncertainty about the survival of the fledgling regime, Iraq (with the blessings of the West) invaded the country.

It seemed that the Iraqi invasion was the last nail in the coffin of the Islamic Republic. When the Iraqi military entered Iranian territory, there was no consolidated post-revolutionary political or military order. Institutional transition was still taking place, and effectively, there was no central authority to respond to the invasion. However, the external threat and the invasion proved to be an indispensable stabilising factor for a regime, which was struggling to consolidate its authority.

Apart from some exceptions such as Mujahedin, the fragmented and ideologically incompatible opposition became united to fight shoulder to shoulder with the government against the external enemy. Ironically, the regime of Saddam Hussein and his Western allies indirectly served the interests of the Islamic Republic and helped the new order to consolidate its stranglehold over power.

The war according to Saddam Hussein was supposed to be short and decisive. It was meant to be over in a matter weeks, but instead it lasted from September 1980 to August 1988. It was one of the longest and bloodiest conflicts in the 20th century. The trenches were tuned to rivers of blood where hundreds of thousands of people lost their lives and the economic infrastructure of both countries was seriously damaged.

Some contemporary historians have argued that, had Iraq not invaded the country at that sensitive time, the newborn Islamic Republic would not have survived. Now, once again, an external actor is drumming up the war against Iran which can, once again, serve the interests of a regime that is under tremendous internal pressure.

Most of the young radicals who took part in the revolution are now disillusioned with the existing order. The youth, which constitute 70 percent of the population, is discontent and hold the government responsible for the obstacles they are facing.

This month, the rate of inflation has reached 20.7 percent, which is the highest in the last decade. There has been 50 percent increase in housing costs and about 20 percent of the population lives below the poverty line; a conservative rate of unemployment is not less than 15 percent. Corruption seems to be widespread and some of the most influential figures within the establishment are accused of nepotism and fraud.

Beyond the economic problems, the socio-political pressures have also increased. Since Mr. Ahmadinejad has emerged as the sixth president of the Islamic Republic, freedom of the press has significantly suffered and consequently numbers of newspapers have been forced to close down. At the same time, the role of the so-called “morality police” is greater than before, adding to the existing social anxieties. They are widely operating in the cities, enforcing the “Islamic” dress code, arresting people for minor lifestyle issues such as hairstyle and communicating with the opposite sex.

The popular disillusionment with the existing conditions as well as the international isolation, can intensify the collective pressure on the regime for change.

However, a possible attack by the US or Israel may once again serve the interest of the system by distracting people from internal conditions to external threats. An invasion can legitimize the alleged efforts of the existing regime for acquiring nuclear weapons and stimulate Iranian nationalism to abandon the pressure on their government. Once people are exposed to invasion, violation of sovereignty, bloodshed and loss of innocent lives they will support their government’s policy for uranium enrichment and possibly acquiring WMD.

Among regional experts, Iranians are known to be pro-western. Unlike their government and many nations in the Muslim World, anti-Americanism is not part of their collective political consciousness. At a time that the region is immersed in anti-Americanism, Iranian civil society looks at America favorably.

However, a possible invasion by the US or Israel will fundamentally jeopardize American soft power in Iran. This can only benefit the Islamic State and reinforce their existing ideological antagonism towards the West. Even if Israel unilaterally engages in a military campaign against Iran, in the eyes of the Iranian people, the US will still be seen as responsible, as Israel cannot play with fire without America’s blessings.

As the popular saying goes, “Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it”.

Given the existing situation, an invasion and bloodshed can only repeat history. As the Iraqi invasion changed the fate of the Islamic Republic and contributed to its survival, an attack from Israel or the US can contribute to its stability.

Most experts have agreed that a possible invasion will not meet the proclaimed objectives and could only serve to intensify the process of acquiring WMDs, only this time with the wider support of the Iranian people.

It will portray the regime as a victim and therefore will legitimize any method that the Islamic Republic may use for self-defence. It will weaken Iranian civil society, distract citizens from internal problems and stop the collective pressure on the state for change. This can have implications for the evolution of Iranian democracy and can lead to another long and revengeful conflict, which will have serious consequences for the regional and world economy.

Afshin Shahi is a Cairo-based British Iranian PhD candidate of political philosophy specialized in Middle East affairs. Email: afshin.shahi@gmail.com