WHAT RED LINE?
September 4, 2012
http://www.tribulationperiod.com/
Failure of the Obama Administration to draw a clear red line which, if crossed, would definitely lead to US and Israeli Middle East direct intervention in WMD programs of Iran and Syria, has directly contributed to the current air of uncertainty as to what will happen next. The expression “all the options are still on the table” is understood by Islamists to mean there is NO RED LINE, just a lot of dialogue and a few options that keep sliding and changing positions on a slippery table top.
Begin Excerpt 1 from YNet News
Netanyahu: Clear red line could mitigate conflict
PM allows diplomacy to take center stage as part of what appear to be bilateral US-Israeli attempts to dissipate tension over Iran strike; US denies report about secret communication with Tehran
Attila Somfalvi
September 3, 2012
After several weeks of public wrangling, both Jerusalem and Washington appeared to be making efforts to dissipate the tension over a possible Israeli strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities.
In hopes placating Israel and forestalling the attack, the Obama administration moved forward with a series of steps meant to force the Iranians to take the stalled negotiations about its atom program more seriously, the New York Times reported Monday.
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The White House also denied an Israeli newspaper report that accused Washington of secretly negotiating with Tehran to keep the United States out of a future Israel-Iran war.
“It’s incorrect, completely incorrect,” White House spokesman Jay Carney told Reuters while accompanying President Barack Obama on a campaign trip in Ohio. “The report is false and we don’t talk about hypotheticals.”
Yedioth Ahoronoth said Washington had approached Tehran through two unidentified European countries to convey the message that the United States would not be dragged into fighting if Iran refrained from retaliating against US interests, including its military in the Gulf.
Clear red line
Concurrently, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu seemed to have altered his own rhetoric, starting with a call on the international community to draw a line that would convince Iran it was determined to prevent Tehran from obtaining nuclear arms. The leader made the remarks during a Cabinet meeting on Sunday.
Netanyahu reiterated the stance on Monday while meeting with American and Israeli war veterans. He said that the “cruel regime” in the Islamic Republic is forging on with its nuclear program because it has yet to be presented with “a clear red line.” He urged the international community to show its determination against the Iran’s nuclearization in order to minimize the risk of conflict.
The military option is yet to be taken off the table, but for the first time in months the prime minister has allowed diplomacy to take center stage. While Israeli statesmen have alluded to sanctions and talks as the solution that could prevent an attack, Netanyahu maintained a combative narrative that all but deemed diplomacy obsolete.
“The goal is to make Iran understand that the world is serious about the military option,” a source in Jerusalem said, noting that a clear message to that effect, if made by Obama, could be put off a strike for several month.
Officials in the capital postulate that Netanyahu has realized that “the time has come to get off his high horse. The tension and the public spat over the media isn’t doing any good.”
According to the officials, the US has been waging an intensive psychological battle against an Israeli operation over the past few weeks, which included media leaks and effectively de-legitimized a military move by the Jewish state. The bottom line was delivered by Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Martin Dempsey, who went as far as to say that he does not want “to be complicit if they (Israel) choose to do it.” Meanwhile, Israel continues to trace the impact of the financial sanctions on Iran. Intelligence information which was presented to decision makers recently revealed that the economic measures are leaving a dramatic mark on the Islamic Republic’s economy, and are putting heavy pressure on the regime there.
The annual intelligence situation estimate is to be presented before the Secuirty Cabinet on Tuesday, and is expected to indicate that the Middle East is more unstable than it has been in the past, primarily due to the Islamization of countries in the region, with an emphasis on Egypt.
Begin Excerpt 2 from DEBKAfile Exclusive Report
Egypt confronts Israel with 6,000 Sinai Islamists as an approved militia
DEBKAfile Exclusive Report
September 3, 2012, 7:18 PM (GMT+02:00)
To keep the truce with the Islamist terrorist networks in Sinai in place, while avoiding a large-scale military operation to suppress them, Egypt is now releasing dozens of jailed Salafist gunmen in batches every few days, so feeding the Islamists a steady supply of reinforcements. Cairo is also in negotiation with Bedouin tribal elders to grant a body of 6,000 Al-Qaeda-linked Salafi gunmen the status of an approved, independent militia. Armed with up-to-date Egyptian weapons, this militia is to be charged with responsibility for maintaining security in the peninsula.
This may be a neat way out for Egypt and let the Morsi government off the hook of grappling with the violent Islamist networks infesting Sinai. But it leaves Israel squarely face to face with a whole new terrorist outfit which has the freedom to choose between operating in the service of Al Qaeda or Cairo – or playing both sides.
Israeli security circles on the southern front familiar with the Sinai security situation explain that the Egyptian army’s claim Monday, Sept. 3 that it pulled “another 20 tanks” out of the peninsula, marking the tail end of its putative counter-terror military offensive, was therefore the reverse of welcome news for Israel.
All the same, out of certain diplomatic considerations, Israelis officials are collaborating with the US and Egypt in drawing a veil over this dangerous downturn in security along its southwestern border.
Thursday, Aug. 30 Defense Minister Ehud Barak said: ”The Egyptians must combat terror and if they need to bring extra military strength into Sinai [for this purpose], we should let them.”
As he spoke, Egyptian spokesmen claimed the tanks, illegally deployed in breach of the peace treaty with Israel, were being withdrawn at the end of a “successful military offensive” to root out the terrorists.
This statement, say DEBKAfile’s counter-terror sources, contains at least two untruths: The tanks were falsely presented as backing a fictitious Egyptian operation, just as the Cairo communiqué pretended that large numbers of terrorists were killed and wounded “in action” or detained.
There were no terrorist casualties because the entire operation was made of whole cloth, a Sinai desert mirage.
That the Netanyahu government and defense chiefs went along with this fiction is the real issue.
They have committed Israel to accepting the entry of Egyptian military forces into Sinai for the stated purpose of combating terror – a stipulation the Cairo government under the Muslim Brotherhood has demonstrated it has no intention of upholding. Just the reverse: The Egyptian troops positioned in Sinai are ordered to keep their powder dry and stand by as the terrorist cells of the “Mujaheddin Brigades in the Jerusalem Vicinity” – which is closely allied to Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula – goes from strength to strength.
Yet some Israeli media have suggested sympathetically that the Egyptian army was forced to slow down its counter-terror operations for lack of intelligence on the armed cells’ whereabouts.
An Israel officer serving in the sector retorted angrily that every Egyptian and Israeli officer serving anywhere in or near Sinai knows exactly where the gunmen are skulking and their training facilities located. “The trouble is that Egyptian officers who go past thoAse places look the other way,” he said.
The only action the Morsi government has taken on the quiet is to place a security buffer strip along the Egyptian-Israeli border off-limits to civilian traffic.
Our military sources report this strip has been dubbed “The American Highway” of Sinai, because its 260 kilometers were paved in secret by US military engineers. It runs from the MFO peacekeepers’ Mediterranean base at Sheikh Zuweid in northern Sinai down to Taba, providing a safe route for the peacekeepers, most of them members of the US 82nd Airborne Division, between their northern base and their headquarters at Sharm el-Sheikh.
Large sections of the American Highway run parallel to Israel’s Route 12 from Nitzana to Eilat, Israel’s southernmost town.
Egypt no doubt intended this buffer strip to serve additionally for keeping terrorists at a distance from its border with Israel. But IDF observers in that area see very little Egyptian military activity for keeping it sterile and closed to hostile movements.
Once the Salafis are organized in a militia and formally recognized as such by Cairo, it will be that much harder to keep them from breaching the buffer strip abutting the Israeli border.
Begin Excerpt 3 from MEMRI
Middle East Media Research Institute
Special Dispatch No. 4914
August 27, 2012
Egyptian Cleric Safwat Higazi: ‘One Of The Tenets Of The Muslim Brotherhood… Is The Islamic Caliphate And The Ruling Of The World… The Day Will Come When We Will Be The Masters Of The World’
In a recent TV interview, Egyptian cleric Safwat Higazi said that while “the first choice of the Muslims is peace,” they “welcome war” as a means of liberating Palestine and restoring the “United States of the Arabs.” During the interview, which aired on the Egyptian Al-Kahera Wal-Nas TV on August 14, 2012, Higazi expressed his hope that the Islamic Caliphate would be restored, saying: “The day will come when we will be the masters of the world.”
Following are excerpts:
We Welcome War As A Means To Restore The United States Of The Arabs
Interviewer: “In the era of the Muslim Brotherhood – or the era of the Islamic movements – will new fronts be opened against Israel – including an Egyptian front – in order to make Jerusalem the capital of the ‘United States of the Arabs’?”
Safwat Higazi: “Liberating Palestine and restoring the United States of the Arabs does not necessarily have to be done through weapons or war. We Muslims are not warmongers. We seek peace. We want to get what is rightfully ours.”
Interviewer: “How can you get ‘what is rightfully yours’ from a country like Israel without war?”
Safwat Higazi: “I did not say that I would take what is mine through peaceful means. I said that this is my first choice. The first choice of the Muslims is peace. If not through peace, there is nothing preventing war. We welcome war.”
Interviewer: “How can a peace-seeking Muslim like you issue a fatwa stating that anyone who sees an Israeli on the street must kill him?”
Safwat Higazi: “If that Zionist is fighting me, occupying my country, and killing people who are my brothers in country, religion, and humanity – then it’s an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, and whoever started it is to blame.”
Peace Came Through 1973 War, Not Camp David Accords
Interviewer: “What ever happened to peace-seeking?”
Safwat Higazi: “We extended our hand in peace, but it was rejected. What else is left to do?”
Interviewer: “When did you offer peace?”
Safwat Higazi: “Did Egypt not offer peace throughout all these years?”
Interviewer: “Are you for or against the Camp David Accords?”
Safwat Higazi: “I am against them.”
Interviewer: “Then you are against peace.”
Safwat Higazi: “Absolutely not. This equation is completely wrong.”
Interviewer: “Was it not the Camp David Accords that brought peace?”
Safwat Higazi: “This equation is wrong…”
Interviewer: “Please, just answer my question. Was it not the Camp David Accords that
brought peace to Egypt?”
Safwat Higazi: “Absolutely not. It was the 1973 war that brought peace. If not for the Egyptian victory in that war, there would be no peace. How come there was no peace before the 1973 war?”
Interviewer: “How did peace come about?”
Safwat Higazi: “Through the Egyptian victory in the war.”
Interviewer: “Through what means?”
Safwat Higazi: “Peace came through the 1973 war. With the crossing of the Suez Canal, we crossed into peace. Had we not crossed the Canal, there would have been no peace.”
[…]
“The Day Will Come When We Will Be The Masters Of The World”
“One of the tenets of the Muslim Brotherhood, which they cannot renounce, is the Islamic Caliphate and the ruling of the world. Yes. The day will come when we will be the masters of the world.” […]
Begin Excerpt 4 from Gulf News via AFP
Gulf states lambast Syria, Iran
Meeting urges international community to help protect civilians from Al Assad regime
AFP
Published: 13:50 September 3, 2012
GULF NEWS
Jeddah: Arab countries in the Gulf on Sunday lambasted Syria’s regime for deploying heavy weapons against civilians while telling Iran in no uncertain terms that they would not tolerate meddling in their internal affairs.
The six members of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) at a meeting in Jeddah also urged the international community to “assume their responsibilities and take measures to protect civilians” in Syria, where according to a watchdog more than 26,000 people have been killed in a revolt that erupted in March, 2011.
The GCC in a statement issued after the meeting in the western Saudi city condemned “the ongoing massacres which are due to the obstinacy of the regime in using heavy weapons, including planes and tanks” against civilians.
The Gulf states ordered Iran to halt its “interference” in their internal affairs, citing an incident at the opening of the Non-Aligned Movement in Tehran when an official interpreter reportedly replaced the word “Syria” with “Bahrain” in a speech by Egyptian President Mohammad Mursi.
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