Saturday, February 23, 2013

War watch - February 22 , 2013 ... Focus on Syria , Iran and NATO....

http://enenews.com/ynet-syria-rebels-present-iaea-with-demands-over-captured-nuclear-facility-were-willing-to-cooperate-if-our-conditions-are-met-special-security-parameter-set-up



Ynetnews (Israel’s most popular news and general content website), Feb. 24, 2013: A spokesman for the Free Syria Army hinted Sunday that the rebels would be willing to allow International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors into the Al-Kibar nuclear facility, which they seized last week. [...] “We’re willing to cooperate with the IAEA if our conditions are met,” the FSA said in a statement. The London-based Arab newspaper Al-Sharq Al-Awsat further quoted a commander of one of the rebel brigades as saying [...] the FSA has set up a special security parameter around Al-Kibar, to protect it. The spokesman said that an FSA officer has been made the liaison to the UN agency and will present it with the rebels’ demands [...] He refused to tell the newspaper whether anything was found on the premises to suggest that the facility was used for nuclear work. “Those details will be given only to the IAEA,” he said. [...]


and....



http://news.antiwar.com/2013/02/22/us-blocks-un-resolution-condemning-damascus-bombing/

( US looks hypocritical .... )


US Blocks UN Resolution Condemning Damascus Bombing

UN Envoy Issues Personal Statement Calling Attack a 'War Crime'

by Jason Ditz, February 22, 2013
Yesterday’s massive bombing attack near the Ba’ath Party headquarters in Damascus, an attack which left 100 people dead and 250 others wounded, the vast majority civilians, was a “war crime,” according to UN Special Envoy Lakhdar Brahimi.
In a personal statement, Brahimi said that “nothing could justify such horrible actions that amount to war crimes under international law,” and said that he “strongly condemns” the attack.
Brahimi’s personal statement is going to be the closest we get to a UN condemnation of the killings, however, as the US has blocked a Russian resolution from moving through the UN Security Council condemning the attack.
The US denied being opposed to a resolution as such but wanted an alternative resolution that focused on condemnations of the Syrian government, while mentioning the bombing as a secondary concern. They went on to accuse Russia of blocking that statement, even though it mentioned the bombing in passing, and insisted that was the real opposition to the condemnation.

and.......

http://news.antiwar.com/2013/02/22/syrian-rebels-to-form-rival-govt-for-liberated-areas/


Syrian Rebels to Form Rival Govt for ‘Liberated’ Areas

Previous Attempt Ended in Failure When Officials Couldn't Agree on Posts

by Jason Ditz, February 22, 2013
Syria’s National Coalition umbrella group has announced today that it intends to form a new government to rule over the “liberated” parts of Syria captured by various rebel factions associated with them. The meeting on the cabinet will be March 2 in the Egyptian capital of Cairo.
Exactly how much of the “rebel-held” territory across Syria will actually be under the SNC government’s control is unclear. They style themselves as the leaders of the entire revolution, but several factions with territorial possessions, including the Jabhat al-Nusra, are totally unaffiliated with them.
This isn’t the first time the SNC has attempted to form a government. They did so in late January but the meeting ended in disaster and disagreement, with most of the factions refusing to even consider a prime ministerial nominee.
The new attempt might be even more contentious, with several factions angry at SNC President Moaz al-Khatib for broaching the subject of negotiating with the Assad government, with many of them insisting all negotiations are unacceptable until after the regime has already surrendered and resigned.

and this sums up things neatly.......

http://antiwar.com/blog/2013/02/22/foreign-meddling-in-syria-prolongs-the-bloodletting/

Foreign Meddling in Syria Prolongs the Bloodletting
John Glaser, February 22, 2013
As has been the case from the beginning, options for intervention in Syria go from bad to worse and the limited meddling by countries on either side is simply prolonging the conflict.
Dr. Florence Gaub, a researcher at the NATO Defense College, writes at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace that outside forces can’t end the Syrian civil war. Critically, a political settlement is implausible so long as either side believes they have the upper hand. And, thanks to foreign support, both sides are so emboldened.
“A continuous supply of weapons to both sides—whether from Russia, Iran or the Gulf States—only maintains the parties’ perception that fighting is a better option than negotiating,” Gaub writes. “This explains why, in terms of statistical probability, an external supply of weapons lengthens a civil war.”
This has been known for some time. Hawks in Washington continue to advocate for direct arming of the Syrian rebels (despite ties to officially designated terrorist organizations and documented war crimes), clueless to the fact that the meddling already happening is precisely what has made the conflict so protracted and bloody to begin with.
Kofi Annan, the former UN and Arab League special envoy for Syria, said prior to quitting the post that while Russia had received a lot of criticism for continuing to back the violent President Bashar al-Assad’s regime, “very few things are said about other countries that send arms and money and weigh on the situation on the ground.”
“Syria indeed has become an arena for outside meddling, but the meddling has been far more effective at sustaining the fighting than ending it,” said a report last year from the International Crisis Group. “Because the mission’s success was predicated on finding middle ground when most parties yearned for a knockout punch, few truly wished it well, even as no one wanted to be caught burying it.”
UN rights chief Navi Pillay has condemned the continued flow of weapons from foreign powers to both sides in the Syrian conflict. “The ongoing provision of arms to the Syrian government and to its opponents feeds additional violence,” she said in the text of remarks made to the Security Council. “Any further militarization of the conflict must be avoided at all costs.”
Beyond the proxy war that Syria has become, Gaub writes, direct military intervention “would simply make things worse,” and would not have legitimacy under international law.
The White House has reportedly rejected proposals to directly arm the rebels, a decision Obama is apparently reconsidering. But the US and its European allies have been indirectly aiding the rebels, while their allies in the Arab Gulf states – along with the flow of Libyan arms – are providing weapons. The policies of Washington’s client states are to a large extent the responsibility of Washington, of course. Furthermore, Western support to the opposition has caused the Assad regime’s backers, cautious not to cede a geo-political win to the US, to dig in their heels.
A resolution to the bloodletting is easily within reach, but for the insistence to meddle from the outside.


And news pertaining to Iran as the next set of fake talks start Monday February 25th.....

http://antiwar.com/blog/2013/02/22/iran-get-the-gun-out-of-our-face-and-well-negotiate/

Iran: Get the Gun Out of Our Face, and We’ll Negotiate
John Glaser, February 22, 2013
Both Nation reporter Robert Dreyfuss and Harvard professor Stephen Walt point today to a speech given by Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in which he explains why America’s rhetoric about returning to negotiations are perceived as dishonest. Do read both of their articles.
Khamenei accurately cites a catalog of aggressive policies Washington has leveled against Iran, like “crippling” sanctions, surrounding Iran militarily, supporting Israel as it assassinates Iran’s civilian scientists, waging cyber-warfare, verbal threats of war, supporting Iran’s enemies in a deliberate attempt to undermine the regime, etc. etc. Then he says:
Now the Americans have raised the issue of negotiations again. They repeat that America is prepared to directly negotiate with Iran. This is not new. The Americans have repeatedly raised the issue of negotiations at every juncture. Now their newly appointed politicians repeat that we should negotiate. And they say that the ball is in Iran’s court.

It is you who should explain the meaning of negotiations that are accompanied by pressure and threats. Negotiations are for the sake of proving one’s goodwill. You commit tens of acts which show lack of goodwill and then you speak about negotiations. Do you expect the Iranian nation to believe that you have goodwill?… We do not see any goodwill.
Speaking a day earlier than Khamenei here, President Ahmadinejad summed it up more succinctly: “Take your guns out of the face of the Iranian nation and I myself will negotiate with you.”
And Iran’s UN Ambassador Mohammed Khazaee, in a discussion with former U.S. Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Thomas Pickering this month, said: ”As long as pressure is on Iran, as long as there is a sword on our neck to come to negotiations, this is not negotiations, therefore Iranians cannot accept that.”
It’s not just Iranians who perceive this underlying theme in the US-Iran relationship. American academics and officials, experts in US foreign policy, also recognize it. After the failed talks in 2009 and 2010, wherein Obama ended up rejecting the very deal he demanded the Iranians accept, as Walt has written, the Iranian leadership “has good grounds for viewing Obama as inherently untrustworthy.” Former CIA analyst Paul Pillar has concurred, arguing that Iran has “ample reason” to believe, “ultimately the main Western interest is in regime change.”
And Vali Nasr, former senior adviser to Richard Holbrooke, Obama’s special representative to Afghanistan and Pakistan and a leading Middle East expert writes in his new book that, for the Obama administration, “Pressure has become an end in itself.” They spoke of a dual track that consists of diplomacy and pressure, but, Nasr writes, it was “not even dual. It relied on one track, and that was pressure.”
“Engagement,” he adds, “was a cover for a coercive campaign of sabotage, economic pressure and cyberwarfare.”
Walt wonders out loud why the US seems unwilling to let up on the pressure:
So why do so many smart people keep embracing an approach to Iran that is internally contradictory and has consistently failed for more than a decade? I’m not entirely sure, but I suspect it has a lot to do with maintaining credibility inside Washington. Because Iran has been demonized for so long, and absurdly cast as the Greatest National Security Threat we face, it has become largely impossible for anyone to speak openly of a different approach without becoming marginalized. Instead, you have to sound tough and hawkish even if you are in favor of negotiations, because that’s the only way to be taken seriously in the funhouse world of official Washington (see under: the Armed Services Committee hearings on Chuck Hagel).
Yeah, it’s that. But it’s also that US grand strategy for a long time has been to maintain its own hegemony in the resource rich Middle East. Dominance, not diplomacy, is the goal.

http://www.debka.com/article/22788/Obama-and-Netanyahu-aid-Khamenei%E2%80%99s-campaign-for-Iran%E2%80%99s-next-president

Obama and Netanyahu aid Khamenei’s campaign for Iran’s next president

DEBKAfile Exclusive Report February 23, 2013, 11:44 AM (GMT+02:00)
Tags:  Iran nuclear   Ayatollah Ali Khamenei   Barack Obama   Binyamin Netanyahu   elections 
Yes we are close...
Yes we are close...


The Obama administration was unmoved by the IAEA finding that Iran had installed 180 advanced centrifuges had been installed at Natanz. Indeed, the White House said Thursday, Feb. 21 that “a diplomatic solution is still possible” for resolving nuclear issues with Iran.

The International Atomic Energy Agency report came out the next day: The new IR-1m centrifuges installed in Natanz were said to enrich uranium three times faster than the outdated machines used at Natanz until now, considerably shortening Tehran’s path to a nuclear bomb. The IAEA also noted faster than expected progress in setting up the Arak plant for producing plutonium.

These findings mean that the red line drawn by Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu before the UN General Assembly last September - when he said Iran must not be permitted to stock 250 kilos of near weapons-grade uranium of 20 percent purity – is approaching faster than the “late-spring-early summer” deadline he set for stopping Iran before it can build a nuclear bomb.

Yet, in the response to the IAEA finding of Thursday, Netanyahu’s office said only, that the report's findings "prove that Iran continues to advance quickly to the red line" and "Iran is closer than ever to achieving enrichment for a nuclear bomb."

Administration sources report that the US is continuing to push Iran for one-on-one talks after the six powers face Iran in Kazakhstan on Feb. 26 – even though a secret round a couple of months ago was a flop. Gary Samore, the Obama aide who set it up, has since quit the White House and moved over to Harvard University.

Yet Barack Obama stands by diplomatic engagement and “increased pressure” (sanctions) as the sole means of preventing Iran obtaining a nuclear weapon.  

Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has put the US president on the spot,DEBKAfile’s intelligence sources report: He is calling in a debt. He respected Obama’s request to refrain from spoiling his campaign for reelection in November and held back from delivering the “October surprise” widely predicted by US media.

Now, Tehran faces a presidential election in June and Khamenei wants to be sure that the US doesn’t upset his plans. His foremost aspiration is to block the path of the retiring president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s in-law to the presidency and replace him with a nondescript, uncharismatic figure handpicked by himself who is also a competent administrator and qualified to haul Iran out of its economic morass. Not all of Iran’s troubles are caused by sanctions; Ahmadinejad’s reign has seen plenty of dysfunction and corruption.Extreme violence is already bedeviling the Iranian campaign up to and including threats of assassination. The supreme ruler is bidding the Obama administration for some peace on quiet on the diplomatic front.


According to our sources, Iran’s stormy election campaign will hold Tehran back from any real diplomatic breakthrough or progress toward definitive nuclear weaponization until a new president is elected and forms a government, some time in the fall.

At the same time, the ayatollah is playing a complex double game by keeping diplomatic tensions high and avoiding any real dialogue with Washington. Indeed, he may even welcome tougher sanctions and military threats for boosting his candidate for president and letting Ahmadinejad’s candidate in for punishment at the hands of the suffering Iranian voter.

Hence, the crossed signals from Washington, Europe, Israel and the IAEA. On the one hand, alarm over Tehran’s rapid advance toward a nuclear weapon capability, while on the other, insistence on doing nothing substantial beyond futile palaver to stop it. All four are playing into the ayatollah’s hands.



and.....



Just wondering what the purpose of NATO will be going forward and when responsible stewards will be put in place ? 

http://news.antiwar.com/2013/02/22/panetta-nato-nations-must-reject-all-cuts-to-military-spending/

Panetta: NATO Nations Must Reject All Cuts to Military Spending

Alliance Would Be 'Spread Too Thin'

by Jason Ditz, February 22, 2013
Initially imagined as a mutual defensive alliance, NATO’s initial purpose is long gone, and the alliance seems to be drifting inexorably toward being a collective lobby for military spending alliance-wide.
NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen spent yesterdaybrowbeating member nations who, facing massive budget deficits, are considering cutting military spending. Today, US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta joined in.
Focusing primarily on condemning “irresponsible” considerations of cuts in US military spending, Panetta also piled on for the rest of the alliance, warning that NATO’s readiness is at stake and its militaries could be “stretched too thin.”

Of course entirely absent in all NATO conversations is whether they could avoid being overstretched by simply not starting so many wars, and with officials starting with the assumption that NATO must be able to start any and all conflicts that strike their fancy at any given moment, they continue with the conclusion that spending must always grow.


http://news.yahoo.com/panetta-nato-partner-differ-troop-numbers-134115846.html 

Panetta, NATO partner, differ on troop numbers

By LOLITA C. BALDOR | Associated Press – 21 hrs ago


BRUSSELS (AP) — Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and his NATO counterparts are considering leaving 8,000 to 12,000 troops in Afghanistan after 2014, but it was unclear how much of that force would be American, U.S. officials said Friday.
A dispute flared, but was quickly dissipated at the NATO defense ministers gathering here to discuss the endgame of the 11-year-old war in Afghanistan.
German Defense Minister Thomas de Maiziere told reporters that a post-2014 force of 8,000 to 10,000 American troops would remain in Afghanistan. Panetta denied that, saying the force of 8,000 to 12,000 would be international and the makeup was still under discussion.
Within hours, de Maiziere said his comments were "misleading," and that the force remaining would be international.
President Barack Obama has said that the last combat troops will leave Afghanistan on Dec. 31, 2014, leaving the bulk of the country's security in the hands of the Afghans.
Panetta, who will leave Obama's Cabinet when his successor is confirmed, told reporters that he and the NATO partners talked about ranges of options for the post-2014 troop force. And he said the figures reflected contributions that other nations would make, in addition to the United States.
"There's no question in the current budget environment, with deep cuts in European defense spending and the kind of political gridlock that we see in the United States now with regards to our own budget, is putting at risk our ability to effectively act together," he said. "As I prepare to step down as secretary of defense, I do fear that the alliance will soon be, if it is not already, stretched too thin."
His spokesman, George Little, told reporters that the range for an international force was 8,000 to 12,000, and that Obama had not yet decided on the size of the post-2014 force in Afghanistan.
"We will continue to discuss with allies and the Afghans how we can best carry out two basic missions: targeting the remnants of al-Qaida and its affiliates, and training and equipping Afghan forces," he said.
Panetta said officials are planning to leave troops in all sectors of the country as well as in Kabul. Pentagon officials have said the military has mapped out plans to carry on its mission of training and advising the Afghan forces and also leave a small counterterrorism force to battle insurgents.
When asked about troop numbers, NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen told reporters that no decision had yet been made.
The Obama administration is considering a plan to maintain 352,000 Afghan troops for the next five years as part of an effort to maintain security and help convince Afghanistan that America and its allies will not abandon it once combat troops leave in 2014, senior alliance officials said Thursday. NATO officials are also widely considering that option.
Such a change, if NATO endorses it, could increase the costs to the U.S. and allies by more than $2 billion a year, at a time when most are struggling with budget cuts and fiscal woes. Last May, NATO agreed to underwrite an Afghan force of about 230,000, at a cost of about $4.1 billion a year after 2014. It costs about $6.5 billion this year to fund the current Afghan force of 352,000, and the U.S. is providing about $5.7 billion of that.
Panetta said Friday that he can defend that spending to Congress because it would give the U.S. more flexibility and savings as it withdraws troops from Afghanistan.
Maintaining the larger troop strength could bolster the confidence of the Afghan forces and make it clear that NATO is committed to an enduring relationship with Afghanistan, a senior NATO official said.
In private meetings with other defense ministers, Panetta warned allies that Washington's fiscal impasse will have repercussions abroad, as impending budget cuts force the military to scale back its training and presence overseas.
Many of his meetings, however, centered on the plans to wind down the war in Afghanistan, including the withdrawal of 34,000 U.S. troops over the next year and the transfer of security responsibilities to the Afghan forces.
According to an Obama administration official, the Pentagon plans to reduce the number of U.S. forces in Afghanistan to about 60,500 by the end of May; then to 52,500 by November, keeping a relatively stable number of troops there during the peak fighting season. The sharpest cuts in U.S. troop strength will come over the winter months as the remaining 20,500 leave after the main fighting season. There currently are about 66,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan.
Panetta acknowledged those ranges of numbers on Friday, but also added that the U.S. would maintain the 34,000 through the Afghan elections, then withdraw the final combat troops toward the end of 2014.
The administration officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the numbers publicly.
This is Panetta's fifth visit to Brussels for a NATO meeting — a trip he never intended to take. Expectations were that defense secretary nominee Chuck Hagel, a former Republican senator from Nebraska, would be confirmed by the Senate last week and he would travel to the meeting.
Hagel's nomination stalled, however, as it got caught up in senators' complaints about the attack in Benghazi, which left four Americans dead, including the ambassador. There are indications now that Hagel has support from enough senators to be confirmed next week.







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