http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-02-23/us-israel-providing-military-supports-and-parts-iran-which-turn-arming-syria
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 02/23/2014 21:19 -0500
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 02/23/2014 22:00 -0500
US And Israel Quietly Provide Military Support And Parts To Iran, Which In Turn Is Arming Syria
Before the Ukraine, there was Syria. Before Syria, there was Iran. For over 30 years, Iran was the perpetual strawman of every attempt to escalate hostilities in the middle east. One only needs to recall that the original "red line" was not Obama's but that of Israel's PM Netanyahu referring to Iran's nuclear program (which most likely was under the control of Stuxnet, and thus the NSA, more than it was Iran's to begin with).
What is surprising in recent months, is how quickly in the aftermath of the Syrian failed escalation script from last summer, Iran quickly dropped off the axis of America's worst enemies, and from the biggest bogeyman, has rapidly become a nation with which the US is eager to resume diplomatic and trade relations. Sure, Israel pretended to be angry about Iran's ascent in the ranks of US foreign allies-to-be, and issued a few angry press releases, but that's all it was - posturing, fit only for the front page of tabloids. It is what was happening behind the scenes that is noteworthy.
And what is happening behind the scenes is the same thing that happens every time the US (or Israel, or any other western nations) finds a surprising new ally: said ally proceeds to purchase military equipment from the US (or other western nations), using loans from the US (or other western nation banks).
Enter bizarre twist #1 - US companies selling military parts to none other than the formerly country non grata (at least until mid-2013): Iran. Reuters reports:
U.S. aerospace companies are seeking permission to sell airliner parts to Iran for the first time in three decades, in a key test of the temporary relief on sanctions given under talks to curtail Iran's nuclear activities.At least two leading manufacturers, Boeing and engine maker General Electric, have applied for export licenses in a six-month window agreed by Iran and six world powers in November, industry officials and other sources familiar with the matter said.If approved, the sales would be the first acknowledged dealings between U.S. aerospace companies and Iran since the 1979 U.S. hostage crisis led to sanctions that were later broadened during the dispute over Iran's nuclear activities.A source familiar with the matter said that Boeing, the world's biggest manufacturer of passenger jets, had also filed a request for permission to export parts to Iran.Boeing declined to comment, referring questions to the U.S. State Department, which in turn referred queries to the U.S. Treasury. A spokeswoman for the Treasury Department, which enforces international sanctions, declined to comment on specific license requests or applications.
Enter bizarre twist # 2 - "GE is doing it for the kids."
A GE spokesman said his company had been asking since 2004 for permission to provide parts and maintenance for engines for safety reasons, without profiting from the scheme. GE, the world's largest maker of jet engines by sales, refiled its request after the sanctions relief came into force, he added."We don't want to make a penny on it. It's entirely for flight safety," Rick Kennedy said, adding that GE would donate any proceeds to charity.
But of course, because when one thinks suing the US to get tax refunds corporate generosity (if not bailouts), one thinks GE.
Enter bizarre twist # 3 - it is not only the US that is seeking to promptly capitalize on this "temporary" elimination of Iran sanctions. It is Iran's perpetual nemesis, Israel, that is not only planning to supply weapons to Iran, but is already doing so. However, unlike the US which at least has clumsily stumbled upon a detente whose only purpose is logically to get Iran to buy Made in America weapons, with Israel the hypocrisy takes on a whole new meaning. Quote the Telegraph:
Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, called for increased pressure on Iran to force it to abandon a programme that Israel regards as a front for building an atomic bomb and a threat to its existence.Visiting the Golan Heights on Tuesday, he accused Iran of “arming those who are carrying out the slaughter” in neighbouring Syria. "I would like to tell the world, today, as the talks between the major powers and Iran are being resumed, that Iran has changed neither its aggressive policy nor its brutal character. Iran is continuing to support the Assad regime, which is slaughtering its own people,” Mr Netanyahu said.
And this is where it gets embarrassing for Bibi: it was Israel that was arming Iran.
[A] court in Athens has told The Telegraph that parts appearing on an American list of forbidden military-grade materials had been shipped from Israel on two occasions, apparently destined for Iran.The seized items comprised spare parts for military aircraft: a constant speed drive designed for the F-4 Phantom jet, and a voltage output sensor used in the F-14 Tomcat. The parts were confiscated by Greece’s financial crimes squad and were being sent to the US for investigation, court officials said....Israeli arms dealers twice tried to send spare parts for fighter planes to Iran, The Telegraph has established, flouting an international arms embargo and openly contradicting the bitter enmity between the Jewish state and the Islamic regime.The illegal shipments are now being investigated by the US Homeland Security Department after they were intercepted by authorities in Greece....The shipments - one in Dec 2012 and the other last April - were sent by courier from the Israeli town of Binyamina-Givat Ada, near Haifa, via a company in Greece, the newspaper reported. The firm was later established to be a ghost company. Its contact number was said to belong to a British national in the Greek city of Thessaloniki, who could not be traced.
Was Mossad involved? But of course.
A blogger, Richard Silverstein pointed the finger at two possible culprits who he said were well-known arms dealers living in Binyamina-Givat Ada. The pair had come to the attention of Israeli and US authorities on suspicion of violating the arms embargo on Iran in the past, Silverstein wrote, but had never been charged or prosecuted. “There can be no doubt that they are colluding with Israeli intelligence,” he added.
For those who are not convinced, "The defence and foreign ministries in Israel declined to comment on the seizures, which were first revealed by Kathimerini, a Greek newspaper."
Finally, tying it all together, is another report from Reuters. in which we learn that "as Syria's war nears the start of its fourth year, Iran has stepped up support on the ground for President Bashar al-Assad, providing elite teams to gather intelligence and train troops, sources with knowledge of military movements say."
This further backing from Tehran, along with deliveries of munitions and equipment from Moscow, is helping to keep Assad in power at a time when neither his own forces nor opposition fighters have a decisive edge on the battlefield.
Assad's forces have failed to capitalize fully on advances they made last summer with the help of Iran, his major backer in the region, and the Hezbollah fighters that Tehran backs and which have provided important battlefield support for Assad.But the Syrian leader has drawn comfort from the withdrawal of the threat of U.S. bombing raids following a deal under which he has agreed to give up his chemical weapons.Shi'te Iran has already spent billions of dollars propping up Assad in what has turned into a sectarian proxy war with Sunni Arab states. And while the presence of Iranian military personnel in Syria is not new, military experts believe Tehran has in recent months sent in more specialists to enable Assad to outlast his enemies at home and abroad.Assad's forces have failed to capitalize fully on advances they made last summer with the help of Iran, his major backer in the region, and the Hezbollah fighters that Tehran backs and which have provided important battlefield support for Assad.But the Syrian leader has drawn comfort from the withdrawal of the threat of U.S. bombing raids following a deal under which he has agreed to give up his chemical weapons.Shi'te Iran has already spent billions of dollars propping up Assad in what has turned into a sectarian proxy war with Sunni Arab states. And while the presence of Iranian military personnel in Syria is not new, military experts believe Tehran has in recent months sent in more specialists to enable Assad to outlast his enemies at home and abroad.
To summarize: in an act of complete disregard for the official diplomatic song and dance, both Israel and the US are now providing military support to Iran, which in turn is providing military support to Syria, which is also getting military support from Russia. And now, just to make things more interesting, the same labyrinth of "military support" is about to be unleashed in the Ukraine, whose western half is just as likely getting arms and military equipment (not to mention funding)from the West under the table, while Russia, whose main Black Sea port is in the Ukraine's Crimean peninsula, is arming the Eastern part of the Ukraine.
What can possibly go wrong?
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/feb/23/us-warns-russia-to-keep-its-military-out-of-ukrain/
The Obama administration warned Russian President Vladimir Putin on Sunday not to react too aggressively to the fast-moving developments in Ukraine, where pro-Western demonstrators forced the nation’s Moscow-backed president from power over the weekend.
National Security Adviser Susan E. Rice said the situation unfolding in Kiev “reflects the will of the Ukrainian people and the interests of the United States and Europe,” and that Russia would be making a “grave mistake” if it sends in military forces to try to reverse the developments — or to seize control of pro-Moscow eastern Ukraine.
The Putin government has shown no outward signs that it is considering such a move. But with Ukraine’s interim government signaling its desire Sunday to quickly put the nation back on course toward Western integration, it was uncertain how far Mr. Putin would be willing to go to save
face in a conflict that he had, until recently, appeared to be winning in the former Soviet republic.
face in a conflict that he had, until recently, appeared to be winning in the former Soviet republic.
Ms. Rice, who appeared Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” resisted the notion that Moscow and Washington were locked in a kind of Cold War-era standoff over Ukraine. However, other top players in the Obama administration seemed to be working behind the scenes to hammer home a message to Moscow that Washington will not tolerate any Russian aggression in Ukraine.
A Treasury Department official said Sunday night that Secretary Jack Lew spoke by phone with Arseniy Yatsenyuk and told the former economics minister and opposition leader that there was “broad support” at a just-concluded Group of 20 meeting for economic assistance from the U.S. and Europe “as soon as the transitional Ukrainian government is fully established by the parliament.”
that there was “broad support” at a just-concluded Group of 20 meeting for economic assistance from the U.S. and Europe “as soon as the transitional Ukrainian government is fully established by the parliament.”
In a telephone call Sunday to Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, Secretary of State John F. Kerry “underscored the United States’ expectation that Ukraine’s sovereignty, territorial integrity and democratic freedom of choice will be respected by all states,” said one senior State Department official.
Outside the Obama administration, Republican foreign policy heavyweights were eager to make the message more clear, even taunting Moscow by suggesting that the pro-democracy unrest in Ukraine may soon spread to Russia.
“If I was Vladimir Putin today at the end of the Olympics, I’d be a little nervous,” said Sen. John McCain, Arizona Republican. “The people of Russia have watched this transpire, and they’re tired of the crony capitalism and kleptocracy that governs Russia today.”
Mr. McCain, who appeared on “Fox News Sunday,” said the ousting of Ukraine’s president was triggered by citizens who wanted Western-style democracy and insisted that for Russia to respond by splitting the nation along its Eastern and Western divide would be intolerable.
He called on U.S. policymakers to “speak out, to make the message clear to Vladimir Putin that a partition of the country would not be acceptable.”
“The Ukrainian people should determine their own future,” he said. “They want to be Western. … They don’t want to be Eastern.”
The political unrest gripping Ukraine boiled over Saturday after a peace deal between protesters and the Yanukovych government collapsed.
Oleksandr Turchinov, a top opposition figure and speaker of the nation’s parliament, assumed presidential powers Sunday.
Ousted President Viktor Yanukovych’s whereabouts and legitimacy were unclear Sunday afternoon, though there were reports that he had fled Kiev in search of refuge among supporters in eastern Ukraine.
Ukraine’s protest movement was sparked in November, when Mr. Yanukovych shocked the nation’s opposition forces in Kiev by suddenly turning his back on a long-anticipated economic integration agreement with the European Union.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-02-23/pla-officer-china-must-establish-south-china-sea-adiz-will-fight-when-appropriate
PLA Officer: China Must Establish South China Sea ADIZ; Will "Fight When Appropriate"
Submitted by Zachary Zeck via The Diplomat,
A senior researcher and officer in China’s People’s Liberation Army said that establishing an Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ) is essential to China’s national interest.
“The establishment of another ADIZ over the South China Sea is necessary for China’s long-term national interest,” Senior Colonel Li Jie, a researcher at the PLA Navy’s Military Academy and frequent media commentator, said on Friday, according to a report inReuters.
Li’s comment seemed to be slightly inconsistentwith a statement from China’s Foreign Ministry back in February, which dismissed Japanese media reports that said China was preparing to establish a South China Sea ADIZ. That statement, however, seemed to leave open the possibility that China might do so in the future.
When initially announcing its East China Sea ADIZ, Chinese officials readily admitted that they intended to establish other ADIZ over other areas in the future.
Li’s remark came in the context of a discussion about remarks made by U.S. Captain James Fanell, director of intelligence and information operations at the US Pacific Fleet. As The Diplomat previously reported, at a recent U.S. Naval Institute conference Capt. Fanell said that the PLA had held a drill to practice defeating Japan’s Maritime Self Defense Forces in the East China Sea as a prelude to seizing the disputed Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands.
In that same speech (see video below) Fanell also predicted that China would establish an ADIZ in the South China Sea by 2015 at the latest. Li characterized this remark as America’s attempt to deter China from establishing a South China Sea ADIZ.
On Thursday, however, the Pentagon distanced itself from Fanell’s remarks, with Pentagon spokesperson Rear Admiral John Kirby saying that “those were his views to express.” Kirby continued: “What I can tell you about what Secretary Hagel believes is that we all continue to believe that the peaceful prosperous rise of China is a good thing for the region, for the world. We continue to want to improve our bilateral military relations with China.” Indeed, Army Chief of Staff Ray Odierno is currently in China meeting his PLA counterpart.
Li said that the Pentagon’s decision to distance itself from Fanell’s comments was a tactical move on the part of the U.S. “It’s a typical U.S. diplomatic strategy,” Li said, according to Reuters. “Washington is very concerned about the tension developing in the South China Sea, which will relate to its strategic interests.”
It’s worth noting that Rear Admiral Kirby distancing the Pentagon from Fanell’s remarks was likely referring in particular to the latter’s comments about China’s military forces training to defeat Japan’s MSDF in the East China Sea.
Fanell’s remark about China’s interest in establishing a South China Sea ADIZ was much less controversial and in fact broadly consistent with the comments made by numerous senior officials in recent months.As far back as last December, Secretary of State John Kerry stated: “Today, I raised our deep concerns about China’s announcement of an East China Sea Air Defense Identification Zone…. The zone should not be implemented, and China should refrain from taking similar unilateral actions elsewhere in the region, and particularly over the South China Sea.”
Here’s a video of the panel in which Capt. Fanell made his blunt assessment. Fanell begins speaking around the 19:00 minute mark, right after The Diplomat’s own Naval Diplomat gives his remarks, which we republished here.
and then this most recent note from sources...
Chan Kai Yee of China Daily Mail, a blog with no connection to Beijing, Feb. 22, 2014, provides the following summary translation of an article in Qianzhan.com, a Chinese-language news site headquartered in the city of Shenzhen in China’s southeastern Guangdong province, with offices in Beijing and Hong Kong:
Quite a few people have said that the conflict over the Diaoyus (known as Senkakus in Japan) has passed the stage of oral confrontation and what follows may very probably be direct military conflict.It is especially so as, relying on US support, Japan is obviously declaring war against China already.Sources say that China’s Central Military Commission has directly given Chinese military the instruction: “Fight if it is appropriate to fight.”Sources pointed out that they had received information that Xi Jinping, Chairman of the Central Military Commission, gave a relevant warning to a Japanese economic and trade delegation that recently visited China.Xi specially pointed out to the delegation when he met them, if Japan kept provoking China and thus gave rise to an unstable situation, it alone has to be responsible for all the consequences.
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