Four reasons why -- this time -- you should believe the hype about Israel attacking Iran.

The Ticking Clock
FP
BY ROBERT HADDICK | FEBRUARY 10, 2012

Washington Post columnist David Ignatius created a tempest last week when he reported U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta's prediction that Israel will attack Iran and its nuclear complex "in April, May or June." Ignatius's column was as startling as it was exasperating. When the sitting U.S. defense secretary -- presumably privy to facts not generally available to the public -- makes such a prediction, observers have good reasons to pay attention. On the other hand, the international community has been openly dealing with the Iranian nuclear issue for nearly a decade, with similar crescendos of anticipation having occurred before, all to no effect. Why would this time be different?

Further, an Israeli air campaign against Iran would seem like an amazingly reckless act. And an unnecessary one, too, since international sanctions against Iran's banks and oil market are just now tightening dramatically.

Yet from Israel's point of view, time really has run out. The sanctions have come too late. And when Israeli policymakers consider their advantages and all of the alternatives available, an air campaign, while both regrettable and risky, is not reckless.

Here's why:

1. Time pressure

In his column, Ignatius mentioned this spring as the likely deadline for an Israeli strike. Why so soon? After all, the Iranian program is still under the supervision of IAEA inspectors and Iran has not made any moves to "break out" toward the production of bomb-grade highly enriched uranium.

But as a new report from the Bipartisan Policy Center discusses, Iran's uranium enrichment effort continues to advance, even after the Stuxnet computer attack and the assassination of several of its nuclear scientists. According to the report, Iran seems to be successfully installing advanced, high-efficiency uranium-enrichment centrifuges, which foreshadows a significant increase in enrichment capacity and output in the near future. More ominously from Israel's perspective, Iran is now installing centrifuge cascades into the Fordow mountain site near Qom, a bunker that is too deep for Israeli bombs to penetrate.

On-site IAEA inspectors are currently monitoring Iran's nuclear fuel production and would report any diversions to military use. As Tehran undoubtedly assumes, such a "breakout" (tossing out the inspectors and quickly enriching to the bomb-grade level) would be a casus belli, with air strikes from Israel likely to soon follow. Israeli leaders may have concluded that Iran could break out with impunity after the Fordow site is operational and the enrichment effort has produced enough low-enriched uranium feedstock for several bombs. According to the Bipartisan Center report, Iran will be in this position later this year. According to the New York Times, U.S. and Israeli officials differ over their calculations of when Iran will have crossed into a "zone of immunity." Given their more precarious position, it is understandable that Israeli policymakers are adopting a more conservative assessment.

2. Alternatives to military action now fall short

Israeli leaders undoubtedly understand that starting a war is risky. There should be convincing reasons for discarding the non-military alternatives.

The international sanctions effort against Iran's banking system and oil industry are inflicting damage on the country's economy and seem to be delivering political punishment to the regime. But they have not slowed the nuclear program, nor are they likely to have any effect on the timeline described above. And as long as Russia, China, India, and others continue to support Iran economically and politically, the sanctions regime is unlikely to be harsh enough to change Israel's calculation of the risks, at least within a meaningful time frame.

Why can't Israel's secret but widely assumed nuclear arsenal deter an Iranian nuclear strike? Israel's territory and population are so small that even one nuclear blast would be devastating. Israel would very much like to possess a survivable and stabilizing second-strike retaliatory capability. During the Cold War, the United States and the Soviet Union achieved this mainly with their ballistic missile submarine fleets, which were always on patrol and held each others' cities at risk. Israel does not have large numbers of submarines or any nuclear-powered subs capable of long submerged patrols. Nor can it be confident that its policymakers or command-and-control systems would survive an Iranian nuclear first strike.

Even if Iran sought a nuclear weapons capability solely to establish its own defensive deterrent, the outcome would be gross instability in the region, very likely leading to one side or the other attempting a preemptive attack (the Iranian government denies that its nuclear program has a military purpose). Very short missile flight times, fragile early-warning and command systems, and no survivable second-strike forces would lead to a hair-trigger "use it or lose it" dynamic. An Israeli attack now on Iran's nuclear program would be an attempt to prevent this situation from occurring.

3. The benefits of escalation

A strike on Iran's nuclear complex would be at the outer boundary of the Israeli Air Force's capabilities. The important targets in Iran are near the maximum range of Israel's fighter-bombers. The fact that Iraq's airspace, on the direct line between Israel and Iran, is for now undefended is one more reason why Israel's leaders would want to strike sooner rather than later. Israel's small inventory of bunker-buster bombs may damage the underground uranium enrichment plant at Natanz, but they will likely have no effect on the Fordow mountain complex. Iran has undoubtedly dispersed and hidden many other nuclear facilities. An Israeli strike is thus likely to have only a limited and temporary effect on Iran's nuclear program.

If so, why bother, especially when such a strike risks sparking a wider war? Israel's leaders may actually prefer a wider escalating conflict, especially before Iran becomes a nuclear weapons state. Under this theory, Israel would take the first shot with a narrowly tailored attack on Iran's nuclear facilities. Paradoxically, Israel's leaders might then prefer Iranian retaliation, which would then give Israel the justification for broader strikes against Iran's oil industry, power grid, and communication systems. Even better if Iran were to block the Strait of Hormuz or attack U.S. forces in the region, which would bring U.S. Central Command into the war and result in even more punishment for Iran. Israel's leaders may believe that they enjoy "escalation dominance," meaning that the more the war escalates, the worse the consequences for Iran compared to Israel. Israel raided Iraq's nuclear program in 1981 and Syria's in 2007. Neither Saddam Hussein nor Bashar al-Assad opted to retaliate, very likely because both knew that Israel, with its air power, possessed escalation dominance. Israel's leaders have good reason to assume that Iran's leaders will reach the same conclusion.

What about the rockets possessed by Hezbollah and Hamas, Iran's proxies north and south of Israel's population centers? Israel's leaders may believe that they are much better prepared to respond to these threats than they were in 2006, when the Israeli army struggled against Hezbollah. There is no guarantee that Hezbollah and Hamas will follow orders from Tehran to attack -- they understand the punishment the reformed Israeli army would inflict. Hezbollah may now have an excellent reason to exercise caution. Should the Assad regime in Damascus collapse, Hezbollah would likely lose its most important protector and could soon find itself cut off and surrounded by enemies. It would thus be a particularly bad time for Hezbollah to invite an Israeli ground assault into southern Lebanon.

4. Managing the endgame

An Israeli raid on Iran's nuclear complex would probably not lead to the permanent collapse of the program. Iran could dig out the entrances to the Fordow site and establish new covert research and production facilities elsewhere, perhaps in bunkers dug under residential areas. Israel inflicted a major setback on Iraq's program when it destroyed the unfinished Osirak reactor in 1981. Even so, Saddam Hussein covertly restarted the program. Israel should expect the same persistence from Iran.

So is there any favorable end-state for Israel? Israeli leaders may envision a long term war of attrition against Iran's program, hoping to slow its progress to a crawl while waiting for regime change in Tehran. Through sporadic follow-up strikes against nuclear targets, Israel would attempt to demoralize the industry's workforce, disrupt its operations, and greatly increase the costs of the program. Israeli leaders might hope that their attrition tactics, delivered through occasional air strikes, would bog down the nuclear program while international sanctions weaken the civilian economy and reduce political support for the regime. The stable and favorable outcome for Israel would be either Tehran's abandonment of its nuclear program or an internal rebellion against the regime. Israel would be counting more on hope rather than a convincing set of actions to achieve these outcomes. But the imperative now for Israel is to halt the program, especially since no one else is under the same time pressure they are.

Israel should expect Tehran to mount a vigorous defense. Iran would attempt to acquire modern air defense systems from Russia or China. It would attempt to rally international support against Israeli aggression and get its international sanctions lifted and imposed on Israel instead. An Israeli assault on Iran would disrupt oil and financial markets with harmful consequences for the global economy. Israel would take the blame, with adverse political and economic consequences to follow.

But none of these consequences are likely enough to dissuade Israel from attacking. A nuclear capability is a red line that Israel has twice prevented its opponents from crossing. Iran won't get across the line either. Just as happened in 1981 and 2007, Israel's leaders have good reasons to conclude that its possession of escalation dominance will minimize the worst concerns about retaliation. Perhaps most importantly, Israel is under the greatest time pressure, which is why it will have to go it alone and start what will be a long and nerve-wracking war.

Nasser statue destroyed in Libya

BENGHAZI, Libya, February 11, 2012 (AFP)
A pro-Islamist group on Saturday destroyed a memorial honouring the leader of pan-Arab nationalism, Egypt’s Gamal Abdel Nasser, in Libya’s eastern city of Benghazi.
An AFP reporter said the attackers used hammers and other tools to bring down the statue, on a road also named after the former Egyptian president.
It was not immediately clear why the memorial was targeted.
The statue had been erected by the ousted regime of slain Libyan strongman Moamer Kadhafi, whose policies for decades had been influenced by Abdel Nasser’s pan-Arab nationalism.
Kadhafi was killed on October 20 in his home town of Sirte, ending a bloody conflict against his 42-year iron-fisted rule.
The revolt against Kadhafi first erupted in Benghazi on February 17 last year.

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Jamal Abdul Nasser’s statue toppled in Benghazi

Posted on February 13, 2012

By Habib Toumi
Libyan toppled a large statue of Egyptian former president Jamal Abdul Nasser in Benghazi.
The statue was erected by former leader Muammar Gaddafi as a tribute to the man seen as a potent symbol of Arab nationalism in the 1950s and 1960s.
Gaddafi repeatedly said that Nasser was his guide in his attempts to unite Arab countries.
The street, one of the busiest in the city and known until Saturday as Jamal Abdul Nasser Street, was renamed after Abdul Fattah Younis, a senior military officer who was Gaddafi’s interior minister before defecting in February to the rebels.
He was reported killed in July in unclear circumstances. No reason was given for the decision to topple the statue.
Source: Gulf News

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Egypt Defies U.S. by Setting Trial for 19 Americans on Criminal Charges

February 5, 2012
NYT
By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK

CAIRO — Egypt’s military-led government said Sunday that it would put 19 Americans and two dozen others on trial in a politically charged criminal investigation into the foreign financing of nonprofit groups that has shaken the 30-year alliance between the United States and Egypt.

The decision raises tensions between the two allies to a new peak at a decisive moment in Egypt’s political transition after the ouster of President Hosni Mubarak a year ago. Angry protesters are battling security forces in the streets of the capital and other major cities. The economy is in urgent need of billions of dollars in foreign aid. And the military rulers are in the final stages of negotiations with the Islamists who dominate the new Parliament over the terms of a transfer of power that could set the country’s course for decades.

The criminal prosecution is a rebuke to Washington in the face of increasingly stern warnings to Egypt’s ruling generals from President Obama, cabinet officials and senior Congressional leaders that it could jeopardize $1.55 billion in expected American aid this year, including $1.3 billion for the military. But for Washington, revoking the aid would risk severing the tie that for three decades has bound the United States, Egypt and Israel in an uneasy alliance that is the cornerstone of the American-backed regional order.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said she had personally warned the Egyptian foreign minister, Mohammed Amr, at a security conference in Munich on Saturday that the continuing investigation of the nonprofit groups cast new doubt on the aid. “We are very clear that there are problems that arise from this situation that can impact all the rest of our relationship with Egypt,” she told reporters there.

Mr. Obama delivered a similar warning to Egypt’s acting chief executive, Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi, less than two weeks ago. Last week, 40 members of Congress signed letters to Field Marshal Tantawi making the same threat. “The days of blank checks are over,” Senator Patrick J. Leahy of Vermont, the Democrat who chairs the spending panel overseeing the aid, said in a speech from the Senate floor on Friday.

Congress recently required the State Department to certify that Egypt is making progress toward democracy before aid can be disbursed. Lawmakers and administration officials say the crackdown on the civil society groups could violate the criteria set out in the law.

The prosecution could hardly have been better designed to provoke an American backlash. Although the charges against the 19 Americans are part of a broader crackdown on as many as nine nonprofit groups here, its most prominent targets are two American-financed groups with close ties to the Congressional leadership, the National Democratic Institute and the International Republican Institute. Both are chartered to promote democracy abroad with nonpartisan training and election monitoring.

The Americans facing criminal charges include Sam LaHood, director of the Republican Institute’s Egypt operations. He is the son of Ray LaHood, the secretary of transportation and a former Republican congressman from Illinois.

Egyptian Foreign Ministry officials have said the prosecution is a judicial matter outside their control. But the government, including the prosecutors, is under the direct authority of the military council. The investigation has also been accompanied by an escalating drumbeat of anti-American statements from Egypt’s government suggesting that Washington has been handing out cash to stir unrest in the streets. Some state news media, citing unnamed sources, have reported that one of the foreign-financed organizations paid illiterate laborers to join protests.

So far, the warnings from Washington appear to have only redoubled the determination of Egyptian authorities. At a news conference here on Sunday, Faiza Abu el-Naga, who oversees foreign aid, declared that the government “will not be pulling the plug” on the case, the state newspaper Al Ahram reported on its Web site.

“The government will not hesitate to expose foreign schemes that threaten the stability of the homeland,” she said.

Western diplomats have often observed that previous Egyptian governments facing public doubts at home have found it expedient to rally support by stoking feuds with Washington, which, despite its financial largess, is deeply resented here because of its support for Israel and its invasion of Iraq.

But many human rights advocates here say some members of the council may believe their contention that “foreign hands” are stirring up trouble. Speaking on the condition of anonymity, a former general close to the military council insisted that Washington was seeking to destabilize Egypt by illegally financing youth activists.

Reports of the charges first appeared Sunday in state news media outlets. Representatives of the Justice Ministry could not be reached for comment.

A lawyer representing the Republican Institute and other groups under investigation said he had not received official notification. “I don’t know what’s going on,” said the lawyer, Negad el-Boraei. “Is it a psychological battle of some kind directed against the Americans?”

In Washington, a State Department spokesman said the United States was “deeply concerned” by reports of the charges and was “seeking clarification from the government of Egypt.”

Two other American groups backed in part by American government money, Freedom House and a journalism institute, are also part of the investigation, along with a German group and at least four Egyptian organizations that rely on foreign financing.

Of the 43 people facing charges, 19 are American, 16 are Egyptian, and 8 are of other nationalities, a Justice Ministry official said Sunday.

They have been charged with violating legal restrictions on nonprofit groups left over from Mr. Mubarak’s government that in effect kept virtually every independent civil society organization here in a kind of legal twilight subject to raids and arrests at any time.

The laws required licenses that were almost never granted, effectively precluded domestic financing and exerted government control over foreign contributions.

Neither the National Democratic Institute nor the International Republican Institute was licensed. But last fall, both were formally invited here as official observers of the parliamentary elections.

In December, prosecutors raided the offices of as many as nine nonprofit groups, including the four American organizations, confiscating money, computers and files and shutting down their operations. In January, the authorities imposed a travel ban on at least six Americans, including Mr. LaHood, and several Europeans.

Last week, the State Department acknowledged that its embassy in Cairo had given shelter to at least three Americans caught by the travel ban and fearing arrest.

On Sunday, the Egyptian authorities extended the travel ban to all 43 people facing charges, The Associated Press reported. But by the end of Sunday, there were still no reports of arrests.

Mayy El Sheikh contributed reporting from Cairo, and Steven Lee Myers and Scott Shane from Washington.

Religious Condition Stirs Protest at a Caucus Site

February 5, 2012
NYT
By RICHARD A. OPPEL Jr.

LAS VEGAS — A special Saturday night Republican caucus here intended to accommodate Orthodox Jews who could not vote before sundown became the scene of controversy and confrontation after caucusgoers were told that to be admitted they had to sign a legal declaration under penalty of perjury that they could not attend their daytime caucus because of “my religious beliefs.”

Many supporters of Representative Ron Paul of Texas protested when given the declaration to sign. They had arrived at the polling place — a school here named after its benefactors, the casino billionaire Sheldon Adelson and his wife, Miriam — after they received an automated phone call from the Paul campaign saying voters unable to attend their regular caucuses could go to the night meeting.

And Paul campaign aides later said that anyone who had missed their earlier caucuses during the day for any reason should have been allowed to vote, and suggested that what they described as the “religious test” at the caucus would lead to lawsuits.

Mike Dicicco, a Paul supporter who drove 30 minutes from Henderson, Nev., said he was asked whether he was Jewish by a poll worker. Mr. Dicicco said he had received the automated campaign call and could not vote earlier because he had to work, not because of religious reasons.

“Why wouldn’t I be able to vote just because I’m not Jewish?” he said.

Sharon Saska, who said she arrived too late at her regular caucus to vote, was refused entry to the night caucus because she would not sign the declaration. If she had, she would have been committing perjury, she said, because religious beliefs had not kept her from voting earlier. She said she had planned to support Newt Gingrich.

A number of other caucusgoers suggested that they had signed the declaration even though they did not have a religious reason for not voting earlier.

The most heated argument of the night came when Evan Donoghue, who said he was a volunteer for Mr. Paul, clashed with officials at the polling place, who would not let him in after he declined to sign the declaration, which he said was unconstitutional.

“You are guilty of a felony, sir!” he shouted at one official. He then abruptly walked into the auditorium where the caucus was to be held. Officials at the polling place called the police, but Mr. Donoghue was allowed to sit through the caucus and wound up a few seats away from Mr. Adelson. No arrests were made, according to police officers who stayed in the school foyer during the caucus meeting.

Holding the special caucus seems to have been a reasonable and appropriate attempt to accommodate people who could not vote earlier for religious reasons, said Richard L. Hasen, a professor specializing in election law at the law school at the University of California, Irvine.

But, he said, the controversy points out the shortcomings of caucuses compared with primaries.

“It started off as an admirable thing, but because of concerns of the integrity of the process, it devolved into something uglier,” Mr. Hasen said. “More generally, it shows a lack of professionalism in the way many of these caucuses are handled.”

Those who could not vote for religious reasons during the day, he said, had a reasonable argument that some accommodation had to be made, which could have included changing the date. But using the legal declaration raises the question of whether other nonreligious groups are also entitled to the accommodation, and, he said, “I’m not sure how the courts would answer that question.”

“When a party runs a caucus, we treat the party like a government entity, so they cannot discriminate,” Mr. Hasen added. “You could not have a whites-only caucus, for example.”

Top officials from the campaigns of Mr. Paul and Mitt Romney were on hand to observe the gathering, including Mr. Romney’s campaign counsel, Benjamin L. Ginsberg; Mr. Paul’s Nevada chairman, Carl Bunce; and Mr. Paul’s deputy national campaign manager, Dimitri Kesari.

Officials from the Clark County Republican Party defended the declarations and the special caucus, saying that the declaration did not single out any one faith — Jewish or otherwise — and that anyone who had a religious objection to voting earlier in the day could vote at the special caucus. They said their election lawyers had signed off on the use of the declaration, and they also noted that many Seventh-day Adventists also could not vote during the day because of religious reasons.

“This was designed for those who could not participate today due to religious observances,” Dave Gibbs, the chairman of the Clark County Republican Party, said Saturday. “That’s all this is.”

But some Paul officials suggested that the declaration was an unlawful injection of religion into the electoral process.

Mr. Bunce, the Paul campaign’s Nevada chairman, said dozens of people had declined to sign the declaration and had been refused admittance to the caucus. An official from the local Republican Party said no more than three people were turned away after they refused to sign.

“No one should have to face a religious test to vote,” Mr. Bunce said, adding that election officials who blocked people from voting because they did not sign the declaration could be “getting a lawsuit.”

Nevertheless, Paul supporters packed the caucus and won handily. According to local party officials, Mr. Paul received 183 votes; Mitt Romney, 61 votes; Newt Gingrich, 57 votes; and Rick Santorum, 16 votes.