Connect the Dots, then take a RIDEObama on Iran: All Options on Table
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17/05/2009 Ahead of Israel PM Benjamin Netanyahu's visit to Washington, US president Barack Obama told Newsweek 'we want to offer Iran an opportunity to align itself with international norms and international rules,' but stressed he is 'not naïve about the difficulties of such a process.'
"If it doesn't work, the fact that we have tried will strengthen our position in mobilizing the international community, and Iran will have isolated itself, as opposed to a perception that it seeks to advance that somehow it's being victimized by a US government that doesn't respect Iran's sovereignty," he said.
"I've been very clear that I don't take any options off the table with respect to Iran. I don't take options off the table when it comes to US security, period," Obama said.
Asked whether he expects Israel to refrain from taking unilateral military action against Iran, the American leader said, "I understand very clearly that Israel considers Iran an existential threat, and given some of the statements that have been made by President (Mahmoud) Ahmadinejad, you can understand why. So their calculation of costs and benefits are going to be more acute. They're right there in range and I don't think it's my place to determine for the Israelis what their security needs are.
"I can make an argument to Israel as an ally that the approach we are taking is one that has to be given a chance and offers the prospect of security, not just for the United States but also for Israel, that is superior to some of the other alternatives," Obama said.
“Mubarak has seen his role supplanted by Saudi Arabia but also, largely, by Iran,....”
In the London Times, here
Posted by G, Z, & or B at 6:43 PM"... Obama hopes to tempt Binyamin Netanyahu, the Israeli leader, into making concessions to the Palestinians by holding out the prospect of a “grand alliance” of moderate Arab states against a nuclear Iran.Obama has chosen Cairo as the venue for an address to the Islamic world on June 4, partly to bolster the prestige of Hosni Mubarak, the Egyptian president, as a power broker....
“Egypt has seen its role supplanted by Saudi Arabia but also, largely, by Iran,” aid David Schenker of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. “It is the logical country to take a pro-western leadership role.... ”There is enormous pressure on Obama and Netanyahu to avoid a clash before the Cairo speech. “Strange as it may seem,” said a veteran Israeli diplomat, “Obama is more dependent now on Netanyahu than vice versa, since one wrong move by Israel towards Iran, Hamas or Hezbollah and the Muslim world will turn against Obama.”
"This is a case about trying to tarnish Hezbollah's image in Egypt, ..by an aging president to reclaim his waning regional influence.."
McClatchy's, here"When Egyptian police pounded on the door before dawn and took her husband Nimr away, Sahar Zibawi had no idea that her partner was about to become a pivotal player in a convoluted political plot involving gun running to Gaza, a notorious African smuggling route once used by the French poet Arthur Rimbaud, an Iranian-backed Hezbollah cell and an attempt by Egypt's aging president to reclaim his waning regional influence.
"We've been put in a whirlwind and we don't know why," Zibawi said nervously while she met surreptitiously with a McClatchy reporter in this Mediterranean coast town that's a gateway for smuggling to Palestinian-controlled Gaza. Nimr Zibawi, a Sinai construction worker, is one of more than 40 suspects accused of joining a Hezbollah cell that Egyptian authorities claim was plotting to destabilize President Hosni Mubarak by attacking ships in the Suez Canal and hitting tourist-dependent Red Sea resorts.
After weeks of intense questioning that their attorneys said included daily beatings and torture, Nimr Zibawi and at least one other suspect recently made videotaped confessions in which they admitted to helping smuggle weapons to Gaza militants, but not to plotting attacks inside Egypt.
"If they helped the Palestinian resistance, maybe it's true, but not in the way our government claims," said Malek Adly, an attorney with the Cairo-based Hisham Mubarak Legal Rights Center, which is representing Zibawi and eight others. "Nothing they did was intended to harm Egypt."
In some ways, Mubarak's reaction has been more important to Middle East politics than the allegations themselves: "Beware the wrath of Egypt." The 81-year-old Mubarak is looking to reclaim his role as a regional power broker at an auspicious time: President Barack Obama has chosen Egypt as the setting for his highly anticipated June 4 address to the Arab and Muslim world.
Obama is looking to transform America's image in the Middle East — and Mubarak could play a critical role in helping the new president succeed. Israel and the U.S. have tried to enlist pro-Western, Sunni Muslim nations such as Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Jordan in a regional coalition to counter Shiite Iran and Hezbollah. Until now, many Sunni Arab leaders have been reluctant to get into a public diplomatic feud with Iran. That may be changing.
"The situation has become incredibly complex because it's not just an Egypt issue, it's about where the Middle East heading next after being completely destabilized by the Bush administration," said Issandr el Amrani, a Cairo-based analyst for the International Crisis Group. "Iran represents the revival of the rejectionist camp, which stands against everything Egypt has built over the last 30 years," el Amrani said. "There are concerns in the regime and the wider establishment in Egypt that doesn't want to see the country go back to its anti-Western positions." The Sinai desert has become a remote battleground in this regional ideological feud.....
If the Sinai suspects were accused merely of smuggling guns for Palestinian militants, this case might not be as significant. Egyptian police, however, said that the men were involved in plans to destabilize Mubarak by plotting attacks on popular Sinai tourist resorts, scouting out ships in the Suez Canal, and, in a pointed jab at Iran and Hezbollah, accused them of spreading Shia Islam.
"This is a case about trying to tarnish Hezbollah's image in Egypt," Adly said. "There has been a shift in politics between Hezbollah and Egypt." ....since Nasrallah publicly urged Egyptians to rise up in December and challenge their president for refusing to fully open his border with Gaza and allow Palestinians to escape Israel's three-week military offensive....
Israeli papers reported that their government had provided Egypt with critical intelligence about Nasrallah's agents in the Sinai that led to the first arrests in December. That Egyptian sweep began three weeks before Israel launched its military offensive in Gaza......"
"..The US has been urging Israel to "tone down" its rhetoric on Iran and to stop threatening a military strike.."
"Ahead of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's trip to Washington this week, the US has been urging Israel to "tone down" its rhetoric on Iran and to stop threatening a military strike on its nuclear installations, The Jerusalem Post has learned......
While the Obama administration is intent on spearheading an international campaign to prevent Teheran from building nuclear weapons and believes that a nuclear Iran would pose a threat to the stability of the Middle East, US officials - led by Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs William Burns - plan to offer Iranian leaders a new approach and a return to the international fold in exchange for freezing their nuclear program.
One official said, however, that while the administration's policy was a risk worth taking, it could fail and it might be necessary for the US and its allies to accept the fact of a nuclear Iran. ..In either scenario, they said, both the US and Israel should refrain from any bellicose threats against the Islamic Republic, especially ahead of its presidential elections on June 12..........The US has, for now, rejected Israel's request that it set a time frame for the Iranian dialogue. ..."
Obama-Netanyahu: The Collision Narrative
WINEP, here
".....When Yitzhak Shamir first met with George H.W. Bush in April 1989, the president said he had a problem with Jewish settlements. Shamir's responded that settlements were an internal Israeli matter, followed by: "Don't worry, they won't be a problem." Bush took this to mean that Shamir would not expand settlements, and consequently felt aggrieved when expansion did continue. Their relationship remained frosty. In a similar vein, after the first White House meeting between Bill Clinton and Netanyahu during his previous tenure in 1996, Clinton told gathered aides after a very confident Bibi left the room: "He thinks he is the superpower." Their ensuing relationship proved to be very rocky. (Today) ....Each side invoked their own form of linkage.
To American officials and observers, Netanyahu's reluctance to embrace the two-state solution has been an irritant because it suggests relitigating the past. The Middle East Quartet Roadmap, adopted by the Israeli government by a 12-7 vote on May 25, 2003 -- although with reservations - says at the very outset that it is "a performance-based roadmap toward a permanent two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict." Even Lieberman, who voted against the roadmap at the time, says it binds Israel today. Not rehashing the past is critical, because the United States seeks to ensure that the Quartet conditions remain valid, including the proviso that Hamas accept past Israeli-Palestinian agreements.
Senior Israeli officials hint that Netanyahu may tell Obama privately that he accepts the two-state solution if accompanied by the same restrictions on Palestinian sovereignty ... but will not do so publicly for fear that it would create a perception of domestic weakness so soon after his election. However, Netanyahu may find it is advantageous to defuse the issue by making a statement backing the two-state solution now, since there could be domestic political fallout if he makes such a statement only after a rising international chorus in the coming months......
A public debate over the issue of linkage, namely, whether Iran is the key to resolving the Palestinian issue or vice versa, should be avoided. The Iran and the Palestinian issues need to be addressed in parallel, without administration assertions of linkage. Top Arab officials quietly admit that their inability to be forceful on the Iran issue are unrelated to Israel: Arab fears of Iran are sincere and not a favor to Israel......
So, even assuming the two leaders exhibit outward smiles and project friendship at their press conference on Monday, is the Obama-Bibi relationship headed for trouble? Not necessarily, but the two sides must work hard to build trust. Underlying the anxiety on both sides is a fear that each is not truly committed to addressing the other's top priority. It is facile to believe that Netanyahu would press Obama to attack Iran in the event that diplomacy fails. Many other options exist, ranging from increased sanctions to an Israeli military strike. Nonetheless, at a time when the United States is seeking to maximize its leverage before engaging with Iran, Netanyahu will likely be angered that some senior U.S. officials have publicly -- rather than privately -- warned Israel about attacking Iran. He will worry about what Iran will glean from such public messaging by the Obama administration.
For Obama's part, he will want to hear clearly from Netanyahu his plans for the Palestinians. ...Moving forward on this issue is important to Obama, who sees it as evocative -- albeit not linked to resolutions of other conflicts -- in a region where he is seeking to improve U.S. standing. To that end, Obama is likely to tell Netanyahu about U.S. efforts to have Arab states take preliminary steps toward Israel as it moves toward the Palestinians by curbing settlement activity.
If the two leaders' priorities are not tackled head on, there could be trouble ahead. Given the past problems between the two countries, there is no substitute for Obama and Netanyahu emptying the room and beginning a very candid discussion of bottom lines. Netanyahu aides insist that this is not the 1990s and that he is willing to be more forthcoming on Palestinian issues if he is convinced that Iran, the paymaster of Hamas and Hezbollah, will not pose a nuclear threat to Israel. Yet, vagueness of intentions will only feed mistrust. ..."
The Lost Treasure is in Syria ... because it throws their 'allies' off balance!
al Sharq al awsat/English, here
".....It is the least complicated in the sense that the Syrians have repeatedly shown that they want to resume the peace process. Moreover, there are no complications that the Netanyahu government could use as an excuse, and both parties have made real progress in negotiations.....
What Washington must be aware of and must interpret carefully is the confusion that has afflicted Iran and Syria’s allies due to US-Syrian dialogue, even though we are yet to see any practical results
Hamas stated that no other party but Syria is allowed to take part in negotiations, and Iran has demanded that Damascus shows patience because victory is on its way to both Iran and Syria. It is worth mentioning here that the Syrians did not come out with any emotional language regarding the recent renewal of US sanctions against them.
Syrian-Israeli peace is just as important to Washington and to the entire region as US withdrawal from Iraq is. If Washington wants to deliver a master stroke, as they say, then it must begin with this issue immediately. Restoring the occupied Golan Heights to Syria would mean that the security of the borders of this plateau, which are already secure, will be sustainable and legitimate in accordance with the peace agreement. This will take away Syria’s embarrassment and a lot will result from it. Syrian-Israeli peace will have an effect upon the Shebaa Farms and the Ghajar village and will determine the rightful owner of these areas. Accordingly, this will invalidate Hezbollah’s pretext for armament in Lebanon and it might even attract Lebanon to the negotiation table as well.
Peace between Syria and Israel will also produce an effect upon the Syrian-Iraqi borders. This does not mean that Damascus has the right to blackmail America with Baghdad but rather that it will force Syria to safeguard all of its borders whether the Syrian-Lebanese borders or the Syrian-Iraqi borders because at that point Damascus will be under threat from its former friends who are subservient to Iran....
If Washington is aware of this and strives towards Syrian-Israeli peace, it will see that the lost treasure lies in Syria and not in dialogue with Iran or in wasting time wooing Khaled Mishaal who, at that point, will find himself facing two options; either to reside in Tehran or to return once again under the Palestinian umbrella and this of course is the pursued goal..."
Iran to host summit with Afghanistan, Pakistan ....soon after a US-backed international conference on Afghanistan
AFP, here
"...Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will on Tuesday host a summit with his counterparts from Afghanistan and Pakistan, which is expected to discuss rebulding of war-shattered Afghanistan. Announcing the summit on Saturday, Ahmadinejad's office did not reveal the agenda for the talks to be attended by Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai and President Asif Ali Zardari of Pakistan.
But the gathering comes less than three months after the three met in Tehran for a regional economic summit, along with leaders from other neighbouring states. That summit pledged to help rebuild Afghanistan, and also the Gaza Strip after Israel's devastating military assault in December and January.
The May 19 meeting also comes soon after a US-backed international conference on Afghanistan in The Hague which was attended by Tehran following diplomatic overtures by arch-rival Washington towards the Islamic republic....."
NOW TAKE A RIDE
Readiness to Help the Empire, and Trying to Cut a Deal with The Great Satan? Back to the Future in Both Iraq and Afghanistan!
# posted by Tony : 4:06 AM
Comment:
COME HERE DIE HERE
Readiness to Help the Empire, and Trying to Cut a Deal with The Great Satan? Back to the Future in Both Iraq and Afghanistan!# posted by Tony : 4:06 AM
Comment:
COME HERE DIE HERE
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