STRATFOR: A Defensive Buildup in the Gulf

www.stratfor.com

By George Friedman

This weekend's newspapers were filled with stories about how the United States is providing ballistic missile defense (BMD) to four countries on the Arabian Peninsula. The New York Times carried a front-page story on the United States providing anti-missile defenses to Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Oman, as well as stationing BMD-capable, Aegis-equipped warships in the Persian Gulf. Meanwhile, the front page of The Washington Post carried a story saying that "the Obama administration is quietly working with Saudi Arabia and other Persian Gulf allies to speed up arms sales and rapidly upgrade defenses for oil terminals and other key infrastructure in a bid to thwart future attacks by Iran, according to former and current U.S. and Middle Eastern government officials."

Obviously, the work is no longer "quiet." In fact, Washington has been publicly engaged in upgrading defensive systems in the area for some time. Central Command head Gen. David Petraeus recently said the four countries named by the Times were receiving BMD-capable Patriot Advanced Capability-3 (PAC-3) batteries, and at the end of October the United States carried out its largest-ever military exercises with Israel, known as Juniper Cobra.

More interesting than the stories themselves was the Obama administration's decision to launch a major public relations campaign this weekend regarding these moves. And the most intriguing question out of all this is why the administration decided to call everyone's attention to these defensive measures while not mentioning any offensive options.

The Iranian Nuclear Question

U.S. President Barack Obama spent little time on foreign policy in his Jan. 27 State of the Union message, though he did make a short, sharp reference to Iran. He promised a strong response to Tehran if it continued its present course; though this could have been pro forma, it seemed quite pointed. Early in his administration, Obama had said he would give the Iranians until the end of 2009 to change their policy on nuclear weapons development. But the end of 2009 came, and the Iranians continued their policy.

All along, Obama has focused on diplomacy on the Iran question. To be more precise, he has focused on bringing together a coalition prepared to impose "crippling sanctions" on the Iranians. The most crippling sanction would be stopping Iran's gasoline imports, as Tehran imports about 35 percent of its gasoline. Such sanctions are now unlikely, as China has made clear that it is not prepared to participate — and that was before the most recent round of U.S. weapon sales to Taiwan. Similarly, while the Russians have indicated that their participation in sanctions is not completely out of the question, they also have made clear that time for sanctions is not near. We suspect that the Russian time frame for sanctions will keep getting pushed back.

Therefore, the diplomatic option appears to have dissolved. The Israelis have said they regard February as the decisive month for sanctions, which they have indicated is based on an agreement with the United States. While previous deadlines of various sorts regarding Iran have come and gone, there is really no room after February. If no progress is made on sanctions and no action follows, then the decision has been made by default that a nuclear-armed Iran is acceptable.

The Americans and the Israelis have somewhat different views of this based on different geopolitical realities. The Americans have seen a number of apparently extreme and dangerous countries develop nuclear weapons. The most important example was Maoist China. Mao Zedong had argued that a nuclear war was not particularly dangerous to China, as it could lose several hundred million people and still win the war. But once China developed nuclear weapons, the wild talk subsided and China behaved quite cautiously. From this experience, the United States developed a two-stage strategy.

First, the United States believed that while the spread of nuclear weapons is a danger, countries tend to be circumspect after acquiring nuclear weapons. Therefore, overreaction by United States to the acquisition of nuclear weapons by other countries is unnecessary and unwise.

Second, since the United States is a big country with widely dispersed population and a massive nuclear arsenal, a reckless country that launched some weapons at the United States would do minimal harm to the United States while the other country would face annihilation. And the United States has emphasized BMD to further mitigate — if not eliminate — the threat of such a limited strike to the United States.

Israel's geography forces it to see things differently. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has said Israel should be wiped off the face of the Earth while simultaneously working to attain nuclear weapons. While the Americans take comfort in the view that the acquisition of nuclear weapons has a sobering effect on a new nuclear power, the Israelis don't think the Chinese case necessarily can be generalized. Moreover, the United States is outside the range of the Iranians' current ballistic missile arsenal while Israel is not. And a nuclear strike would have a particularly devastating effect on Israel. Unlike the United States, Israel is small country with a highly concentrated population. A strike with just one or two weapons could destroy Israel.

Therefore, Israel has a very different threshold for risk as far as Iran is concerned. For Israel, a nuclear strike from Iran is improbable, but would be catastrophic if it happened. For the United States, the risk of an Iranian strike is far more remote, and would be painful but not catastrophic if it happened. The two countries thus approach the situation very differently.

How close the Iranians are to having a deliverable nuclear weapon is, of course, a significant consideration in all this. Iran has not yet achieved a testable nuclear device. Logic tells us they are quite far from a deliverable nuclear weapon. But the ability to trust logic varies as the risk grows. The United States (and this is true for both the Bush and Obama administrations) has been much more willing to play for time than Israel can afford to be. For Israel, all intelligence must be read in the context of worst-case scenarios.

Diverging Interests and Grand Strategy

It is also important to remember that Israel is much less dependent on the United States than it was in 1973. Though U.S. aid to Israel continues, it is now a much smaller percentage of Israeli gross domestic product. Moreover, the threat of sudden conventional attack by Israel's immediate neighbors has disappeared. Egypt is at peace with Israel, and in any case, its military is too weak to mount an attack. Jordan is effectively an Israeli ally. Only Syria is hostile, but it presents no conventional military threat. Israel previously has relied on guarantees that the United States would rush aid to Israel in the event of war. But it has been a generation since this has been a major consideration for Israel. In the minds of many, the Israeli-U.S. relationship is stuck in the past. Israel is not critical to American interests the way it was during the Cold War. And Israel does not need the United States the way it did during the Cold War. While there is intelligence cooperation in the struggle against jihadists, even here American and Israeli interests diverge.

And this means that the United States no longer has Israeli national security as an overriding consideration — and that the United States cannot compel Israel to pursue policies Israel regards as dangerous.

Given all of this, the Obama administration's decision to launch a public relations campaign on defensive measures just before February makes perfect sense. If Iran develops a nuclear capability, a defensive capability might shift Iran's calculus of the risks and rewards of the military option.

Assume, for example, that the Iranians decided to launch a nuclear missile at Israel or Iran's Arab neighbors with which its relations are not the best. Iran would have only a handful of missiles, and perhaps just one. Launching that one missile only to have it shot down would represent the worst-case scenario for Iran. Tehran would have lost a valuable military asset, it would not have achieved its goal and it would have invited a devastating counterstrike. Anything the United States can do to increase the likelihood of an Iranian failure therefore decreases the likelihood that Iran would strike until they have more delivery systems and more fissile material for manufacturing more weapons.

The U.S. announcement of the defensive measures therefore has three audiences: Iran, Israel and the American public. Israel and Iran obviously know all about American efforts, meaning the key audience is the American public. The administration is trying to deflect American concerns about Iran generated both by reality and Israel by showing that effective steps are being taken.

There are two key weapon systems being deployed, the PAC-3 and the Aegis/Standard Missile-3 (SM-3). The original Patriot, primarily an anti-aircraft system, had a poor record — especially as a BMD system — during the first Gulf War. But that was almost 20 years ago. The new system is regarded as much more effective as a terminal-phase BMD system, such as the medium-range ballistic missiles (MRBMs) developed by Iran, and performed much more impressively in this role during the opening of Operation Iraqi Freedom in March 2003. In addition, Juniper Cobra served to further integrate a series of American and Israeli BMD interceptors and sensors, building a more redundant and layered system. This operation also included the SM-3, which is deployed aboard specially modified Aegis-equipped guided missile cruisers and destroyers. The SM-3 is one of the most successful BMD technologies currently in the field and successfully brought down a wayward U.S. spy satellite in 2008.

Nevertheless, a series of Iranian Shahab-3s is a different threat than a few Iraqi Scuds, and the PAC-3 and SM-3 have yet to be proven in combat against such MRBMs — something the Israelis are no doubt aware of. War planners must calculate the incalculable; that is what makes good generals pessimists.

The Obama administration does not want to mount an offensive action against Iran. Such an operation would not be a single strike like the 1981 Osirak attack in Iraq. Iran has multiple nuclear sites buried deep and surrounded by air defenses. And assessing the effectiveness of airstrikes would be a nightmare. Many days of combat at a minimum probably would be required, and like the effectiveness of defensive weapons systems, the quality of intelligence about which locations to hit cannot be known until after the battle.

A defensive posture therefore makes perfect sense for the United States. Washington can simply defend its allies, letting them absorb the risk and then the first strike before the United States counterstrikes rather than rely on its intelligence and offensive forces in a pre-emptive strike. This defensive posture on Iran fits American grand strategy, which is always to shift such risk to partners in exchange for technology and long-term guarantees.

The Arabian states can live with this, albeit nervously, since they are not the likely targets. But Israel finds its assigned role in U.S. grand strategy far more difficult to stomach. In the unlikely event that Iran actually does develop a weapon and does strike, Israel is the likely target. If the defensive measures do not convince Iran to abandon its program and if the Patriots allow a missile to leak through, Israel has a national catastrophe. It faces an unlikely event with unacceptable consequences.

Israel's Options

It has options, although a long-range conventional airstrike against Iran is really not one of them. Carrying out a multiday or even multiweek air campaign with Israel's available force is too likely to be insufficient and too likely to fail. Israel's most effective option for taking out Iran's nuclear activities is itself nuclear. Israel could strike Iran from submarines if it genuinely intended to stop Iran's program.

The problem with this is that much of the Iranian nuclear program is sited near large cities, including Tehran. Depending on the nuclear weapons used and their precision, any Israeli strikes could thus turn into city-killers. Israel is not able to live in a region where nuclear weapons are used in counterpopulation strikes (regardless of the actual intent behind launching). Mounting such a strike could unravel the careful balance of power Israel has created and threaten relationships it needs. And while Israel may not be as dependent on the United States as it once was, it does not want the United States completely distancing itself from Israel, as Washington doubtless would after an Israeli nuclear strike.

The Israelis want Iran's nuclear program destroyed, but they do not want to be the ones to try to do it. Only the United States has the force needed to carry out the strike conventionally. But like the Bush administration, the Obama administration is not confident in its ability to remove the Iranian program surgically. Washington is concerned that any air campaign would have an indeterminate outcome and would require extremely difficult ground operations to determine the strikes' success or failure. Perhaps even more complicated is the U.S. ability to manage the consequences, such as a potential attempt by Iran to close the Strait of Hormuz and Iranian meddling in already extremely delicate situations in Iraq and Afghanistan. As Iran does not threaten the United States, the United States therefore is in no hurry to initiate combat. And so the United States has launched a public relations campaign about defensive measures, hoping to affect Iranian calculations while remaining content to let the game play itself out.

Israel's option is to respond to the United States with its intent to go nuclear, something Washington does not want in a region where U.S. troops are fighting in countries on either side of Iran. Israel might calculate that its announcement would force the United States to pre-empt an Israeli nuclear strike with conventional strikes. But the American response to Israel cannot be predicted. It is therefore dangerous for a small regional power to try to corner a global power.

With the adoption of a defensive posture, we have now seen the U.S. response to the February deadline. This response closes off no U.S. options (the United States can always shift its strategy when intelligence indicates), it increases the Arabian Peninsula's dependence on the United States, and it possibly causes Iran to recalculate its position. Israel, meanwhile, finds itself in a box, because the United States calculates that Israel will not chance a conventional strike and fears a nuclear strike on Iran as much as the United States does.

In the end, Obama has followed the Bush strategy on Iran — make vague threats, try to build a coalition, hold Israel off with vague promises, protect the Arabian Peninsula, and wait — to the letter. But along with this announcement, we would expect to begin to see a series of articles on the offensive deployment of U.S. forces, as good defensive posture requires a strong offensive option.

STRATFOR: Iranian Proxies: An Intricate and Active Web

www.stratfor.com

By Scott Stewart

For the past few years, STRATFOR has been carefully following the imbroglio over the Iranian nuclear weapons program and efforts by the United States and others to scuttle the program. This situation has led to threats by both sides, with the United States and Israel discussing plans to destroy Iranian weapons sites with airstrikes and the Iranians holding well-publicized missile launches and military exercises in the Persian Gulf.

Much attention has been paid to the Iranian deterrents to an attack on its nuclear program, such as the ballistic missile threat and the potential to block the Strait of Hormuz, but these are not the only deterrents Iran possesses. Indeed, over the past several years, Iran has consistently reminded the world about the network of proxy groups that the country can call upon to cause trouble for any country that would attack its nuclear weapons program.

Over the past several weeks, interesting new threads of information about Iranian proxies have come to light, and when the individual strands are tied together they make for a very interesting story.

Iran's Proxies

From almost the very beginning of the Islamic republic, Iran's clerical regime has sought to export its Islamic revolution to other parts of the Muslim world. This was done not only for ideological purposes — to continue the revolution — but also for practical reasons, as a way to combat regional adversaries by means of proxy warfare. Among the first groups targeted for this expansion were the Shiite populations in Iraq, the Persian Gulf and, of course, Lebanon. The withdrawal of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) from Lebanon in 1982 left behind a cadre of trained Shiite militants who were quickly recruited by agents of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). These early Lebanese recruits included hardened PLO fighters from the slums of South Beirut such as Imad Mughniyah. These fighters formed the backbone of Iran's militant proxy force in Lebanon, Hezbollah, which, in the ensuing decades, would evolve from a shadowy terrorist group into a powerful political entity with a significant military capability.

One of the most impressive things about these early proxy efforts in Lebanon is that the IRGC and the Iranian Ministry of Intelligence and Security were both very young institutions at the time, and they were heavily pressured by the 1980 invasion of Iran by Saddam Hussein's Iraq, which was backed by the Gulf states and the United States. The Iranians also had to compete with the Amal movement, which was backed by Libya and Syria and which dominated the Lebanese Shiite landscape at the time. Projecting power into Lebanon under such conditions was quite an amazing feat, one that many more mature intelligence organizations have not been able to match.

Though these institutions were young, the Iranians were not without experience in intelligence tradecraft. The years of operating against the Shah's intelligence service, a brutal and efficient organization known as the SAVAK, taught the Iranian revolutionaries many hard-learned lessons about operational security and clandestine operations, and they incorporated many of these lessons into their handling of proxy operations. For example, it was very difficult for the U.S. government to prove that the Iranians, through their proxies, were behind the bombings of the U.S. Embassy (twice) and Marine barracks in Beirut or the kidnapping of Westerners in Lebanon. The use of different names in public statements such as the Islamic Jihad Organization, Revolutionary Justice Organization and the Organization of the Oppressed on Earth, when combined with very good Iranian operational security, served to further muddy the already murky waters of Lebanon's militant landscape. Iran has also done a fairly good job at hiding its hand in places like Kuwait and Bahrain.

While Iran has invested a lot of effort to build up Shiite proxy groups such as Hezbollah and assorted other groups in Iraq, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states, the Iranians do not exclusively work with Shiite proxies. As we discussed last week, the Iranians also have a pragmatic streak and will work with Marxist groups like the Kurdistan Workers' Party, Sunni groups like Hamas in Gaza and various militant groups in Pakistan and Afghanistan (they sought to undermine the Taliban while that group was in power in Afghanistan but are currently aiding some Taliban groups in an effort to thwart the U.S. effort there). In an extremely complex game, the Iranians are also working with various Sunni and Kurdish groups in Iraq, in addition to their Shiite proxies, as they seek to shape their once-feared neighbor into something they can more-easily influence and control.

More than Foot Stomping

For several years now, every time there is talk of a possible attack on Iran there is a corresponding threat by Iran to use its proxy groups in response to such an attack. Iran has also been busy pushing intelligence reports to anybody who will listen (including STRATFOR) that it will activate its militant proxy groups if attacked and, to back that up, will periodically send operatives or proxies out to conduct not-so-subtle surveillance of potential targets. Hezbollah and Hamas have both stated publicly that they will attack Israel if Israel launches an attack against Iran's nuclear program, and such threats are far more than mere rhetorical devices. Iran has taken many concrete steps to prepare and arm its various proxy groups:

• On Dec. 11, 2009, authorities seized an Ilyushin-76 cargo plane in Bangkok that contained 35 tons of North Korean-produced military weapons that were destined for Iran (though Iran, naturally, denies the report). The weapons, which included man-portable air defense systems (MANPADS), were either equivalent to, or less advanced than, weapons Iran produces on its own. This fact raised the real possibility that the Iranians had purchased the North Korean weapons in order to distribute them to proxies and hide Iran's hand if those arms were recovered after an attack.
• In November 2009, Israeli naval commandos seized a ship off the coast of Cyprus that was loaded with hundreds of tons of weapons that were apparently being sent from Iran to Hezbollah. The seizure, which was the largest in Israel's history, included artillery shells, rockets, grenades and small-arms ammunition.
• In August 2009, authorities in the United Arab Emirates seized a ship carrying 10 containers of North Korean weapons disguised as oil equipment. The seized cache included weapons that Iran produces itself, like rockets and rocket-propelled grenade rounds, again raising the probability that the arms were intended for Iran's militant proxies.
• In April 2009, Egyptian authorities announced that they had arrested a large network of Hezbollah operatives who were planning attacks against Israeli targets inside Egypt. It is likely, however, that the network was involved in arms smuggling and the charges of planning attacks may have been leveled against the smugglers to up the ante and provide a warning message to anyone considering smuggling in the future.
• In January 2009, a convoy of suspected arms smugglers in northern Sudan near the Egyptian border was attacked by an apparent Israeli air strike. The arms were reportedly destined for Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad and were tied to an Iranian network that, according to STRATFOR sources in the region, had been purchasing arms in Sudan and shipping them across the Sinai to Gaza.

As illustrated by most of the above incidents (and several others we did not include for the sake of brevity), Israeli intelligence has been actively attempting to interdict the flow of weapons to Iran and Iranian proxy groups. Such Israeli efforts may explain the assassination of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, whose body was discovered Jan. 20 in his room at a five-star hotel in Dubai. Al-Mabhouh, a senior commander of the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas' military wing, lived in exile in Damascus and was reportedly the Hamas official responsible for coordinating the transfer of weapons from Iran to Hamas forces in Gaza. A STRATFOR source advised us that, at the time of his death, al-Mabhouh was on his way to Tehran to meet with his IRGC handlers. The operation to kill al-Mabhouh also bears many similarities to past Israeli assassination operations. His status as an Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades commander involved in many past attacks against Israel would certainly make him an attractive target for the Israelis.

Of course, like anything involving the Iranians, there remains quite a bit of murkiness involving the totality of their meddling in the region. Hezbollah sources have told STRATFOR that they have troops actively engaged in combat in Yemen, with the al-Houthi rebels in the northern province of Saada along the Saudi border, and have lost several fighters there. Hezbollah also has claimed that its personnel have shot down several Yemeni aircraft using Iranian-manufactured Misagh-1 MANPADS.

The governments of Yemen and Saudi Arabia have very good reason to fear Iran's plans to expand its influence in the Gulf region, and the Yemenis in particular have been very vocal about blaming Iran for stirring up the al-Houthi rebels. Because of this, if there truly were Hezbollah fighters being killed in Saada and signs of Iranian ordnance (like MANPADS) being used by Hezbollah fighters or al-Houthi rebels, we believe the government of Yemen would have been documenting the evidence and providing the documentation to the world (especially in light of Yemen's long and unsuccessful attempt to gain U.S. assistance for its struggle against the al-Houthi insurgency). That said, while Hezbollah MANPADS teams are not likely to be running around Saada, there is evidence that the Iranians have been involved in smuggling weapons to the al-Houthi via Yemen's rugged Red Sea coast. Indeed, such arms smuggling has resulted in a Saudi naval blockade of the Yemeni coast. Reports of al-Houthi militants being trained by the IRGC in Lebanon and Iran are also plausible.

Iran has long flirted with jihadist groups. This support has sporadically stretched from the early days of al Qaeda's stay in Sudan, where Hezbollah bomb makers instructed al Qaeda militants in how to make large vehicle bombs, to more recent times, when the IRGC has provided arms to Iraqi Sunni militants and Taliban factions in Afghanistan. Iran has also provided weapons to the now-defunct Supreme Islamic Courts Council in Somalia and one of its offshoots, al Shabaab.

Over the past several months we have also heard from a variety of sources in different parts of the Middle East that the Iranians are assisting al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP). Some reports indicate that a jihadist training camp that had previously been operating in Syria to train and send international fighters to Iraq had been relocated to Iran, and that with Iranian assistance, the jihadists were funneling international militants from Iran to Yemen to fight with AQAP. Other reports say the Iranians are providing arms to the group. While some analysts downplay such reports, the fact that we have received similar information from a wide variety of sources in different countries and with varying ideological backgrounds suggests there is indeed something to these reports.

One last thing to consider while pondering Iran's militant proxies is that, while Iranian missiles will be launched (and mines laid) only in the case of open hostilities, Iranian militant proxies have been busily at work across the region for many years now. With a web of connections that reaches all the way from Lebanon to Somalia to Afghanistan, Iran can cast a wide net over the Middle East. If the United States has truly begun to assume a defensive posture in the Gulf, it will have to guard not only against Iranian missile strikes but also against Iran's sophisticated use of proxy militant groups.

ASSAD: Israel not serious about peace and lending Mideast to all out war

HAARETZ: Assad: Israel leading the Middle East to war

Syrian President Bashar Assad said on Wednesday that Israel is not serious about its intentions to make peace with Damascus as evidenced by "its conduct which is leading the region to war."...

...Netanyahu's bureau said in response that Israel seeks peace negotiations with Syria, but Damascus has thwarted every effort to start the process. "Unfortunately Syria is heaping obstacles and preventing negotiations and the formulation of understandings that could bring peace, security and prosperity to all sides," a bureau spokesperson said...(Haaretz).

Full Article: http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1147285.html

U.S.: Iran rocket launch a "provocative act"

REUTERS:  U.S. Calls Iran Rocket Launch 'Provocative Act'

..."A launch like that is obviously a provocative act," White House spokesman Bill Burton told reporters. "But the president believes that it is not too late for Iran to do the right thing -- come to the table with the international community and live up to its international obligations."...(REUTERS).

Full Article: http://www.rferl.org/content/Iran_TestFires_Satellite_Carrier/1947050.html

HANIYA: Hamas wants talks with U.S. and Europe

AFP: Hamas wants talks with US, Europe: Haniya

..."Hamas is ready to dialogue with the world, international community, the US, the (Middle East) Quartet and the Europeans," Haniya said Wednesday..."They have to recognise us first, the right of the Palestinian people, we are the victims," said the 48-year-old, who merely repeated that Hamas supports "the establishment of a Palestinian state with the 1967...(AFP via Yahoo).

Full Article: http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20100204/wl_afp/mideastpalestinianhamashaniya

U.S.: Pakistan using militants against India

NDTV: Pakistan using militants against India: US

..."The US has clearly said it is Pakistan's policy to use militants against India," Dennis Blair, Director of National Intelligence, said during the Annual Threat Assessment meet. "Islamabad's conviction that militant groups are an important part of its strategic arsenal to counter India's military and economic advantages will continue to limit Pakistan's incentive to pursue an across-the-board effort against extremism," he added...(NDTV).

Full Article: http://www.ndtv.com/news/world/pakistan_using_militants_against_india_us.php?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+ndtv%2FTqgX+(NDTV+News+-+World)

HAARETZ: Peace will be found in Damascus, not Ramallah

Ari Shavit

...The time has come to reset the system and change course. To forestall the evil rising in the east, every effort must be made to enter a dialogue with Syrian President Bashar Assad. To avert a horrendous war, not a stone on the road to Damascus should be left unturned. To offer hope to the Middle East, the prospects held out by the secular regime in Syria must be exhausted. It may be that at the end of the day, the Syrians, too, will turn their backs on us, but every day that goes by without an effort to reach peace with Syria is a day marked by criminal negligence...(Haaretz).

Full Article: http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1147482.html

HAARETZ: The message is clear: Israel must not strike Iran

Gideon Levy

...His message was clear and razor sharp - Israel must not attack Iran. This would only cause harm. If anything could bring Iran closer to the bomb, it would be an Israeli offensive, which seems imminent. The European diplomat is convinced that Iran does not intend to produce a nuclear bomb, only to walk on the edge and prepare for the option of developing it. This has become a matter of national honor for the Iranians...(Haaretz).

Full Article: http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1147481.html

IRAN: U.S. and Allies request formal commitment to Nuclear Deal

RFE/RL: U.S., Allies Urge Iran To Formally Commit To Uranium Deal

...U.S., British, and German officials have called on Iran to contact the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency to confirm President Mahmud Ahmadinejad's remarks this week suggesting that Iran is ready to send its uranium abroad as part of the proposed deal negotiated last October. France, meanwhile, has joined calls for potential new UN sanctions on Iran. Prime Minister Francois Fillon on February 3 said France would push for what he called "strong" new UN sanctions...(RFE/RL).

Full Article: http://www.rferl.org/content/US_Allies_Urge_Iran_to_Formally_Commit_To_Uranium_Deal/1948173.html

IRAN: Karroubi denounces Guardian Council, calls for protest on Feb. 11

BABYLON & BEYOND: IRAN: Karroubi denounces Guardian Council, calls for big 22 Bahman protests

...Mehdi Karroubi called for an abolition of the Guardian Council's power to oversee elections, a direct swipe at the conservative body's leader Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati, who recently likened the opposition to defiant "Jews" who ought to be executed...

...He reiterated his and fellow opposition figure Mir-Hossein Mousavi's call for opposition supporters to rally on Feb. 11, or the 22nd day of the Persian calendar month of Bahman, which is the 31st anniversary of the Iran's Islamic Revolution...(Babylon & Beyond).

Full Article: http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/babylonbeyond/2010/02/iran-karroubi-islamic-republic-israel-iranelection-israel-ahmnadinejad.html

MEMRI: Iranian Ambassador in Qatar: We'll Attack Anyone Who Enables U.S. To Attack Us

Full Article: http://www.thememriblog.org/blog_personal/en/24444.htm

AFGHANISTAN: Massive assault to be conduct by Marines and Afghan army in Marja

LAT: Marines, Afghan army plan massive assault on Taliban

The U.S. Marines and Afghan army plan a massive assault on Taliban fighters in Marja, the last community under Taliban control in a sprawling, lawless region once dominated by the insurgency, a top Marine said Wednesday...

...Marine and NATO leaders want Helmand province to be a showpiece of the "clear, hold, build and transition" counterinsurgency strategy, in which Taliban fighters are forced out of a region and then a "civilian surge" begins to rebuild war-ravaged communities and bolster confidence of Afghan villagers in their provincial and national governments...(LAT).

Full Article: http://www.latimes.com/news/nation-and-world/la-fg-afghanistan-assault3-2010feb03,0,5475218.story

REPORT: Mehsud alive

PRESS TV: Report: Mehsud safe and sound

Hakimullah Mehsud, the leader of pro-Taliban militants in Pakistan, may have survived a US drone strike conducted on mid January, a report says. Another militant leader, Qari Hussain, might also be alive, a senior Pakistani official speaking on condition of anonymity told DawnNews on Wednesday...(Press TV).

Full Article:  http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=117820&sectionid=351020401

AHMADINEJAD: Iran is ready to accept nuclear fuel-swap deal

WSJ: Iran Is Ready for Nuclear Deal, Leader Says

Ahmadinejad Revives Plan, but U.S. Says He Hasn't Made Official Approach; Opposition Leader Lashes Out at Regime

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said his government would accept a nuclear fuel-swap agreement overseen by the United Nations, a deal the Obama administration has viewed as central to limiting Tehran's ability to develop atomic weapons...

..."The deal is still on the table," said State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley. "We don't exactly know what Ahmadinejad said, but if he's prepared to say yes, that's good news. He should contact the IAEA."...(WSJ).

Full Article: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703338504575041072321849754.html?mod=fox_australian&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+wsj%2Fxml%2Frss%2F3_7085+(WSJ.com%3A+World+News)

U.S.: If Iran is serious about nuclear deal, they can inform the IAEA

PRESS TV: US urges Iran to inform IAEA of nuclear stance

..."There is a forum to be able to resolve whether this is a serious offer and that's through the IAEA. If Iran is serious, they can inform the IAEA that they are ready to accept the deal that's on the table," Reuters quoted State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley as saying Tuesday...(Press TV).

Full Article: http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=117736&sectionid=351020104