Biden picks Munich to announce the possibility of direct U.S.-Iran talks - how appropriate!

Munich 1938

Biden raises possibility of direct U.S.-Iran talks

(Reuters) - The United States is ready to hold direct talks with Iran if it is serious about negotiations, Vice President Joe Biden said on Saturday, backing bilateral contacts that many see as crucial to easing an international dispute over Tehran's nuclear program.

Speaking at a security conference in Munich, Biden said Iran - which says it is enriching uranium for peaceful energy only - now faced "the most robust sanctions in history" meant to ensure it does not use its program to develop nuclear weapons.

"But we have also made clear that Iran's leaders need not sentence their people to economic deprivation and international isolation," Biden said. "There is still time, there is still space for diplomacy backed by pressure to succeed. The ball is in the government of Iran's court."

To date, fitful talks on Iran's nuclear program have been between Tehran and the EU's top diplomat representing six world powers including Washington. But analysts have suggested that with his re-election behind him, President Barack Obama might have more leeway to take on direct negotiations with Iran.

That makes the year ahead critical for chances of overcoming a stand-off which, if left to fester further, could see Iran approach a nuclear weapons capability and possibly provoking military action by Israel that could inflame the Middle East.

Progress on Iran would also help ease regional tensions as the United States prepares to pull most combat troops out of Iran's neighbor Afghanistan by the end of 2014.

Asked whether Washington might consider direct talks with Iran to smooth the process, Biden said, "When the Iranian leadership, Supreme Leader (Ayatollah Ali Khamenei), is serious.

"We have made it clear at the outset that we would be prepared to meet bilaterally with the Iranian leadership, we would not make it a secret that we were doing that, we would let our partners know if that occasion presented itself.

"That offer stands, but it must be real and tangible and there has to be an agenda that they are prepared to speak to. We are not just prepared to do it for the exercise."

Negotiations with Iran have so far been overseen by European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton on behalf of France, Britain, Germany, China, Russia and the United States. But they have made scant headway, raising fears Iran is simply playing for time while it develops its nuclear know-how.

Ashton has asked Iran to hold a round of talks this month and on Friday called on Tehran to abandon plans to install and operate advanced centrifuges that would speed up its ability to enrich uranium - potentially making it easier for it to produce the highly enriched uranium needed for nuclear weapons.

Many believe no deal is possible without a U.S.-Iranian thaw, requiring direct talks addressing myriad sources of mutual mistrust and hostility lingering since Iran's 1979 Islamic Revolution and the hostage crisis at the U.S. embassy in Tehran.

Iran has avoided direct, public talks with the United States, though some suggest Tehran would eventually welcome an opportunity to end its international isolation.

"DECISIVE YEAR ON IRAN"

With Iran holding its own presidential elections in June, hopes of progress before then are limited.

The United States and its allies, however, do not have an indefinite amount of time to negotiate. Notwithstanding the current stalemate, Iran's nuclear program is advancing and an international consensus on sanctions may be hard to maintain.

Israel, which describes the prospect of Iran being able to weaponise enriched uranium as an existential threat, has made clear it would be ready to bomb the nuclear sites of its arch-enemy to prevent that outcome. The United States has also said it would not rule out the use of military force.

Speaking at the Munich conference, German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle said that "2013 is the decisive year on Iran, especially for political reasons.

"We had elections in the United States and Israel, we will have elections in June in Iran; we see increasing capabilities especially with the issue of enrichment - let us be very frank, we did not have progress in the last 12 months, so it is obvious that we have to use this year.."

Russia, which has been impatient with decades of U.S. hostility to Tehran since its 1979 Islamic Revolution but backed U.N. Security Council sanctions since 2006, repeated on Saturday the need to find a diplomatic solution.

"Iran must know the overall game plan, it must see what is in it for it in this process. We need to convince Iran that this is not about regime change ... this mistrust must be overcome," Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told the conference.

That comment was echoed by Westerwelle.

"If we want to reach this goal, it would be wrong to discuss all these military options and possibilities. It is now important to focus our whole attention, all our effort for a diplomatic and political solution."

This would have to include a relief from sanctions as well as recognition of Iran's right to enrich uranium to the lower levels needed for civilian nuclear fuel, security analysts say.

(Additional reporting by Alexandra Hudson in Munich; Editing by Mark Heinrich)

Former Iranian diplomat: 'Iran would definitely use nuclear weapon on Israel'

The Jerusalem Post:

If Iran makes a nuclear bomb "it would definitely use it against Israel or against any other enemy state," a former representative of the Iranian Foreign Ministry said in an exclusive interview aired on Friday on Channel 2 television.

           "The [Iranian] regime thinks that if it has several atom bombs, it will grant it an insurance policy," Mohammed Razza Hidari said. "They believe that if [they have a nuclear weapon], the world would treat them the way it treats North Korea."

He also warned that if Iran is allowed to stall for more time, "it will have the knowledge to make a nuclear bomb in less than a year."

Hidari, who was stationed at the Tehran International Airport and supervised many of the incoming flights, told Channel 2's Enrique Zimmerman that Venezuela provides uranium for Iran's nuclear program.

"Venezuela buys weapons from criminals and sends them to Iran," Hidari told Channel 2. "Among the things sent were, for example, uranium purchased from mob organizations and sent to the Islamic republic."

During his tenure at the airport, Hidari saw "many groups of Hezbollah men who came to Iran to acquire knowledge, among other things."

He also revealed the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps were in contact with terror organizations in Iraq and Afghanistan, that were linked to the Taliban and to al-Qaida.

Hidari also served as the Iranian envoy in several different countries, among them Georgia and Norway. There, he worked to recruit Western nuclear scientists by promising them a hefty salary.

Two years ago Hidari defected after seeing the Tehran regime suppress opposition protests by slaughtering citizens, and went into hiding in Oslo, Norway, where he works to overthrow Iran's Islamic regime.

"[The West] should impose political sanctions on Iran [such as] closing all Iranian embassies, and not allowing Iranian ministers to visit other countries, like they did with the Apartheid regime," Hidari concluded.

What Hidari says confirms what Bernard Lewis, Raphael Israeli, Reza Kahlili, Harold Rhode, Menashe Amir, Matthias Kuntzel  and  James Woolsey have been saying about Iran  attacking Israel, the US and Europe. However, Hidari does not explain how come Iran is not deterred  by the nuclear arsenal of the countries he says Iran intends to attack.   The above mentioned scholars do just that.  When will the censorship and self-censorship about the religious/ideological motives based in Shia eschatology and the Twelvers' beliefs be lifted so that the public can finally be informed what is so fundamentally different in the Iranian threat? How long can everyone pretend not to know?  

The Israeli government should have organized a seminar of Islamic scholars  to discuss the validity of Bernard Lewis's MAD statement  "for people with this mindset, M.A.D. is not a constraint; it is an inducement..." . Why haven't they? At least it would become a topic of discussion, and not almost unknown or a taboo as in today's climate

Israeli election results - the price of ignorance - instability while facing Iran at a crucial time

 Likud-Yisrael Beiteinu 31

 Yesh Atid (There is a Future)  19

 Avoda (Labor) 15

 Shas 11

 Habayit Hayehudi (The Jewish Home) 11

This election should have been about only one issue - Iran. If Iran gets the bomb all another issues become irrelevant since Iran is going to use the bomb - on us. And who understands the Iranian threat best among Israeli politicians? Bibi, of course, because Bernard Lewis himself talked to Bibi about Shia eschatology, the Twelvers and the Mahdi. It is unfortunate that all other Israeli politicians from Livni and Diskin to Olmert and Mofaz were not present when Bernard Lewis was explaining to Bibi that to the mullahs mutually assured destruction M.A.D. was not a constraint but an inducement- these politicians still demonstrate their appalling lack of understanding of the essence of the problem with Iran. Bibi should  have had  a clear mandate to deal with Iran. Bibi is the one who can best stand up to the Obama administration's insane support for the Muslim Brotherhood and appeasement of  Iran.

However, the Iran issue had almost disappeared from the pre election discourse.

Hence the result.

I realized we had a problem when first my wife and then my daughter said they voted for Yair Lapid, and they had been exposed to a constant diet of Bernard Lewis quotes on Iran. To no avail. They both wanted Bibi to be responsible for security but they wanted other issues to be tackled as well.  What they do not realize is that in this crucial time of decision when the margin of error is so narrow the last thing you need is domestic uncertainty.

But it all boils down to disbelief.  Disbelief that Iran is capable of doing what its Twelvers want  - start a nuclear calamity to bring back the Mahdi.  It is almost inconceivable that at the time of the greatest threat facing this country most Israelis are either ignorant of its nature and magnitude or refuse to believe it. 

I hope for a Bibi- Lapid- Bennett  coalition   31 + 19+ 11 = 61

Olmert: 'Netanyahu spent NIS 11 billion on adventurous fantasies' - Adventurous fantasies?

From Ha'aretz:

Former prime minister Ehud Olmert accused on Friday Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of wasting NIS 11 billion on “adventurous fantasies.” In an interview on channel 2’s weekly magazine, Olmert estimated that the operations, for which the funds were allocated, were not carried out.

Israel's former prime minister also backed earlier accusations by Yuval Diskin, former head of Israel’s Shin Bet security services, concerning the conduct of Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak. He also said Barak was to blame for the Harpaz affair.

“In the last 2 years, 11 billion shekels were spent on operations which were not and will not be carried out. These figures go well beyond the multi-year budgets,” said Olmert. "We were told that 2012 was the decisive year. They managed to scare the entire world, but nothing was done in the end.” He further stated that there is a surplus in Israel's defense budget that should be cut, but no one is addressing this issue because of the upcoming election. 

The ex Shin Bet head Yuval Diskin in an interview with Yedioth Aharanoth  said that Netantahu was an unreliable leader 'possessed' by Iran.

The election battle in Israel has turned not only ugly but absurd.  The only other explanation is that it is meant as a stratagem to fool the Iranians.  For in my opinion if you are not really worried   i.e.  'possessed' by Iran being undeterred in launching a nuclear war to bring back the Mahdi, then you are just not sufficiently  informed. Surely Olmert and Diskin are sufficiently informed! But are they?

Could it be that the only difference between Netanyahu on the one hand and  Olmert and Diskin on the other, is the time Bernard Lewis spent explaining to Netanyahu what the Twelvers  believe in?  According to Ari Shavit

A few years ago Netanyahu held an in-depth discussion with Middle East expert Bernard Lewis. At the end of the talk he was convinced that if the ayatollahs obtained nuclear weapons, they would use them. Since that day, Netanyahu seems convinced that we are living out a rerun of the 1930s.

Could it be that the fate of this country and the world rests in the balance just because of ignorance?

`

Two years on – who was right on the Egyptian crisis?

The Egyptians are voting today in the referendum. Most probably the Muslim Brotherhood will win. We will know next week.  So who was right on Egypt?  Israeli or American analysts?  Almost two years ago, I wrote US and Israeli Analysts Split Over the Egyptian Crisis

It is becoming obvious that the Israelis were right and the Americans were wrong. But who in the US will ever admit to this?  Who among the politicians and among the journalists will be taken to account for their idiotic policies and idiotic reporting?  No one.  Who is there left, when the Obama administration supports the Muslim Brotherhood and the media supports the administration?     

Iran will turn into an even bigger catastrophe for everyone if Israel trusts American politicians who support the Muslim Brotherhood and  journalists who failed to report on that support.  Jeffrey Goldberg thinks that Obama takes Iran more seriously as a threat to American national security interests than he does Syria.  On the contrary, all the evidence shows that Obama does not understand the magnitude of the Iranian threat.   Unlike the Egyptian crisis, Israel cannot afford to wait and demonstrate that Obama has screwed up on Iran as well. 

If You Want Peace, Prepare for Atomic War -- not sure Bernard Lewis would think it is enough

I am not sure how does this article by Louis Rene Beres  fit with what

Bernard Lewis has been saying - 

 Particular importance should be attached to the policies, and perhaps still more the attitudes, of the present rulers of Iran, who seem to be preparing for a final apocalyptic battle between the forces of God [themselves] and of the Devil [ the Great Satan--the United States].  They see this as the final struggle of the End of Time and are therefore undeterred by any level of slaughter and destruction even among their own people . "Allah will know his own" is the phase commonly used, meaning that among the multiple victims God will recognize the Muslims and give them a quick pass to heaven.

                In this context, the deterrent that worked so well during the Cold War, namely M.A.D. (Mutual Assured Destruction) , would have no meaning.  At the End of Time, there will be general destruction  anyway.  What will matter is the final destination of the dead-- hell for the infidels, and the delights of heaven for the believers. For people with this mindset, M.A.D. is not a constraint; it is an inducement...

If You Want Peace, Prepare for Atomic War By LOUIS RENE BERES

On December 3, just four days after voting in strong support of a Palestinian state, the UN General Assembly condemned Israel for allegedly violating the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Of course, this enthusiastic condemnation made no formal legal sense, because Israel, for very good reasons, has chosen to remain outside the 1968 pact. For Israel, agreeing to join the NPT as a non-nuclear member state, its only available treaty membership option, would be tantamount to national suicide.

Why would joining be so lethal to Israel? Plainly, making the Middle East in particular a nuclear weapon free zone could endanger Israel, and correspondingly strengthen Israel’s enemies, including non-Arab Iran. By removing Israel’s indispensable deterrent to suffering annihilatory military defeat, Israel’s non-nuclear enemies would no longer be confronted by the near-certain prospect of unacceptably damaging retaliations.

In such a denuclearized region, these relentless enemies, soon to be joined by “Palestine,” could – at least in various collaborative combinations – achieve an unprecedented strategic advantage. This significantly one-sided advantage could be further enhanced by still-growing Arab and Iranian stockpiles of chemical or biological arms.

A core truth now needs to be more thoroughly understood.

By themselves, US President Barack Obama’s well-publicized views notwithstanding, nuclear weapons are not always evil.

Indeed, by themselves, nuclear weapons are not the problem. In some situations, circumstances where war and genocide are not mutually exclusive, these weapons can even prove a blessing to peace and survival.

In the turbulent Middle East, a no-longer-nuclear Israel could be quickly overwhelmed by substantially larger enemy forces. As every military thinker who has read Karl von Clausewitz On War will readily recall, there can come a time, in virtually any military conflict, when “mass counts.”

Israel, it follows, must never allow such a time. Instead, it must remain recognizably willing and able to use its nuclear weapons. The objective would not be to encourage any form of nuclear exchange, but rather to diminish the overall probability of existential aggressions and catastrophic war.

Si vis pacem, para bellum atomicum. “If you want peace, prepare for atomic war.” At first glance, this would seem an odd strategic maxim for Israel, perhaps even needlessly belligerent. But, in the end, there can be no better military advice for the increasingly imperiled Jewish State.

Soon, this maxim, still only whispered (in deference to longstanding Israeli policy of “deliberate nuclear ambiguity”), must become part of a more open Israeli strategic doctrine. This is not because a nuclear war is necessarily becoming more likely. It is because Israel’s nuclear deterrent will remain sorely critical for the prevention of large-scale conventional conflict, and because the credibility of this deterrent will require incrementally greater disclosures.

The myriad security threats facing Israel are not mutually cancelling. With Iran’s steady and unhindered nuclearization, an eventual nuclear war, or even a “bolt-from-the-blue” nuclear attack, cannot be ruled out. Considered together with the plausible understanding that an Iranian nuclear enemy could be driven by incomparably ecstatic expectations of jihad, Israel’s military planners will need to augment credible deterrence postures with (1) apt forms of diplomacy; (2) ballistic missile defense; and/or (3) still operationally possible forms of preemption.

Under authoritative international law, such a preemption, if directed against an “urgent” threat that is also “imminent in point of time,” would represent “anticipatory self-defense.”

This last option might include cyber-attacks, assassinations, or regime-change interventions. It need not be limited to the more conspicuously traditional sorts of defensive military strike.

Following the UN General Assembly’s recent upgrading of “Palestine” to the diplomatically elevated status of a “nonmember observer state,” Israel must examine the strongly related and inter-penetrating security consequences of a Palestinian state. Today, especially if newly-reelected Obama should continue with the Road Map To Peace in the Middle East, a truly independent state of Palestine could be carved out of Israel. Here, Palestine would quickly become an additional and largely ideal platform for launching anti-Israel war and terror.

Without any evident subterfuge or masquerade, Obama still seeks “a world free of nuclear weapons.” For Israel, acceptable compliance with this improbable and imprudent vision would require certain antecedent forms of nuclear disarmament. Then, once a new enemy state of Iran and its grateful allies believed that Israel had been bent sufficiently to US-supported “nonproliferation” demands, adversarial military strategies could progress, rapidly, from terror to war, and from attrition to annihilation.

Israel’s unilateral nuclear disarmament is very hard to imagine. But it is not entirely inconceivable. Ironically, certain of the country’s leading academic strategists continue to advance this manifestly self-destructive idea. I have debated these strategists myself, even on the sober pages of the Harvard journal, International Security.

It is usually difficult to imagine nuclear weapons as anything other than evil. Yet, there are circumstances wherein a particular state’s possession of such weapons may be all that protects it from major war or genocide. Moreover, because such weapons may most efficiently deter international aggressions, at least in those cases where the prospective aggressor remains fully rational, their possession could also protect neighboring states, both friends and foes, from war-related harms.

Should Israel ever be deprived of its nuclear forces because of any naively idealistic hopes for peace, it could become starkly vulnerable to overwhelming enemy attacks. Although such a life or death vulnerability might be prevented, in principle, by simultaneously instituting parallel forms of chemical/biological weapons disarmament among Israel’s enemies, such steps would never actually succeed. Verification of disarmament compliance is inevitably very difficult. Any such verification would become even more problematic in those complicated cases in which several enemy states would be involved.

In the volatile Middle East, the core threat to peace is not Israel’s nuclear weapons. These weapons are actually peace-preserving. The real core threat, especially with newly-intersecting dangers emanating from Iran and “Palestine,” remains a steadfast jihadist commitment to “excise the Jewish cancer.” To wit, we need only consider the most recent exterminatory exhortations from Hamas leader, Khaled Mashaal.

“From the river to the sea,” says Mashaal, unambiguously delineating the borders of “Palestine.” Significantly, it is a definition also fully accepted by the “moderate” Palestine Authority (PA) president, Mahmoud Abbas.

The US-backed Road Map , like the prior and once functional Oslo agreements, is merely a convenient enemy expedient. Nothing more. If ever taken seriously in Jerusalem, it could become an irreversible cartographic detour to oblivion.

With its undeclared nuclear weapons, Israel could still more-or-less efficiently deter enemy unconventional aggressions, and also most large conventional ones. With these weapons, Israel could still launch non-nuclear preemptive strikes against enemy state hard targets that would threaten Israel’s annihilation. Without these weapons, any such expressions of anticipatory self-defense would likely represent the onset of a much wider war. This is because there could no longer be any sufficiently persuasive threat of an Israeli counter retaliation. Some truths are annoyingly counter-intuitive. In essence, Israel’s nuclear weapons represent an effective impediment to the regional use of nuclear weapons, and to the corollary start of any regional nuclear war. Over time, however, the credibility of Israel’s nuclear deterrent will also require certain carefully considered departures from the nation’s traditional posture of “deliberate nuclear ambiguity.” That point, planning with the correct intent of enhancing national nuclear deterrence, will be the right time to take Israel’s bomb out of the country’s “basement.”

Si vis pacem, para bellum atomicum.

“If you want peace, prepare for atomic war.”

The writer (Ph.D., Princeton, 1971) is the author of many major books and articles dealing with nuclear strategy and nuclear war, including Security or Armageddon: Israel’s Nuclear Strategy; Mimicking Sisyphus: America’s Countervailing Nuclear Strategy; and Apocalypse: Nuclear Catastrophe in World Politics. In Israel, he was Chair of Project Daniel (2003). Professor Beres was born in Zürich, Switzerland, on August 31, 1945.

It's time for Israel to talk to Hamas says A.B. Yehoshua

I apologize for digressing from my narrow MAD subject. But A.B. Yehoshua  is one of my favorite writers who I think should have long ago received the Nobel Literature Prize for Mr. Mani. His statement came as a shock. 

I do not have access to A.B Yehoshua’s article in Haaretz  and I have not read it.

However,  the reasoning below will show that any argument A.B. Yehoshua has come up with is irrelevant.   

Article 7 of the Hamas Charter reads:

  "The hour of judgment shall not come until the Muslims fight the Jews and kill them, so that the Jews hide behind trees and stones, and each tree and stone will say: 'Oh Muslim, oh servant of Allah, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him,' except for the Gharqad tree, for it is the tree of the Jews." 

Article 7 is taken from   Hadith Bukhari Volume 4, Book 52, Number 177 and quotes the Prophet Muhammad:

Narrated Abu Huraira: Allah's Apostle said, "The Hour will not be established until you fight with the Jews, and the stone behind which a Jew will be hiding will say. "O Muslim! There is a Jew hiding behind me, so kill him."  

There are only two possibilities. Either A.B.Yehoshua never read the Hamas Charter

and Hadith Bukhari  Volume 4 Book 52, Number 177 or he believes Hamas do not really take seriously what Muhammad said.

Which is it?