An utterly despicable analysis of Hezbollah’s choices

Posted on 05/07/2013 by Meryl Yourish

My jaw dropped when I read the following conclusion to an analysis by a Telegraph journalist.

Fortunately for Mr Nasrallah, he has another option. Every so often, an incident lifts the veil on Hizbollah’s covert campaign against Israeli interests worldwide. In March, one operative was convicted in Cyprus for scouting out Israeli targets on the island.

As a middle way between doing nothing and firing off his arsenal, Mr Nasrallah could escalate his movement’s efforts to attack Israeli tourists and diplomats.

That is hardly a rerun of the glory days of 2006, when he claimed to have taken on Israel and won. In his current predicament, however, Mr Nasrallah may have little choice.

The tone of these paragraphs is utterly despicable. It is disgusting. “Gee, Hezbollah’s in a bad place right now, because Israel got one over on them by destroying accurate, long-range missiles meant for Hezbollah. But that’s okay, because they can kick Israel’s ass by launching terrorist attacks against civilians on vacation in other nations.”

Un-freaking-believable, the amount of anti-Israel journalism out there. This is the chief foreign correspondent of the Telegraph. Eff you, David Blair, and eff your despicable analysis.

Posted in Israel Derangement Syndrome, Lebanon | Comments Off

Another Goodreads Giveaway

Posted on 05/07/2013 by Meryl Yourish

Ending tonight. (And awesome: The javascript in the widget conflicts with my theme. Oh, well.)

Goodreads Book Giveaway

Darkness Rising by Meryl Yourish

Darkness Rising

by Meryl Yourish

Giveaway ends May 08, 2013.

See the giveaway details
at Goodreads.

Enter to win

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Mideast Media Sampler – 05/07/2013

Posted on 05/07/2013 by Soccerdad

1) Bill Keller’s truism

Former executive editor of the New York Times, Bill Keller states the obvious, “Syria is not Iraq.” In short, Keller argues that he trusts President Obama’s instincts. However since he offered a mea culpa for having once supported the Iraq war, his arguments leave some skeptics unconvinced.

Keller begins:

IN the search for an American response to the civil war in Syria, the favorite guidebook seems to be our ill-fated adventure in Iraq. We have another brutal Middle East autocrat holding power on behalf of a sectarian minority. We have another dubious cast of opposition factions competing for foreign patronage. We hear some of the same hawks — John McCain, Paul Wolfowitz — exhorting us to intervene, countered by familiar warnings of “quagmire.” We even have murky intelligence claims that the regime has used weapons of mass destruction.

This time, though, we have a president who, having opposed the costly blunder of Iraq and been vindicated, is holding back. The theme song at the National Security Council is “Won’t Get Fooled Again.”

As a rule, I admire President Obama’s cool calculation in foreign policy; it is certainly an improvement over the activist hubris of his predecessor. And frankly I’ve shared his hesitation about Syria, in part because, during an earlier column-writing interlude at the outset of the Iraq invasion, I found myself a reluctant hawk. That turned out to be a humbling error of judgment, and it left me gun-shy.

Keller’s column effectively endorses any increased involvement in Syria simply because he trusts President Obama. Obama (as a state senator) opposed the war in Iraq. But at that level did he have the knowledge to make an informed judgment on the issue, or did Obama simply adopt a position that conformed to his politics at the time? Furthermore. left unsaid by Keller, is that Senator Obama opposed the surge that restored order to Iraq and, as President, concluded a disadvantageous troop withdrawal agreement with Iraq, possibly giving away the gains achieved by the surge. (Nor does Keller give President Bush – or himself – enough credit, as Fouad Ajami recalls the beginning of the war.)

While Keller draws on the views of former administration officials who advocated early involvement in Syria and concedes that there may be no happy ending in Syria, he seems to be saying we should intervene (without troops) because we have to and because he trusts President Obama. But Obama’s record shouldn’t inspire trust. In the end, Keller, rather than appearing thoughtful, comes across as unconvincing.

The point Keller refuses to address is what if there are no good choices left in Syria?

Barry Rubin writes in Syria’s Civil War: The Empire Strikes Back:

This is the mess faced by the Obama administration. It could have been avoided if the president had understood from the start that he should have supported moderate, not Islamist forces, using covert operations and even helping local warlords and pious Syrian traditionalist forces. Instead, before the civil war broke out he first backed the radical regime in Syria — America’s enemy and Iran’s client state — and then only when the revolt made that stance impossible did he switch to the rebels, empowering the opposition Islamists every step of the way.

But then he didn’t want to do what his predecessors would have done. Curiously, Obama believed that Islamist rule is good because it would moderate the radicals, deter terrorists from attacking America, and make enemies into friends.

In Syria today there is no good choice. No matter which side wins — the Syrian regime as part of the Iranian bloc of Shia Islamists or the rebels as part of the Muslim Brotherhood bloc of Sunni Islamists — the winners will be radical Islamists. In fact, if Assad creates a fortress in the Alawite region of the northwest stretching down to Damascus, it will be both varieties of Islamists simultaneously.

Keller supports intervention in Syria because Barack Obama is president, even though the situation has deteriorated largely because of President Obama’s early inaction.

2) The Thomas Principle

As for Bibi, his Tahrir lesson is obvious: Sir, you are well on your way to becoming the Hosni Mubarak of the peace process. The time to make big decisions in life is when you have all the leverage on your side. For 30 years, Mubarak had all the leverage on his side to gradually move Egypt toward democracy — and he never used it. Then, when Mubarak’s people rose up, he tried to do it all in six days. But it was too late. No one believed him. So his tenure ended in ruin.
Thomas Friedman – Lessons from Tahrir Square – May 24, 2011

Radical regimes now exist in Egypt, the Gaza Strip, Lebanon, Tunisia, and Turkey, though Obama doesn’t see this. Obama is going to be supportive for these governments except for Hamas in the Gaza Strip. Even there, Hamas benefits from U.S. help and tolerance for its allied regime in Egypt.
Barry Rubin – Israel’s situation and strategy in Obama’s second term – November 9, 2012

The Tower reports Leaked Phone Transcripts Allege Hamas Role in Triggering Egypt Violence:

Egyptian media outlets are again linking Hamas to violence in the country stretching back to the 2011 Egyptian Arab Spring. Earlier this week Egypt’s former interior minister floated the suggestion that Hamas had a hand in fomenting unrest during the revolution, which saw the overthrow of Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak and the subsequent election of a Muslim Brotherhood-linked government. Mansour al-Essawy’s somewhat vague insinuations were met with skepticism, inasmuch as he had a motive to blame the increasingly-unpopular Iran-backed terror group for violence that he has since been criticized for seeking to put down.

Now what looked like a one-off conspiracy theory is beginning to seem like an initial shot across the bow. The daily Al-Masry Al-Youm has has published details of telephone transcripts between Muslim Brotherhood figures and Hamas officials, in which the two groups collaborated on pressuring security forces working to bolster the regime.

Friedman and others saw the Arab Spring as a great opportunity for Israel to do all it could to make peace with the Palestinians. Friedman also was appalled that Israel wasn’t more vocal in its support of Arab democracy. Two years later, all that hope seems distant. Non-democratic Islamists continue to gain power, Netanyahu was re-elected Prime Minister of Israel and Thomas Friedman is still writing columns. One of the latter two appears to be competent at his job.

3) You won’t have Salam Fayyad to kick around

Recently resigned Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad gave an interview to Roger Cohen of the New York Times last week. In his column, Fayyad Steps Down, Not Out, Cohen writes:

Fatah, the major political movement in the West Bank, is a revolutionary party that has exhausted itself; ossified and murky, lacking a popular mandate or a strategy to deliver statehood, headed by a 78-year-old man, Abbas, who did not have the courage to embrace the political program of an outsider, Fayyad, even though that program delivered growth, accountability and security.

Abbas, Moscow-educated, and Fayyad, Texas-educated, never overcame the cultural gulf those educations bequeathed. The can-do approach did not figure in the Soviet curriculum. Abbas declined to leverage Fayyad’s achievements. He refused to use Fayyad’s probity and work ethic as transformative examples. Theirs was a rocky marriage of convenience. Fayyad reckons the party spent more time worrying about what he was doing than solving anything.

“This party, Fatah, is going to break down, there is so much disenchantment,” Fayyad predicts. “Students have lost 35 days this year through strikes. We are broke. The status quo is not sustainable.” He looks at me with a fierce conviction: “In the end it did not matter what any foreign power told me about things changing for the better because I am living it. I have gone through hell before. But it’s enough. This much poison is bound to cause something catastrophic. The system is not taking, the country is suffering. They are not going to change their ways and therefore I must go.”

This isn’t about Fatah being “ossified” or Abbas lacking “courage.” The idea of a “cultural gap” has a certain literary appeal. The truth is a lot less romantic. Fatah was elevated to being essential for peace. Its leaders were promoted as moderates and funds flowed freely to those leaders as a reward for their feigned moderation. Naturally, Abbas, one of those lucky winners, wasn’t happy about having accountability imposed upon his efforts to ensure a fortune for himself and his family.

Of course the biggest problem according to Fayyad and Cohen is the “occupation,” but this was quite a brave thing for Fayyad to say.

So brave in fact, that he retracted.

Palestinian Authority prime minister Salam Fayyad on Saturday denied statements attributed to him by The New York Times that criticized the Palestinian leadership and Fatah.

Fayyad said that he did not grant an interview to the Times or any other other newspaper or news agency since he submitted his resignation to PA President Mahmoud Abbas last month.

CAMERA observes:

…if Fayyad gave an interview which provoked Fatah’s wrath, resulting in the prime minister’s subsequent denial, then this is yet another reminder about sources and journalists self-censoring when it comes to unflattering information about the Palestinian Authority.

More generally, Evelyn Gordon writes in What the West Should Learn from the Fayyad-Cohen Spat:

But this incident ought to give pause to anyone who is quick to believe every Palestinian atrocity story about Israel. Fayyad has bodyguards; he enjoys the protection of being in the international spotlight; and international credibility is his essential stock-in-trade. Thus, if even he feels threatened enough to risk his credibility by telling bald-faced lies to protect himself, that’s all the more true of ordinary Palestinians, who lack Fayyad’s protections and don’t care about their overseas credibility.

For a Palestinian, it’s always safest to accuse Israel of brutality and abuse, even if the accusations are completely false, because Israeli soldiers won’t kill him for such libels–whereas Palestinian gunmen very well might murder him as a “collaborator” if he went on record as saying, for instance, that Israeli soldiers treated him decently.

So perhaps next time, Westerners should stop and think before uncritically accepting Palestinian atrocity tales as truth. For if Fayyad could so brazenly lie about Cohen, then other Palestinians could just as easily be lying about Israel.

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Mideast Media Sampler – 05/06/2013

Posted on 05/06/2013 by Soccerdad


1) The Israeli “message”

Why is it that threats against Israel are regularly downplayed by the media?

Typical of this phenomenon is the headline Airstrikes Tied to Israel May Be Message to Iranians reported in the New York Times. The title is awful. By reducing Israel’s apparent attack to a “message,” it trivializes what Israel did. However the article contains some useful information in a brief statement from Jonathan Spyer:

Analysts said they did not see the airstrikes as the opening of a new war front, or as an attempt to prop up the Syrian rebels against the Syrian government of Mr. Assad. Rather, they tended to see it more as an extension of the long-running “shadow war” against Iran and Hezbollah, a tit-for-tat of terror attacks and assassinations that has stretched over decades and around the world.

“This shouldn’t be seen as Israel intervening on behalf of the rebels or against Bashar,” said Jonathan Spyer, a senior research fellow at the Interdisciplinary Center in Herzilya. “This is an escalation in a conflict we know about, and that is the conflict between Israel and Iran.”

Israeli officials contacted in the prime minister’s office, military command and defense and foreign ministries refused to discuss the strikes on Sunday, strictly following a protocol designed to give adversaries face-saving room to avoid a response. But wire services cited anonymous Israeli sources who confirmed Israel’s responsibility.

Spyer is right. Of course, his statement was used to support an assertion that Israel’s war against Iran is simply a “tit for tat.” Again the way the New York Times presents Israel’s war against Iran trivializes the nature of the threat against Israel.

2) Who used the CW?

Overnight, it’s been reported that UN investigators believe that it’s the rebels, not the government who have been using chemical weapons in Syria. (h/t memeorandum). The Hill reports:

The Syrian government has denied using chemical weapons and initially invited UN inspectors to probe a March attack in the village of Khan al-Asal near Aleppo, saying rebels used chemical weapons in that incident. The regime has refused to allow the inspectors to enter the country, however, after France and Britain demanded that they be allowed to investigate other reported sites of chemical weapons use, notably in the village of Ataybah near Damascus on March 19 and in Homs last December.

It is curious, to say the least, that the Syrian government would only consider allowing inspectors into one area to test for use of chemical weapons.

The Hill report states further:

Calls for a greater U.S. role – such as arming vetted rebels and operating a no-fly zone – grew over the weekend after airstrikes, apparently by Israeli warplanes, revealed weaknesses in Syria’s vaunted air-defense system. Some lawmakers, however, have long cautioned that the opposition is heavily influenced by Islamists and have cautioned that any government that replaces Assad may be antipathetic to both Israel and the United States.

This report seems awfully convenient for the administration. Antipathy for the United States and Israel was rarely cited by the MSM as a reason to be cautious of the Muslim Brotherhood. Despite reasons for skepticism, that doesn’t mean that the charges against the rebels are wrong. But according to another report:

Del Ponte, a former Swiss attorney-general who also served as prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, gave no details as to when or where sarin may have been used.

Right now there’s way too little information to bolster the U.N.’s claim.

The New York Times reports Attacks Fuel Debate Over U.S.-Led Effort:

But President Obama has been reluctant to follow the course he took in that case, aides say, partly because of concerns about the strength of air defenses in Syria and partly because the opposition forces include so many jihadist elements.

So far, Mr. Obama has said he would intervene only if it turned out that Syria had used chemical weapons — the current investigation into the use of sarin gas focuses on Aleppo and Damascus, the capital, in March — or if such use was imminent. Now, one adviser to Mr. Obama said, “it’s become pretty clear to everyone that Assad is calculating whether those weapons might save him.”

The result is that the narrow goal of preventing the use of chemical weapons is beginning to merge with the broader goals of toppling Mr. Assad and seeking an end to a carnage that is already far greater than what took place in Libya, when Mr. Obama justified American intervention on humanitarian grounds.

Sen. McCain has been pushing for a more active American role against Assad. Now that Israel apparently has successfully breached Syria’s air defenses, it appears that the risks of such intervention are lower.

The New York Times is continuing its effort to provide cover for President Obama’s failure to act decisively in Syria. Yesterday the paper reported Off-the-Cuff Obama Line Put U.S. in Bind on Syria:

The origins of this dilemma can be traced in large part to a weekend last August, when alarming intelligence reports suggested the besieged Syrian government might be preparing to use chemical weapons. After months of keeping a distance from the conflict, Mr. Obama felt he had to become more directly engaged.

In a frenetic series of meetings, the White House devised a 48-hour plan to deter President Bashar al-Assad of Syria by using intermediaries like Russia and Iran to send a message that one official summarized as, “Are you crazy?” But when Mr. Obama emerged to issue the public version of the warning, he went further than many aides realized he would.

The effect of the article appeared to be to give the President some room to go back on his red line statement. As Tom Maguire wrote (h/t memeorandum):

Obama lost the nuance? The deepest thinker and shiniest star on the Presidential Christmas tree? C’mon, he knows more than his advisors. They should be listening to him, and clearly they have missed the nuance.

It’s interesting, not to say unnerving, that today (if not back when he said it) the Times can find senior officials distancing themselves from the president. Who wants to board a ship the rats are abandoning?

Unnamed presidential advisers are claiming that the President strayed from his talking points. It suggests that the President’s advisers are either distancing themselves from him, or giving him the opportunity to back down from his threat.

The problem isn’t that President Obama plans or doesn’t plan to act against Syria. The problem is that he very clearly set a red line, quite possibly thinking that it would never be reached. Now he’s (or at least his supporters in and out of the administration are) looking to distance himself from that ultimatum. This makes him look rash and feckless.



3) Does the “U” in UN stannd for useless?

I noted that Colum Lynch reported:

and responded:

Lynch tweeted back:

I don’t know if Lynch is in agreement with the Secretary General or not. Does Moon really believe implicitly referring to Security Council resolutions makes them, somehow, effective?

After the first Israeli strikes, the New York Times reported Israel Targeted Iranian Missiles in Syria Attack:

Hezbollah is now believed to have more missiles and fighters than it had before its 2006 battle with Israel, when Hezbollah missiles forced a third of Israel’s population into shelters and hit as far south as Haifa. A Pentagon official said in 2010 that Hezbollah’s arsenal was believed to include a small number of Fateh-110s, and additional shipments would add to Hezbollah’s striking power.

A security council resolution has been violated with impunity over the last seven years and all the Secretary General can do is ask for restraint all around? If the resolution was obeyed by Iran, Syria and Hezbollah, Israel would not now be acting. Moon, asking for restraint, is admitting his organization’s impotence! Shouldn’t he be thanking Israel for enforcing the resolution?

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But let’s concentrate on Israel’s attack on Syria

Posted on 05/06/2013 by Meryl Yourish

Sunni Muslims are fleeing Alawite death squads in Syria, which are targeting entire cities.

Sunni Muslims sought safety after a second village in two days was destroyed by death squads apparently bent on ethnic cleansing.

Relatives of the dead in the Sunni Muslim villages of Bayda and Ras al-Nabaah told The Sunday Telegraph that scores, possibly hundreds of men, women and children had been killed by Alawite militias that attacked the villages on Thursday and Friday. Pictures posted online showed piles of disfigured bodies, including women and young children.

But let’s concentrate on Israel’s attack on Syria.

They are massacring men, women, and children.

As the first details of what happened in Bayda on Thursday began to emerge, one Syrian woman with family in the village told The Daily Telegraph: “My aunt and uncle were stabbed to death in the stomach and their necks were slashed. Their three children were slaughtered in the neck.”

Government troops backed by local Alawite militiamen shelled the village on Thursday morning before overpowering rebel fighters and storming into its streets.

But let’s concentrate on Israel’s attack on Syria.

Israeli PM visits China after Syria strikes
Israeli raids in Syria highlight Arab conundrum
Israeli PM leaves for China after Syria strikes
Israeli strike kills 42 Syrian soldiers: monitor
A look at reasons for Israeli airstrikes in Syria
Israeli airstrikes on Syria prompt threats, anger

Because that’s the problem in Syria. Israel.

The death toll in Syria is likely approaching 70,000 – up almost 10,000 from the start of the year – and civilians are paying the price for the U.N. Security Council’s lack of action to end the conflict, the U.N. human rights chief said on Tuesday.

So let’s concentrate on Israel’s attack on Syria.

Posted in Israeli Double Standard Time, Lebanon, Media Bias, Syria | 1 Comment

Mideast Media Sampler – 05/05/2013

Posted on 05/05/2013 by Soccerdad

Syria Explodes

Professor Jacobson at Legal Insurrection (and others) has previously reported on two Israeli strikes: one against Hezbollah and one against Syria.

What’s going on?

After the first attack Israel was insistent that it had not entered Syrian airspace. Whatever considerations were in play then, were, apparently, no longer operational by Sunday.

The Washington Post reports Syrian report: Israel bombs outskirts of Damascus for second time in recent days:

The official Syrian Arab News Agency said that a scientific research facility had been struck by an Israeli missile, and a banner displayed on state television said the attack was intended to relieve pressure on rebel forces in the embattled eastern suburbs. The banner was accompanied by martial music and footage of Syrian soldiers marching, descending from helicopters and firing rockets, indicating that Syria may not shrug off the assault, as it has with some Israeli strikes in the past.

“The Israeli aggression comes at a time when our armed forces are scoring victories against terrorism and al-Qaeda gangs,” state television said.

A subsequent video suggested further strikes were taking place in the same location, although the number was unclear.

The New York Times reports Israel Targeted Iranian Missiles In Syria Attack:

If true, it would be the second Israeli airstrike in Syria in two days and the third this year.

The airstrike that Israeli warplanes carried out in Syria overnight on Thursday was directed at a shipment of advanced surface-to-surface missiles from Iran that Israel believed was intended for Hezbollah, American officials said Saturday. That strike was aimed at disrupting the arms pipeline that runs from Iran via Syria to Hezbollah, the militant Lebanese organization, and it highlighted the mounting stakes for Hezbollah and Israel as Syria becomes more chaotic.

Iran and Hezbollah have both backed President Bashar al-Assad in the Syrian civil war, now in its third year. But as fighting in Syria escalates, they also have a powerful interest in expediting the delivery of advanced weapons to Hezbollah in case Mr. Assad loses his grip on power and Syria ceases to be an effective channel for funneling weapons from Iran.

Israel has apparently been silent officially except to talk about the strikes in the most general terms.

Back in February, Tony Badran reported on the contours of a secret war that Israel was carrying out against Iran.

At a conference in Jerusalem on Monday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made clear that Israel would not allow “chemical and strategic” weapons from Syria to reach Hezbollah. Netanyahu’s concern over strategic weapons in the hands of Israel’s enemies is well-founded. Since the 2006 war, Iran has aggressively moved to bolster the capabilities of Hezbollah in Lebanon, as well as those of its allies in Gaza. This effort has centered primarily, though by no means exclusively, around supplying Tehran’s assets with long-range rockets and ballistic missiles. The deployment of these weapons in Lebanon and Gaza would enable Iran, through Hezbollah, Hamas, and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, to strike at any city in Israel, not to mention its infrastructure and sensitive facilities, including offshore gas platforms.
…
According to Hezbollah lore, senior Iranian, Syrian, and Hezbollah leaders made a decision following the 2006 war to focus on developing their missile and long-range rocket capabilities. They also decided to implement these measures in Gaza. As Qassem Qassir chronicled in a story last year, Hezbollah’s military commander, Imad Mughniyeh was at the heart of this effort, in partnership with Syrian and Palestinian military officials. Behind it all, of course, stood Iran.

Once this strategy became apparent to Israeli intelligence, it began targeting this Iranian network of strategic weapons transfers, assembly and distribution centers, and the top people running the operation. The spate of assassinated Iranian, Syrian, Hezbollah, and Hamas commanders since 2008 were directly involved in the Iranian network supplying strategic weapons to Tehran’s assets in the Levant.

Simon Shapira argues that there’s more going on here than a growing threat to Israel. Rather it reflects Iran’s Plans to Take Over Syria. (This article was published May 2, before the Israeli strikes.):

It appears that Hizbullah’s ongoing involvement in Syria, and the extent of this involvement, formed the main issue on the agenda during Nasrallah’s visit to Tehran. The more time passes, the more Iran appears to regard Syria as a lynchpin of its Middle Eastern policy, in general, and of leading the jihad and the Islamic resistance to Israel, in particular. Hizbullah’s inclusion in the armed struggle in Syria is intended first and foremost to serve the Iranian strategy, which has been setting new goals apart from military assistance to the Syrian regime. Iran already seems to be looking beyond the regime’s survivability and preparing for a reality where it will have to operate in Syria even if Assad falls. Even before recent events in Syria, observers in the Arab world have been warning for years about growing evidence of “Iranian expansionism.”5

An important expression of Syria’s centrality in Iranian strategy was voiced by Mehdi Taaib, who heads Khamenei’s think tank. He recently stated that “Syria is the 35th district of Iran and it has greater strategic importance for Iran than Khuzestan [an Arab-populated district inside Iran]. By preserving Syria we will be able to get back Khuzestan, but if we lose Syria we will not even be able to keep Tehran.”6 Significantly, Taaib was drawing a comparison between Syria and a district that is under full Iranian sovereignty. What was also clear from his remarks was that Iran cannot afford to lose Syria.

The Tower has a similar take.

As noted Iranian missiles have been the targets of the Israeli attacks. Also of concern to Israel are chemical weapons. Apparently Syrian chemical weapons are of concern too. Eli Lake reports:

The judgment comes from top U.S. military commanders and is supported by recent intelligence community assessments, according to three U.S. officials who work closely on Syrian intelligence matters. At the heart of the concern is that the Syrian military has transferred more and more of its stock of sarin and mustard gas from storage sites to trucks where they are being moved around the country. While U.S. intelligence agencies first saw reports that Syria was moving the weapons last year, the process has accelerated since December, according to these officials. Also worrisome, said two of the officials, is intelligence from late last year that says the Syrian Scientific Research Center—an entity responsible for Syria’s chemical-weapons stockpile—has begun to train irregular militias loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in how to use the chemical munitions.

The assessment that Syria is moving large amounts of its chemical weapons around the country on trucks means that if Obama wanted to send in U.S. soldiers to secure Syria’s stockpiles, his top generals and intelligence analysts doubt such a mission would have much success, according to the three officials. “We’ve lost track of lots of this stuff,” one U.S. official told The Daily Beast. “We just don’t know where a lot of it is.”

The large-scale movement of weapons, if it is in fact occurring, would violate one of Obama’s earliest declared red lines concerning Syria. Last August he said, “We have been very clear to the Assad regime, but also to other players on the ground, that a red line for us is, we start seeing a whole bunch of weapons moving around or being utilized.”

It appears more and more that Syria has crossed President Obama’s red lines without an American response. After the first Israeli strikes, the New York Times reported in Off-the-Cuff Obama Line Put U.S. in Bind on Syria:

The evolution of the “red line” and the nine months that followed underscore the improvisational nature of Mr. Obama’s approach to one of the most vexing crises in the world, all the more striking for a president who relishes precision. Palpably reluctant to become entangled in another war in the Middle East, and well aware that most Americans oppose military action, the president has deliberately not explained what his “red line” actually is or how it would change his calculus.

“I’m not convinced it was thought through,” said Barry Pavel, a former defense policy adviser to Mr. Obama who is now at the Atlantic Council. “I’m worried about the broader damage to U.S. credibility if we make a statement and then come back with lawyerly language to get around it.”

While Mr. Pavel favors a more active response to the killings in Syria, others worry that Mr. Obama may have trapped himself into going too far. Zbigniew Brzezinski, a national security adviser under President Jimmy Carter, told Bloomberg Television that military involvement in Syria would risk “a large-scale disaster for the United States.”

Still President Obama supported Israel’s right to defend itself. The Tower notes:

President Barack Obama today reiterated support for actions that Israel is taking to maintain its long-established red line against the transfer of Syrian advanced weapons to terrorist groups. His statements were in reference to reports that Israel on Friday struck a Syrian missile shipment. They come amid reports that Jerusalem on Sunday conducted additional strikes against Syrian military infrastructure.

The Sunday strikes reportedly targeted Iranian weapons bound for the Iran-backed, Lebanese-based terror group Hezbollah. An American official told the New York Times that the weapons were Iranian-made surface-to-surface Fateh-110 missiles. Fateh-110?s are mobile, highly accurate, solid-fuel missiles that have sufficient range to strike deep into Israel from southern Lebanon, including into Tel Aviv.

The Israelis have long maintained that Jerusalem would act to prevent either the transfer of advanced weapons to allies of the embattled Bashar al-Assad regime or the seizure of those weapons by opposition groups seeking the regime’s overthrow.

Without commenting on the credibility of reports linking Israel to Friday’s strikes, Obama emphasized that such strikes are justified.

By the way, there’s still a civil war going on in Syria.

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Attack on Syria

Posted on 05/05/2013 by Meryl Yourish

Israel bombed Syria twice in the last few days. The last time took out a huge weapons depot, reportedly long-range missiles that were going to be transferred to Hezbollah. There are many videos on YouTube of the secondary explosions.J.E. Dyer has one of the best explanations I’ve found. Ynet has the best collection of videos. The Iron Dome has been deployed on the border with Syria. And in a display of chutzpah, the country that is breaking UNSC resolution 1701 on a daily basis is going to complain to the UN that Israel is breaking something or other. That’s gall: Complaining that by destroying weapons that violate UNSCR 1701, Israel is breaking UNSCR 1701.

Lebanese Daily Star website quoted caretaker FM Adnan Mansour as saying “such aggression which represents a blatant violation of Lebanon’s sovereignty and international resolution including UNSCR 1701.”

Yes, UNIFIL is doing such an awesome job. Let’s let them administer Jerusalem! (/sarc)

Of course the AP has its usual schizophrenic reporting. Here’s one paragraph early on in a story about the bombing:

Israel believes Hezbollah has restocked its arsenal with tens of thousands of rockets and missiles, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has repeatedly stated the Jewish state would be prepared to take military action to prevent the Islamic militant group from obtaining new weapons that could upset the balance of power.

Note that bolded part. Now, later on in the same article.

After Hezbollah’s military infrastructure was badly hit during the 2006 war, the group was rearmed by Iran and Syria — with Tehran sending the weapons and Damascus providing the overland supply route to Lebanon.

You see what they do? They make the reader doubt the facts early on in the story, and then affirm them far down in the article. And then bolster the facts with quotes from experts.

“This is a very sophisticated network of Iranian arms, Syrian collection, storage, distribution and transportation to Hezbollah,” said Salman Shaikh, director of The Brookings Doha Center and in 2007 involved in U.N. weapons monitoring in Lebanon.

Shaikh said Israel had detailed knowledge of weapons shipments to Hezbollah at the time and most likely has good intelligence now. “The Israelis are watching like hawks to see what happens to these weapons,” he said.

What the hell, AP? What the hell?

In the meantime, Reuters goes into detail about what weapons were bombed and how.

A shipment of Fateh 110 missiles manufactured by Iran and meant for the Hezbollah was the target of the Israeli Air Force in an attack on Damascus International Airport on Friday, and a later attack at a military research facility north of the capital city, said Western intelligence sources Sunday morning, following the second strike.

That puts Tel Aviv and points south at risk of a warhead that can carry half a ton of explosives.

President Obama said that Israel has the right to make sure weapons don’t fall into terrorists’ hands.

“What I have said in the past and I continue to believe is that the Israelis justifiably have to guard against the transfer of advanced weaponry to terrorist organizations like Hezbollah.

So much for the assholes with the “We are all Hezbollah” signs during the Lebanon war seven years ago. Also, you know, I think the president has figured out who is true friends in the Middle East are.

Posted in Israel, Lebanon, Media Bias, Middle East, Syria, The One, United Nations | Comments Off

Back on track

Posted on 05/04/2013 by Meryl Yourish

Did a lot of writing this week, culminating with finishing up the early chapters today. I’m shooting for finishing this summer and releasing book 2 in early autumn, hopefully no later than September (which may technically be summer, but we’ll see).

I’ll be back to writing as often as possible, and when it comes to a choice between the blog and the book, well, the book always wins.

But don’t worry, Soccer Dad isn’t going anywhere, so there will still be frequent updates even if I get too busy. He’s such a great co-blogger, even when he’s not co-blogging anymore.

Posted in Writing | 1 Comment

Mideast Media Sampler – 05/03/2013

Posted on 05/03/2013 by Soccerdad

1) The innocence of the Obama administration

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on September 14, 2012:

This has been a difficult week for the State Department and for our country. We’ve seen the heavy assault on our post in Benghazi that took the lives of those brave men. We’ve seen rage and violence directed at American embassies over an awful internet video that we had nothing to do with. It is hard for the American people to make sense of that because it is senseless, and it is totally unacceptable.

Mr. Romney’s rhetoric on embassy attacks is a discredit to his campaign – Washington Post editorial – September 12, 2012

At a news conference, Mr. Romney claimed that the administration had delivered “an apology for America’s values.” In fact, it had done no such thing: Religious tolerance, as much as freedom of speech, is a core American value. The movie that provoked the protests, which mocks the prophet Muhammad and portrays Muslims as immoral and violent, is a despicable piece of bigotry; it was striking that Mr. Romney had nothing to say about such hatred directed at a major religious faith.

What’s striking is how incurious the Washington Post was about what really happened.

As Barry Rubin noted a day later:

What happened in Libya has nothing to do with an obscure video from California, it has everything to do with the question of which side rules Libya. And the relationship between the attacks and the September 11 anniversary was meant to show that the Libyan terrorists supported September 11 and wanted to continue that battle.

The date of the embassy attacks, including Benghazi, should have told anyone with a modicum of understanding that the attacks were premeditated and not the result of some uncontrollable rage against a video.

There a few news stories out about Benghazi that ask and answer and analyze the question of what the administration knew and when did it know it.

Stephen Hayes writes about The Benghazi Talking Points in the Weekly Standard:

The White House provided the emails to members of the House and Senate intelligence committees for a limited time and with the stipulation that the documents were available for review only and would not be turned over to the committees. The White House and committee leadership agreed to that arrangement as part of a deal that would keep Republican senators from blocking the confirmation of John Brennan, the president’s choice to run the CIA. If the House report provides an accurate and complete depiction of the emails, it is clear that senior administration officials engaged in a wholesale rewriting of intelligence assessments about Benghazi in order to mislead the public. The Weekly Standard sought comment from officials at the White House, the State Department, and the CIA, but received none by press time. Within hours of the initial attack on the U.S. facility, the State Department Operations Center sent out two alerts. The first, at 4:05 p.m. (all times are Eastern Standard Time), indicated that the compound was under attack; the second, at 6:08 p.m., indicated that Ansar al Sharia, an al Qaeda-linked terrorist group operating in Libya, had claimed credit for the attack. According to the House report, these alerts were circulated widely inside the government, including at the highest levels. The fighting in Benghazi continued for another several hours, so top Obama administration officials were told even as the fighting was taking place that U.S. diplomats and intelligence operatives were likely being attacked by al Qaeda-affiliated terrorists. A cable sent the following day, September 12, by the CIA station chief in Libya, reported that eyewitnesses confirmed the participation of Islamic militants and made clear that U.S. facilities in Benghazi had come under terrorist attack. It was this fact, along with several others, that top Obama officials would work so hard to obscure.

CNN is reporting:

On September 10 — at least 18 hours before the attack — al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri, in a video timed for the anniversary of 9/11, called for attacks on Americans in Libya to avenge the death of al-Libi.

In March, Libyan authorities detained a man called Faraj al-Shibli in Libya on suspicion of links to the attack, according to several officials. The FBI was able to interview him in the presence of Libyan officials, according to one Libyan source. It appears al-Shibli was detained after returning from a trip to Pakistan, sources said.

It remains unclear exactly whether al-Shibli was present at the U.S. compound at the time of the attack. It’s also unclear whether his detention is likely to lead to charges in connection with the attack. Investigators have learned that al-Shibli has had contact with the Yemen-based al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula as well as al Qaeda members in Pakistan, sources said.

This doesn’t make any charges, as Hayes does, about what the administration knew at the time. Still it shows that this wasn’t a spontaneous demonstration.

Finally, Secretary Clinton was exonerated by a State Department review. Now that report is coming under scrutiny.

The IG’s office notified the department of the “special review” on March 28, according to Doug Welty, the congressional and public affairs officer of the IG’s office.

This disclosure marks a significant turn in the ongoing Benghazi case, as it calls into question the reliability of the blue-ribbon panel that then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton convened to review the entire matter. Until the report was concluded, she and all other senior Obama administration officials regularly refused to answer questions about what happened in Benghazi.

But State Department spokesman Patrick Ventrell disputed the characterization of the review, saying it is “simply false” to assert the panel is being investigated.

At some point you have to ask when will a tipping point be reached with Hillary Clinton’s reputation?

2) The world’s most incompetent ethnic cleansing

AP reports Abandoned by parents, disabled Gaza baby lives with grandfather in Israeli hospital (h/t GS):

Born in Gaza with a rare genetic disease, Mohammed’s hands and feet were amputated because of complications from his condition, and the 3 ½-year-old carts about in a tiny red wheelchair. His parents abandoned him, and the Palestinian government won’t pay for his care, so he lives at the hospital with his grandfather.

“There’s no care for this child in Gaza, there’s no home in Gaza where he can live,” said the grandfather, Hamouda al-Farra.

“He can’t open anything by himself, he can’t eat or take down his pants. His life is zero without help,” he said at the Edmond and Lily Safra Children’s Hospital, part of the Tel Hashomer complex in the Israeli city of Ramat Gan.

The article focuses on the problem of the handicapped among the Palestinians and, how, in some way their treatment is improving. The story of Mohammed, though, is the focus of the article.

Posted in Israel | Tagged , | 2 Comments

Fifteen years

Posted on 05/03/2013 by Meryl Yourish

It’s been fifteen years since I quit smoking.

Now, if only I could get rid of the weight I’ve put on since I quit…

Oh, well. Working on it.

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