Airborne Combat Engineer

Israel preparing to knock out Syrian missiles?

Speaking at Israel's Institute for National Security Studies, Maj.-Gen. Eyal Ben-Reuven, who served as deputy commander of Israel's northern forces during last summer's war in Lebanon, said that the army is “preparing itself for an all-out war, and this is a major change in the military's working premise” following the 34-day conflict with Hizballah that many Israelis feel their nation failed to win.

The general said that when war breaks out, Syria will be prepared to suffer mass military and civilian casualties, while at the same time playing on Israel's sensitivity to civilian losses by striking Israel's home front with as many missiles as possible.

Syria “will try to hit Israel's home front in order to win diplomatic gains in peace talks that will follow, and also cause another split in Israeli society,” Israel National News quoted Ben-Reuven as saying.

In order to deny Syria this victory, Ben-Reuven said the Israeli army is training for a swift and overwhelming invasion of Syria “to knock out the areas from where missiles are launched against Israel as quickly as possible.”

Israel Today

Does Israel remember how to conduct a six-day war?

Why would it announce it in advance? Doesn't that take away the element of surprise?

Israel, Syria agree on peace terms?

In a series of secret meetings in Europe between September 2004 and July 2006, Syrians and Israelis formulated understandings for a peace agreement between Israel and Syria.

[AE, Haaretz, 16JAN07]

Minor problem: all sides deny and say the story is false: the Syrians, the current Israeli government, and former Prime Minister Sharon’s bureau chief.

[Pajamas Media, 16JAN07]

Denying anything about secret negotiations is SOP, so we just don't know.

Rumbling, stumbling, and bumbling to a good result

"It was the hugely ambitious project of the Bush administration to transform the entire Middle East by remaking Iraq into an irresistible model of prosperous democracy. Having failed in that worthy purpose, another, more prosaic result has inadvertently been achieved: divide and rule, the classic formula for imperial power on the cheap. The ancient antipathy between Sunni and Shiite has become a dynamic conflict, not just within Iraq but across the Middle East, and key protagonists on each side seek the support of American power. Once the Bush administration realizes what it has wrought, it will cease to scramble for more troops that can be sent to Iraq, because it has become pointless to patrol and outpost a civil war, while a mere quarter or less of the troops already there are quite enough to control the outcome. And that is just the start of what can now be achieved across the region with very little force, and some competent diplomacy.

The Iraq war has indeed brought into existence a New Middle East, in which Arab Sunnis can no longer gleefully disregard American interests because they need help against the looming threat of Shiite supremacy, while in Iraq at the core of the Arab world, the Shia are allied with the U.S. What past imperial statesmen strove to achieve with much cunning and cynicism, the Bush administration has brought about accidentally. But the result is exactly the same."

[Edward N. Luttwak, WSJ, 14JAN07]

Very interesting, and worth the read. Perhaps we are winnng, after all.

Don't know if this is the right way to look at it, but any analysis which puts things in a good light is refreshing.

Israel has plans to destroy Iran's nuke facilities

ISRAEL has drawn up secret plans to destroy Iran’s uranium enrichment facilities with tactical nuclear weapons.

Two Israeli air force squadrons are training to blow up an Iranian facility using low-yield nuclear “bunker-busters”, according to several Israeli military sources.

Under the plans, conventional laser-guided bombs would open “tunnels” into the targets. “Mini-nukes” would then immediately be fired into a plant at Natanz, exploding deep underground to reduce the risk of radioactive fallout.

“As soon as the green light is given, it will be one mission, one strike and the Iranian nuclear project will be demolished,” said one of the sources.

[Times Online, 07 JAN 2007]

Military planners develop plans. Lots of them. The fact that Israel has such a plan does not mean it would ever use it. Unfortunately, Iran will probably use this to justify its need for nuclear weapons.

Carter consultant bails

Professor Stein of Emory University  is apparently terminating his association with the Carter Center, solely as a result of Carter's new book, Palestine: Peace, Not Apartheid, stating:

"President Carter's book on the Middle East, a title too inflammatory to even print, is not based on unvarnished analyses; it is replete with factual errors, copied materials not cited, superficialities, glaring omissions, and simply invented segments."

Scott, Powerline, 05 DEC 2006

Underneath that benevolent and unbiased demeanor "Jimma" projects is an biased agenda.

Strike before Iran gets air defenses?

[LINK] 4 Mile Creek [13 MAR 2005] via Woody's News

The timetable for a strike [by Israel] may not depend upon when Iran may become nuclear capable.  Instead, a strike may end up being based on when Iran is able to protect their nuclear facilities.  Currently, Iranian Air Defenses are not capable of defending against a well-trained air force.  But the Iranians are importing new air defense weapons, and have been in talks for years with the Russians in an effort to build a new command-and-control system for their air defense forces.  Should they start showing any real progress towards a functioning, well-coordinated air defense, the Israelis may decide to go ahead with an attack no matter how close they are to making a nuke.

Interesting, and still plausible, even though it's almost a year old. Thanks for linking it to the hitching post, Woody.

With Iran within a year or two of having an operational 400-mile IRBM (see earlier A-C-E post), Israel may be approaching the point where it feels compelled to pre-emptively strike.

Iran threatens to give US "pain"

[LINK] George Jahn, AP

Iran threatened the United States with "harm and pain" Wednesday if the U.S. tries to use the U.N. Security Council - which has the power to impose sanctions - as a lever to punish Tehran for its suspect nuclear program.

Washington warned that Tehran has enough nuclear material for up to 10 atomic bombs.

If they are threatening us now, just imagine what they might say if and when they have the bomb and a delivery system.

Jordan's king gives Pres. Bush credit

Reuters (via  Say Anything) quotes Jordan's King as saying (in an interview on ABC news):

"I think if the president had not started the process of getting reform in people's minds, we would have been much more complacent. But because there was outside pressure, people had to look in the mirror and think of how to move forward."

"What have the Americans ever done for us?"

Gerard Baker has an amusing articles in the Times Online

He reminds us of the scene in Monty Python’s Life of Brian when Reg, aka John Cleese, the leader of the People’s Front of Judea, is trying to whip up anti-Roman sentiment among his team of slightly hesitant commandos.  After he asked what the Romans have ever done for them, the troops name a number of things. To which he replies:

“All right, but apart from the sanitation, the medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, a fresh water system, and public health, what have the Romans ever done for us?”

Baker suggests the left's analogy to that regarding current events:

“All right, all right. But apart from liberating 50 million people in Iraq and Afghanistan, undermining dictatorships throughout the Arab world, spreading freedom and self-determination in the broader Middle East and moving the Palestinians and the Israelis towards a real chance of ending their centuries-long war, what have the Americans ever done for us?”

(found via Woody's News & Views, thanks to his trackback to the A-C-E hitching post)

Woody's blog is now linked under FEATURED BLOGS (where I put new blogs of interest) in the left sidebar, as recommend reading.

The Hitching Post (first A-C-E post every AM) is a great way to find like-minded blogs. Just wish more blogsters would avail themselves of it. It's only a few days old, so maybe they will in time.

NY Times now hedging its bets

The Cranky Neocon was cheered up this AM by a NY Times article entitled "For Bush, No Boasts, but a Taste of Vindication" (registration req'd).

Nobody wants to get caught way out in left field when the game winning ball is hit deep into right field, so even the left-leaning MSM is printing these "what if" and "maybe" articles, just in case they were wrong. They are springing up like daffodils in the South.