Thanks, feel free to shut up now.

In the nobody cares what you have to say department the unelected multilateral Spaniard is king..

European Union Foreign Policy Chief Javier Solana on Friday issued a harsh criticism of the management of peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians since the Annapolis Conference, saying that from the beginning the talks were carried out far too slowly.

In an interview with Haaretz after his arrival Friday for a tour of Israel and the Palestinian territories, Solana expressed doubts over whether a deal could be completed by the end of the year, saying that the longer the sides wait to go forward with talks, the less they are likely to succeed.

“Because time is shorter, it will more difficult to do,” Solana said in regard to the talks, adding “I think we have to maintain the momentum.”

Do you know what seemingly lacks urgency in my eyes Mr. Solana? Disarming the Hezbollah and preventing them from taking over Lebanon. You know what else seems to lack any urgency on your part Mr. Solana? The removal of the Hamas terrorist government in Gaza. These are pressing issues in Israel in case Mr. Solana didn’t notice.

Nice Work there jacko

Since Solana was such a driving force in trying to arrange a ‘cease fire’ with Hezbollah terrorists in the 2006 conflict, instead of arranging to ’cease their fire’ permanently; or since he was also a driving force in sticking his toy UN soldiers to buffer and protect Hezbollah so they could operate & arm with impunity - one might surmise we could care less what he has to say.

You know what else is urgent Mr. Eu? The Iranians and their mad drive to nuclear weapons. Solana was the last man to speak to the Iranians on the phone after they rejected the latest international package of incentives, his response seemed to be that his talks were satisfactory, a position contrary to just about everyone else save the commie Putin. Funny how these Peace Talks are ‘urgent’ but the threat to annihilate Israel with WMD is not so much so..

Hope you enjoy your tour, try not to choke on a falafel ball while you are here. Can anyone tell I’m a BIG fan? Just checking.

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Ronen Bergman a local terrorism expert and author in Israel has a brief interview translated over at YNET. In typical gruff Sabra style he lays out some of his opinions on the Iranian nuclear issue, though none of it is groundbreaking stuff. Some of the key points of his opinion include;

• Israel has the means to hit Iran’s programs
• Israel would seek to delay those programs not destroy them utterly
• Israel  believes that S300 Russian anti aircraft missile systems are already in Iran
• Israel would benefit greatly from some American assistance in striking these programs

On the issue of the S300, Jpost is also carrying a report that the willy Croats have already themselves sold off their now no longer in use S300 systems to the Iranians. What is interesting about the S300 issue is that Israeli intel has quietly hinted this is indeed the case and that the missiles are already probably deployed, what makes this issue interesting is the divergence between this opinion and that of the USA.

Sec Def Gates himself adamantly opposed to striking Iran, has issued statements to the effect that no S300 systems have been sold / delivered to Iran. When Israel raised eyebrows about such definitive statements the Pentagon became slightly more mild on the topic, to the effect that the s300 issue was being ‘monitored’ by the US in an ongoing manner, and they have again reaffirmed on the issue. Frankly, US intelligence has been lacking - unaware of the Syrian nuclear program and a great many other developments and things going on around the world.

I’d say they are unaware because they have chosen to be, in order to avoid the inconvenience of coping with realities in direct contravention to long standing US national security policy. Worse, any Russian assurances given previously regarding issues like the S300 or nuclear fuel and assistance to Iran are now moot in light of the Georgian rift and new cold war developing between Russia & the USA. The Americans under Secretary Rice & Sec. Def. Gates have been outplayed on every single front across the Middle East, Asia and now Europe in a most embarrassing way. Aside from General Petraeus’ serious heroics rallying US strategy and forces in Iraq, American policy everywhere else has pretty much collapsed.

Endless stalling, dithering

The unstable political climate in both the US & Israel due to elections and government changeovers has not helped. One gets the feeling everyone is waiting around for someone else to deal with these matters, in Israel but most especially in the US despite the fact there is no one else. The only people not waiting around are the Iranians. Aided by the Russians they are spinning centrifuges for Uranium enrichment, and now are preparing to send the Bushehr Plutonium reactor online. That is a full dual track, two full nuclear programs Uranium & Plutonium based that are speeding ahead with no one in sight to stop them. The IAEA, who’s task it is to ensure the multilateral negotiation based efforts and monitoring systems to prevent strikes, as well as theoretically prevent Iranian weaponization has fallen nearly totally silent.

The Sanctions efforts for the diplomacy push also appear to be quite ineffective. It’s quite a mess, the kind of mess you make when leaders stop leading. Olmert & Bush are both fairly guilty in this regard, both of them stopped leading a long time ago and it has nothing to do with upcoming elections in either country. The notion that lightweights like Barack Obama or Tzipi Livni can roll back these realities with their good looks and comforting words is comical. One hopes that the IAF and the US Navy / Air Force have been somewhat more responsible in these matters until now in preparation, as the Iranians have been preparing, running military  exercises and speeding their missile programs ahead at breakneck pace.

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That’s gotta be good for at least another 25,000 missiles from Syria.. (Updated below)

I was getting worried for a bit there the ‘international forces’ might just pickup & leave handing everything back to Hezbollah, thankfully Hezbollah and Syria have now taken all of Lebanon over so this extension will be especially handy. Don’t look now (UNIFIL sure isn’t) but apparently the Lebanon Syria border is totally open and unmonitored according to a UN inspection team dispatched to report on the situation..

Jpost: Security Council renews UNIFIL mandate by 1 year

[...] The report on the Lebanon-Syrian border released Wednesday was commissioned by Ban at the request of the Security Council to assess the implementation of Resolution 1701, passed to halt the Second Lebanon War.

According to the 21-page document, four-wheel-drive vehicles are still crossing from Syria unchecked. Berms or other physical roadblocks are being dismantled or bypassed, and units based at observation posts have failed to enforce regular identity checks of pedestrians or cyclists.

Despite claims that mobile patrols were conducted regularly, the four-person inspection team found no evidence of mobile patrol activity along the border.

Instead, troops were deployed in stationary, military-style observations posts, including in “cross-border areas controlled by Palestinian groups, where it is crucial to maintain efficient control of any movement into Lebanese-controlled areas, as these areas are open to Syria.”

The team also found that the four border security agencies that have been combined into the Common Border Force, which includes the Lebanese Armed Forces, are not sharing information and have not conducted any enforcement operations based on specific intelligence. [...]

Of course, Hezbollah was supposed to disarm, the border was supposed to be monitored and arms smuggling halted, but non of these things have ever been considered never mind implemented. In actuality the Lebanese government has affirmed the right & legitimacy of Hezbollah armed resistance! They now support terrorism, fantastic.

Israel’s attempts to get a chapter 7 applied to the resolution allowing for some actual enforcement? Went nowhere. Seems the consensus was it was better to protect the ‘delicate balance’ in the Lebanese govt than enforce resolution 1701, or 1552 for that matter. Not that it makes any difference, no one in our government is actually doing anything these days anyhow other than worrying about elections, the fact that Hezbollah is building an army and that Iran & Syria are arming large swaths of Lebanon with tens of thousands of missiles is not too much of a concern it seems.

At least ‘The Peace Process’ is on Track

Anyone incidentally hear anything recently from Olmert our Prime Minister? It is as if he was abducted by aliens, he must be vacationing. Thank Gd we have Livni who negotiated this fiasco looking out for our interests..

Assad in Syria is enjoying new found stardom, apparently he is now willing to parlay his hand even more and get not just France to drop any grievances against him, but now the US too! Yup, he has dangled the option of a direct talk with Israel in return for America’s involvement in the process, meaning sanctions et all would evaporate and Syria would be sitting pretty and all he’d have to do is have some coffee with Olmert and then walk away.

Oh Oh, trouble in Shiite paradise: Hezbollah shot down Lebanese military chopper? (Haaretz)

More good news about Hezbollah’s control of Lebanon, armed with sophisticated SAMs now as Israel has been warning? Shooting down aircraft? And of course.. Blaming whom else? Israel..

If this had been an IAF aircraft we might be at war again right now, and while the facts are just coming to light pls don’t mistake for a moment who they thought they might be shooting at. Danger Will Robinson, DANGER!

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Have the Lebanese Totally Lost Their Minds? I Only Ask Because We Ourselves Have That ‘Crazy’ Look in Our Eyes..

After the 2006 Lebanon War, I was fairly convinced that the Olmert / Livni / Peretz duo was the ultimate culmination of weakness as we truly hit all new pinnacles of useless in that endeavour, dropping humanitarian inspired fliers on Lebanon for weeks at a time, warning people we would be coming like a bat out of hell only to never show up.. Invading a few metres here or there, dropping ‘big bombs’ left right & center like a fat guy with a fresh bowl of chili and nowhere to go..

This was truly something else, many Israelis still haven’t absorbed it all - We put the hurt on Hezbollah that’s for certain, they were yelling ‘cease fire!!’ even a few days in. But the UN Resolution before actually coming to any resolution, the US / French led diplomacy, the near total collapse of our PR & Foreign Ministry effort, the UNIFIL slap job, the faux massacres and Arab narrative which dominated the TV screens, and oy.. The 2 year long wait for two boxes containing the mutilated remains of our 2 soldiers in exchange for Samir Kuntar. It boggles the mind.

Not Even King For A Day..

 I would have expected a true adversary to drive home the advantage, squeeze us when we were down on the mat. If Siniora was even half a man with half a brain he would have come out of that like a rock star - Bigger than Obama! Imagine how he could have shafted Hezbollah & Israel at the same time if he had even done the bare minimum. A Speech at the UN demanding peace, demanding Hezbollah disarm, demanding Israel pay for all that ‘aggression’ he accused us of by insisting on neutering us through diplomacy.. The world would have gone bonkos, they would have thrown flowers at his feet! Like magic Rice the sucker would have moved mountains, the French would have folded in like the Vichy Government itself, Syria battered at the time would have walked away like a wounded dog. In Israel he would have galvanized the left and strapped the entire center with them, our media would be running features on his boundless vision! What a leader, if only we had leaders like that they would have said.. Hezbollah itself wouldn’t have stood a chance in the face of the world leader Siniora, nothing gets the Euro trash giddier than forcing Peace with the terrorists, they eat that stuff up.

What would it have cost him? Two boxes with the mutilated remains of our soldiers in it, and he would have been King! He could have seized the rug right out from under Hezbollah who were far from popular despite what CNN might say, he could have raised literally 50 BILLION dollars for Lebanon overnight, enough to buy his vision if needed and it wouldn’t be. The Americans would have airlifted heavy weaponry in to Lebanon that’s how hot Rice and the State Dept. were for Siniora. But Sun Tzu he ain’t. One look at how things have rolled is evidence enough of that, because not only is he not King, he’s not even the court Jester - More like the Hezbollah Page.

In our weakest moment, who would have thought the Lebanese come bearing gifts!?

Truth is Siniora is a wimp, he’s like one of those unnaturally bred chiwawas, more mouse than dog. The March 14th Cedar Revolutionaries? Nothing more than a bunch of Arabs with a fancy Wikipedia entry, push comes to shove they fold like a wet napkin. Talk about failure and they know it, which is why you don’t hear so much as peep from them. When even their ‘great victories’ are failures, I wonder if the Lebanese have truly lost their minds?

 The reason being they gave us a great gift. We ourselves needed a wake up call. Thank Gd it came BEFORE we take on the Hamas, before we take on Iran, and before we finally go back & kick the living daylights out the Lebanese. We’ve done it before, we chased the PLO all the way to Tunis.. That’s another CONTINENT and thanks to Siniora & CO. you can damn well bet we’re going to do it again, this time Hezbollah is going to take it right between the eyes.. Just like Mugniyeh has, just like Suleiman did last week, oh yes they are dropping like flies the Hezbollah playmakers. We’re killing them off, and Nassrallah knows that silly headpiece he wears doesn’t make for very effective camouflage, He’s a Shiite walking death row and his pal Kuntar is not far behind.

Confidence Building Measures

It’s not as if we told the Hezbollah we’d be killing them like this, ok.. So maybe we did, you got me there. It’s not as if we told them not to smuggle any more missiles, and all of a sudden Hezbollah convoys are exploding in Tehran, ok so maybe they are. But, it’s not as if Syria is trying to retake Lebanon and we shot the Chief Syrian Hezbollah Liaison in the head in broad daylight, at the ‘Russian’ port of Tartus yet - Nice touch.

It’s ‘all good’, we’re in ‘dialog’ with the Syrians.. This is how we negotiate peace. We blow up reactors, invade airspace & snap pictures, take out convoys, knock off leaders and obstacles - In the Middle East this is what we call ‘confidence building measures’..

They’re just not the confidence building measures Rice & the PLO like to talk about in roadmaps, more like building up confidence to fly across the middle east and take out Iran’s nuclear program. Now that Hezbollah is a full member of the Lebanese parliament with veto powers yet, now that their government has affirmed Hezbollah’s right for violent resistance, now that the Lebanese have voted not to disarm Hezbollah but to encourage them, this time it’s not a terrorist organization, it’s a full blown terror supporting state - So I’m feeling pretty confident myself..

‘Dear Lebanon, You Are Cruising For A Serious IDF Brusing’.

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FROM THE AWESOME FILES:
Stop selling Iran weapons, or we will embarrass you internationally, show the world you can be rendered defenseless.

The S-300 threatens to complicate Israel’s strike options. The weapons system sold to Iran but not yet believed delivered (pls see posts below for details) is one of the world’s most advanced, and is the primary Russian defensive Anti Air weapon, these batteries ring military installations and even Moscow itself. Iran is hot to trot to get them, believing that they can up their own deterrent factor by making a strike against the Iranian illicit nuclear program all the more difficult.

The US & Israel adamantly oppose the Russian weapons sales, to push home the point it seems Israel has now upped the ante itself, threatening to use in development technologies to show the world the Russian systems can be shut off like a light switch, leaving Russia essentially naked to air attack, and severely compromising the Russian multi billion dollar arms industry in one go.

JPOST Israel warns Russia: We’ll neutralize S-300 if sold to Iran.

If Russia goes through with the sale of its most advanced anti-aircraft missile system to Iran, Israel will use an electronic warfare device now under development to neutralize it and as a result present Russia as vulnerable to air infiltrations, a top defense official has told The Jerusalem Post.

While Russia has denied that it sold the system to Iran, Teheran claimed last year that Moscow was preparing to equip the Islamic Republic with S-300 systems. Iran already has TOR-M1 surface-to-air missiles from Russia.

Mixed media reports have emerged recently regarding the possible delivery of the system to Iran. Two weeks ago Reuters quoted a senior Israeli official who said the system would be delivered to Iran by the end of the year. In response, the Pentagon released a statement rejecting the assessment and saying that the US did not believe Iran would get it in 2008.

According to the Israeli defense official who spoke to the Post, “no one really knows yet if and when Iran will get the system.”

A top IAF officer also said this week that Israel needed to do “everything possible” to prevent the S-300 from reaching the region.

“Russia will have to think real hard before delivering this system to Iran, which is possibly on the brink of conflict with either Israel or the US, since if the system is delivered, an EW [electronic warfare] system will likely be developed to neutralize it, and if that happens it would be catastrophic not only for Iran but also for Russia,” the defense official said.

Neutralization of one of the main components of Russian air defense would be a blow to Russian national security as well as to defense exports. “No country will want to buy the system if it is proven to be ineffective,” the official said. “For these reasons, Russia may not deliver it in the end to Iran.”

In last September’s widely reported Syrian Nuclear Reactor strike, it is believed that the entire Russian supplied Syrian Air Defense Network was disabled by Israel electronically and totally neutralized. The Syrians never even knew IAF warplanes were in their airspace hitting targets deep in Syrian territory, near the Iraqi border. Israel & the United States are both on the cutting edge in electronic warfare, speculation at the time ranged from powerful jamming all the way to a computer virus introduced into the Russian systems.

These comments are not boasts by Israel.. At the time, within 24 hours Russian technicians were spot flown to the scene in Syria, to try & figure out how it was even possible for Israel to so undress the Russian systems, Iran reacted with visible alarm in the media at the apparent fallibility of their own multi-billion dollar Russian supplied Air Defense net, and with good reason.

For detailed information on the Russian weapons, the Syrian strike, and the Iranian connection to both please see the following posts here at the Hashmonean:

Arms Race II: From Russia with Love (aug 23 2007)
Detailing the S-300 capabilities & associated advanced weapons system being sold to Axis powers by Russia.

Classified: Everyone has their eye off the ball (sep 18, 2007)
Early speculation on Iran’s involvement with North Korea, building a nuclear reactor on Syrian territory to provide covert nuclear material to Iran. This has now been widely accepted as exactly what went on, by intelligence circles.

OPERA II?: North Korean nuclear materials given to Iran, Syria?
(sep 12, 2007) The initial breaking news on the strike.

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Iranians Hail Shipment; Nuclear drive full steam ahead.

While we pretend everything is on track regarding the Iranian nuclear threat, the surreal just keeps on trucking. Russia is openly supplying fuel now to power the Bushehr reactor in Iran, a move actively supported by the USA & the EU. In theory this was the big carrot portion of the whole dialog, ‘negotiate carrot & stick policy’.. The big favorable deal was the world would supply Iran with supervised nuclear fuel, that way they would not have to produce their own which is the remaining major component of the fuel cycle remaining, allowing Iran to have all the pieces needed to weaponize a nuke.

Of course, the world has caved to Iran. Now they got their carrot but they have not stopped enriching uranium by any stretch of the imagination. They are laughing all the way home & congratulating themselves on having not only gotten their carrots, but having broken the big stick too! Israeli FM Livni was in Russia yesterday to gravely protest the delivery of fuel to Iran, she was livid. It is hard to explain the waves of shock going through our government right now as the realization dawns that we are going to have to deal with this threat alone, despite the strong statements of President Bush who sadly shares Israel’s deep concerns but is the Lone Ranger these days.

3rd fuel shipment reaches Bushehr plant (JPost)

Iran received a third shipment of nuclear fuel from Russia on Friday for a power plant being constructed in the southern Iranian port of Bushehr, state radio reported. The 11-ton consignment arrived at the Bushehr power plant on Friday morning, and the remainder of the remainder of the fuel will arrive in five separate shipments over the next months, the radio report said. [...]

Teheran heralded the first shipment as a victory, saying it proved its nuclear program was peaceful, not a cover for weapons development as claimed by the US and some of its allies. The US initially opposed Russian participation in building the Bushehr reactor and supplying it with fuel, but reversed its position about a year ago to obtain Moscow’s support for the first set of UN sanctions against Iran.

The United States and Russia have said the supply of nuclear fuel meant Iran had no need to continue its uranium enrichment program - a process that can provide fuel for a reactor or fissile material for a bomb. Iran has agreed with Russia to return the spent fuel to ensure it doesn’t extract plutonium to build a bomb. Iran insisted it would continue enriching uranium because it needed to provide fuel to a 300-megawatt light-water reactor it was building in the southwestern town of Darkhovin.

Iranian officials have said they plan to generate 20,000 megawatts of electricity through nuclear energy in the next two decades. Russia’s decision to begin shipping nuclear fuel to Iran followed a US intelligence report released earlier this month that concluded Tehran had stopped its nuclear weapons program in late 2003 and had not resumed it since. Iran says it never had a weapons program.

Multilateral failure

For all the big talk about the global world, the UN, the IAEA, inspections, negotiations, sanctions, dialog - Years of talk talk talk, all of it ’multilateral’ in nature, the big buzzword is total failure. Bushehr is coming online projected in summer 2008 fuelled by Russia with an American nod, while enrichment in Iran will not cease.

Does the current government in Israel have the steel will to defend this country, or do we dump them right now for elections and put an emergency war coalition in place instead? Further, how much longer will we wait to deal with Gaza, will we wait until we have to inconceivably face all three fronts at the same time? Gaza, Hezbollah, & Iran!?

Stop playing footsie - TAKE HAMAS OUT now. The alternative will be tying Israel’s hands when it will need to act versus Iran and that time is coming soon..

Link Update: Merkel trying to rally the team for ‘unity’ (IranFocus)

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Iranian Nuclear Weapons Unacceptable

via YNET

Israel will not accept a nuclear Iran and all options are being considered in this regard, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Monday during a meeting of the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee. Olmert attended the meeting in order to brief the committee members on the Iranian issue, as well as on the situation on the northern front and on the negotiations on the core issues with the Palestinians.

The Iranian issue was raised during US President George W. Bush’s visit to Israel last week. “Despite what has been said in the US National Intelligence Estimate, Iran was a danger and continues to be a danger. There is room to act in order to remove this danger, and the US is definitely aware of this,” the prime minister said Sunday during the weekly cabinet meeting.

Bush referred to Iran on Sunday as “the world’s leading state sponsor of terror “, and called on the US and its Arab allies to unite in order to confront this threat “before it is too late”. [...]

The kick back and & let others drive this policy days are over.. Having cast his lot in that rickety effort, Olmert seems still stuck in pre National Intel Estimate mentality to Israel’s danger, these bold statements notwithstanding. The USA train has left the station. We need to shift gears, as 2008 is go time for efforts. Be they diplomatic efforts, military or otherwise, they’re are all running of time and steam. Too many words, not enough action.

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From the where do they get this stuff files..

JPOST 

Israel and the US are “on the same page” regarding the gravity of the Iranian nuclear threat and their commitment to thwart it, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s spokesman Mark Regev said Saturday night. [...]

“We have no doubt that the US and Israel are on the same page,” Regev said. “Both countries see the gravity of the threat that a nuclear armed Iran poses - and both are committed to preventing Iranian proliferation.” Regev, without confirming that Israel presented Bush with any new intelligence information, said the discussions “enhanced” the two countries understanding of the situation. [...]

Uh, no offense there Olmert.. But we better start flipping a few pages ahead in this book pretty darn soon, lest none of us be around to actually finish it. Regarding our intel brief for Mr Bush, no smoking gun was presented - But new evidence leaving Israel ‘in no doubt that the Iranians have re-started a weaponization program’ was shown to El Presidente while here was in the Holy Land. As for me personally, you had me at “Israel is the cancer of the Middle East” & “We’re going to wipe Israel from the map” along with “Our plans are for 19 to 20 nuclear reactors, all for peaceful purposes..”

I guess I’m a cheap date.

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The Palestinians, they need billions in aid & the EU is more than glad to comply. This humanitarian effort is most appreciated, though Israelis in general might be more appreciative if the Humanitarian aid trucks weren’t packed with EU packaged sugar actually containing tons of explosives destined for Hamas & Fatah terrorists.

The IDF has intercepted 6.5 tons of humanitarian aid marked as ‘EU sugar’ which actually contains Potassium Nitrate (YNET) - the stuff used to make massive truck bombs like the ones used to attack the World Trade Center in the 90’s, and which brought down the federal building in Oklahoma.

The great peace drive and the international enablers who make it happen - the more murdered Jews the better I guess, I’m waiting for the massive international aid inquiry, the firings & charges against the EU aid workers who are smuggling weapons to terrorists, and the international condemnation..

I’ll no doubt be waiting a VERY long time as the EU response was ‘no comment.’

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