American Attack on Syria Announced by Israel
if sinners entice thee, consent thou not—Proverbs 1:10
"On the Way to the Attack"
Yedio
Yedio
The banner above was the main headline of Yediot Ahronot—the largest paid Hebrew newspaper—on August 26, 2013. The text reads "On the Way to the Attack" and shows images of USA's President Obama and Syria's President Assad.
The article it illustrated wasn't about the ongoing violence in Syria, but one describing the details of an American-British attack on Syria.
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Wagging the Dog*
On April 28, 2013, there was a 4-hour long meeting of the Israeli Cabinet,** which according to official sources was the first one of the new Netanyahu's government to deal with the War in Syria. The decisions taken were not published; however, a significant part of the IDF Intelligence Directorate (AMAN) assessment was published, in an attempt to manipulate public opinion.
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On April 29, much of Aman's proposed plan for an American War on Syria were published by Haaretz, an Israeli newspaper closely related to the Shin Beth. The newspaper cited Brigadier General Ytai Brun, Head of Aman-Research, the most strategic part of this organization.
Understandably, he couldn't speak for the actions of an army belonging to a different country. Yet, even the details published are significant since they are directly related to the survival of 75,000 Americans and millions of people in the Middle East.
The main problem faced by Israel, is that the red-line endlessly cited by Western media, namely the use of chemical weapons, would not be crossed by the Syrian government. Thus, Aman has redefined the issue as "two entwined red-lines." It claims that beyond the use of chemical weapons, there is a second line, the Syrian "lose of control of its chemical weapons depots and production sites." AMAN proposed a massive American ground attack on Syria.
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On April 28, Former Mossad Director Meir Dagan (he recently survived a liver transplant in Belarus, no other country agreed to treat him) said during the Jerusalem Post Annual Conference in New York that Bashar al-Assad didn't sanction the use of chemical weapons. Dagan may have committed many war crimes along the years, but he is not a fool. He understands that the claim that Assad used chemical weapons "doesn't hold water" (Hebrew idiom for a false argument, like a bag full of holes). Yet, the IDF wants an American Holy-Democracy Attack on Syria.
One decade after the Mother of All Battles, Israel is again attempting to wag the dog.*
The Grandmother of All Battles
Obama Options on Syria according to Israel
Damascus is the large city inland, Beirut the largest one by the sea
Did you know? AMAN: Iran, Turkey and Israel fight Egypt
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Unaware of its inconsistency, Yediot Ahronot claimed on the same article that Bashar al-Assad is winning (this is true, seeSyrian-Kurds Exodus = Assad's Victory?) and a few lines later that he "had used chemical weapons out of despair." Any trick is kosher in the attempt to wag the dog into the Grandmother of All Battles.
After thinking that its propaganda had convinced the readers, the newspaper continued by portraying President Obama's options. It used the graphic reproduced above. Let's review what Israel recommends Obama:
1. Air strike on the units that attacked with chemical weapons. Disadvantage: Time is needed to collect intelligence.
2. Air strike on Syrian air force and ballistic missiles units. Disadvantage: Sinking in the Syrian mud.
3. Enforcement of a non-fly area in Syria. Disadvantage: It will not neutralize Syrian artillery (many times stronger than the Israeli).
4. Taking control of chemical weapons depots. Disadvantage: It demands a ground attack and the Americans oppose.
Then the Israeli article, which looks written by the military intelligence, goes on describing the desired attack. Also in this case, it published a very graphical depiction of the event. Here it is:
American-British Attack Desired by Israel
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It marks the main chemical warehouses in Syria, and the American-British forces Israel wants to use in order to destroy them. Cyprus (the British Colonial Empire still owns two air-force bases on the island) and Jordan would provide the military bases needed for air-strikes to be conducted by American F-16 and British Tornado fighters. Tomahawk missiles would be launched by American and British war ships while British Trafalgar class nuclear submarines will fill an undisclosed task.
Most veterans will recognize this as a schematic Order of Battle.
Bashar al-Assad Reacts
These are strange times. An Order of Battle is made public by one side of the conflict before the battle while the other side reacts publicly on the same day. How would Sun Tzu have reacted on this ridicule?
Russian Izvestia published an impressive interview with Bashar al-Assad. Let me just quote a few remarkable sentences:
"From the beginning of the crisis, the USA, the UK, and France have tried to get militarily involved. They tried to change the positions of China and Russia in the UN Security Council, but they failed. They failed to convince the world that this is an intelligent step. They can open a war, but they know neither how long will it be nor to which areas will it expand. They understand that they have no control on that. What is going on in Syria is not a popular revolution, but terror. Western leaders cannot tell their people: 'We enter Syria to support terror.'"
"Failure awaits America as it has happened in all its wars from Vietnam onwards." He is mistaken. The USA utterly defeated Grenada.
"Why Israel opens fire against our forces every time we defeat the terrorists next to the border?"
The claims on the use of chemical weapons by the Syrian Government were defined by Assad as "an insult to the intelligence. It is nonsense. First, they put you on trial and only after they collect evidence.... On Wednesday, we were blamed, and only two days later the USA announced it would start to collect evidence." This is not the first time that the American Government displays a misunderstanding of the term "evidence" (Iran Shows Captured Drone; USA Claims "No Evidence").
Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergey Lavrov has also publicly denied the existence of proofs that Syria had used chemical weapons. The Western mercenaries are the most likely users.
Certain things could not be said openly by Bashar al-Assad; luckily, this diplomatic limitation has been solved eons ago. Halef al-Maftah, a senior member of Assad's party who until recently was the assistant of the ministry responsible for PR, gave on the same day an interview to American Radio Sawa in Arabic. He explained the mysterious hints in the Assad interview:
"Damascus considers that Israel is behind the violence and thus it will be under fire. We have strategic weapons, and we can react. Basically, the strategic weapons are aimed at Israel. If the USA or Israel will commit the error of attacking us using the chemical issue as justification, the entire area will experience unending fire."
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Hagel: U.S. ready to strike Syria immediately if Obama orders action
Defense Secretary says U.S. has moved assets in place to be able to comply with whatever option Obama wishes to take; top generals from U.S., and European and Middle Eastern allies meet in Jordan.
Haaretz
“We have moved assets in place to be able to fulfill and comply with whatever option the president wishes to take,” Hagel said during a trip to Brunei, according to a partial transcript provided by the BBC.
Asked if the U.S. military was ready to respond just “like that,” Hagel said: “We are ready to go, like that.”
U.S. allies were drafting plans for air strikes and other military action against Syria on Tuesday, as President Bashar Assad’s enemies vowed to punish a poison gas attack that Washington called a “moral obscenity”.
Facing Russian and Chinese disapproval that will complicate hopes for a united front backed by international law, and keen to win over wary voters at home, Western leaders seem in no rush to pull the trigger. British Prime Minister David Cameron called parliament back from recess for a session on Syria on Thursday.
UN experts trying to establish what killed hundreds of civilians in rebel-held suburbs of Damascus last Wednesday were finally able to cross the frontline on Monday to see survivors – despite being shot at in government-held territory. But they put off a second visit until Wednesday.
However, U.S. officials said President Barack Obama already had little doubt Assad’s forces were to blame. Turkey, Syria’s neighbor and part of the U.S.-led NATO military pact, called it a “crime against humanity” that demanded international reaction.
The Syrian government, which denies using gas, said it would press on with its offensive against rebels around the capital.
Foreign Minister Walid Moualem said U.S. strikes would help Al-Qaida allies but called Western leaders “delusional” if they hoped to aid the rebels to create a balance of power in Syria.
In Britain, whose forces have supported the U.S. military in a succession of wars, Cameron called for an appropriate level of retribution for using chemical weapons.
“Our forces are making contingency plans,” a spokesman for Cameron told reporters. London and its allies would make a “proportionate response” to the “utterly abhorrent” attack.
Top generals from the United States and European and Middle Eastern allies met in Jordan for what could be a council of war.
On Monday, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said: “President Obama believes there must be accountability for those who would use the world’s most heinous weapons against the world’s most vulnerable people … What we saw in Syria last week should shock the conscience of the world.
“The indiscriminate slaughter of civilians, the killing of women and children and innocent bystanders by chemical weapons is a moral obscenity. By any standard, it is inexcusable.
“And despite the excuses and equivocations that some have manufactured, it is undeniable.”
How such an intervention, likely to be limited to some form of air strike, would affect the course of Syria’s civil war is far from clear. Obama, Cameron and French President Francois
Hollande face tough questions on how far they want to use force to achieve a long-stated common goal of forcing Assad from power.
Russia warns of ‘catastrophic consequences’ if Syria hit
Russia on Tuesday warned a military intervention in Syria could have “catastrophic consequences” for the region and called on the international community to show “prudence” over the crisis.
“Attempts to bypass the Security Council, once again to create artificial groundless excuses for a military intervention in the region are fraught with new suffering in Syria and catastrophic consequences for other countries of the Middle East and North Africa,” foreign ministry spokesman Alexander Lukashevich said.
“We are calling on our American partners and all members of the world community to demonstrate prudence (and) strict observance of international law, especially the fundamental principles of the UN Charter,” he said in a statement.
Earlier, Deputy Foreign Minister Gennady Gatilov said that Moscow regretted Monday’s decision by the US to postpone a meeting on the Syria crisis, as Western powers mulled military action over last week’s chemical attack in Syria.
The scrapping of the meeting, which was due to take place at The Hague later in the week, is the latest sign of a new peak in tensions between Moscow and the West over the possibility of strikes against President Bashar al-Assad’s regime.
“It arouses regret that our partners decided to cancel the bilateral meeting,” Gatilov said on Twitter.
“Working out the parameters of a political solution in Syria would have been especially helpful right now, when military action is hanging over this country.”
In such a climate, it was especially important to work in concert to try to organise the repeatedly postponed peace conference bringing together the Damascus regime and the rebels, Lukashevich added.
“However, the United States’ decision to postpone the meeting in The Hague is sending precisely the opposite signal to the opposition, encouraging their intransigence as they await outside intervention,” he said.
Lukashevich added convening the peace conference was the “most urgent task.”
Western countries led by the United States are considering their response to an alleged chemical weapons attack by Assad’s regime on August 21.
Russia has said it believes rebels were behind the incident and has warned any military action without UN approval would violate international law.
On Monday Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov condemned the “hysteria” over the claimed chemical attack and said the West had yet to come up with proof that Assad’s regime was behind it.
He also said Russia would not get involved in a military conflict in Syria.
Russian President Vladimir Putin told British Prime Minister David Cameron in a telephone call on Monday there was no evidence yet that the Syrian regime had used chemical weapons against rebels, Cameron’s office said.
Pro-Kremlin Russian newspaper Izvestia published Monday an interview with Assad who ridiculed as “nonsense” the idea his regime used chemical weapons and warned the United States of failure if it attacked Syria.
Russian officials are now comparing the possible use of force against Syria to the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq, which was vehemently opposed by Moscow as based on flawed intelligence that Saddam Hussein’s regime possessed weapons of mass destruction.
“Deja-vu,” Alexei Pushkov, the head of the lower house of Russian parliament’s foreign affairs committee wrote on Twitter.
“It feels like in the White House it’s still (George W.) Bush, (Dick) Cheney and (Donald) Rumsfeld and in Downing Street Tony Blair,” he said, referring to the former US president, vice president, defence secretary and British premier during the Iraq war.
The Interfax news agency quoted a diplomatic source who derided US Secretary of State John Kerry’s most recent statement on Syria, saying it was “pompous”.
Kerry called the use of chemical weapons against civilians “a moral obscenity”.
A military diplomatic source also told the news agency the possible use of force would not lead to “an easy victory” because Syria had enough air defence systems to rebuff attacks.
Israeli intelligence seen as ‘central’ to US case against Syria
Netanyahu to hold second security cabinet meeting on crisis in two days; top minister says it’s unthinkable for Assad to be allowed to go on gassing children
Haaretz
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was set to hold a second meeting in two days of his security cabinet to discuss the Syria crisis on Tuesday afternoon, amid indications that Israeli intelligence is playing a central role in cementing the US case against Syrian use of chemical weapons ahead of a likely US-led military strike.
Prior to the session, called to discuss the implications for Israel of a possible strike, a top Israeli minister said it would be inconceivable for the international community to allow President Bashar Assad’s regime to continue killing children with chemical weapons.
Naftali Bennett, the minister of economics who sits on the security cabinet, issued what amounted to a demand for military intervention against Assad. “It cannot be that less than 100 kilometers from Israel, children are being gassed to death and we let the world remain silent and ignore it,” Bennett said.
While Israel would almost certainly take no direct part in a military strike, Israeli intelligence information is widely believed to have played a central role in enabling the US’s adamant conviction that Assad’s regime fired chemical weapons at civilians outside Damascus last Wednesday, killing at least hundreds of people and wounding over a thousand, according to Syrian rebel groups.
A large delegation of senior Israeli security officials is currently in Washington holding talks with top administration officials led by US National Security Adviser Susan Rice. The Israeli team, headed by Netanyahu’s outgoing National Security Adviser Yaakov Amidror, also includes senior Defense Ministry official Maj.-Gen. (Res) Amos Gilad, the head of the IDF’s Planning Directorate Nimrod Sheffer, and the head of the IDF’s Military Intelligence Research Branch Gen. Itai Brun. It was Brun, the IDF’s top intelligence analyst, who in April shocked the international community by declaring that the army was quite certain that Assad had used chemical weapons against rebel forces in Syria in March.
This time, too, Israeli military intelligence has reportedly played a key role in providing evidence of Assad’s chemical weapons use. On Friday, Israel’s Channel 2 reported that the weapons were fired by the 155th Brigade of the 4th Armored Division of the Syrian Army, a division under the command of the Syrian president’s brother, Maher Assad. The nerve gas shells were fired from a military base in a mountain range to the west of Damascus, the TV report said.
The report did not state the source of its information. But subsequently, Germany’s Focus magazine reported that an IDF intelligence unit was listening in on senior Syrian officials when they discussed the chemical attack. According to the Focus report Saturday, a squad specializing in wire-tapping within the IDF’s prestigious 8200 intelligence unit intercepted a conversation between high-ranking regime officials regarding the use of chemical agents at the time of the attack. The report, which cited an ex-Mossad official who insisted on remaining anonymous, said the intercepted conversation proved that Assad’s regime was responsible for the use of nonconventional weapons.
Giora Inbar, the former head of the IDF’s liaison unit in southern Lebanon, said Tuesday that Israeli military intelligence made a priority of intelligence-gathering in Syria, was very well-informed, and was widely trusted. The United States was “aware of” Israel’s intelligence on the doings of the Syrian regime, he said in a Channel 2 interview, “and relies upon it.”
The New York Times on Tuesday quoted an Israeli official who suggested that the planner of the chemical rocket attack did not intend to inflict such high casualties.
“It’s quite likely that there was kind of an operational mistake here,” the official was quoted as saying. “I don’t think they wanted to kill so many people, especially so many children. Maybe they were trying to hit one place or to get one effect and they got a much greater effect than they thought.”
Secretary of State John Kerry speaks at the State Department in Washington, Monday, August 26, 2013, about the situation in Syria (photo credit: AP/Manuel Balce Ceneta)
Secretary of State John Kerry speaks at the State Department in Washington, Monday, August 26, 2013, about the situation in Syria (photo credit: AP/Manuel Balce Ceneta)
Secretary of State John Kerry speaks at the State Department in Washington, Monday, August 26, 2013, about the situation in Syria (photo credit: AP/Manuel Balce Ceneta)
In his speech Monday, portending US-led military intervention and excoriating Assad’s regime for its “inexcusable” chemical strike, Secretary of State John Kerry stated flatly that “chemical weapons were used in Syria” and indicated that the US had received “additional information about this attack, and that information is being compiled and reviewed together with our partners.”
A statement issued by the White House Monday noted that the Israeli team in Washington also discussed Iran and other regional issues with their American counterparts, and that the meeting was part of a series of regular discussions within the framework of the good relations between the two countries.
A senior Syrian official on Monday issued a first direct warning that if attacked, his country would retaliate against Israel. Khalaf Muftah, a senior Baath Party official who used to serve as Syria’s assistant information minister, said in a radio interview that Damascus would consider Israel “behind the [Western] aggression and [it] will therefore come under fire.”
“We have strategic weapons and we’re capable of responding,” he said. “Normally the strategic weapons are aimed at Israel.”
His words were echoed by Iranian officials, who on Monday shrugged off the threat of a US attack on its close ally Syria, but said that if such a strike were to take place, Israel would suffer.
“[The Americans] are incapable of starting a new war in the region, because of their lacking economic capabilities and their lack of morale,” said Mohammad Reza Naqdi, the commander of the Republican Guards’ elite Basij force.
“No military attack will be waged against Syria,” said Hossein Sheikholeslam, a member of Iran’s Islamic Consultative Assembly. “Yet, if such an incident takes place, which is impossible, the Zionist regime will be the first victim of a military attack on Syria.”
Israeli military officials have indicated they believe it unlikely that Syria would target Israel if the US or others intervened, because an Israeli response could bring down the Assad regime, but Israel has reportedly been taking security precautions just in case.
“There would no logic in Assad attacking Israel,” said Inbar on Tuesday. “But remember, we live in a jungle.”
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