Showing posts with label Hizbollah. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Hizbollah. Show all posts

Wednesday, April 21, 2010

DTN News: Israel TODAY April 21, 2010 ~ 'Hizbullah Arms Real Danger To Israel'

DTN News: Israel TODAY April 21, 2010 ~ 'Hizbullah Arms Real Danger To Israel' Source: DTN News / By JPOST.COM STAFF AND AP (NSI News Source Info) JERUSALEM, Israel - April 21, 2010: Following last week's uncertainty surrounding a reported Syrian Scud missile delivery to Hizbullah, a senior US senator said Tuesday that the guerrilla group most likely obtained the weapons and that its missiles posed a real danger to Israel. "I believe there is a likelihood that there are Scuds that Hizbullah has in Lebanon. A high likelihood," Senate Intelligence Committee chair Dianne Feinstein, a Democrat from California, told AFP."The rockets and missiles in Lebanon are substantially increased and better technologically than they were and this is a real point of danger for Israel." Feinstein stressed that the tensions in the North would only subside with a peace deal between Israel and the Palestinians. "There's only one thing that's going to solve it, and that's a two-state solution," she said. Hizbullah sources confirmed last week that the group had received a shipment of Scud missiles from Syria, but Damascus denied the reports, saying Israel was trying to stoke tensions in the region. On Monday, the State Department summoned the senior Syrian diplomat in Washington to accuse his government of "provocative behavior" in supplying the arms. A department statement announcing the complaint was imprecise about the alleged arms deals by the Syrians. It alluded to the transfer to Hizbullah of Scud ballistic missiles but did not say explicitly that Syria was behind such a deal. The State Department said deputy chief of mission Zouheir Jabbour was called in to "review Syria's provocative behavior concerning the potential transfer of arms to Hizbullah." It went on to say that providing Hizbullah with Scud missiles risked escalating tensions in the volatile region. "The United States condemns in the strongest terms the transfer of any arms, and especially ballistic missile systems such as the Scud, from Syria to Hizbullah," the statement said. "The transfer of these arms can only have a destabilizing effect on the region and would pose an immediate threat to both the security of Israel and the sovereignty of Lebanon." Gordon Duguid, a State Department spokesman in whose name the statement was issued, said in a telephone interview that the department was not confirming that a Scud transfer to Hizbullah had taken place. He said the meeting with the Syrian diplomat was conducted to seek answers about Syrian arms deals and to reiterate US concerns. Last week White House press secretary Robert Gibbs told reporters that US concern about reports of Syrian Scud missile transfers to Hizbullah had been raised at the highest levels of the Syrian government. On April 1, during a visit to Damascus, Democratic Sen. John Kerry, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, reiterated US misgivings about the flow of weapons through Syria to Hizbullah and told reporters the US view is that this is "something that must stop" for there to be peace. The State Department statement linked the issue of Syrian arms provisions for Hizbullah to the broader Middle East conflict. "The risk of miscalculation that could result from this type of escalation should make Syria reverse the ill-conceived policy it has pursued in providing arms to Hizbullah," it said. "Additionally, the heightened tension and increased potential for conflict this policy produces is an impediment to ongoing efforts to achieve a comprehensive peace in the Middle East." Related News; U.S. warns Syria after scud missile allegations

Monday, March 16, 2009

Terrorist Arsenal Of 50,000 Rockets Aimed At Israel

Terrorist Arsenal Of 50,000 Rockets Aimed At Israel
(NSI News Source Info) March 16, 2009: Hamas and Hizbullah terrorists have amassed an arsenal of 50,000 rockets aimed at Israel, United Press International (UPI) has reported. Israel still has no defense against the threat, and the government’s highly touted Iron Dome short-range missile defense system is far from being in operation and may not even be practical. “Even if Iron Dome works perfectly, it is never going to have the firepower in interceptors to credibly intercept most, let alone all,” of the rockets, according to the UPI report. Hizbullah has amassed far more rockets than it possessed before the Second Lebanon War in 2006, despite Israel’s agreeing to a ceasefire on the condition that United Nations Interim Forces (UNIFIL) would prevent arms smuggling into Lebanon. In the south, Hamas continues to smuggle weapons into Gaza despite a similar ceasefire ageement, supposedly conditioned on a cessation of arms smuggling, that the Olmert administration announced when concluding Operation Cast Lead in mid-January. Defense Minister Ehud Barak promised two years ago that the Iron Dome short-range missile defense system, along with other systems, would protect Israel from 90 percent of missile attacks, although mortar shells would continue to explode in Israel without interception. Barak announced in October 2007 that the Iron Dome was near completion and would be in place by 2010. He also has stated that its deployment is a precondition for handing over part of Judea and Samaria to the Palestinian Authority. Last year, officials admitted that the Iron Dome system would not be effective against Kassam rockets fired from less than two miles, meaning that it had no solution for tens of thousands of residents in the Gaza Belt communities, including Sderot. State Comptroller and Ombudsman Micha Lindenstrauss’s recent report of his investigation of the timetable of the Iron Dome system “documented endless delays, indecision, go-it-alone chaotic planning and sheer bureaucratic incompetence,” in the words of UPI reporter Martin Sieff.

Monday, February 16, 2009

US And Iran Begin The Diplomatic Tango To Peace

US And Iran Begin The Diplomatic Tango To Peace
(NSI News Source Info) February 17, 2009: THE DIPLOMATIC dance has begun, but since it has been over 30 years since the partners managed a public tango, they need to avoid treading on each others’ toes. A week ago, US President Barack Obama told a Washington press conference that his administration was “looking at areas where we can have constructive dialogue” with Iran. A day later Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad responded, telling crowds celebrating the 30th anniversary of the Iranian revolution: “Our nation is ready to hold talks based on mutual respect and in a fair atmosphere.” Since President Obama travelled by train to his inauguration, he could do worse than bone up on the Trans-Iranian railway story before honing his Tehran pitch for its story remains central to the Iranian psyche. When the first Pahlavi Shah, Reza Khan, came to power in a British-facilitated military coup in 1921, he set out to modernise Iran. The Trans-Iranian railway was his premier project. London had long sought to prevent its construction, viewing it as a potential threat to the sacrosanct passage to India. Construction of the 1,400 kilometre line lasted 12 years from 1927. It is a spectacular feat of engineering and it climbs 1,200 metres from the Persian Gulf to reach Tehran, before descending to the Caspian Sea. Britain refused to recognise Iranian neutrality during the second World War and Anglo-Soviet forces invaded Iran in 1941. They deposed the Shah and seized control of the railway. With US assistance from 1942 onwards, the Trans-Iranian railway became a major Soviet supply route. Winston Churchill called it “The Bridge to Victory”. The allies installed the Shah’s 22-year-old son, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, in 1941. He would never really shake his foreign puppet image. As the Norwegian sociologist and father of peace research, Johan Galtung, remarked: “The US promoted an Iranian middle class to produce an Iranian version of America, while the Soviet Union invested in Iranian heavy industry in the hopes of creating a proletariat. They got Ayatollahs instead.” Iranians understandably feel that foreign powers tend to deny Iran access to the technologies it needs. The popular view of Iran’s nuclear programme slots neatly into this view as do the sanctions which have crippled the country’s petrochemical industry. This is the context into which Obama’s initiative must step. In today’s metamorphosing Islamic Republic of Iran, everything must be viewed through three intermingling prisms – the Islamic, the nationalist, and the national. Elsewhere in the Muslim world, in Iraq, Saudi Arabia, around the Gulf, in Afghanistan, Pakistan and right across to Lebanon, Shi’ites are often second class citizens. Iran is the world’s only Shia state, and its achievements carry that extra emotional charge of Shia success. Iranians are proud nationalists, even xenophobes, particularly towards Sunni Arabs. Iranian populist bluster about Israel, a country 1,500 kilometres away, is often at least as much a commentary on Arab failures as it is on Zionism. Iran has genuine security concerns, an unstable Iraq with significant US forces to its west. A crumbling Afghanistan and a troubled nuclear-armed Pakistan to its east. Along its northern borders lie the still-solidifying central Asian republics of the former Soviet Union. In this context, the acquisition of nuclear weapons holds a certain attraction. Iran’s nuclear programme started under the Shah with US, Canadian and European, particularly French, equipment and training for those who are today its senior nuclear scientists and engineers. The programme mirrors the 2003 analysis from the US comedian Bill Hicks: “You know we armed Iraq. How do you know that? Uh, well . . . we looked at the receipts.” It seems likely that Iran is working towards a Japanese situation where it would have the capacity to quickly assemble a nuclear weapon, even if it refrains from actually doing so. In October 2007 a US National Intelligence Estimate concluded that Iran did not have an active nuclear weapons programme. Some commentators and think-tanks, largely those who advocated the stunning success of the Iraq war and the breathtaking efficiency of deregulated financial institutions, continue to regurgitate George Bush’s Axis of Evil mantra warning about Iran. In this scenario a nuclear-armed Iran would create global instability and threaten the survival of Israel. Iran is also the root cause of Syrian intransigence, Hizbollah’s Lebanese success, and Hamas’s military capacities. Jacques Chirac put the Iranian nuclear threat in context when he said in a 2007 interview with the New York Times: “Having one or perhaps a second bomb a little later, well, that’s not very dangerous. Where will it drop it, this bomb? On Israel? It would not have gone 200 metres into the atmosphere before Tehran would be razed.” An Iranian nuke hardly alters the global balance on a planet with over 20,000 nuclear warheads. Syrian demands to recuperate its territory, as more or less agreed in its discreet Turkish-brokered talks with Israel, are generated in Damascus, not Tehran. Hizbollah is a political force because it represents Lebanon’s oft mistreated Shia minority. Iran is an important regional power. Over two thirds of its 72 million citizens had yet to be born when the Ayatollahs swept into power in 1979. The ebbing power of that Shia clergy could offer real opportunities for equitable engagement. Tehran and Washington have a common interest in a Iraqi and Afghan stability. The Islamic Republic of Iran and the United States of America are unlikely to launch into a passionate tango. But If they can avoid empty threats, bluster and condescension they should be able manage a coy minuet. That’s a diplomatic dance from which we would all benefit.