News Resources - North America, Europe, and Asia:
- Pentagon Study Finds Agencies Ill Equipped to Detect Foreign Nuclear Efforts - David E. Sanger and William J. Broad
A three-year study by the Pentagon has concluded that American intelligence agencies are "not yet organized or fully equipped" to detect when foreign powers are developing nuclear weapons or ramping up their existing arsenals. The 100-page report by the Defense Science Board contends that the detection abilities needed in cases like Iran - including finding "undeclared facilities and/or covert operations" - are "either inadequate, or more often, do not exist."
American officials first learned of a reactor in Syria when the Israelis alerted them. North Korea built a uranium enrichment facility that went undetected until the North showed it off to a visiting professor from Stanford. "The lesson from this history is that we found these at the last moment, if we found them at all," said Bruce Riedel, a former CIA expert on terrorism and nuclear proliferation now at the Brookings Institution.
The report implicitly called into question whether administration officials should be so confident that they would detect if Iran ever violated the recent nuclear accord.
(New York Times)
- Kerry Presses Iranians to Prove Nuclear Work Is for Peaceful Purposes - Michael R. Gordon
One day after Iranian President Rouhani assured the world that his country did not aspire to develop nuclear weapons, Secretary of State Kerry pushed back on Friday, challenging him to demonstrate that the Iranian nuclear program was peaceful. Kerry said that Tehran must accept extensive verification, abandon plans to build a heavy-water reactor that can produce plutonium, and resolve longstanding concerns by the International Atomic Energy Agency over past Iranian compliance.
(New York Times)
- Kerry Defends Focus on Israeli Security - Anne Gearan
Israel cannot make peace with the Palestinians so long as it fears that a free Palestine next door would be a base for terrorism or attacks on Israel, Secretary of State John Kerry said Friday. "The Israelis, rightfully, will not withdraw unless they know that the West Bank will not become a new Gaza," he said, referring to the regular rocket attacks on Israel from Gaza since Israel withdrew forces in 2005. "Nobody can blame any leader of Israel for being concerned about that reality," Kerry said. (Washington Post)
- Jordan Valley Emerges as Core Issue in Mideast Peace Talks - William Booth and Ruth Eglash
The Israelis are insisting that their troops remain in the Jordan Valley corridor in any future Palestinian entity.
IDF Maj. Gen. Gadi Shamni explained: "We would lose a lot if we leave here. Intelligence, deterrence, rapid response. A lot of capabilities, seen and unseen." In the minds of a generation of Israeli military planners, the Jordan Valley is an indispensable line of defense against threats from militant groups operating in the wider Arab world.
Today, Israeli troops patrol one side of the Jordan River, Jordanian soldiers the other. An Israeli military intelligence officer said that weapon-smuggling into the West Bank is essentially nonexistent. Israeli security analysts focus on the valley as tomorrow's firewall against jihadists entering the West Bank and delivering a shoulder-fired, anti-aircraft missile to down a commercial airliner at the airport in Tel Aviv. (Washington Post)
- Surface-to-Air Missile Attack in Sinai Spells Trouble for Israeli Airliners - Karl Vick
The downing of an Egyptian military helicopter in Sinai on Saturday by Islamist militants apparently using, for the first time, a surface-to-air missile has implications for Israel. If militants have surface-to-air missiles, they could endanger commercial airliners landing at Eilat. Israeli authorities actually closed the airport briefly last August. Flight paths have also been altered. In the longer term, a new airport is planned, further inland.
(TIME)
- Israel Warns of Growing Jihadi Threat from Syria - Aron Heller
A senior Israeli intelligence official warned on Friday that more than 30,000 al-Qaeda-linked fighters are active in Syria, a huge increase over previous Western estimates. He defined the fighters as believers in "global jihad," which he said meant a mix of those linked to al-Qaeda or inspired by the terror network.
"After Assad and after establishing or strengthening their foothold in Syria, they are going to move and deflect their effort and attack Israel," he said. "The longer the war in Syria continues, the more jihadists and radicals are coming to this territory."
The officer said 1,200 fighters belonging to five radical Islamic groups, including three with direct links to al-Qaeda and the Nusra Front, were already in Gaza and have fired rockets at Israel.
(AP)
- Clashes Kill 49 on Anniversary of Egypt's Revolution - Charlene Gubash and Becky Bratu
At least 49 people were killed and 247 wounded on Saturday in rival demonstrations between opponents and supporters of Egypt's military-led government.
(NBC News)
- Offshore Gas Now Supplies 45% of Israel's Electricity
Israel has verified finds of 35 trillion cubic feet of gas in the eastern Mediterranean. Noble Energy says that gas from its Tamar field, which began flowing this year, already supplies 45% of the country's electricity.
(Economist-UK)
News Resources - Israel and the Mideast:
- Netanyahu: Iran's Stance on Centrifuges Means There Can Be No Permanent Accord - Herb Keinon
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told the Israeli Cabinet Sunday:
"[Iranian President] Rouhani said that Iran would not dismantle even one centrifuge.
If Iran persists in saying this, it means that the permanent agreement, which is the goal of any diplomatic process with Iran, cannot succeed. In effect, Iran is insisting on maintaining its ability to attain [enough] fissionable material for a bomb without any time constraints following the breakthrough."
"There is a regime here that, under cover of an assault of smiles, is trying to arm itself with nuclear weapons, to reach the status of a threshold state that could achieve nuclear weapons very quickly, and a country that has not changed its true ideology at all."
"There is no change, not as of now, neither in the military nuclear program nor in Iran's aggressive policy throughout the Middle East and in regard to terrorism well beyond the Middle East. Therefore, such a country cannot be allowed to have the ability to produce nuclear weapons." (Prime Minister's Office)
- Israeli Negotiator Livni Lambastes Abbas' "Unacceptable Positions" - Ilan Ben Zion
Israel's chief negotiator with the Palestinians, Justice Minister Tzipi Livni, told Israel Channel 2 TV on Saturday that PA President Mahmoud Abbas' positions were "not only unacceptable to us but to the whole world, and if he continues to stick to them, then the Palestinians will be the ones to pay the price."
According to a recent poll by Channel 2, 87% of the Israeli public believes the negotiations will not yield a peace agreement.
(Times of Israel)
- Top Palestinians: Peace Talks Futile, We Must Return to Resistance - Jack Khoury
In interviews over the weekend, Yasser Abed Rabbo, secretary general of the PLO's executive committee, and Tawfik Tirawi, a senior Fatah official, called the current peace talks futile and said they would not even produce a framework agreement.
Tirawi told Al Mayadeen, a Lebanon-based TV channel, "The negotiations won't lead anywhere," adding that Palestinians would not accept Kerry's framework deal.
Abed Rabbo also said no Palestinian leadership can accept Kerry's formula for a framework deal. He said zero progress has been made in peace negotiations thus far and that it would be pointless to extend them.
(Ha'aretz)
- Palestinians Protest Continued Negotiations with Israel, Urge Rejection of Kerry Proposal
Leftist Palestinian parties on Saturday held demonstrations across the West Bank in opposition to negotiations with Israel and Secretary of State John Kerry's framework proposal.
(Ma'an News-PA)
- Report: Israel Said to Hit Missiles in Syria - Ilan Ben-Zion
Residents in the coastal Syrian city of Latakia reported "a huge explosion" in the Shekh Daher neighborhood
late Sunday night. The Palestinian Zamnpress news website reported Monday that Israeli planes carried out the attack on S-300 missiles.
(Times of Israel)
- Microsoft and Amazon May Open Cyber Centers in Israel - Orr Hirschauge
In closed-door meetings, senior officials at Microsoft have recently expressed their intention to buy at least one large Israeli cyber-security firm as a major investment. Internet retailing giant Amazon has also put out feelers about buying one as well.
In 2013, IBM bought the Israeli information security firm Trusteer for $650 million and opened a research and development center in Israel, a model Microsoft is apparently seeking to emulate. "Cisco, CA, Trend Micro, Huawei - we're seeing all of them coming here hunting," said an official from one Israeli cyber-security firm.
(Ha'aretz)
Global Commentary and Think-Tank Analysis (Best of U.S., UK, and Israel):
- A Convergence of Interests between the U.S. and Iran - Ephraim Asculai
Sanctions had a severe impact on Iran, but were they the main motive for the interim agreement?
Iran is well aware that should it be found to be constructing even a primitive nuclear weapon, it would be susceptible to military attack, if not by the U.S., then by Israel, which has demonstrated its capability and willingness to carry out such an attack.
The main U.S. aim is to avoid conflict. Reaching an agreement with Iran was a brilliant move that served this purpose, and effectively neutralized any call for military action, specifically by Israel. Thus, there is a convergence of interests between the U.S. administration and Iran, and the terms of the interim agreement are not as important as the results of the agreement: reduction of tensions, postponing conflict and the easing of global economic concerns.
Iran can, regardless of the agreement, continue to develop anything it wants at undeclared sites, and as long as these activities remain concealed, all will be well. Iranian Foreign Minister Zarif was quite correct in stating, on Jan. 23, that Iran had not agreed to dismantle anything. The writer is a senior research fellow at the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS) in Tel Aviv.
(Jerusalem Post)
- Americans Meet with Israeli Security Experts to Discuss Securing the Jordan Valley - Eli Lake
Martin Indyk, the administration's special envoy for Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, and his team have quietly been meeting with Israeli reservist generals and other leading national-security experts to discuss American ideas for securing the Jordan River Valley without a permanent Israeli troop presence - an idea the current Israeli defense minister strongly opposes.
Avi Mizrachi, a reservist major-general whose last command covered the Jordan River Valley, and who has met with Indyk's staff, said, "I think what the Americans are trying to do is to find out if their plan is feasible for the Israeli public or not."
"We don't want to see American soldiers or international forces in the Jordan River Valley," Mizrachi said. "We don't want any American soldiers to be killed on Israeli soil. We can take care of ourselves and we don't trust international forces." (Daily Beast)
- Davos, the Iranian Chutzpah Festival - Jeffrey Goldberg
Iranian President Rouhani announced at Davos "that one of the theoretical and practical priorities of my government is constructive engagement with the world." By "world," of course, he did not mean Israel, a member-state of the UN that Iran is seeking to annihilate. And he didn't seem to be referring to Iran's many Arab neighbors, which the Iranian government has been seeking to destabilize and undermine for three decades.
(Bloomberg)
Observations:
How to Solve Obama's Iran Dilemma - Dennis Ross (Politico)
- The negotiations with Iran are now about: Can the U.S. get the Iranians to roll back their nuclear program and infrastructure in return for a rollback of the sanctions?
- The Iranians have now built nearly 20,000 centrifuges and accumulated approximately 5-6 bombs' worth of enriched uranium.
They will not get the extensive sanctions rollback they seek without a massive reduction in their nuclear infrastructure.
Iran must not be left with a nuclear infrastructure that is sufficiently robust and advanced that it can break out to nuclear weapons at a time of its choosing.
- There is nothing in what the Iranian leadership is now saying that suggests they believe they will have to seriously reduce their program. Their concept would leave them as a nuclear threshold state. Many observers, me included, believe that has been their goal all along.
- The only chance of getting Iran to give up this objective is for Iran to believe that the cost of pursuing it is simply too high. It was not inducements that got us this far, but the pressure of the sanctions. If Khamenei thinks the sanctions will collapse of their own weight or that there is no prospect for the use of force or that the U.S. is desperate for a deal, there is no prospect of the Iranians accepting that they must roll back their program to the point of not being a threshold state.
- The administration needs to recognize the importance of being willing to add to the pressure. When the Iranians are doing work on new and more advanced centrifuges, they are sending a signal to us about what they will do if diplomacy fails. The administration can match that by agreeing with key members of Congress on which new sanctions it would be prepared to adopt if there is no follow-on agreement to the Joint Plan of Action.
- Congress would not adopt the new sanctions during the life of the Joint Plan of Action, but the Hill would know that the administration is preparing the ground to increase the pressure in a meaningful way - and so would the Iranians.
The writer served as special assistant to President Barack Obama from 2009-11.
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