• U.S. Condemns Bomb Attack on Iran Nuclear Scientist - Scott Shane
  The assassination on Wednesday of Iranian nuclear scientist Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan, a department supervisor at the Natanz uranium enrichment plant, drew an unusually strong condemnation from the White House and the State Department, which disavowed any American complicity. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton "categorically" denied "any United States involvement in any kind of act of violence inside Iran."
      Like the drone strikes that the Obama administration has embraced as a core tactic against al-Qaeda, the multifaceted covert campaign against Iran has appeared to offer an alternative to war. The CIA, according to current and former officials, has repeatedly tried to derail Iran's uranium enrichment program by covert means, including introducing sabotaged parts into Iran's supply chain.
      Karim Sadjadpour, an Iran expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said he believed that at least some of the murdered scientists might have been killed by the Iranian government. Some of them had shown sympathy for the Iranian opposition, he said.
      A former senior Israeli security official noted that Iran carried out many assassinations of enemies, mostly Iranian opposition figures, and had been recently accused of plotting to kill the Saudi ambassador to the U.S. in Washington. "In Arabic, there's a proverb: If you are shooting, don't complain about being shot," he said. (New York Times)
• Japan to Reduce Iran Oil Imports - Malcolm Foster
  Japan gave a boost Thursday to the U.S. campaign to sanction Iran over its nuclear program, pledging to buy less Iranian oil, Japanese Finance Minister Jun Azumi said after meeting with U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner. Japan imports about 10% of its oil from Iran. (AP)
• Assad Vows to Crush Revolt, Denounces Arab League - Jeffrey Fleishman
  In an address to the nation, Syrian President Bashar Assad vowed to crush a 10-month-old popular revolt and raged at what he regards as the Arab League's betrayal of Damascus. "What Assad said about other Arab countries today puts an end to any patience or second chances Arab nations will give him," said Nabil Abdel Fattah, an analyst at Al Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies in Cairo. "It's an open game now and Arab countries wanting to see an end to Assad's regime won't be hiding it anymore."  (Los Angeles Times)
      See also Arab Monitors Say Unable to Halt Syrian Killings - Alistair Lyon
  Algerian Arab League monitor Anwar Malek said he had resigned because the mission sent to check Syria's compliance with an Arab peace plan was powerless to prevent "scenes of horror" in Homs. "The mission was a farce and the observers have been fooled," he told Al Jazeera. The regime "fabricated most of what we saw to stop the Arab League from taking action against the regime."  (Reuters)
      See also French TV Reporter Killed in Syria - Ian Black (Guardian-UK)

• Iran, Hizbullah Stepping Up Efforts to Save Assad Regime in Syria - Gili Cohen
  Iran and Hizbullah are strengthening their efforts to ensure the survival of the Assad regime in Syria, IDF Military Intelligence Chief Maj.-Gen. Aviv Kochavi said Wednesday. "They are providing [Assad] with knowledge, weapons and other means and recently with active involvement."  (Ha'aretz)
• Europe to Pursue Development Projects for Palestinians in Israeli-Controlled Areas of West Bank - Elior Levy
  The EU has decided to pursue a series of projects which may undermine Israel's control of Area C in the West Bank, an official EU document obtained by Ynet on Thursday suggests. The document states that Europe will support infrastructure and other projects in order to "support the Palestinian people and help maintain their presence (in the area)." Palestinians are a minority of the population in Area C. (Ynet News)

• Iran's Atomic Scientists Plagued by "Virtual Defection" - Dan Williams
  The daylight killings of atomic technicians such as Roshan obviously deplete Iran's pool of nuclear experts. It also provokes panic in surviving colleagues, said an Israel official, generating a phenomenon that Mossad veterans dub "virtual defection."
      "It's not that we've been seeing mass resignations, but rather a sense of spreading paranoia given the degree to which their security has been compromised," said the official, who has extensive Iran expertise. "It means they have to take more precautions, including, perhaps, being a little less keen to stand out for excellence in their nuclear work. That slows things down."
      "I think several players, not only Israel, are active (in Iran)," former Mossad deputy director Ilan Mizrahi said on Wednesday. "It's not only countries, it is movements. You have the Iranian opposition, which is very strong. They have their own capabilities inside Iran."  (Reuters)
      See also Sending a Message to Iran - Amir Oren
  It doesn't matter whether the assassinations of Iran's nuclear scientists are "made in Israel" or the work of unknown assailants who simply share a common enemy with Israel in the form of a fanatic Islamic regime in Tehran. The working assumption is that Israel knows who is active in Iran's nuclear project, knows where and when to find them and how to eliminate them. Every Iranian nuclear scientist will know he's in the crosshairs. This is not a wide assault on the Iranian regime, just on its nuclear arm. (Ha'aretz)
      See also Delaying Tactics - Yaakov Katz
  It is likely that nuclear scientist Mostafa Roshan's assassins believed his elimination would have a significant impact on Iran's nuclear program. It is possible that Roshan was one of the members of the "weapons group," scientists that will ultimately be tasked with building Iran's first nuclear weapon. (Jerusalem Post)
• The Muslim Brotherhood's Radical Plan for Egypt - Eric Trager
  The Muslim Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party (FJP) is widely expected to dominate the next Egyptian legislature. The FJP's political victory promises radical changes for Egypt, including a theocratic domestic program and a confrontational foreign policy. The U.S. should have no illusions about the party's aims or ability to moderate. As long as the FJP is in power, Washington should condition future bilateral relations on its behavior regarding key U.S. interests, including the treatment of religious minorities, Egypt's peace treaty with Israel, and counterterrorism.
      The FJP's overriding aim is to establish an Islamic state in which sharia would be the primary source of legislation. Brotherhood Supreme Guide Muhammad Badie recently declared that, after forming the new government, the organization would pursue its final goal of establishing a "rightly guided caliphate for the education of the world." The Brotherhood is already working through the FJP to tilt Egypt away from its Western allies and toward an Islamist foreign policy.
      The peace treaty with Israel will likely be the first casualty of an FJP-led government. It intends to put the Camp David Accords to a national referendum, thereby shielding itself from direct responsibility for the treaty's demise. It is tempting to believe that the FJP will moderate once in power, but this is highly unlikely. (Washington Institute for Near East Policy)
• Territorial Compromise Loses Ground in Arab Spring - Greg Sheridan
  There is not the slightest chance of a settlement to the Israeli-Palestinian dispute any time soon. Western politicians who address the issue ever more urgently are not only mistaken analytically, but may well be making things worse.
      Spending time in Israel, it is impossible to reconcile the evidence of your eyes with the accepted international narrative about Israel. In the international media, Israel is presented as militarist and oppressive. In fact, it is the only pluralist democracy in the Middle East, the only nation where women's rights and gay rights are protected.
      With the unfolding of the Arab Spring, elections have greatly strengthened Islamists and Islamist extremists. These newly empowered forces would fatally undermine any serious Palestinian compromise with Israel. Naturally Hamas is fantastically empowered by the way the Arab Spring is unfolding.
      Israel won't make a peace deal unless it believes a Palestinian government can govern its territory effectively and prevent attacks on Israel from Palestinian territory. That is inconceivable today and all the trends of the Arab Spring make it ever more unlikely. (The Australian)

Sinai: A New Front - Ehud Yaari (Washington Institute for Near East Policy)

• The Sinai Peninsula has emerged as a new hotspot with an expanding terrorist infrastructure. Measures are needed to prevent the total collapse of security in the peninsula and the rise of an armed, runaway Bedouin statelet.
• The territory's Bedouin residents, who now number over 300,000, constitute 70% of the total population, the rest being Palestinians (10%), immigrants from across the Suez Canal in Egypt (10%), and descendants of Bosnian, Turkish, and other settlers from the Ottoman period, mainly in al-Arish (10%). Because Egyptian authorities have been hesitant in asserting control over the peninsula, Hamas has come to perceive the area as a sphere of influence, reaching out to the local population.
• Recently, a growing number of terrorist networks have expanded their activities throughout much of Sinai. These networks represent old smuggling gangs partly converted to terrorism, newly formed Bedouin factions adhering to Salafi jihadist doctrines, and affiliates of Palestinian organizations in Gaza. Egyptian authorities have also uncovered Hizbullah penetration of Sinai.
• After Israel's 2005 disengagement from Gaza and subsequent removal of troops from the Sinai-Gaza border - as Bedouin political activist Ashraf al-Anani put it - "a fireball started rolling into the peninsula." Illegal trade and arms smuggling volumes rose to new records, and ever-larger sectors of the northern Sinai population became linked to Gaza and fell under the political and ideological influence of Hamas and its ilk. Sympathy and support for the Palestinian battle against Israel grew.
• Today, a significant number of Hamas military operatives are permanently stationed in Sinai, serving as recruiters, couriers, and propagators of the Hamas platform. A solid network of the group's contact men, safe houses, and armories covers much of the peninsula. Hamas has also established a clandestine operational office in Cairo, which the Egyptian authorities choose to ignore.
• The combination of Palestinian terrorist networks, armed Salafi jihadist Bedouin, and extensive smuggling infrastructure and activities has turned the peninsula into a safe haven for terrorists with heavy, advanced arms and wide freedom of action. In other words, it has become a huge arms depot with hundreds - perhaps thousands - of operatives bent on fighting for their causes.
  
  The writer, an international fellow of The Washington Institute, is a Middle East commentator for Israel’s Channel Two television.