a ca.reuters.com article

A nuclear-armed Iran would blunt Israel’s military autonomy, a wargame involving former Israeli generals and diplomats has concluded, though some players predicted Tehran would also exercise restraint.

Sunday’s event at a campus north of Tel Aviv followed other high-profile Iran simulations in Israel and the United States in recent months. But it broke new ground by assuming the existence of what both countries have pledged to prevent: an Iranian bomb.

“Iranian deterrence proved dizzyingly effective,” Eitan Ben-Eliahu, a retired air force commander who played the Israeli defense minister, said in his summary of the 20-team meeting at the Interdisciplinary Center (IDC) Lauder School of Government.

Though the wargame saw Iran declaring itself a nuclear power in 2011, the ensuing confrontations were by proxy, in Lebanon.

In one, emboldened Hezbollah guerrillas fired missiles at the Defense Ministry in Tel Aviv. That was followed by U.S. and Israeli intelligence findings that Iran had slipped radioactive materials to its Lebanese cohort, to assemble a crude device.

Neither move drew Israeli attacks, though Ben-Eliahu said his delegation had received discreet encouragement from Arab rivals of Iran to “go all the way” in retaliating.

Instead, Israel conferred with the United States, which publicly supported its ally’s “right to self-defense” and mobilized military reinforcements for the region while quietly insisting the Israelis stand down to give crisis talks a chance.

“As far as the United States was concerned, Israel was trigger-happy. It sought to use the Hezbollah (missile) attack as justification for what the United States was told would be an all-out war,” said Dan Kurtzer, a former U.S. ambassador to Israel who flew in to play President Barack Obama at the IDC.

Kurtzer voiced satisfaction with his team’s response to the “dirty bomb,” which entailed cajoling U.N. Security Council powers into mounting an armed intervention against Hezbollah.

“Countries like China and Russia have their own terrorists, and don’t want to see them getting nuclear weapons,” he said.

“In certain circumstances, agile U.S. diplomacy can actually work in this region, and it ends up not only leaving Israel in check but it also ends up (with Washington) leading a willing international coalition.”

STRATEGIC BALANCE

Those playing Iran and Hezbollah went as far as to question the very premise that Tehran would let the Lebanese guerrillas goad Israel into a potentially catastrophic fight, or give the nuclear know-how that would worry even sympathizers like Syria.

Aharon Zeevi-Farkash, a retired Israeli intelligence chief acting as Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, insisted Iran would regard its bomb as a means of “self-defense and strategic balance” — an allusion to Israel’s own, assumed atomic arsenal.

Such assessments are seldom voiced by Israel’s rightist government, which describes a nuclear-armed Iran as a mortal danger. Where Israeli officials would once make veiled threats to strike Iran, now they often try to warn the West against accommodating their foe, which denies seeking atomic weapons.

In what appeared to signal government discomfort with the wargame, a senior Israeli defense official who had been due to attend withdrew at short notice. A Foreign Ministry spokesman said a written summary would be studied at government-level.

That left Tzipi Livni, the centrist head of Israel’s opposition, as the most prominent observer of the IDC event.

“As leader of the free world, the United States has the responsibility of leading more effective sanctions that can turn around, absolutely, this shift from a process of stopping (Iran’s nuclear aims) to a process of acceptance,” she said.

While the simulation found no immediate international drive to tackle Iran, Kurtzer attributed this to passive factors such as U.S. war-fatigue. He complained of a failure to address ramifications such as a nuclear arms race among Arab powers.

Some of the participants — including those playing Israel, the Palestinians and Syria — saw an opportunity for renewed Middle East peacemaking that might head off Iran’s ascendancy.

“This was tactical, but of course tactics can often serve real strategic interests, both for us and for the Americans,” said Zalman Shoval, a former Israeli ambassador to Washington, after playing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

ynetnews.com News

Syria threatens to send Israel back to ‘prehistoric times’

Source close to leadership in Damascus responds to Israeli threats, tells Kuwait newspaper Syria continuously upgrading military capabilities. Hezbollah: We possess arms that can hit deep in Israel

Syria has threatened to “send Israel back to the era of prehistoric man” if the Jewish state attacks it with unconventional weapons.

A source close to decision-makers in Damascus was quoted by Kuwaiti newspaper al-Rai on Saturday as saying that “If Israel uses unconventional weapons, we’ll respond in a similar fashion.”

Israeli Threat
Report: Israel threatens to send Syria back to Stone Age / Ynet
According to report in Sunday Times, Israeli minister said if Hezbollah dares to attack with ballistic missiles, responsibility will fall on Syria’s shoulders, Israel will mercilessly attack strategic targets. ‘Assad playing with fire,’ says minister, according to British paper
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Earlier this week, an Israeli minister told the Sunday Times that Syria would be “sent back to the Stone Age” if Hezbollah launches ballistic missiles.

The Syrian official said Damascus has upgraded its military capabilities and has prepared for a number of possible scenarios in case a war against Israel breaks out.

“Despite the fact that Syria has been outside the cycle of war since 1973, it did not sit idly by for even one day and is still working to develop its capabilities via missiles,” he was quoted by the Kuwait paper as saying.

The official said Syria has drawn lessons from Hezbollah’s “success” during the Second Lebanon War and has since then developed “advanced methods of warfare.”

‘War could break out tomorrow’
The Syrian source said Damascus’ wartime strategy is based in part on the possibility of opening a broad front against Israel – from Rosh Hanikra to the Golan Heights. In addition, said the official, Syria is capable of launching 60 ballistic missiles deep into Israeli territory if the Jewish state will “dare to try and undermine Damascus’ sovereignty.”

“Syria can also launch 600 short-range tactical missiles into Israel in one day,” he said, while detailing plans to attack Israel’s coastline if a war breaks out. In this framework, he said, Syrian forces would employ sea-to-surface missiles against Israeli civilian and military targets, including ports.

The official did not address claims that Syria was transferring Scud missiles to Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Hezbollah political bureau member Ghaleb Abu Zainab said during an interview with NBN television on Friday that his group does not need Scud missiles to defend Lebanon.

“The resistance possesses arms that can reach deep into Israel,” Abu Zainab said, adding that Hezbollah is completely ready to confront the Jewish state.

According to Abu Zainab, Washington and Jerusalem are using their accusations of the Scud transfer to attempt to divert attention away from Israel’s “violations” in the Palestinian territories.

Hezbollah Deputy Secretary General Sheikh Naim Qassem said Saturday, “We are ruling out the possibility of an imminent (Israeli) attack, but the resistance is operating under the assumption that a war could break out tomorrow – so that we will not be caught by surprise in any way.”

Another senior Hezbollah figure, Lebanese Agriculture Minister Hussein al-Hajj Hassan, said Saturday that allegations made by the US and the “Zionist enemy” regarding the Scud missile transfers are aimed at “applying pressure on Syria, Lebanon and the resistance.

Haaretz Article

Syria, according to recent reports, is supplying Hezbollah with Scuds and other missiles that possess a range covering all of Israel – prompting the question as to the implications of such military hardware during wartime. The missiles have the capacity to carry a ton of explosives or another warhead, and they don’t require great sophistication to operate. The use of solid fuel might also make it possible to launch these missiles more quickly than the smaller missiles that were directed at Israel during the Second Lebanon War. Though the larger weapons are launched from mobile launch pads, they are more easily identified and destroyed than the smaller missiles.

The accuracy of the current Scuds is a matter of hundreds of meters, a higher level of precision than that of the missiles which landed in Israel during the Second Lebanon War. At the same time, a missile that strikes an urban area does not require great accuracy. If Hezbollah arms itself with several hundred Scuds, over the course of a two-week war it could fire several dozen large missiles a day, causing physical damage or injury as well as affecting morale. And a strike at the commercial heart of the country could deter foreigners from doing business with Israel.

The fact that Syria is arming Hezbollah with Scuds reinforces the assessment that the Syrians are not interested in direct confrontation with Israel, preferring instead to use a proxy to exert military pressure without exposing itself to an Israeli response which, it is thought, could topple Bashar Assad and the Alawites from power. The Syrians’ fear of such a prospect should be the primary leverage used against them, and in response to their arming Hezbollah with Scuds.

Israel should be conscious of several factors in the face of the threat from the north. First, on the margins, one should bear in mind Justice Richard Goldstone’s ruling in his report to the United Nations on Operation Cast Lead – that hitting a country’s infrastructure is a war crime as it constitutes collective punishment, which is banned under international law. I am not saying that Goldstone must be obeyed, but his ruling must be taken into consideration.

On a tactical level, Israel must develop the intelligence capability necessary to destroy the maximum number of Scuds possible and especially the missile launchers, either at the beginning of a war or even beforehand. Israel should also try to shorten the duration of any fighting as much as possible by hitting Lebanese infrastructure, but only in response to Israel’s being hit first.

In the event of war, Israel’s strategic goal should be the overthrow of the Alawite regime in Syria, and with that aim should continue developing its mobile ground forces along with massive aerial firepower. Within the Israel Defense Forces’ mobile units, the infantry forces and the special forces – particularly those that have the capacity to reach any location in the theater of battle – must be strengthened.

Israel must prepare the international diplomatic community for a war of this kind and will have to make it clear from the beginning that we have no alternative. Israel will be tasked with explaining that, because the enemy is protecting terrorists during a time of war, we have no choice but to hit the enemy’s home front and infrastructure. The very fact of an international debate on this issue is liable to deter the Syrians on the one hand, though it might also put Israel under international diplomatic pressure to restrain itself on the other – but that is a risk worth taking.

Above all, Israel must make it clear right now that, in the event of a missile attack from the north, it will act on the goal of immediately deposing the Alawite regime in Syria even before turning its attention to the missile threat. Such a statement could deter the Syrians from arming Hezbollah with Scuds, out of concern that the Muslim organization might fire the missiles without first coordinating with Syria.

The writer is a reserve brigadier general and former head of the IDF artillery corps.

Zvi Bar’el / Let’s calm down on Syria and Hezbollah
By Zvi Bar’el, Haaretz Correspondent

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has visited Syria four times, twice during the past year. Bashar Assad has visited Tehran four times since Ahmadinejad came to power in 2005. If reciprocal visits by the presidents of Iran and Syria are cause for panic, let’s calm down: the balance between the two has been preserved. Hamas leader Khaled Meshal has also visited Tehran many times, most recently in December, so his meeting with Ahmadinejad last week is not unusual. If Syria, Iran, Hezbollah and Hamas are planning a war against Israel, they don’t need showcase meetings. But why not panic when you can panic? Why not see every meeting as a threat?

“Winds of war” was the headline Israeli newspapers used to describe these meetings, even though the Israel Defense Forces’ intelligence assessment was that no preparations are being made for war. All we need to get that pleasant war sensation is the arrival to the region of the chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, or for Hassan Nasrallah to give one of his speeches about Tel Aviv, or for a Christian Lebanese politician to charge for the 100th time that Hezbollah seeks to draw Lebanon into a war, or for Ahmadinejad to return to Damascus and for the umpteenth time say the Zionist entity will disappear. Could anything be clearer proof that we are being pushed toward war, or at least that “something is happening”?

On the face of it, each of the leaders meeting in Damascus last week has his reason for war with Israel. Israel, too, has a reason to go to war against each of them, as a group or individually. But a reason for war is insufficient for war. The fact is, Israel is not going to war against Hezbollah, and Syria is not moving its tanks into the Golan Heights. Armed groups like Hamas and Hezbollah consider the menace they pose a strategic asset – not only against Israel.
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Hezbollah is basing its control over Lebanon on that menace, but it realizes that war may destroy its political legitimacy. Hamas, cut off from Egypt and the West Bank, cannot allow itself to suffer a Cast Lead II while it is still trying to recover from the effects of Cast Lead I. Syria can attack Israel, but the price it will have to pay is likely to be much higher than what Hamas or Hezbollah will have to pay.

Moreover, Iran is not very keen for its allies to suffer a severe blow whose political implications will echo clearly in Tehran. As far as Iran is concerned, the threat of war is preferable to actual war. The balance of terror is its most effective restraint against an Israeli attack – a view shared by Iran, Syria, Hezbollah and Hamas.

This balance can only be overturned by a peace agreement between Syria and Israel. It will not prevent Iran from going nuclear and will not sever the ties between Syria and Iran or Hezbollah. But it will remove an essential element from this four-pronged threat.

However, it appears that we get along much better with threats than wars or real “operations.” We’re thrilled when Assad ridicules U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s demand that he distance himself from Iran; proof that the axis of evil exists and the threat is alive and kicking. But when Assad repeatedly calls for the resumption of indirect negotiations with Israel, the list of preconditions is ready: The Golan Heights will not be returned, we will not agree to Turkish mediation, and we demand the dismantling of the Syria-Iran alliance.

When the United States tries to convince us that the talks with the Palestinians may weaken Iran’s influence in the region – regardless of whether this assessment is valid – we create new areas of friction with the Palestinians. There is little left of the freeze in settlement construction, and declaring the Cave of the Patriarchs and Rachel’s Tomb national heritage sites may lead to a third intifada. The fact that Hamas has not fired Qassam rockets for more than a year is perceived as obvious, but the blockade of the Gaza Strip has continued for more than three and a half years. In Israel’s eyes this is something natural that should have no effect on the Palestinians’ positions.

Israel cannot honestly talk about external threats when it does not pose an alternative to the public. President Shimon Peres may extend his hand of peace to Syria, but the Israeli government extends its finger in a lewd gesture.

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Let’s calm down on Syria and Hezbollah

Referring to the recent war of words between Israel, Lebanon, and Syria, Hezbollah Deputy Secretary General, Sheikh Naim Kassem ruled out an imminent war with Israel, but reiterated his movement’s readiness “even if the war starts tomorrow.”

“Hezbollah will be in a defensive position and will not be the one to wage an attack or start a war, and the same thing applies to others: Iran, Syria, and Hamas.”
Kassem added that “Israel alone decides whether there will be a war in the region or not.”

An official Syrian mouthpiece said at the beginning of the month that while the path to peace with Israel is open, the path to war and destruction remains open as well.

Syria’s comments were preceded by Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, who at the beginning of the month said, “Assad should know that if he attacks, he will not only lose the war. Neither he nor his family will remain in power.”

Kassem also promised that Hezbollah would avenge the 2008 assassination of its former military commander Imad Mughniyah at the “appropriate” time.

Kassem told the affiliated al-Intiqad website referring to avenging Mughniyah’s assasination “We won’t define the time and place, but we consider that our responsibility is to fulfill the pledge by the appropriate means and at the appropriate timing.”

“It is a matter of circumstances and timing, and God willing, they will take place at the right moment,” Kassem said.

Hezbollah accuses Israel of being behind the car bombing that killed Mughniyah in Damascus on February 12, 2008.

Mughniyeh had been on the U.S. most-wanted list since the 1980s. He was blamed for the kidnapping of western hostages in Beirut in the 1980s and the 1983 bombing that killed 240 U.S. Marines.

“It is a matter of circumstances and timing, and God willing, they will take place at the right moment,” Kassem said.

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Hezbollah No.2: It will be Israel who decides if there’ll be regional war