“We are powerless against this great multitude that is
coming against us. We do not know what to do,
but our eyes are upon you” (2 Chronicles 20:12).
It May Now Be “Impossible” to Stop Iran’s Bomb
According to The Economist, Iran is putting up with sanctions that damage its economy
rather than accept a deal limiting its nuclear program. It has developed the capacity to
enrich far more uranium than it needs for generating nuclear power or for medical research.
And, as everyone knows, its outgoing president has talked about wanting to wipe Israel off
the map. All of this suggests to observers that the country intends, at a time of its choosing,
to get its hands on nuclear weapons. Iran still denies that it wants a bomb and points to a
fatwa against both the possession and use of nuclear weapons. So how close is Iran to
having a nuclear bomb?
The June 20th Economist article notes that to become a nuclear power, a country requires
both the fissile material for a bomb and the means of delivering it accurately to its target
(“weaponization” is the word usually used). Iran was once thought to have suspended work
on weaponization, but now the IAEA is not so sure. Also, in order to create a nuclear
weapon, Iran would need to convert highly enriched uranium into a metal sphere and make
a detonator small enough to fit in the warhead of a ballistic missile. That apparently is not
beyond its technological capability.
But, the writer asks, does Iran have enough uranium for a bomb? To make one it would
need about 20 kilograms of highly enriched uranium. Going into considerable detail about
uranium enrichment, theEconomist article points out that Iran has already done the
hardest part (getting from 2% to 20% enrichment), and therefore is completely capable
of going the rest of the way.
British and American intelligence sources think Iran is about a year away from having enough
highly enriched uranium to make a bomb, and rather further from mastering the technologies
to make a nuclear warhead small enough to fit into a missile. But David Albright, a former
UN weapons inspector who is president of the Institute for Science and International
Security, thinks that by mid-2014 Iran will have the capacity to produce enough fissile material for a
single bomb in one or two weeks, should it choose to do so. It seems unlikely that Iran
could be forced to change course on this matter by foreigners. “The best that can be
hoped for is that it decides that it does not want or need a nuclear weapon”—Economist.
In Haaretz newspaper, Ari Shavit wrote an article entitled: “Surprise: Benjamin Netanyahu
was right about Iran.” What the world promised would never happen is happening, he
says. What Israel’s defense establishment promised would never happen is happening. Iran
is becoming a nuclear power, while Israel stands alone.
“If Israel were a sane country,” Shavit says, “it would have been concerned this week
with one thing only: The Economist. The British weekly is the leading quality news
magazine in the West, one of the few media outlets that give voice to the serious strategic
and economic discourse of the global elite. Therefore, when the Economist declared this
week that it's impossible to stop Iran's nuclear program, the significance of this”
[should have engaged the attention of every Israeli].
Some of us, of course, are not surprised that Netanyahu was right. Shavit’s article appeared
in a left-leaning newspaper, and I was not even able to get the whole article without
paying for it. The question in my mind now is whether there is anything Israel can do, or
whether there is nothing she can do except trust God and wait for the bomb. In trusting God,
of course, she will be in good hands.
Russia Is Evacuating Personnel from Syria
On Wednesday, June 26, Russia announced that it was evacuating all military and
diplomatic personnel from Syria, including the Russian naval base at Tartus. “Russia
decided
to withdraw its personnel because of the risks from the conflict in Syria, as well as the
fear of an incident involving the Russian military that could have larger consequences,”
said a defense ministry official in Moscow. He stressed that a 16-ship naval task force in
the eastern Mediterranean remains on post and arms shipments, including anti-air weapons,
would continue to the Syrian government in keeping with former contracts.
So does Russia know something that others don’t know? Is there an impending escalation
of the Syrian War that not everyone is aware of? If so, it is not hidden from Israel.
On June 26, the Israeli Golani Brigade staged an unannounced war maneuver on the Golan,
attended by Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and top army chiefs. Also, in London,
Prime Minister David Cameron called the government’s National Security Council into session
in Downing Street, on Syria. Opposition leader Ed Milliband was invited to attend the meeting
a custom observed only when issues of the highest security importance are discussed.
About the same time, Debkafile carried a special report under the heading: “Putin and Obama
cross swords on Syria. What Next?”
Debkafile says, “The sullen confrontation between Presidents Vladimir Putin and Barack Obama
at the G8 Summit in Northern Ireland last week condemned Syria to five months of
escalating, unresolved vicious warfare – that is until the two leaders meet again in
September. For now, tempers are heating up between Washington and Moscow on Syria
and other things too, notably the elusive American fugitive Edward Snowden.
According to Debka, US and Israeli intelligence watchers see the Syrian crisis entering seven
ominous phases:
1. A five-month bloodbath centering on the battle for Aleppo, a city of 2.2 million inhabitants.
The Syrian army plus allies and the fully-mobilized opposition will hurl all their manpower and
weapons into winning the city. Military experts don’t expect the rebels to hold out against
Assad’s forces beyond late August.
2. Neither side has enough manpower or game-changing weaponry for winning the war
outright—unless Presidents Obama or Putin steps in to re-tilt the balance.
3. The US and Russia are poised for military intervention in the conflict up until a point just
short of a military clash on Syrian soil. US intelligence analysts have judged that Putin is
ready to go all the way on behalf of Syria against the US. Meanwhile, the Russian president
is deliberately goading Washington and raising temperatures by playing hide-and-seek
over the former NSA contractor Edward Snowden. At home, Snowden is variously considered
as a traitor and a brave whistleblower.
4. Iran, Hizbullah and Iraq will likewise ratchet up their battlefield presence in the days and
weeks to come.
5. A violent encounter is building up between Middle East Shiites flocking to Syria to save
the Assad regime alongside Russia, and the US-backed Sunni-dominated rebel forces.
It could sabotage the secret US-Iranian negotiating track on its nuclear program, which
was buoyed up by the election of the pragmatic Hassan Rouhani as President of Iran.
6. The Geneva-2 Conference for a political solution to the Syrian crisis is dead in the
water. Moscow and the US are divided by unbridgeable issues of principle, such as
whether Bashar Assad should stay or go, and Iranian representation.
7. So long as the diplomatic track is stuck in the mud, the prospects of a regional war
spreading out of the Syrian conflict are rising. Iran, Israel, Jordan and Lebanon may be
dragged in at any moment – if they have not already, like Lebanon. A small mistake
by one of the Syrian warring parties in Syria could, for example, touch off Israeli retaliation
and a wholesale spillover of violence.
The above rather dismal scenario is based on a June 26 Debkafile report.
Are Israeli Commanders Under-reacting to the Syrian
Crisis?
Senior Israel military officers, especially in the Northern Command, estimate that the IDF’s
performance is just 40 percent of what it would normally be for defending Israel’s border,
in the face of the threats building up from the Golan. For too long, say sources,
Israeli intelligence has been guided by the misconception that Bashar Assad’s days are
numbered, and they have also underestimated Hizbullah’s combat effectiveness in the
Syrian war. On Friday, June 28, an Iron Dome anti-missile battery was finally deployed to
the northern town of Haifa, after a different kind of rhetoric was heard from Israeli leaders.
Addressing a surprise Golani Brigade drill on the Golan Wednesday, June 26, Prime Minister
Binyamin Netanyahu said firmly: “This is not a theoretical exercise: The situation around
us is volatile and inflammable but Israel stands ready for changing situations. We must break
the enemy, make them scared to death in order to win.” (In other words, he seemed to be
saying that Israel must figure out how to instill the fear of death in its enemies. This may be
difficult, given that Israel’s enemies are Muslims each of whom who are eager to meet their
72 virgins.)
The next day, Thursday, IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz, speaking at the graduation
of new Air Force pilots at the Hatzerim Air Base, said: “The region is shaking from south to
north. Syria is bleeding and in Lebanon, the fire has begun to catch the hem of [Hizbullah
leader] Nasrallah’s robe in Syria and Sidon. You, the graduates, from now on are
inseparable from the effort to ascertain that we remain at peak readiness to meet those
challenges.”
Also, Air Force chief, Maj. Gen. Amir Eshel was both enigmatic and revealing when he said
that most air force activity was “covert and unseen, bordering on fantasy.” It may be covert
and unseen, but personally I doubt that there is any “fantasy” involved. What Israel does,
it usually does with a bang.
Debkafile believes there is a reason why Israel seems to be hesitating to adequately
defend its northern border. That reason is: Excessive coordination with the pace of American
military operations in the Syrian context. According to Debka’s military sources, the US,
Saudi Arabia, Israel and Jordan are getting ready to move in on a section of southern
Syria to compensate for their inability to prevent Aleppo falling to Assad’s army. The idea is
to let the Syrian ruler seize control of the North, while the US, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and
Israel push the Syrian army and Hizbullah out of the South – “a kind of volatile partition which
it is hard to imagine Tehran accepting lying down.”
But as of this writing, that is just speculation and no one knows for sure why Israel has,
to date, not gotten more involved in this northern crisis.
“Thus says the Lord to you: Do not fear or be dismayed at this great multitude; for
the battle is not yours, but God’s….take your position, stand still, and see the
victory of the Lord on your behalf…” (2 Chronicles 20:15,17).
In Messiah,
Lonnie C. Mings
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