Analysis: The French-Israeli-Saudi Front Against Iran

This strange, unexpected new alliance between Israel and Saudi Arabia, and possibly France is receiving more and more attention and today we see a very interesting analysis from Frontpage Magazine. This is important prophetically, as we may be seeing the alliance that will facilitate an attack on Iran, thus serving as triggering the tipping point in the Middle-East:

The French-Israeli-Saudi Front Against Iran?

Israel and Saudi Arabia are proving the old adage correct that “the enemy of my enemy is my friend.”  The Iranian regime is their common enemy. Israel sees a nuclear armed Iran as an existential threat. Sunni Saudi Arabia worries that Shiite Iran with nuclear arms will be emboldened to threaten other Sunni Gulf governments and ultimately try to force its will on Saudi Arabia itself.

Thus, the Jewish state of Israel and the Islamic state of Saudi Arabia, certainly not friends in normal times, find themselves planning to join forces if necessary to stop Iran from crossing the nuclear arms finish line. According to a November 17, 2013 article in the British newspaper Sunday Times, Saudi Arabia has agreed to “give the go-ahead for Israeli planes to use its airspace in the event of an attack on Iran.” The Saudis are also reported to be willing to assist the Israelis by making drones, rescue helicopters, and tanker planes available for the Israelis’ use.

“Once the Geneva agreement is signed, the military option will be back on the table. The Saudis are furious and are willing to give Israel all the help it needs,” an unnamed diplomatic source told the Sunday Times.

Israel and Saudi Arabia have good reason not to trust the United States to negotiate an acceptable deal that would dismantle Iran’s nuclear uranium enrichment and plutonium facilities in a fully verifiable manner. They have been pushed aside as the Obama administration plunges forward to reach an accommodation with Iran. Rather than take seriously the concerns of the countries in the region who would be most directly affected by a rash settlement on terms favorable to Iran, President Obama and his Secretary of State John Kerry are wearing blinders. They downplay how close Iran is to achieving its long-held ambition of becoming a nuclear-armed power and the danger that a bad deal will only serve to give Iran diplomatic cover while it moves ahead.

Israeli intelligence has concluded that the Obama Administration’s previous interim offer to Iran would only set back the Iranian nuclear program about 24 days. 

What was Secretary of State John Kerry’s response when he was asked about this assessment during his briefing of senators last week, as he tried to dissuade them from passing legislation to impose more sanctions on Iran? Kerry repeatedly told senators, Senator Mark Kirk (R-IL) remarked to reporters after the meeting, to “disbelieve everything that the Israelis had just told [us].” A Senate aide familiar with the meeting was quoted by BuzzFeed’s Rosie Gray that “every time anybody would say anything about ‘what would the Israelis say,’ they’d get cut off and Kerry would say, ‘You have to ignore what they’re telling you, stop listening to the Israelis on this.’”

Whom do the president and secretary of state listen to and put in charge of negotiating a nuclear deal with Iran?  None other than the same person involved in the botched negotiations with North Korea more than a decade ago, Wendy Sherman, the State Department’s Under Secretary for Political Affairs. Sherman fell for North Korea’s deceptions, admitting in congressional testimony in 1999 that she and others in the Clinton administration were “working hard” on “sanctions easing” for North Korea that would “allow for financial transactions, both bank and individual” and “the export and trade of consumer goods.”

Senator Kirk reminded reporters after the briefing with Kerry in which Wendy Sherman participated that “her record on North Korea is a total failure and an embarrassment to her service.” But the Obama administration rewarded her service as an appeaser of North Korea by empowering her to bring her Neville Chamberlain show on the road to Geneva to lead the U.S. delegation in negotiations with Iran. In fact, Sherman thought the draft interim deal she was negotiating with Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif more than a week ago was so good that she and European Union foreign executive Catherine Ashton urged the foreign ministers of the six powers involved in the talks to come to Geneva for a signing ceremony. “The cake is ready for putting in the oven to bake,” she and Ashton are reported to have boasted. Fortunately, the French pulled the cake out of the oven before it had a chance to settle.

Indeed, France is now trying to decide whether to join the Israeli-Saudi opposition to the Obama administration’s half-baked efforts at détente with Iran.

French President Francois Hollande and Foreign Minister Laurent, who branded the deal originally offered to Iran a “sucker’s deal,” are in Israel this week to discuss possible alternative options in dealing with Iran. This follows a number of meetings between French and Saudi Arabian officials, including a visit by French Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian to Saudi Arabia to discuss a new defense contract.

So far, France still gives no indication that it will meekly follow the Obama administration’s lead, no matter what the terms of the deal. During a joint news conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Hollande listed four demands which he said must be in place for any interim deal with Iran to work:

“The first demand: put all the Iranian nuclear installations under international supervision, right now. Second point: suspend enrichment to 20 percent. Thirdly: to reduce the existing stock. And finally, to halt construction of the Arak (heavy water) plant. These are the points which for us are essential to guarantee any agreement.”

“Surrender” Sherman and her merry band of negotiators are most likely not listening. They are hopeful for a compromise in the next round of talks scheduled to begin this week in Geneva, which no doubt the Obama administration would spin as a success. Only this time the final judgment on whether the deal is good or not may not rest with the Obama administration alone. Israel, Saudi Arabia and France may render their own verdict and act accordingly.

Nuclear Deal May Sink In Geneva Between Hardline Pressures In Tehran And Tough Franco-Israel Demands

Washington and Moscow may sound upbeat about the prospects of a signed interim deal at the next round of nuclear negotiations between Iran and the six powers in Geneva Wednesday, Nov. 20.  However, the way ahead is still bristling with mines, more so even than the first round.

Both sides have toughened their positions. In Tehran, President Hassan Rouhani and Foreign Minister Javad Zarif face threats against yielding to Western demands. On the other side, Washington accuses France and Israel of obstructionism to get its proposal removed from the table.

President Francois went into conference with Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, after which he laid out four points, “which for us are essential to guarantee any agreement:"  

1) All of Iranian nuclear installations must be placed under international supervision right now.
2)  20-percent enriched uranium enrichment must be suspended.
3)  Existing stocks must be reduced.
This can only be done by exporting a part of this stock or placing it under international control.

4) Construction of the Arak (heavy water) plant to be halted.

Netanyahu, for his part, criticized the emerging deal, without citing the US role, as a permit for Iran to continue manufacturing enough fissile material for assembling a nuclear bomb at three weeks to 26 days’ notice. A good deal, in his view, would dismantle Iran’s capacity to achieve this quantity of fissile material. He repeated that Israel would not be bound by a bad deal and reserved the right to self defense, by itself

Yakov Amidror – until recently Netanyahu’s national security adviser - said that the Israeli Air Force had for years been practicing long-range flights in preparation for covering the 2,000km distance to Iran for a potential air strike on its nuclear facilities.

In an interview run by the Financial Times Monday, he said that these drills must show up on any Middle East radar screen. Amidror went on to say: We aren’t America, which obviously has greater capabilities than we do, but we still have sufficient to stall the Iranian program for a long time.  

Amidror’s remarks followed the latest US intelligence report which evaluates Israel’s capacity in a lone attack on Iran to stall Iran’s nuclear program for seven to 10 years.  

Also see:

Fukushima Operators Begin Risky Nuclear Fuel Rod Removal

In a highly risky undertaking Fukushima plant operators have finally begun removing over 1,500 nuclear fuel rods from one of the four reactors at its damaged nuclear power plant in northeastern Japan on Monday.

The operation is expected to take at least a year hailed as a key first step toward a full cleanup of the plant. 

With the help of robots and cranes, the workers will attempt to cautiously transfer 1,331 spent fuel rods and 202 new ones from the damaged reactor pool to a more reliable storage facility. If these rods break or overheat, radioactive gases could be released into the atmosphere, however, prompting a self-sustained nuclear chain reaction. 

While the full decommissioning of the plant is expected to take decades, the company said it plans to remove 22 rods over the course of two days. A giant crane equipped with a remote- controlled pincer will be lowered into the pool and hook onto the rods, placing them inside a 91-ton cask which will be loaded on to a trailer and taken to a new storage pool. 

Japan’s Nuclear Regulation Authority has assigned an inspector to keep an eye on the dangerous operation, as well as video monitoring of the removal site. 

A Russian GPS Using U.S. Soil Stirs Spy Fears

In the view of America’s spy services, the next potential threat from Russia may not come from a nefarious cyberweapon or secrets gleaned from the files of Edward J. Snowden, the former National Security Agency contractor now in Moscow.

Instead, this menace may come in the form of a seemingly innocuous dome-topped antenna perched atop an electronics-packed building surrounded by a security fence somewhere in the United States.

In recent months, the Central Intelligence Agency and the Pentagon have been quietly waging a campaign to stop the State Department from allowing Roscosmos, the Russian space agency, to build about half a dozen of these structures, known as monitor stations, on United States soil, several American officials said.

They fear that these structures could help Russia spy on the United States and improve the precision of Russian weaponry, the officials said. These monitor stations, the Russians contend, would significantly improve the accuracy and reliability of Moscow’s version of the Global Positioning System, the American satellite network that steers guided missiles to their targets and thirsty smartphone users to the nearest Starbucks.

The Russian effort is part of a larger global race by several countries — including China and European Union nations — to perfect their own global positioning systems and challenge the dominance of the American GPS.

Russia’s efforts have also stirred concerns on Capitol Hill, where members of the intelligence and armed services committees view Moscow’s global positioning network — known as Glonass, for Global Navigation Satellite System — with deep suspicion and are demanding answers from the administration.

“I would like to understand why the United States would be interested in enabling a GPS competitor, like Russian Glonass, when the world’s reliance on GPS is a clear advantage to the United States on multiple levels,” said Representative Mike D. Rogers, Republican of Alabama, the chairman of a House Armed Services subcommittee.

Mr. Rogers last week asked the Pentagon to provide an assessment of the proposal’s impact on national security. The request was made in a letter sent to Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, Secretary of State John Kerry and the director of national intelligence, James R. Clapper Jr.

The monitor stations have been a high priority of Mr. Putin for several years as a means to improve Glonass not only to benefit the Russian military and civilian sectors but also to compete globally with GPS.

Major Earthquake Of M7.8 Hits Scotia Sea, South Atlantic