Reality Check: There's Never Been A Palestinian Nation Or Movement_Mosab Hassan Yousef Explains The Real Reason No One Allows "Palestinians" Into Their Country Except For Israel

 

FOREIGN POLICY: Syria's Fall_What we knew and when we knew it

Barry As President: JUST AS NIXON HAD HIS CAMBODIA OPERATION, Obama Orders The CIA To Operate Drones Over Yemen

The CIA is expected to begin operating armed drone aircraft over Yemen, expanding the hunt for al-Qaeda operatives in a country where counter-terrorism efforts have been disrupted by political chaos, U.S. officials said.

The plan to move CIA-operated Predator and other unmanned aircraft into the region reflects a decision by President Obama that the al-Qaeda threat in Yemen has grown so serious that patrols by U.S. military drones are not enough.

U.S. officials said the CIA would operate alongside, and in close coordination with, the U.S. Joint Special Operations Command, which has been flying Predators and other remotely piloted planes over Yemen for much of the past year.

Because it operates under different legal authorities than the military, the CIA may have greater latitude to carry out strikes if the political climate shifts in Yemen and cooperation with American forces is diminished or cut off.

The expanded drone campaign will make use of “a mix of U.S. assets,” said a U.S. official familiar with the plan. “It’s not like you’re going to have a change of command ceremony that goes from U.S. military to CIA.”

A CIA spokeswoman declined to comment when asked Monday about the Yemen plans. National Security Council spokesman Tommy Vietor said the White House also would not comment. The CIA’s plans were first reported by the Wall Street Journal Monday night.

The new tasking for the agency marks a major escalation of the clandestine American war in Yemen, as well as a substantial expansion of the CIA’s drone war.

The agency pioneered the use of armed drones in Afghanistan a decade ago and has carried out hundreds of strikes in Pakistan in recent years. As a result, officials said, the CIA has developed substantial expertise in using a combination of drone surveillance and the cultivation of human source networks on the ground to carry out strikes inside a country where the U.S. military has limited ability to operate.

The addition of CIA drones also addresses a growing concern inside the Joint Special Operations Command that the military-run drone campaign in Yemen was not getting adequate resources, given the seriousness of the threat posed by al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, as the Yemen-based offshoot of the terrorist group is known.

Fewer than a dozen JSOC drones have been available to conduct patrols over Yemen for much of the past year, far fewer than have been used in Afghanistan or Iraq, said a second U.S. official.

The official, and others, spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity surrounding operations in Yemen. The decision to deploy CIA drones to Yemen comes as cooperation between U.S. special operations forces and Yemeni counter-terrorism units have collapsed amid political turmoil.

Yemen’s dictator for the past three decades, Ali Abdullah Saleh, flew to Saudi Arabia recently after being injured in an attack. Some Yemeni counter-terrorism teams, which are led by Saleh relatives, have been diverted from the pursuit of AQAP.

The turmoil has put pressure on the White House to use other means to locate AQAP operatives, who are seen as taking advantage of the chaos to improve their position in the country and potentially launch new attacks.

In recent months, some JSOC officers have complained to officials visiting from Washington that their paucity of resources was puzzling, given the concern expressed by the nation’s top intelligence officials about AQAP.

White House officials disputed that characterization. U.S. officials have testified repeatedly in recent months that AQAP represents the most immediate terrorism threat to American targets. At a hearing before a Senate committee Thursday, CIA Director Leon Panetta confirmed that the agency had expanded its counter-terrorism programs in Yemen, Somalia and North Africa.

“Our approach has been to develop operations in each of these areas that will contain al-Qaeda and go after them so they have no place to escape,” he said.

The group is responsible for plots that have included the unsuccessful attempt to bomb a Detroit-bound airliner on Christmas Day in 2009 and an effort to send packages packed with explosives to addresses in the United States last year.

One of the key figures in the group is an American-born cleric, Anwar al-Aulaqi, who escaped a drone strike targeting him in Yemen last month. That strike was the first by the United States in Yemen since 2002, punctuating a long drought that U.S. officials have attributed to a lack of solid intelligence on the whereabouts of AQAP operatives who went into hiding after a flurry of conventional airstrikes in late 2009 and early 2010.

Another constraint on the Yemen campaign has been the availability of runway capacity at a U.S.-operated airfield in Djibouti, where the JSOC drones are based. It is not clear whether the CIA aircraft will operate from the same facility.(source)

Arab spring: An Interactive Timeline of Middle East Protests

The Predictable Middle East Crisis

Can we know what will happen in the Middle East? William Gibson, an author and prophet of the information age, who, among other things, coined the word cyberspace, says that the future is predictable: "The future is already here -- it's just not evenly distributed."

Contemporary Jewish-Muslim relations are distributed so grotesquely unevenly that they provide plenty of hints at future trends. These relations vary wildly with the setting, numerical strength of each group, and context. Let us take four examples, moving from one extreme to the other.

Context 1. When prominent American Muslims appear on English-language TV to discuss issues like the Ground Zero Mosque, they love to play the Jewish card. They equate contemporary American society's treatment of the Muslims with what the American Jews experienced back in the '20s and '30s, hoping that this comparison will gain them more sympathy. Generally, when they face a largely skeptical Western audience, they project an enlightened and friendly attitude toward their Jewish brothers.

Context 2. This attitude changes drastically on American college campuses, where the Muslim groups feel emboldened by the left-wing professors and students. But they still have nothing against the Jewish people per se. They just demonize the Jewish state, which they call "criticism."

Context 3. The distinction between the Jews and Israel completely disappears when the Muslims become a sizable minority. For example, this is the case in Malmo, Sweden's third-largest city, where the Muslims make up 25% of the total population. Jew-hatred in Malmo has reached a point that even the BBC abandoned its usual political correctness and devoted one of its reports in December of 2010 specifically to the verbal and physical harassment of Malmo's tiny Jewish community by Muslim immigrants.

Context 4. If you think that the situation cannot get any uglier, you are mistaken. Let us go to a place where the Muslims are a majority. The screams "Jew! Jew!" served as a battle cry for the gang-rape of liberal journalist Lara Logan in Egypt. It was not an ordinary rape carried out in a secluded location. It took place in crowded Tahrir Square, and it went on for 25 minutes. She is not a Jew, but the mere labeling her as such was reason enough for the viciousness unleashed on her.

Islam is the fastest-growing religion in the West, fueled by immigration, higher birth rates and proselytizing, especially in prisons. If you are pondering the future of Jewish-Muslim relations, remember that the future is already here. It's just not evenly distributed yet.

Because of their relatively small numbers, Jews are a convenient target. But Christian-Muslim relations follow the same trajectory, to which the Egyptian Copts will readily attest. An Iraqi Christian has been quoted by the Christian Science Monitor as saying, "What's happening to us is what happened to the Jews."

Speaking of predictions, the Internet is currently abuzz with a recent report titled "The Next Middle East War." Its author, Chuck DeVore, has an impressive resume. He attended the American University in Cairo in the '80s. Then, he served as a US Army lieutenant colonel in military intelligence and worked as a Reagan-appointed special assistant for foreign affairs in the Pentagon. According to the San Francisco Chronicle, DeVore "beat the CIA" to predicting the current Arab crisis, a.k.a. the Arab Spring. In a word, his new report is definitely worth a brief review.

The report defies the conventional wisdom that a direct military attack on Israel will have to await the next presidential election in the US in 2012. It argues that two other events will precipitate the attack. They are the parliamentary elections in Egypt in September, where the Brotherhood wants to boost its popularity, and the pending release of the Hariri report by the UN, which Hezb'allah wants to prevent. Even though Hamas and Hezb'allah represent two opposing wings in the Muslim world, the "enemy of my enemy is my friend" mentality will bring them together.

Hence, the attack will occur in August of 2011, asserts the report. Here is the way it will unfold. Hamas and Hezb'allah declare a maritime blockade on Israel. They install anti-ship missile batteries in residential areas in Gaza and Lebanon, which attack Israeli ships. When Israel responds by hitting the batteries, the two terrorist groups invite Western media to report on casualties among civilians. International TV networks broadcast footage of bloodied women and children in Gaza.

The ensuing international indignation aroused by the Israeli 'atrocities' gives Hamas and Hezb'allah a "justification" to unleash a massive "retaliatory" rocket attack on major Israeli cities. Huge crowds in Tahrir Square in Cairo chant "Death to Israel, death to America!" The Obama administration calls for a "comprehensive settlement of the Palestinian question" and demands that Israel show more restraint. The UN Security Council calls for a ceasefire, while Egyptian parties pressure the military council to "teach Israel a lesson." Palestinian Authority President Abbas and Hamas leaders announce the creation of the Palestinian state. The media overlooks the part of the new state's charter proclaiming the intent to destroy Israel and institute Islamic law.

That was just the gist of Chuck DeVore's scenario. It sounds like a déjà vu, since we have already seen its main features, such as playing the victim card and using women and children for that reason. Another familiar feature is the dual role of the media. First, it is shamelessly manipulated to present a distorted view of reality. And second, once the distorted view is presented, this view actually shapes the reality by further inflaming Jew-hatred. In summary, the report paints a picture that is both chillingly dark and painfully familiar.

Eugene Veklerov is a scientist living in the Bay Area. (source)

Are Democratic Elections Feasible in the Middle East?

Americans are hopelessly infatuated with "democracy" and relentlessly try to export it. The recent "Arab Spring" testifies to the seductive power of our proselytizing. Protestors often demand "freedom and democracy" but mesmerizing slogans aside, why is "democracy" so valuable or what it does it mean to those risking life and limb for it? The hard truth is that tribalism prone Arab nations will not become democratic. Democracy cannot be commanded into existence; it requires a complex culture to flourish and that culture is in short supply in today's Middle East.


When American leaders implore others to embrace democracy they usually mean free, regular elections. Then add multiple political parties, a reasonably independent media to report events, and an honest counting of the vote, and voilà, there you have it -- instant democracy. What could be simpler? And, from time-to-time, thanks to American pressure (and bribery) such instant election-based democracies momentarily emerge (e.g., Afghanistan) before reverting to violence-filled, corrupt authoritarianism.


American champions of democracy ignore harsh cultural realities and without certain habits of mind, democracy is just brief interlude. Failures far outnumber successes. The democratic Weimar Republic lasted less than 15 years and was easily toppled by Hitler. In Italy Mussolini similarly almost effortlessly pushed aside a democracy with shallow roots. In innumerable Third World nations, from Zimbabwe to Venezuela, Kenya to Egypt, the pattern is "One Person, One Vote, One Time."


So, what are the extra ingredients necessary for an enduring election-based democracy? Three in particular strand out. For one, the election's outcome ends the battle for power until the next election -- losers don't continue on with suicide bombers. Political quarrels don't vanish, but the key question of who won is settled and the loser publicly concedes, thanks supporters, congratulates the winner, and then fades into the background. Think of the razor thin 1960 Kennedy/Nixon election in which Nixon graciously conceded despite clear irregularities in the Illinois vote. Recent violence in the Ivory Coast, Nigeria, and countless places elsewhere exemplify this problem -- the loser just fights on regardless of the verdict. A mini version of this occurred in the US after the 2000 presidential election. When the Senate, as per Constitution, was certifying Bush's victory, a few disgruntled Democratic House members vocally disrupted Senate proceedings, and refused to leave the Senate floor until threatened with forcible removal by Capitol security (and the Gore camp encouraged this culturally aberrant behavior with all the talk of a "stolen election").


Democracy also requires that campaigns show self-restraint. Democratic elections are not about annihilating enemies. This is a murky line but there must be some limits lest conflicts escalate into civil war. Democratic elections are peaceful, routinized forms of civil conflict, not opportunities to settle scores violently. Yes, in some American states and cities voters may be enticed by free food and booze, even stuffing a ballot box or two, but bombing and kidnapping are impermissible. Not even our worst cases of voter intimidation, e.g., what occurred in Philadelphia with the New Black Panther Party, entails actually killing opponents.


Functioning democracies also possess what is called a "loyal opposition." That is, the defeated faction accepts its loss but still plays by the democratic rules, i.e., try again the next election. Winners must therefore restrain themselves when dealing with losers, a norm that rests on the supposition that today's winners may be tomorrow's losers. Even when electoral victories are decisive, majorities don't push too hard and in return expect the losers to behave themselves. The power of this norm becomes clear when it is violated. Conceivably, much of the public opposition to ObamaCare reflected the belief that the Democratic congressional majority, though technically within its rights, had over-stepped its power with backroom parliamentary maneuvers to enact hazy bloated legislation by razor thin margins that affected one-sixth of the US economy.


Lastly, democratic elections are not about replacing one kleptocracy with another. Think Zimbabwe where those elected to power enrich friends at the expense of the defeated. Again, moderation is essential. Yes, the winning side in democratic outcomes gains some economic advantages (e.g., Obama's tilt toward labor unions) but democracy and kleptocracies are incompatible. To proceed as if the winner deserves all the property of the loser almost guarantees elections that will quickly escalate into violence and ultimately, the end of democracy.


All of these necessary traits (and several others) are cultural, the results of decades of experience and punishing violators, and cannot be created by paper proclamations. Acculturating these norms runs counter to human nature. Modern humans have existed for perhaps 180,000 years and during that period, with tiny exceptions, power rested on naked force. Violent repression in Libya, Syria, Yemen, and Bahrain are reactions rooted in 9,000 generations of human existence, and are not aberrations. In evolutionary terms, the penchant for peaceful democratic elections might be likened to an exceedingly rare genetic mutation.


Americans seldom recognize how we have been "trained" toward a culture undergirding electoral democracy. We take the immense and successful effort for granted. Most Americans grew up regularly voting in well-scripted school elections and watching them on TV, and "let's vote and abide by majority rule" was the mechanism to settle disputes. Beauty pageants and award ceremonies (e.g., the Oscars) display a reoccurring pattern -- secret ballot votes, limits on campaign tactics while losers graciously accept the verdict. Moderation was learned via sports -- "good sportsmanship" included post-game rituals such as shaking hands to cool lingering animosities. I tell my political science graduate students that the informal pick-up basketball game usually typifies the strength of democratic norms -- players from both teams observe unwritten rules of fairness, quickly forget the game, even if a little rough, and then go off for beer and pizza. Conflict is restrained, bounded, and transitory, just as it is in the political realm.


I seriously doubt whether Arab nations possess this facilitating culture. Just observe hair-trigger recourse to violence, the infatuation with guns and militias, a willingness to fight to the death, cruelty toward defeated foes, and how the passion for revenge can trump everything, including peace and prosperity. The British wisely understood the region -- after the Ottoman Empire's demise following WWI, Britain installed monarchies in the region as the "natural" political arrangement. Judged by the subsequent peace, monarchy, not democracy, was the correct choice.


Though "democracy" is a popular slogan among rebellious Arabs, I suspect that they really want is not democracy but a more equitable re-distribution of wealth coupled with less brutal authoritarian rule -- more cars and TVs, fewer secret police. "Economic populism" is a more accurate description and this hardly requires the institutional bric-a-brac of electoral democracy. A benign tyrant will suffice. In the final analysis, then, election-based democracy should not be the gold standard when judging Middle East political progress. Let us not be blinded by political fantasies.

Robert Weissberg is professor of political science-emeritus, University of Illinois-Urbana. His latest book is Bad Students Not Bad Schools.(source)

Prospects for Liberal Democracy in the Middle East

The world has been mesmerized by the uprisings taking place in the Middle East against authoritarian regimes. Some speculation is that this effect was caused by the example of Iraq sustaining multiple democratic cycles. By force, the Bush administration annihilated Saddam's brutal regime and forced into place a democratic process. The speculation is that people in neighboring countries have been observant of the changes and now seek democracy for themselves. However, a liberal democracy is comprised of particular attributes such as representative government, rule of law, equality before the law, just punishment, property rights, and certain freedoms (e.g. religion, speech, association, etc.). It remains to be seen what the Iraqis and, for that matter, the rest of the Middle Eastern revolutionaries make of their opportunity.


Liberal democracy grows only in certain cultures. History has empirically demonstrated that cultures stemming from Christian, Eastern, and Far Eastern religions are compatible with stable, long term liberal democracies. On the other hand, it is not obvious that cultures emanating from an Islamic foundation are compatible with liberal democracy. This uncertainty is a key reason the European Union has resisted integrating Turkey. It may explain why there are no Muslim liberal democracies.


After World War I, Mustafa Ataturk brought the power of the Turkish state to bear against fundamentalist Islam. In an attempt to modernize, Ataturk forcibly introduced Western systems and required a secular bent. However, in current times, Recep Erdogan has leveraged public disapproval of government corruption, incompetence, and ineffectiveness to make gains in legislative representation. His Justice and Development Party, with ties to an earlier Islamist party, have been leading Turkey since 2002. While shair'a has not been formally declared the law of the land, a cultural shift is apparent by observing the effects of increased pressure on women to conform to Islamic dress styles (e.g. head scarves, veils) and public behaviors (fewer single women about, fewer women intermingling with men socially, etc.). In a downward trend, Freedom House notes the loss of freedoms of speech and the press. Even Turkey's president, Abdullah Gul, admits civil liberties are endangered. Within the last year, in foreign affairs, Turkey has distanced itself from Israel and moved closer to Syria, a client state of Iran. Also, Turkey instigated the attempt to break Israel's blockade of Gaza in order to aid the Muslim Brotherhood progeny Hamas. The Muslim Brotherhood aims to install totalitarian Islamist governments in all Muslim countries; oppression and persecution of non-believers is conjoined with their goals and not incidental.


New constitutions for both Afghanistan and Iraq were catalyzed by the United States. Unfortunately, both of their constitutions include diametrically opposed ideas. For example, both constitutions convey freedom of religion to citizens. But both also recognize the supremacy of Islamic law known as shair'a. Shair'a is opposed to freedom of religion. This tension suggests shair'a or the constitution must give. So far, in both countries, illiberal shair'a has prevailed. On several occasions, Afghanistan has attempted to impose the shair'a penalty of death on Afghans who converted to Christianity from Islam. And Iraq's Christian population has been targeted for violence to the extent that a small fraction of believers remain in their country today compared to several years ago.


Iran purports to be a democracy. But the current repression against the Green Movement after the corrupted 2009 presidential election indicates little tolerance for dissent against the theocracy. Following the fall in 1979 of Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi by the Iranian Revolution, Khomeinists established a theocratic constitution. This has prevented any effective liberal opposition from forming legally. Now, that opposition is being brutally repressed even to the point of civilian deaths.


It is difficult to establish causality for the reason Muslim countries are inhospitable to liberal democracies. But there are many reasons shair'a is incompatible with classical liberalism. A leading reason is that shair'a is a totalitarian system brooking no dissent. Submission is required by shair'a of believers and non-believers alike. There is no quarter given for debate or reasoning.


One feature of liberal democracy is representative government. Juxtaposed against this is shair'a's imposition of poll taxes on non-believers in order to discourage participation. Also, there can be prohibitions against non-believers holding government office or judicial positions. Shair'a does not recognize the separation of mosque and state, so only particular political parties are allowed to form.


The rule of law is central to liberal democracy. However, shair'a doesn't consist of codified statutes per se. Rather, shair'a includes Koranic content and practices of Mohammed (sunna). Any fatwa, or religious ruling, issued by innumerous individuals, could result in an ex post facto hazard. Also, there are no trials by jury, but only trials before religious officials.


Equality before the law means that men and women have equal legal standing in a liberal democracy. But shair'a devalues the worth of women. As witnesses, a woman has half the value of a man. This means two women must contest one man's claims. A wife must prove her innocence if a husband accuses her of adultery, but a wife must prove her husband's guilt if she accuses. Wife beating is the prerogative of her husband's governance. Females are entitled to half the inheritance of males. Also, drawing the greatest distinction in inequality, shair'a countenances slavery. Enslavement can range from servitude to treatment as chattel (i.e. the slave does not retain even rights over his/her own body).


Liberal democracies eschew cruel and unusual punishments. But shair'a requires imprisonment and even severing of a hand of a thief, stoning to death for adultery by married men or women, and lashings for other sexual transgressions. Homosexual behavior and sodomy are punishable by death.


Property rights are not uniform under shair'a. For example, Saudi Arabia has no churches anywhere in the country. Elsewhere, in Muslim countries, it is not uncommon that Christians may not build churches. For churches that already exist, approval might be withheld to effect repairs.


Shair'a does not sanction freedom of speech or the press. The orchestrated worldwide violence protesting the Jyllands-Posten cartoons of September 30, 2005 depicting Mohammed is consistent with Islamic fundamentalism. Contesting Islamic beliefs is considered heresy and punishable by death. This is consistent with the lack of freedom of religion imposed by shair'a. Apostasy is a capital offense. The Koran encourages conversion at the point of the sword and permits killing non-believers who won't convert.


Optimists, multiculturalists, ignoramuses, and naifs think protesters in the Middle East will replace tyrannies with liberal democracies. Unfortunately, you can't get to there from where the protesters are starting. With the sole exception of Israel, cultures in the Middle East, dominated as they are by shair'a, are inimical to liberal democracy and liberty. Tyrants may fall, but any democracies that are established will devolve sooner or later into the totalitarian state that shair'a demands. In general, American foreign policy decisions should be informed by the constraints shair'a imposes on movement into modernity in the Middle East. In particular, Americans should not expend one drop of blood or any treasure on current or future uprisings in the Middle East. (source)

The Samson Option: Israel and Middle East Nuclear Strategy

In the always arcane discourse of nuclear strategy, dialectical thinking is a "net." Only those who cast will catch. To calculate Israel's best strategic options following President Barack Obama's plans for "Palestine," therefore, the capable strategist must continue to ask and answer difficult questions -- sequentially, persistently, patiently, and above all, systematically. Only by seamlessly drawing together this complex body of interrelated queries and replies can the serious strategist ever hope for a coherent and comprehensive body of military and diplomatic theory. The only alternative is the usual patchwork quilt of journalistic or reportorial "explanation," an arbitrary mélange of more or less disjointed information and factoids lacking even the rudiments of predictive thought. Now, after Mr. Obama's speech, more than ever, Israel needs "wise counsel."

Stubbornly following the twisted cartography of his Middle East Road Map, President Barack Obama remains determined to midwife the birth of a twenty-third Arab state. This certain-to-be fragmented and radically unstable country called "Palestine" would promptly become a bitter and irreconcilable enemy of the United States.

There is further irony here. On the very same day that he praised members of the U.S. intelligence community for assassinating Osama bin Laden, Obama spoke forcefully on behalf of creating a new anti-American terror state. Should he succeed, the long-term security costs to this country from "Palestine" will likely outweigh even the most grievous new harms being conceived by al-Qaeda.

There is even a generally unrecognized nuclear dimension to probable "Palestine"-related harms. Despite Mr. Obama's expressly broad and plainly generic dislike of nuclear weapons -- a dislike based much more on visceral emotion and clichéd "wisdom" than on dialectical logic or considered reason -- any American-assisted birth of "Palestine" would substantially enlarge regional and worldwide risks of nuclear war and nuclear terrorism. In essence, before any such portentous birth could be performed, a gravedigger would have to wield the forceps.

In the best of all possible worlds, Prime Minister Netanyahu, guided by lucidity, would strongly oppose all forms of Palestinian statehood. This would include opposition to even Netanyahu's own proposal for a "demilitarized" Palestinian state. Disingenuous even to Israel's allies, intra-national and international, this idealized proposal for bilateral coexistence with "Palestine" stood no chance of success from the start. Inevitably, the new Palestinian government, supported by both codified and customary international law, would correctly assert its "inherent" right to national armed forces for "self defense." Palestine, after all, with President Obama's utterly misconceived blessing, would now be a fully sovereign state.

It is possible, of course, going forward, that persistently crude and not-so-subtle pressure from Washington to accept Palestine could prove geopolitically irresistible to Mr. Netanyahu. A basic question thus presents itself: in such threatening circumstances, what should Israel's operational and doctrinal response be? Importantly, one possible answer would concern Israel's nuclear strategy, especially its so-called "Samson Option."

On its face, a Palestinian state should have no direct bearing on Israel's nuclear posture. Yet, although non-nuclear itself, Palestine could still critically impair Israel's indispensable capacity to wage essential forms of conventional war. In turn, this impairment could enlarge the Jewish State's incentive to rely on unconventional weapons in certain assorted and dangerous strategic circumstances.

Significantly, a primary cause of any such impairment is apt to be the current and ongoing training of Palestinian Authority "security forces" by the United States. Recently underway in Jordan, this flagrantly self-defeating military program, commanded by U.S. Lt. General Keith Dayton, could contribute mightily to any post-state aggression by Palestinian fighters always determined to destroy Israel.

Credo quia absurdum. "I believe because it is absurd." Barack Obama is now creating conditions on the ground in which designated IDF units, in any post-Palestinian independence Middle East, would have to fight desperately against Fatah elements trained by the United States. With this incomprehensible program, therefore, we are arming and preparing the next generation of anti-Israel and anti-U.S. terrorists.

Credo quia absurdum. The guiding U.S. presumption is that these Fatah elements are relatively "moderate." A similar and equally foolish U.S. presumption is that there are now identifiably "moderate" elements functioning within the terrorist organization Hezbollah. Extending erroneous American strategic thinking to Lebanon, this curious idea has been expressed on several occasions by John Brennan, advisor for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism to President Obama.

What is Israel to do? Confronting a new enemy Arab state that could act collaboratively and capably (thanks to the U.S.) with other Arab states, or possibly even with non-Arab Iran, and also confronting potentially serious synergies between the birth of Palestine and renewed terrorism from Lebanon, Israel could feel itself compelled to bring hitherto clandestine elements of its "ambiguous" nuclear strategy into the light of day. Here, leaving the "bomb in the basement" would no longer make strategic sense. For Israel, of course, the geostrategic rationale for some level of nuclear disclosure would lie not in stating the obvious (merely that Israel has the bomb), but rather, inter alia, in persuading all prospective attackers that Israel's nuclear weapons are usable, secure, and penetration-capable.

Palestine, too -- even if it would not actively seek collaboration with other Arab or Islamic countries -- could still be exploited militarily and geographically against Israel by different regional enemies of the Jewish State. Iran and Syria, of course, represent the most obvious candidates to carry out any such exploitations. One year ago, Iran reportedly transferred an undetermined number of Scud missiles to Syria. In Damascus, the "Arab Spring" notwithstanding, plans are being made to smuggle these Scuds into northern Lebanon, from where they could then strike any major city in Israel.

Israel's core nuclear strategy, however secret and ambiguous, must always remain oriented toward deterrence. The Samson Option refers to a presumed Israeli policy that is necessarily based upon an implicit threat of massive nuclear retaliation for certain specific enemy aggressions. This policy, to be sure, could be invoked credibly only where such aggressions would threaten Israel's very existence. For anticipated lesser harms, Samson threats would likely not appear believable.

In Jerusalem/Tel-Aviv, the main point of any Samson Option would not be to communicate the availability of any graduated Israeli nuclear deterrent -- that is, a deterrent (resembling what was once called "flexible response" in the U.S.) in which all possible reprisals would be more or less specifically calibrated to different and determinable levels of enemy aggression. Rather, it would intend to signal the more-or-less unstated promise of a counter-city ("counter value" in military parlance) reprisal.

The Samson Option, then, would be unlikely to deter any aggressions short of nuclear and/or certain biological first strike attacks upon the Jewish State.

In essence, Samson would "say" the following to all potential attackers: "We (Israel) may have to 'die,' but, this time, we don't intend to die alone."

A Samson Option could serve Israel better as an adjunct to particular deterrence and preemption options than as a core nuclear strategy. The Samson Option, therefore, should never be confused with Israel's main security objective. This core objective must always be to seek effective deterrence at the lowest possible levels of conflict.

To suitably strengthen Israeli nuclear deterrence, visible preparations for a Samson Option could help to convince enemy states that aggression would not be gainful. This would be most convincing if (1) Israeli Samson preparations were coupled with some level of visible nuclear disclosure (e.g., ending Israel's posture of nuclear ambiguity); (2) Israel's Samson weapons appeared sufficiently invulnerable to enemy first strikes; and (3) Israel's Samson weapons were recognizably "counter value" in mission function.

Samson could also support Israeli nuclear deterrence by demonstrating a greater Israeli willingness to take existential risks. In matters of nuclear strategy, it may sometimes be better to feign irrationality than to purposefully project complete rationality. Earlier, in IDF history, Moshe Dayan had genuinely understood this strangely counterintuitive injunction: "Israel must be like a mad dog," said Dayan, "too dangerous to bother."

In our topsy-turvy nuclear world, it can be perfectly rational to pretend irrationality. But in any given Middle East conflict situation, the precise nuclear deterrence benefits of pretended irrationality would have to depend in large part upon prior enemy state awareness of Israel's counter value targeting posture. Rejecting nuclear war as a purposeful strategic option, the Project Daniel Group, in its then-confidential report to former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon more than seven years ago (January 16, 2003), recommended exactly such a deterrence posture.

To strengthen possible strategies of preemption, preparations for a Samson Option could help to convince Israel's own leadership that certain defensive first strikes would be cost-effective. These leaders would then expect that any Israeli preemptive strikes, known under international law as expressions of "anticipatory self-defense," could be launched with reduced apprehensions of unacceptably damaging enemy retaliations. This complex expectation would depend upon many pertinent factors, including (1) previous Israeli decisions on nuclear disclosure; (2) Israeli perceptions of the effects of such nuclear disclosure on enemy retaliatory intentions; (3) Israeli judgments about enemy perceptions of Samson weapons vulnerability; and (4) a presumed enemy awareness of Samson's counter value force posture.

As with Samson-based enhancements of Israeli nuclear deterrence, any identifiably last-resort nuclear preparations could support Israel's critical preemption options by displaying a bold national willingness to take existential risks. In this connection, the steady and undisturbed nuclearization of Iran should come immediately to mind.

But pretended irrationality can be a double-edged sword. Brandished too "irrationally," Israeli preparations for a Samson Option could encourage enemy preemptions. Here, again, the specter of a nuclear Iran should emerge front and center.

Left to themselves, neither deterred nor preempted, certain Arab and/or other Islamic enemies of Israel, especially after the U.S.-assisted creation of a Palestinian state, could bring the Jewish State face-to-face with the palpable torments of Dante's Inferno, "[i]nto the eternal darkness, into fire, into ice." Israeli strategic planners and political leaders, therefore, should soon begin to acknowledge an absolutely primary obligation to (a) strengthen their country's nuclear security posture and (b) ensure that any failure of nuclear deterrence would not spark nuclear war or nuclear terror.

One way for Israel to partially meet this obligation, particularly after President Obama's undimmed support for Palestine and equally misguided support for "a world free of nuclear weapons," would be to focus more openly and precisely on the Samson Option. In so doing, considerable attention will need to be directed to the presumed rationality of enemy leaderships, both state and sub-state. How can the capable IDF strategist recognize the difference between real and pretended irrationality?

This will become an urgent question. In those rare cases where an enemy state or terror group might not value its own physical survival more highly than any other preference or combination of preferences, the standard logic of deterrence would be rendered inoperable. In such cases, all bets would be off regarding probable enemy reactions to Israeli threats of retaliation. The probability of any such case arising may be very low, but the attendant disutility of any single case could still be intolerably high.

IDF planners and other interested strategists should now consider also the cumulative capabilities and intentions of Israel's non-state enemies -- that is, the entire configuration of anti-Israel terrorist groups. Such assessments should now offer more than a simple group by group inventory of enemy assets and intentions. These groups should also now be considered in their entirety, collectively, as they may interrelate with one another vis-à-vis Israel.

These several hostile non-state organizations will also need to be examined in their interactive relationships with core enemy states. Recalling, for example, the discussion of Palestine (above), it is important to recognize and understand all possible synergies with Iran and Syria in particular.

In the matter of synergies, interested strategists will also need to consider critical "force multipliers." A force multiplier is a collection of related characteristics, other than weapons and size of force, that may make any military organization more effective in combat. A force multiplier may be generalship, tactical surprise, tactical mobility, or particular command/control system enhancements.

Seeking improved force multipliers for Israel, strategic thinkers should now assess well-integrated elements of cyber-warfare, and a reciprocal capacity to prevent and blunt any incoming cyber-attacks. Today, this particular force multiplier could even prove to be decisive.

In a world of growing international anarchy, IDF planners should now investigate all pertinent enemy force multipliers, challenging and undermining enemy force multipliers, and developing/refining its own force multipliers. More specifically, this means an appropriately heavy IDF emphasis on air superiority, communications, intelligence, and surprise. Again, recalling Moshe Dayan's counterintuitive injunction, it may also mean a heightened awareness of the possible benefits of pretended irrationality (Samson Option).

The state system of international statecraft came into being in the 17 th century, after the Peace of Westphalia in 1648. For the most part, our "Westphalian" system remains almost entirely anarchic. Several emerging hazards to Israeli national security will be shaped by this primary condition.

Nonetheless, to observant strategists, there will also be a discernible geometry of chaos, and calculating the implications of this particular "geometry" will prove to be an important and cost-effective task. Before this can happen, interested strategists must take steps to ensure that their analyses and recommendations are detached from any false hopes. Recalling Thucydides, writing prophetically (416 BCE) on the ultimatum of the Athenians to the Melians during the Peloponnesian War: "Hope is by nature an expensive commodity, and those who are risking their all on one cast find out what it means only when they are already ruined[.]"

To the extent that these forthcoming strategic difficulties are related to the now-impending creation of a Palestinian state, they are problems largely created by U.S. President Barack Obama. For Israel, it follows that the very best current path to prevent existentially perilous interactions between enemy state nuclearization and Palestinian statehood is to oppose the latter immediately and totally.

Louis René Beres was educated at Princeton (Ph.D., 1971) and is Professor of International Law at Purdue. He is the author of some of the earliest major books on Israeli nuclear strategy. (source)

LIBYAN MELTDOWN: France is First To Recognize Libyan Rebels

In a major diplomatic victory for the Libyan opposition, France has become the first country to formally recognise Libya’s rebel leadership, pledging to exchange ambassadors between Paris and the Libyan opposition stronghold of Benghazi.

France became the first country to formally recognize the Libyan opposition – the Interim Transitional National Council – as legitimate representatives of the Libyan people on Thursday, pledging to exchange ambassadors with the country’s newly created transitional council in a major diplomatic victory for the Libyan opposition.

The announcement followed a meeting between French President Nicolas Sarkozy and two representatives of Libya’s Interim Transitional National Council in Paris Thursday

Speaking to reporters at the Elysée presidential palace in Paris, Ali al Issawi, a former Libyan ambassador to India who quit his post last month, announced that, “France recognises the National Council as the legitimate representative of the Libyan people.

"There will be an exchange of ambassadors between Paris and Benghazi," he added, referring to the eastern Libyan city that has emerged as a rebel stronghold over the past few weeks.

The recognition comes as European Union foreign ministers meet in Brussels Thursday and defense ministers of NATO’s 28 member states also gathered in the Belgian capital to consider the imposition of a no-fly zone over Libya.

Ahead of the Brussels meeting, AFP reported that Sarkozy would propose “targeted airstrikes” in Libya as a way to end the violence.

Reacting to the news of France’s diplomatic recognition, Imane Boughaighis, media organizer for Libya’s Interim Transitional National Council, said the Libyan people were “very grateful” to the French government.

“We thank the French government and the people of Libya will never forget that they (the French government) were the first country to recognize us and they stood with us in our difficult time.”

In Benghazi, people gathered near the National Council's headquarters, honking cars and cheering as some fired celebratory gunshot rounds, according to Reuters.

In a phone interview with FRANCE 24 from Benghazi, Boughaighis said she hoped France’s formal recognition of the opposition would trigger a domino effect across Europe.

Diplomatic dominoes or diplomatic tit-for-tat?

In a sign of a likely diplomatic tit-for-tat between Paris and Tripoli, the official Libyan news agency Jana quoted an unnamed foreign ministry official as saying Libya “will think about severing its relations with France because of information being circulated about France's damaging intervention in Libya's internal affairs.”

When asked whether Italy would follow France’s example, Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi said his government would seek the opinion of other European countries before deciding whether to recognise Libyan rebels as the country's legitimate representatives.

"That's a decision by a single government," Berlusconi told a news conference Thursday. "I think it's better for us to listen to the stance of the entire European community."

The Italian foreign minister, Franco Frattini, underlined the point by saying that that Italy "will not participate in air strikes on Libyan territory”.

Italy, Libya’s former colonial power, is Tripoli’s main European trading partner, importing about 25 percent of its oil and 12 percent of its gas from the North African nation.

Hours after the announcement at the Elysée presidential palace, a British Foreign Office spokesman said members of the Interim Transitional National Council were "valid interlocutors with whom we wish to work closely".

Gaddafi in the image race

As the search for a coordinated international response to the Libyan conflict has gained momentum, embattled Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi has also sent envoys to a number of European countries, according to numerous reports.

On Wednesday, the Portuguese foreign ministry confirmed that Foreign Minister Luis Amado had “an informal meeting in a Lisbon hotel with a Libyan emissary, on the request of the latter”. No further details of the meeting were revealed.

Portugal chairs the UN Security Council's committee on sanctions for Libya starting this week.

Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini has also confirmed that Gaddafi’s regime "is moving towards contact" with the international community after a senior Gaddafi aide arrived in Cairo Wednesday.