Friends of Israel

Tehran is kicking back hard for Barack Obama's three-prong anti-Iran warfronts in the economic, covert and allied spheres. After having its horizon for expansion shrunk to its front door in the Persian Gulf, Iran's rulers are looking for trouble, hoping to provoke a limited military clash with the United States.

Against Tehran's bid to dictate the Persian Gulf's rules of navigation, the US and GCC are preparing to fight together or separately against any attempts to prevent free movement through the oil route. They would aim to recapture the three Persian Gulf islands held by Iran, which are the key to controlling the Strait of Hormuz traffic.

The military rulers of Egypt are upending President Obama's plans for Egypt by bringing forward the handover of power ahead of the formulation of a democratic constitution and the election of a moderate president. Power would then go straight to the Muslim Brotherhood. To save the day, Washington hopes to handpick an acceptable president. Omar Suleiman is mentioned.

Libyans see their revolution has fallen off track, their transitional leader Abdel-Jalil predicting a slide into civil war as former rebel militias fight it out in the streets and oil deals transacted by ministers who offer no accounting to ordinary citizens.

Kurdistan's regional president Masoud Barzani claims America has betrayed the Kurds and left them at the prey of Iraq's Shiite prime minister Nouri al-Maliki, who has already cut off oil revenues due to the Kurdish republic under a sealed and signed accord.

A Digest of debkafile Round-the-Clock Exclusives in Two Weeks Ending January 5, 2012

The armies of Saudi Arabia and fellow GCC states stood ready Thursday Jan. 5, for Washington to stand up to Iranian threats and send an aircraft carrier or several warships through the Strait of Hormuz into the Persian Gulf.  Notwithstanding their military inferiority, the Iranians believe they can snatch a measure of success from a military confrontation now, which they expect to be limited – at least at first – and are therefore ratcheting up their belligerence day after day.

Military tensions are building up around Syria's borders. Wednesday, Jan. 4, Turkish military sources reported an Israeli Eitan drone hovering for four hours over the Turkish Hawk Brigade 14 stationed on the Syrian border at Kirikhan in the Hatay district – the expected jumping-off point for any foreign military intervention in Syria.  In the south, fierce battles raged Tuesday, Jan. 3 between Syrian troops and the mutinous 38th Mechanized Brigade in the Syrian-Jordanian-Israeli border triangle. Sounds of gunfire were heard in Israel.

Armed US-Iranian hostilities are dangerously close – more so even than the six-to-eight months widely predicted. By posting a Keep Out sign over the Persian Gulf for the USS Stennis, Tehran is goading the Obama administration into action sooner rather than later. DEBKA-Net-Weekly out next Friday assesses the nail-biting face-off generated by US pressure on Iran and Tehran's tactics for throwing it back in America's face. Israel must weigh how far to join US action against the cost of Iranian retaliation.

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In another heated escalation over the strategic Strait of Hormuz, Iran Tuesday, Jan. 3, threatened to take action if the US aircraft carrier USS Stennis, which "moved to the Sea of Oman because of our drill returns to the Persian Gulf." Army chief Lt. Gen. Ataolla Salehi said:" Iran will not repeat this warning." It is hard to see Washington caving in over Tehran's ultimate challenge to the freedom of this vital international waterway and accepting Iran's assumed right to control passage.

Cypriot President Demetris Christofias has warned Turkey to stop its warships shelling the strip of water dividing the Cypriot and Israeli gas exploration zones in the eastern Mediterranean.
debkafile's military forces report that Wednesday, Dec. 21, Turkish warships began turning their guns on the narrow strip dividing Israel's Leviathan gas field from Block 12 of Cyprus's Exclusive Economic Zone-EEZ. Estimates of the sizes of the two fields have been substantially upped of late. Both see prospects of becoming major gas suppliers to Europe.

By Friday night, Dec. 23, Western intelligence sources were attributing the twin suicide car attacks which claimed 53 lives and injured more than 100 outside the Syrian Security Directorate in Damascus earlier in the day to President Bashar Assad and his security chiefs. His motive? To keep the Arab League team, just arrived for an effort to start brokering peace in Syria, busy in Damascus instead of inspecting Homs where the bloody military crackdown continued during the day.

Barack Obama set about tightening US cooperation with Israel after discovering Iran had embarked on nuclear weaponization. He was persuaded by Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak that there was no time to lose for eradicating Iran's nuclear program – hence the White House flip-flop on attack Iran.

Gulf rulers led by Saudi Arabia say that by packing up its bags and leaving, the US military abandoned Iraq the country to an Iranian power grab led by Shiite Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and released its sectarian demons. They are therefore determined to go it alone against Iran.

As news of Erdogan's grave illness trickles out, will Obama find a new Middle East partner to replace the pro-Western democratic Islamic ruler he chose as a model for Muslim rulers in the Arab world?

As NATO cargo planes airlifted Libyan fighters to join the anti-Assad Free Syrian Army units in Turkey, Syrian forces armed with Russian spy satellite intelligence waylaid FSA rebels and deserters, killing them where they stood. A large-scale exercise prepares Syrian army to repel a combined offensive.

A Digest of debkafile Round-the-Clock Exclusives in the Week Ending December 22, 2011

Iran has embarked on "activities related to possible weaponization," said American sources Thursday, Dec. 22, thereby crossing the Obama administration's red line. This accounts for the dramatic reversal of the US administration's wait-and-see policy on attacking Iran, as articulated this week by Leon Panetta and top US soldier, Gen. Martin Dempsey. debkafile reports the US and Israeli are now in sync on action against Iran and have tightened cooperation.

Hours after US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta told CBS that Iran could build a nuclear bomb in a year or less, Gen. Martin Dempsey, Chairman of the Joint US Chiefs of Staff, issued a warning: "Iran is playing a dangerous game that could ensnare the Middle East, the Middle East and others into conflict and a renewed arms race. Don't push it." The loss of the drone is not the end of US efforts, he said, adding: "America is sharing intelligence with Israel."

"Despite the efforts to disrupt the Iranian nuclear program, they have reached a point where they can assemble a bomb in a year or potentially less," said US Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta in a CBS interview Tuesday, Dec. 20 marking a radical change in US administration policy. "That's a red line for us and that's a red line, obviously, for the Israelis," he said. Instead of warning Israel against striking Iran, Panetta said: "If we have to do it we will deal with it."