Re: War in The Middle East
war in the middle east would defintly spark a world war
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Re: War in The Middle East
Israelis Wary of a US Radar Base in the Negev
When a contingent of U.S. soldiers opens a radar facility on a mountaintop in the Negev desert next month, Israel will for the first time in its 60-year history have a permanent foreign military base on its soil. And despite the early warning that the American radar would provide if Iran launches a missile attack on Israel, some senior Israeli officials are nonetheless wary about its presence. Complained one top official, "It's a like a pair of golden handcuffs on Israel." From its mountain perch in Har Keren, the U.S. radar will be able to monitor the take-off of any aircraft or missile up to 1,500 miles away — giving Israel a vital extra 60-70 seconds to react if Iran fired a missile, Israeli military sources told TIME. Israel has its own radar system trained on Iran, but it's range is much shorter. Still, some see several drawbacks for Israel in the radar, and blame Defense Minister Ehud Barak for requesting its deployment in Israel without consulting anyone other than his chief of staff. Some in the upper echelons of the Israeli Defense Force fear that although the radar will enhance Israel's protection against Iran, it may also open up Israel's own military secrets to the Americans.
The radar will allow the U.S. to keep a close watch on anything moving in Israeli skies, "even a bee", says one top Israeli official who asked not to be identified. The U.S. may be a close ally, but Israel nonetheless has aviation secrets it would rather not share. "Even a husband and wife have a few things they'd like to keep from each other," explains this source. "Now we're standing without our clothes on in front of America." Israel will have no direct access to the data collected by the radar, which looks like a giant taco. It will only be fed intelligence second hand, on a need-to-know basis, from the Americans — unless the radar picks up an immediate, direct attack on Israel, Israeli sources claim. And Israeli officials expressed concern that the radar's installation may anger Moscow, since its range will enable the U.S. to monitor aircraft in the skies over southern Russia. When the U.S. stationed anti-missile radar and interceptor systems in Poland and the Czech Republic — ostensibly directed at a future Iranian threat, although the Russians believe their own missile capability is its real target — Moscow warned those countries that the move could result in their being added to the target list of Russia's missiles.
Israeli military sources say that Barak requested the radar from U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates in July, after U.S. requests to station such a system in Turkey and Jordan were rejected. Barak was eager to acquire the advantage of the early warning that the system would provide in the event of a possible Iranian attack. But with the Russians already peeved at Israel for having had military advisers inside Georgia when war broke out over South Ossetia, the radar's deployment in Israel, say officials, might make Moscow even more likely to supply Iran and Syria with its highly-accurate SA300 anti-aircraft missile batteries. The top-secret X-band radar will be staffed by around 120 American technicians and security guards in the Negev, say Israeli military sources. But Israeli planning and air force officials are perturbed that Defense Minister Barak did not carry out any evaluation og the radar's possible impact on Israeli military operations before approving it. For one thing, Israeli defense experts are worried that waves from the X-band radar might throw off the accuracy of a new Gil anti-tank missile also being tested in the Negev. "The Bush Administration is in the mood to give us anything, as long as we don't attack Iran," gripes one senior official. "So why did we take this radar?"
Source: http://www.time.com/time/world/artic...feed-cnn-worldLeave a comment:
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Re: War in The Middle East
For the past year or so I kept hearing from Armenians in and out of Armenia how "democratic" and "just" Israeli society is compared to Armenian society. They were stating comments like - Unlike Armenia Israel has an open society... Unlike our criminals in Yerevan that are still sucking the blood of the people, when Olmert got caught in corruption they rightfully ousted him... I found myself trying to explain to these ignorant sswipes that there was no campaign against corruption in Israel and that the matter in question seemed to be an internal political dispute. Well, based on the New York Times news report below, it's clear now why Ehud Olmert was pushed out of government in Tel Aviv - it was not due to "corruption" charges. Israeli politicians are notorious for being amongst the world's most corrupt. The fact remains, compared to politicians throughout the word, especially in places like Asia, South America, Africa, USA and the Middle East, Armenian politicians are saints. It's amazing how ignorant and self-hating Armenians can be. No need to go far to see these types of individuals I'm referring to, at this time we have at least two right here amongst us. Take a look at their disgusting handiwork they are so proud of:
Kocharian: a criminal? http://forum.hyeclub.com/showthread.php?t=11096
Kenya, Tibet, Armenia, Zimbabwe: http://forum.hyeclub.com/showthread....mugabe+Armenia
The other Armenia: http://forum.hyeclub.com/showthread.php?t=10938
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Olmert Says Israel Should Pull Out of West Bank
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said in an interview published on Monday that Israel must withdraw from nearly all of the West Bank as well as East Jerusalem to attain peace with the Palestinians and that any occupied land it held onto would have to be exchanged for the same quantity of Israeli territory. He also dismissed as “megalomania” any thought that Israel would or should attack Iran on its own to stop it from developing nuclear weapons, saying the international community and not Israel alone was charged with handling the issue. In an unusually frank and soul-searching interview granted after he resigned to fight corruption charges — he remains interim prime minister until a new government is sworn in — Mr. Olmert discarded longstanding Israeli defense doctrine and called for radical new thinking, in words that are sure to stir controversy as his expected successor, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, tries to build a coalition.
“What I am saying to you now has not been said by any Israeli leader before me,” Mr. Olmert told the newspaper Yediot Aharonot in the interview on the occasion of the xxxish new year, observed from Monday evening till Wednesday evening. “The time has come to say these things.”
He said that traditional Israeli defense strategists had learned nothing from past experiences and that they seemed stuck in the considerations of the 1948 war of independence. “With them, it is all about tanks and land and controlling territories and controlled territories and this hilltop and that hilltop,” he said. “All these things are worthless.” He added, “Who thinks seriously that if we sit on another hilltop, on another hundred meters, that this is what will make the difference for the State of Israel’s basic security?” Over the last year, Mr. Olmert has publicly castigated himself for his earlier right-wing views and he did so again in this interview. On Jerusalem, for example, he said: “I am the first who wanted to enforce Israeli sovereignty on the entire city. I admit it. I am not trying to justify retroactively what I did for 35 years. For a large portion of these years, I was unwilling to look at reality in all its depth.”
He said that maintaining sovereignty over an undivided Jerusalem, Israel’s official policy, would involve bringing 270,000 Palestinians inside Israel’s security barrier. It would mean a continuing risk of terrorist attacks against civilians like those carried out this year by Jerusalem Palestinian residents with front-end loaders. “A decision has to be made,” he said. “This decision is difficult, terrible, a decision that contradicts our natural instincts, our innermost desires, our collective memories, the prayers of the xxxish people for 2,000 years.” The government’s public stand on Jerusalem until now has been to assert that the status of the city was not under discussion. But Mr. Olmert made clear that the eastern, predominantly Arab, sector had to be yielded “with special solutions” for the holy sites. On peace with the Palestinians, Mr. Olmert said in the interview: “We face the need to decide but are not willing to tell ourselves, yes, this is what we have to do. We have to reach an agreement with the Palestinians, the meaning of which is that in practice we will withdraw from almost all the territories, if not all the territories. We will leave a percentage of these territories in our hands, but will have to give the Palestinians a similar percentage, because without that there will be no peace.”
Elsewhere in the interview, when discussing a land swap with the Palestinians, he said the exchange would have to be “more or less one to one.” Mr. Olmert also addressed the question of Syria, saying that Israel had to be prepared to give up the Golan Heights but that in turn Damascus knew it had to change the nature of its relationship with Iran and its support for Hezbollah, the Lebanese militia. On Iran, Mr. Olmert said Israel would act within the international system, adding: “Part of our megalomania and our loss of proportions is the things that are said here about Iran. We are a country that has lost a sense of proportion about itself.” Reaction from the Israeli right was swift. Avigdor Lieberman, who leads the Yisrael Beiteinu party, said on the radio that Mr. Olmert was “endangering the existence of the State of Israel irresponsibly.” He added that those who thought Israel’s problem was a lack of defined borders — as Mr. Olmert stated in the interview — “are ignoramuses who don’t understand anything, and they invite war.”
As they reacted to Mr. Olmert’s remarks, Palestinian negotiators said it was satisfying to hear Mr. Olmert’s words but they said the words did not match what he had offered them so far. Yasser Abed Rabbo, a senior Palestinian official, told Palestinian Radio that it would have been better if Mr. Olmert had taken this position while in office rather than while leaving it and that Mr. Olmert had not yet presented a detailed plan for a border between Israel and a Palestinian state. In theory, Mr. Olmert will continue peace negotiations while awaiting the new government. But analysts generally say that having been forced to resign his post, he will not be able to close a deal.
Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/30/wo...4ff&ei=5087%0ALeave a comment:
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Re: War in The Middle East
A very illuminating report about the plunder of Iraq's resources currently going on by a consortium of Western powers. History is repeating once again and once again it's more-or-less the same players. As the stress on oil/gas reserves increases so will global wars. With the Russian Federation controlling a large percentage of these reserves, as well as having great influence in the oil/gas rich regions such as Central Asia and the Caspian Sea region, the emphasis on oil/gas exploitation will be placed upon other more vulnerable regions, namely Africa, the Middle East and South America. For those with an understanding of geopolitics it was obvious why the US and its allies went to war against Iraq. Increasingly the masses are beginnings to see this obvious fact as well. So, the question is: Will there be indignation or mass protests throughout the West? I'm afraid the answer is no. With oil and gas prices rising higher and higher the masses will comply.
Armenian
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Deals With Iraq Are Set to Bring Oil Giants Back
Four Western oil companies are in the final stages of negotiations this month on contracts that will return them to Iraq, 36 years after losing their oil concession to nationalization as Saddam Hussein rose to power. Exxon Mobil, Shell, Total and BP — the original partners in the Iraq Petroleum Company — along with Chevron and a number of smaller oil companies, are in talks with Iraq’s Oil Ministry for no-bid contracts to service Iraq’s largest fields, according to ministry officials, oil company officials and an American diplomat. The deals, expected to be announced on June 30, will lay the foundation for the first commercial work for the major companies in Iraq since the American invasion, and open a new and potentially lucrative country for their operations.
The no-bid contracts are unusual for the industry, and the offers prevailed over others by more than 40 companies, including companies in Russia, China and India. The contracts, which would run for one to two years and are relatively small by industry standards, would nonetheless give the companies an advantage in bidding on future contracts in a country that many experts consider to be the best hope for a large-scale increase in oil production. There was suspicion among many in the Arab world and among parts of the American public that the United States had gone to war in Iraq precisely to secure the oil wealth these contracts seek to extract. The Bush administration has said that the war was necessary to combat terrorism. It is not clear what role the United States played in awarding the contracts; there are still American advisers to Iraq’s Oil Ministry.
Sensitive to the appearance that they were profiting from the war and already under pressure because of record high oil prices, senior officials of two of the companies, speaking only on the condition that they not be identified, said they were helping Iraq rebuild its decrepit oil industry. For an industry being frozen out of new ventures in the world’s dominant oil-producing countries, from Russia to Venezuela, Iraq offers a rare and prized opportunity. While enriched by $140 per barrel oil, the oil majors are also struggling to replace their reserves as ever more of the world’s oil patch becomes off limits. Governments in countries like Bolivia and Venezuela are nationalizing their oil industries or seeking a larger share of the record profits for their national budgets. Russia and Kazakhstan have forced the major companies to renegotiate contracts.
The Iraqi government’s stated goal in inviting back the major companies is to increase oil production by half a million barrels per day by attracting modern technology and expertise to oil fields now desperately short of both. The revenue would be used for reconstruction, although the Iraqi government has had trouble spending the oil revenues it now has, in part because of bureaucratic inefficiency. For the American government, increasing output in Iraq, as elsewhere, serves the foreign policy goal of increasing oil production globally to alleviate the exceptionally tight supply that is a cause of soaring prices. The Iraqi Oil Ministry, through a spokesman, said the no-bid contracts were a stop-gap measure to bring modern skills into the fields while the oil law was pending in Parliament.
It said the companies had been chosen because they had been advising the ministry without charge for two years before being awarded the contracts, and because these companies had the needed technology. A Shell spokeswoman hinted at the kind of work the companies might be engaged in. “We can confirm that we have submitted a conceptual proposal to the Iraqi authorities to minimize current and future gas flaring in the south through gas gathering and utilization,” said the spokeswoman, Marnie Funk. “The contents of the proposal are confidential.” While small, the deals hold great promise for the companies. “The bigger prize everybody is waiting for is development of the giant new fields,” Leila Benali, an authority on Middle East oil at Cambridge Energy Research Associates, said in a telephone interview from the firm’s Paris office. The current contracts, she said, are a “foothold” in Iraq for companies striving for these longer-term deals.
Any Western oil official who comes to Iraq would require heavy security, exposing the companies to all the same logistical nightmares that have hampered previous attempts, often undertaken at huge cost, to rebuild Iraq’s oil infrastructure. And work in the deserts and swamps that contain much of Iraq’s oil reserves would be virtually impossible unless carried out solely by Iraqi subcontractors, who would likely be threatened by insurgents for cooperating with Western companies. Yet at today’s oil prices, there is no shortage of companies coveting a contract in Iraq. It is not only one of the few countries where oil reserves are up for grabs, but also one of the few that is viewed within the industry as having considerable potential to rapidly increase production.
David Fyfe, a Middle East analyst at the International Energy Agency, a Paris-based group that monitors oil production for the developed countries, said he believed that Iraq’s output could increase to about 3 million barrels a day from its current 2.5 million, though it would probably take longer than the six months the Oil Ministry estimated. Mr. Fyfe’s organization estimated that repair work on existing fields could bring Iraq’s output up to roughly four million barrels per day within several years. After new fields are tapped, Iraq is expected to reach a plateau of about six million barrels per day, Mr. Fyfe said, which could suppress current world oil prices. The contracts, the two oil company officials said, are a continuation of work the companies had been conducting here to assist the Oil Ministry under two-year-old memorandums of understanding. The companies provided free advice and training to the Iraqis. This relationship with the ministry, said company officials and an American diplomat, was a reason the contracts were not opened to competitive bidding.
A total of 46 companies, including the leading oil companies of China, India and Russia, had memorandums of understanding with the Oil Ministry, yet were not awarded contracts. The no-bid deals are structured as service contracts. The companies will be paid for their work, rather than offered a license to the oil deposits. As such, they do not require the passage of an oil law setting out terms for competitive bidding. The legislation has been stalled by disputes among Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish parties over revenue sharing and other conditions. The first oil contracts for the majors in Iraq are exceptional for the oil industry. They include a provision that could allow the companies to reap large profits at today’s prices: the ministry and companies are negotiating payment in oil rather than cash.
“These are not actually service contracts,” Ms. Benali said. “They were designed to circumvent the legislative stalemate” and bring Western companies with experience managing large projects into Iraq before the passage of the oil law. A clause in the draft contracts would allow the companies to match bids from competing companies to retain the work once it is opened to bidding, according to the Iraq country manager for a major oil company who did not consent to be cited publicly discussing the terms. Assem Jihad, the Oil Ministry spokesman, said the ministry chose companies it was comfortable working with under the charitable memorandum of understanding agreements, and for their technical prowess. “Because of that, they got the priority,” he said. In all cases but one, the same company that had provided free advice to the ministry for work on a specific field was offered the technical support contract for that field, one of the companies’ officials said.
The exception is the West Qurna field in southern Iraq, outside Basra. There, the Russian company Lukoil, which claims a Hussein-era contract for the field, had been providing free training to Iraqi engineers, but a consortium of Chevron and Total, a French company, was offered the contract. A spokesman for Lukoil declined to comment. Charles Ries, the chief economic official in the American Embassy in Baghdad, described the no-bid contracts as a bridging mechanism to bring modern technology into the fields before the oil law was passed, and as an extension of the earlier work without charge. To be sure, these are not the first foreign oil contracts in Iraq, and all have proved contentious. The Kurdistan regional government, which in many respects functions as an independent entity in northern Iraq, has concluded a number of deals. Hunt Oil Company of Dallas, for example, signed a production-sharing agreement with the regional government last fall, though its legality is questioned by the central Iraqi government. The technical support agreements, however, are the first commercial work by the major oil companies in Iraq.
The impact, experts say, could be remarkable increases in Iraqi oil output. While the current contracts are unrelated to the companies’ previous work in Iraq, in a twist of corporate history for some of the world’s largest companies, all four oil majors that had lost their concessions in Iraq are now back. But a spokesman for Exxon said the company’s approach to Iraq was no different from its work elsewhere. “Consistent with our longstanding, global business strategy, ExxonMobil would pursue business opportunities as they arise in Iraq, just as we would in other countries in which we are permitted to operate,” the spokesman, Len D’Eramo, said in an e-mailed statement. But the company is clearly aware of the history. In an interview with Newsweek last fall, the former chief executive of Exxon, Lee Raymond, praised Iraq’s potential as an oil-producing country and added that Exxon was in a position to know. “There is an enormous amount of oil in Iraq,” Mr. Raymond said. “We were part of the consortium, the four companies that were there when Saddam Hussein threw us out, and we basically had the whole country.”
Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/19/wo...l?ref=businessLeave a comment:
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Re: War in The Middle East
Yerevan — President Bush sets off this week to celebrate Armenia's 20th birthday.... it sounds weird, doesn't it? yet ....
"JERUSALEM — President Bush sets off this week to celebrate Israel's 60th birthday..."
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Re: War in The Middle East
Geopolitical Diary: Hezbollah's Control Over Lebanon
Two days after Lebanon’s Shiite Islamist movement Hezbollah took over western Beirut, the Syrian- and Iranian-backed militia and its allies on May 11 defeated Sunni and Druze forces allied with the United States and the Arab countries (particularly Saudi Arabia) in other areas such as Bekaa, Tripoli and Mount Lebanon. Back in the capital, Prime Minister Fouad Siniora met with the charge d’affaires of the U.S. embassy in Beirut and then held an emergency Cabinet meeting. An Arab League delegation is supposed to arrive in the country May 12 to try and broker a negotiated settlement.
In many ways, these developments are to be expected, given that Lebanon is a non-functioning state where pro- and anti-Syrian factions have long been struggling for power. But what makes these latest clashes significant is that one side — the side allied with Iran and Syria — appears to be gaining the upper hand. Furthermore, the Lebanese army has not come to the aid of the government. For the longest time, Lebanon was caught in a stalemate between the Shiite- and Sunni-led camps, which manifested in the gridlock over the election of a new president. Having defeated its opponents on the battlefield and then worked skillfully with the Lebanese military to try and avoid the perception of a complete takeover, Hezbollah is now in a position to not just dictate terms on the issue of the vacant presidency but also possibly force a new power-sharing agreement — one in which it has a significant
advantage.
Put differently, Hezbollah has demonstrated that it is the premier political force in the country. Its performance in the war with Israel in 2006 and the attitude of the Lebanese army in recent days underscores Hezbollah’s status as much more than a typical paramilitary organization. The government’s indication that it is willing to reverse its decision to try and dismantle Hezbollah’s communications array — the decision that triggered the events of the past several days — shows that it has all but capitulated. So, what we have now is a Hezbollah-dominated Lebanon, which has significant geopolitical ramifications for a number of players in the region and beyond. Israel will have the most immediate concerns; it has been oscillating between peace talks with Syria and the need to reverse the outcome of the 2006 war with Hezbollah. Furthermore, Israel now has to deal with hostile forces taking over areas on two fronts: Hamas in the Gaza Strip and Hezbollah in Lebanon. All of this is materializing as Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s government is trying to survive amid a bribery scandal.
Hezbollah’s control over Lebanon is something that the Syrians have been waiting for ever since Damascus was forced to withdraw its troops from the country in the wake of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri’s assassination. Similarly, for Iran, which is seeking to assert its regional player status, Hezbollah’s gains greatly enhance its position in the region. Saudi Arabia’s position has been doubly weakened. First, the events in Lebanon represent a reversal of sorts for Riyadh, which has spent a great deal of energy trying to weaken Damascus’ influence in Lebanon and pry Syria away from the Iranian orbit. More importantly, the Saudis now have to worry about pro-Iranian Shiite forces gaining dominance not just in Iraq, but also in Lebanon.
Far more important is the U.S. calculus for the region. Washington has been working hard to contain the rise of Iran and its radical alliance consisting of Syria, Hezbollah and Hamas. The key theater in this respect has been Iraq, where the United States has been engaged in excruciatingly complex and difficult negotiations with Iran to stabilize Iraq. Hezbollah gaining the upper hand will allow the Iranians to drive a much harder bargain with the Americans on not just Iraq, but also the nuclear issue. This emerging configuration on the regional chessboard is clearly out of line with U.S. interests. Thus, the key question is whether the situation in Lebanon will prompt the United States to deal with Iran in a much more aggressive manner than it has for the past five years.
Source: http://www.stratfor.com/geopolitical...l_over_lebanonLeave a comment:
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Re: War in The Middle East
You are correct Armenian. This is a turning point for Lebanon, the Shias did create a mini Iran out of Lebanon. It is going to be impossible for israel/US to uproot them. The only option they have is to arm the Sunni ... even with that option the Hizbollah can shift the focus towards israel to prevent internal conflicts. Syria should feel more conformable today. The Maronites are doing what the Armenians did during the civil war .... "keep us out".Originally posted by Armenian View Post
If I was Saudi/israel/US what would I do???? Not too many options .....
I will promise the US to dump oil for the next few years if they attack the "head" Iran, and maybe israel will do couple air bombings in Lebanon at the same time. My prediction >>> this is the perfect timing to do any attacks on Iran which will boost McCain at the same time. The world will be hell for one week. What would Russia, China, Pakistan do? Today, nothing. My 2 cents.Leave a comment:
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Re: War in The Middle East
Turning point, because the Druze have been, in a sense, untouchables in Lebanon. You must understand that the Druze have been very influential in Lebanese politics since the inception of the Lebanese state. The fact that right after the Hizbollah bitch-slapped the western backed Sinora government in Beirut they turned their big guns on the loud and obnoxious Druze leader, forcing him to broker a deal to save his ass. This bold move by Nasrallah indicates that the Syrian/Iranian backed Hizbollah is running the political show in Lebanon.Originally posted by skhara View PostLeave a comment:
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Re: War in The Middle East
But why do you think its a turning point? Do you think WJ will be marginalized after this? By the way, I read on reuters that Seniora's cabinet is meeting to consider all the oppositions demands.Leave a comment:
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Re: War in The Middle East
Walid Jamblatt has more-or-less been a political chameleon, or a prostitute, in Lebanon. He is a prominant member of the small yet very influential Druze minority there. The Druze, numbering several hundred thousand at most, are primarily located in and around Lebanon's Chouf mountains. Religiously, they are thought to be a cult, or an mystical off-shoot of Islam. Politically, the Druze have always maintained close ties with the Zionist state and recently, the US. For the past ten years or so Walid Jamblatt has been fanning anti-Syrian flames in Lebanon and conspiring with Washington and Tel Aviv. And for the past several years he has been one of the loudest voices against the Hizbollah. His late father, Kamal Jamblatt, was a prominant Druze leader as well and his assassination in 1977 was widely believed to be carried out by Syrians.Originally posted by skhara View PostLeave a comment:
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