Category Archives: Russia

Iran, Israel, Middle East, Russia, Syria, United Nations, United States

Israel, Iran and the tinderbox of the Middle East

ISRAEL-IRAN

Israel is prepared for a direct conflict with Iran if the threat of the regime’s terrorist proxies increases, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has warned.

TENSIONS between arch-enemies Israel and Iran have once again threatened to plunge the two countries into direct military conflict – one which could lead to a new and terrifying regional war.

Any escalation would drag in other regional major powers such as Saudi Arabia and the Lebanese-backed Shia militia Hezbollah. These proxies are aligned militarily with the Middle East’s two main opposing power brokers, the United States and Russia.

A ferocious Israeli missile strike on alleged Iranian military bases in Syria on Sunday reportedly killed dozens of soldiers. It is certainly true that Israel has launched more than 100 such strikes inside Syria since the bloody and brutal civil war broke out in that country seven years ago. Those strikes have targeted both Iranian and Hezbollah forces sent to the country to help prop up the regime of President Assad. The latest attacks are the most brazen and deadly yet.

Those attacks were then followed by a dramatic claim from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that he has proof the mullahs in Tehran have secretly been developing nuclear weapons, in blatant contravention of an internationally brokered deal – secured by Barack Obama in 2015 – aimed at curbing Iran’s nuclear ambitions.

It saw the lifting of crippling economic sanctions on Iran, in return for strictly imposed limitations to the country’s controversial nuclear energy programme.

Mr Netanyahu accused Iran of having a secret plan called ‘Project Amad’, whose primary objective and aim is to produce five ten-kiloton nuclear weapons.

This unverified claim will have been music to the ears of Donald Trump and the anti-Iran hawks the President has surrounded himself with in the White House.

Even before this dramatically theatrical display from Israel, Mr Trump has appeared stubbornly determined to scrap the controversial nuclear deal, because he sees it as being fatally flawed. The deal is still strongly backed by Britain, the EU, Russia, China and the UN-sponsored watchdog the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). All remain adamant that inspections show Iran has and continues to abide by its principles.

During a visit to the White House last week, French president Emmanuel Macron similarly urged Mr Trump to stick to the agreement. This echoed earlier pleas by Theresa May and Angela Merkel.

But it is apt to ask whether Mr Trump is listening more closely to his old friend Mr Netanyahu?

What we do know is that, as the deadline nears for Mr Trump’s decision on whether to ratify the nuclear deal – due next month – unprecedented threats and counter-threats of death and destruction are being routinely hurled between Tehran and Tel Aviv.

In the past few weeks, each has promised to destroy the other’s major cities if threatened, raising fears that the proxy war they have been waging in Syria may soon explode into a direct military confrontation.

We should remember, too, that over the past few decades Mr Netanyahu has repeatedly, but erroneously, suggested that Iran is just months away from declaring it has developed a nuclear weapon. Still, it is easy to see why he is so paranoid. Since the revolution in 1979 brought the Shia Islam mullahs to power, the Tehran regime has proudly promoted the destruction of Israel as its top foreign policy objective.

Worse for Israel, the civil war in Syria has resulted in thousands of Iranian fighters joining thousands more militia men from Hezbollah, Iran’s main regional Shia ally, which has already fought numerous wars with Israel.

Their ostensible aim was to help Assad fight Islamic State and other Islamist rebel groups, but that brutal experience means they are now battle-hardened. They are armed to the hilt and firmly entrenched right on the Jewish state’s border.

 

UNTIL now, Russia – which is allied with Assad, Iran and Hezbollah, but which has warm relations with Israel – has played a delicate diplomatic balancing act, backing Israel’s enemies while turning a blind eye to the Jewish state attacks against them in Syria.

Russian leader Vladimir Putin recently signalled, however, that his patience with Mr Netanyahu had run out, and he has promised to deliver the advanced S-300 air defence missile system to Assad to help him defend against such aerial attacks. Israel responded by saying that any such system would be destroyed before it could become operational.

It is easy to see, then, why the price of oil is soaring on the back of Mr Netanyahu’s claims. It’s a sign that the international markets are concerned that supply will be disrupted by strife and conflict in the region.

The great fear for diplomats around the world is that, if Mr Trump does decide to withdraw from the nuclear deal and reimposes sanctions, Israel will launch unilateral air strikes against what it says are Iranian nuclear facilities. That would almost certainly provoke a devastating military response – not just from Tehran, but also its allies in Syria and Lebanon.

And if that does happen, it will take a massive effort of will to stop the US and Russia coming to the aid of their allies – at which point the risks of a global conflict will rise sharply. The tinderbox of the Middle East is once again threatening to drag two of the world’s great powers to the edge of the abyss.

How the UN sanctions were lifted in 2015

The 2015 nuclear deal was signed by Iran, Britain, the US, Russia, France, China and Germany.

It lifted crippling economic sanctions on Iran in return for limitations to the country’s nuclear energy programme.

Under the deal, Iran agreed to keep its uranium enrichment levels at no more than 3.67 per cent, down from almost 20 per cent. The country’s uranium stockpile was also to be kept at under 300kg (660lbs), which then US President Barack Obama said would see a reduction of 98 per cent.

Tehran also agreed to redesign a heavy-water nuclear facility it had been building that was capable of producing plutonium suitable for a nuclear bomb. In return, the lifting of UN sanctions meant Iran stood to gain access to more than $100billion in assets frozen overseas.

It was also able to resume selling oil on international markets.

But if the country violated any part of the deal, the sanctions would ‘snap back’ into place for ten years.

Appendage:

Iran Nuclear Deal

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Britain, Economic, Government, National Security, Russia, Society, United States

Russia’s ‘tremendous weapon’

CYBER WARFARE

SECURITY CHIEFS have warned that tens of thousands of British families’ computers have been targeted by Russia – potentially paving the way for a devastating cyber-attack.

. You might also like to read The terrifying era of internet warfare

They fear the Kremlin is trying to identify vulnerabilities allowing it to “lay a foundation for offensive future operations” that could cripple Britain.

The concern is that Russia could take control of these devices then use them to overload vital infrastructure systems such as banks, water supplies, energy networks, emergency services and even the Armed Forces.

A so-called “man-in-the-middle” attack could be carried out anonymously because the Government would not know who had hacked into these systems in UK homes.

Security chiefs said they feared Moscow-backed hackers were trying to create a “tremendous weapon” to unleash in “times of tension”. Britain’s eavesdropping agency GCHQ, the White House and the FBI have launched an unprecedented joint alert about “malicious cyber activity” carried out across the globe by the Kremlin.

They warned that Moscow was mounting a campaign to exploit vulnerable devices and threaten “our respective safety, security, and economic well-being”. It followed a recent warning that Vladimir Putin was ready to retaliate for the Western air strikes on Syria, where Bashar al-Assad’s regime is backed by Russia.

Britain has been tracking the online activity for more than a year, a spokesperson for the National Cyber-Security Centre (NCSC) said.

Kremlin-sponsored actors were said to be using “compromised routers” to conduct “spoofing” – when the attacker hides their identity – to “support espionage… and potentially lay a foundation for future offensive operations”.

In an unusual transatlantic briefing the NCSC said there are millions of machines being globally targeted, with the intent of trying to seize control over connectivity.

“In the case of targeting providers of internet services, it’s about gaining access to their customers to try to gain control over the devices.

“The purpose of these attacks could be espionage, it could be the theft of intellectual property, it could be positioning or use in times of tension. All of the attacks have directly affected the UK.”

The FBI says that US government experts had found themselves “unwittingly on the frontline of the battle” against Moscow’s cyber-attacks. The Bureau said that, if Russia were able to hack into a wireless router then “own it”, hackers could monitor all the traffic going through it. “It is a tremendous weapon”.

A White House cyber security co-ordinator warned the Kremlin that the US and Britain would respond to any attack. The UK has previously carried out a huge cyber offensive against Islamic State, and the US attacked the Iranian nuclear programme by launching the Stuxnet cyber- attack in 2010 which wholly deactivated the programme’s centrifuges.

The US and UK insist they are pushing back hard and say that cyber activity must be stopped and opposed at every turn. They are confident, however, that Russia has already carried out a co-ordinated campaign to gain access to enterprise, small office routers and residential routers – the kind of things that everyone has in their homes.

The NCSC, FBI and US department of homeland security warned that Russian state-sponsored actors were trying to spy on individuals, industries and the Government.

A joint UK-US statement said “multiple sources” – including private and public sector cyber security research organisations and allies – had reported such activity to governments. The communique said: “Russia is our most capable hostile adversary in cyberspace so dealing with their attacks is a major priority.”

A UK Government spokesperson said: “This is yet another example of Russia’s disregard for international norms and global order – this time through a campaign of cyber espionage and aggression, which attempts to disrupt governments and destabilise business. The attribution of this malicious activity sends a clear message to Russia – we know what you are doing, and you will not succeed.”

 

THE warning from intelligence agencies that Russia is launching a cyber offensive against our Government, infrastructure, companies and even families, with the intention of spreading chaos and panic, is hugely significant.

It is a chilling reminder for everyone – if one were needed – that for Vladimir Putin, bombs, missiles and poison gas aren’t the only weapons of war.

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Britain, France, Russia, Syria, United States

Britain must now act against Syria’s regime

SYRIA

THESE are extremely dangerous times, more so than even during the years of the Cold War. Then, superpower tensions could be eased and constrained by hotline calls and summits such as those used to deliver arms reduction. The omnipresent threat of nuclear confrontation helped to concentrate the minds of the world’s leaders on peace not war.

Many of the old certainties have now gone with the complete erosion of the ideological battle-lines. These have been replaced with regional flash points, each with the potential to spill far beyond their own boundaries. The capacity of the Syrian civil war to draw other nations into its ghastly vortex has been apparent for some time. The risks are greater than ever.

. Related Lord Hague: We must act now to stop chemical warfare

The conflict now has NATO, Russia, Israel, Iran, Turkey (a NATO member but acting unilaterally and more in sync with Russia) and Saudi Arabia all involved to a greater or lesser extent, just at the very time when diplomatic communications with Moscow have irretrievably broken down for many other reasons – including electoral interference, cyber espionage and the chemical poisoning attack in Salisbury.

The apparent chemical weapons attack on Douma, a suburb of Damascus, has brought matters to a head. The U.S. had previously warned Assad to expect retaliation for breaching international law in this way and President Trump has already said there will be a heavy price to pay. He needs to make good on that threat otherwise it is meaningless. The American response needs to be surgical and proportionate.

It looks as if Israel has taken the opportunity to attack the Tiyas airbase in central Syria, which it has targeted before. This is by no means Israel’s first incursion into the civil war on self-defence grounds, but matters are complicated by Russian and Iranian backing for Syria’s despot leader. Tehran has already claimed that four Iranian nationals were killed in the raid on the airbase.

 

ON a visit to Denmark, the British Prime Minister said that, if chemical weapons were used, then the Syrian regime and their proxy backers must be held to account. But, how exactly? Russia denies a gas attack has even taken place and has threatened to retaliate if direct action is taken against Assad’s regime. With diplomatic missions being stripped down in the tit-for-tat expulsions of recent weeks, the scope for misunderstandings leading to a military clash is growing by the day. An end to the bloody civil war would clearly help calm matters; but, since Assad is winning, for what reason does he need to brook a political solution when he can use brute force to crush remaining rebel strongholds?

President Trump’s eagerness to pull out American forces has given the impression that the US has no long-term strategy for the region. Beyond pummelling ISIS and punishing Assad for breaching “red lines” over the use of chemical weapons, Washington does not wish to get involved in the Syrian imbroglio and Russia clearly knows it. The role of power-broker in Syria was ceded by Barack Obama in 2013 when he backed away from a threat to take military action in response to a sarin gas attack carried out by Assad’s air force.

America’s backtracking then was the baleful consequence of a vote in the British parliament against military action in Syria. Some may argue that Theresa May’s tough talking is unlikely to be backed up by British military action unless she can reverse that position.

It is telling, however, given this background that the first leader President Trump contacted to discuss the West’s response was not Theresa May but Emmanuel Macron of France, whom Washington presumably sees as a more reliable partner. France was also the lead country calling for the UN security council to meet to debate the Douma attack and its consequences. When Paris is the first port of call for an American president seeking an ally, the Syria conflict has shifted the balance of power in more ways than one.

Given the parlous state of UK-Russian relations, it might be tempting to let other European countries take the lead. But if the US and France are to act, Mrs May needs to ensure that the UK is not left on the sidelines unwilling to join in the punitive action she has rightly identified as being necessary.

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