http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article2512097.ece

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article2512097.ece

THE United States Air Force has set up a highly confidential strategic planning group tasked with “fighting the next war” as tensions rise with Iran.

Project Checkmate, a successor to the group that planned the 1991 Gulf War’s air campaign, was quietly reestablished at the Pentagon in June.

It reports directly to General Michael Moseley, the US Air Force chief, and consists of 20-30 top air force officers and defence and cyberspace experts with ready access to the White House, the CIA and other intelligence agencies.

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• The men planning America’s next air war

Detailed contingency planning for a possible attack on Iran has been carried out for more than two years by Centcom (US central command), according to defence sources.

Checkmate’s job is to add a dash of brilliance to Air Force thinking by countering the military’s tendency to “fight the last war” and by providing innovative strategies for warfighting and assessing future needs for air, space and cyberwarfare.

It is led by Brigadier-General Lawrence “Stutz” Stutzriem, who is considered one of the brightest air force generals. He is assisted by Dr Lani Kass, a former Israeli military officer and expert on cyberwarfare.

The failure of United Nations sanctions to curtail Iran’s nuclear ambitions, which Tehran claims are peaceful, is giving rise to an intense debate about the likelihood of military strikes.

Bernard Kouchner, the French foreign minister, said last week that it was “necessary to prepare for the worst . . . and the worst is war”. He later qualified his remarks, saying he wanted to avoid that outcome.

France has joined America in pushing for a tough third sanctions resolution against Iran at the UN security council but is meeting strong resistance from China and Russia. Britain has been doing its best to bridge the gap, but it is increasingly likely that new sanctions will be implemented by a US-led “coalition of the willing”.

Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who arrives in New York for the United Nations general assembly today, has been forced to abandon plans to visit ground zero, where the World Trade Center stood until the September 11 attacks of 2001. Politicians from President George W Bush to Senator Hillary Clinton, the Democratic frontrunner in the 2008 race for the White House, were outraged by the prospect of a visit to New York’s most venerated site by a “state sponsor” of terrorism.

Bush still hopes to isolate Iran diplomatically, but believes the regime is moving steadily closer to obtaining nuclear weapons while the security council bickers.

The US president faces strong opposition to military action, however, within his own joint chiefs of staff. “None of them think it is a good idea, but they will do it if they are told to,” said a senior defence source.

General John Abizaid, the former Centcom commander, said last week: “Every effort should be made to stop Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons, but failing that, the world could live with a nuclear-armed Iran.”

Critics fear Abizaid has lost sight of Iran’s potential to arm militant groups such as Hezbollah with nuclear weapons. “You can deter Iran, but there is no strategy against nuclear terrorism,” said the retired air force Lieutenant General Thomas McInerney of the Iran policy committee.

“There is no question that we can take out Iran. The problem is the follow-on, the velvet revolution that needs to be created so the Iranian people know it’s not aimed at them, but at the Iranian regime.”

Checkmate’s freethinking mission is “to provide planning inputs to warfighters that are strategically, operationally and tactically sound, logistically supportable and politically feasible”. Its remit is not specific to one country, according to defence sources, but its forward planning is thought relevant to any future air war against Iranian nuclear and military sites. It is also looking at possible threats from China and North Korea.

Checkmate was formed in the 1970s to counter Soviet threats but fell into disuse in the 1980s. It was revived under Colonel John Warden and was responsible for drawing up plans for the crushing air blitz against Saddam Hussein at the opening of the first Gulf war.

Warden told The Sunday Times: “When Saddam invaded Kuwait, we had access to unlimited numbers of people with expertise, including all the intelligence agencies, and were able to be significantly more agile than Centcom.”

He believes that Checkmate’s role is to develop the necessary expertise so that “if somebody says Iran, it says: ‘here is what you need to think about’. Here are the objectives, here are the risks, here is what it will cost, here are the numbers of planes we will lose, here is how the war is going to end and here is what the peace will look like”.

Warden added: “The Centcoms of this world are executional – they don’t have the staff, the expertise or the responsibility to do the thinking that is needed before a country makes the decision to go to war. War planning is not just about bombs, airplanes and sailing boats.”

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article2512380.ece

Israelis seized nuclear material in Syrian raid

Uzi Mahnaimi and Sarah Baxter

Also from Sarah Baxter: Snatched: Israeli commandos ‘nuclear’ raid | Israelis ‘blew apart Syrian nuclear cache’ | Secret US air force team to perfect plan for Iran strike | Alan Greenspan: „Blair was clearly an aide to Brown“

Israeli commandos seized nuclear material of North Korean origin during a daring raid on a secret military site in Syria before Israel bombed it this month, according to informed sources in Washington and Jerusalem.

The attack was launched with American approval on September 6 after Washington was shown evidence the material was nuclear related, the well-placed sources say.

They confirmed that samples taken from Syria for testing had been identified as North Korean. This raised fears that Syria might have joined North Korea and Iran in seeking to acquire nuclear weapons.

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• Snatched: Israeli commandos ‘nuclear’ raid

• Blast at secret missile site killed dozens

Israeli special forces had been gathering intelligence for several months in Syria, according to Israeli sources. They located the nuclear material at a compound near Dayr az-Zwar in the north.

Evidence that North Korean personnel were at the site is said to have been shared with President George W Bush over the summer. A senior American source said the administration sought proof of nuclear-related activities before giving the attack its blessing.

Diplomats in North Korea and China believe a number of North Koreans were killed in the strike, based on reports reaching Asian governments about conversations between Chinese and North Korean officials.

Syrian officials flew to Pyongyang, the North Korean capital, last week, reinforcing the view that the two nations were coordinating their response.

Can Europe end the lose-lose game with Iran?

http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=20798
On the one hand, Europe must remain tough and steadfast against Iran’s defiance of two UN Security Council Resolutions. On the other, it must redefine suspension of enrichment in order to kick-start much needed negotiations and end the current lose-lose game being played between the West and Iran, says Trita Parsi.

Washington, DC – Back in the summer of 2006, European diplomats feared that escalation in the Security Council would aggravate the Iranian nuclear stand-off and render a solution more difficult. These fears have now been realised, as Iran has defied two Chapter VII UN Security Council Resolutions demanding that it suspend its uranium enrichment programme, and has retaliated by scaling down its cooperation with the IAEA.

Thus far, the pressure from the Security Council – or the financial sanctions imposed unilaterally by the US – has not softened Iran’s position. On the contrary, both sides in the standoff have dug in their heels and limited the space for compromise. In spite of the cost of US financial sanctions on the Iranian economy, Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi declared earlier this week that Tehran was prepared to „pay the price“ for continuing its nuclear programme.

„What has been the result of three (UN) Security Council resolutions, two introducing sanctions?“ he asked. „Iran has quickened the pace of its peaceful activities and reduced its cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency… This can go on, but the result is an escalation of the crisis.“

Moreover, non-proliferation experts warn that Iran sooner or later will master the technology, after which a compromise limiting its nuclear activities may be out of reach.

Ironically, the lose-lose situation has created balanced incentives on all sides to seek a face-saving way out of the standoff. With the two key states in the equation standing so far from each other – Iran refusing to give up enrichment and the US seeing zero enrichment as the only acceptable outcome – significant out-of-the box thinking is required from the Europeans in order to bridge these seemingly incompatible positions.

On the one hand, Europe must remain tough and steadfast against Iran’s defiance of two U.N. Security Council Resolutions. On the other, it must redefine suspension of enrichment in order to kick-start much needed negotiations and end the current lose-lose game being played between the West and Iran.

Lately, Europe has emboldened its diplomatic efforts. EU High Representative for the Common Foreign and Security Policy Javier Solana has publicly called for direct US-Iran talks, a message the Europeans preferred to make in private only up until recently. Furthermore, Solana has acknowledged that reform of the non-proliferation treaty is needed and that the Iranian case cannot be seen in isolation from that larger issue.

Furthermore, the Europeans have floated several different ideas in order to get Iran to agree to the suspension precondition for negotiations, including an international enrichment consortium on Iranian soil.

In the earlier negotiations with Europe, Iran entered the talks with the impression that the parties would identify „objective criteria“ that would enable Iran to exercise its rights under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty while providing the international community with guarantees that the Iranian nuclear programme would remain strictly civilian. As the negotiations progressed, however, Europe gravitated towards the U.S. view that the only acceptable criterion would be for Iran not to engage in uranium enrichment in the first place.

As a result, Tehran felt trapped in the talks since the EU wasn’t pursuing solutions that would ensure that Iran’s enrichment activities would remain peaceful; rather, the objective was to eliminate Iran’s enrichment programme altogether.

Tehran may continue to reject the call for suspension unless the framework for the negotiations does not just include solutions that would permit enrichment on Iranian soil, but more importantly, that would exclude any potential solution that would deprive Tehran of that activity. But agreeing to such a framework will create another headache for Europe though – Washington has thus far shown no appetite for any negotiations that wouldn’t have the explicit aim of ending all Iranian enrichment.

An alternative path may be to revamp an old idea that was floated around last summer in various track-II meetings. The idea, termed „freeze for freeze,“ would require both sides to freeze their activities from further advancement, but not require these activities to be halted. This would enable talks to begin while evading the suspension requirement, yet still prevent both sides from enhancing their positions by creating new facts on the ground.

Under this idea, Iran would continue its current nuclear activities, but it would be prohibited from expanding the programme or adding new centrifuges. Iran would freeze its programme, but not suspend it.

Western powers, on the other hand, would not have to roll back the U.N. sanctions against Iran – a step that Washington seems to appreciate, being mindful of the difficulties it faced getting the Security Council to impose them in the first place. By keeping the sanctions intact, the U.S. would avoid a scenario in which Russia and China would resist efforts to re-impose sanctions after a failed negotiations attempt.

The „freeze for freeze“ concept would, however, prohibit Washington from seeking to enhance the sanctions regime during the duration of the negotiations. Much like the Iranian programme, the Security Council track would be frozen, but not suspended.

Political support for the freeze-for-freeze concept remains weak, but as all sides start to feel the pain of the continuation of the current stalemate, the idea may pick up steam and provide the parties with a face-saving way out of the lose-lose game.

Dr. Trita Parsi is the author of „Treacherous Alliance – The Secret Dealings of Israel, Iran and the United States“ (Yale University Press, 2007). He is also president of the National Iranian American Council (This article is distributed by the Common Ground News Service and can be accessed at GCNews. It was originally published by the Inter Press Service News Agency