The enemy of my enemy, and with friends like these…

Distance from Azerbaijan to Iran's nuclear facilities

Recently there have been several strange and conflicting, not to mention confusing, items of interest regarding Israel, Turkey, the US, and Iran with its nuclear program.

We first learned a few days ago thatAzerbaijan had granted access to Israel of one or more of its air force bases near the Iranian border.

Senior American diplomats and military intelligence officers have told Foreign Policy magazine that the United States now believes that Israel has been granted access to air bases in Azerbaijan, which shares a border with Iran. “The Israelis have bought an airfield,” a senior official told Foreign Policy in early February, “and the airfield is called Azerbaijan.”

According to the Foreign Policy report, Israel’s embassy in Washington, the Israel Defense Forces and the Mossad spy agency were all contacted for comment but did not respond.

The Azeri Embassy in the U.S. also withheld a response, but a U.S. military intelligence officer has noted, according to Foreign Policy, that when posed with the question in the past, Azerbaijan’s Defense Minister Safar Abiyev had not explicitly said his country would bar Israeli bombers from landing there after an attack on Iran. Nor did he rule out granting Israel permission to station search-and-rescue units in the country, according to the report.

The American reaction to this news was rather like a cold shower:

Speaking to Foreign Policy, one of the U.S. sources said, “We’re watching what Iran does closely. But we’re now watching what Israel is doing in Azerbaijan.  And we’re not happy about it.”

The very next day the Azeris, perhaps not surprisingly, denied all knowledge about this Israeli access to their air fields:

“This information is absurd and groundless,” said Azeri Defense Ministry spokesman Teymur Abdullayev, referring to a Foreign Policy magazine report on Wednesday in which senior U.S. officials said the U.S. now believes that Israel has been granted access to air bases in Azerbaijan, which shares a border with Iran.

[...]

A senior official at Azerbaijan’s presidential office said such speculation was “aimed at damaging relations between Azerbaijan and Iran.”

“We have stated on numerous occasions and we reiterate that there will be no actions against Iran … from the territory of Azerbaijan,” said the official.

The next question that arose was who leaked this information (or was it misinformation?) and in whose interest was the leak?

Suspicion fell immediately on the American Administration who are opposed to Israel taking any unilateral action against Iran.  However the Americans categorically deniedleaking this information:

The sources said that the White House had “no interest” in leaks of this kind, adding that the administration would “gladly prosecute” the people behind it – if they knew who they were.

Israel, as well as pro-Israel elements in the United States, blamed the White House for the leak, but according to the official, the US is “crawling with thousands of intelligence and former intelligence officials,” and the White House has no way of stopping them from offering information to the media as anonymous sources.

Hmm. Could this be possible? Are American intelligence agents really such loose cannons? Or is this an instance of plausible deniability on the part of the Administration?

Israel Hayom on Friday had two very hard-hitting articles in which they put the blame firmly on the Americans.  One, by David Weinberg, turned President Obama’s words on their head, saying “Got Israel’s Back? Stabbing us in the back”. He writes:

…he doesn’t seem to “have” our back. He is “at” our back. Stabbing us in the back, it appears.

How else can one explain the blatant and bold sabotage of Israel’s security that the Obama administration is engaged in? All the adamant protestations of support for Israel don’t weigh up against the concrete damage that administration officials are doing to Israel’s deterrent power and operational military capabilities through purposeful leaks of information relating to Israel’s strike abilities against Iran.

In a deliberate American campaign to scuttle any planned Israeli hit on Iran, Washington is leaking classified intelligence assessments and documents that rip deep into our most sensitive military zones.

Worst of all is the revelation (through Foreign Policy Magazine, yesterday) of State Department documents and CIA-provided details of Israel’s secret “staging grounds” (air bases) in Azerbaijan, from which the IAF can more readily strike into Iran. In the article, “senior intelligence officers” and former CENTCOM commanders name specific Azeri airstrips from whence Israel is apparently operating; name Israeli officials involved in managing the secret relationship with Azerbaijan; and provide astonishing detail on the air staging logistics that would be involved in an Israeli military operation there.

Dan Margalit writes in much the same vein:

At the height of the U.S.-Israel honeymoon, officials in Washington embarked on a puzzling and stinging diplomatic maneuver against Israel over the latter’s purported plans to attack Iran’s nuclear program. These were not verbal single shots, but rather a sustained attack using machine-gun bursts and cluster bombs.

First, there were claims that an Israeli attack on Iran would delay production of a nuclear bomb by only half a year, and would result in the deaths of 200 Americans. Not that the number is insignificant, but how many Americans have died in hopeless U.S. military initiatives that were doomed to failure from the get-go in the past few years?

Someone in the U.S. disclosed that Israel has air force bases in Azerbaijan, a claim which Israel has denied and which, whether it’s true or not, is considered secret information. On Thursday, Amir Oren of Haaretz, apparently basing his information on reliable American sources, added that Israel had agreed to postpone an attack on Iran until 2013. Assuming that this is true, where did that come from?

[...]

There is a vast distinction between a U.S. trying to dissuade Israel diplomatically from taking military action and being rebuffed by Jerusalem, and public, unilateral U.S. pressure to deter Netanyahu and Barak from wielding a credible military threat against the ayatollahs.

[...]

One way or another, the U.S. is closing in on Israel and narrowing its windows of opportunity by divulging the secret military information at its disposal.

Meanwhile, in extremely worrying news, Sky News reports that Iran is continuing its war by proxy by planning to attack Israeli and Western targets in Turkey (h/t Elder of Ziyon):

Intelligence agencies are searching for members of a secret Iranian network of assassins under orders to attack Jewish, Israeli and Western targets in Turkey.

According to intelligence sources, the organisation behind the attack is known as Unit 400, a secret part of the al Quds Brigade, which falls under the direct command of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s Supreme Leader.

“Unit 400 of the Qods Force has been developing in the last few months a standing operating procedure for carrying out an attack in Turkey against western targets as well as Israeli and Jewish. It is our firm assessment that these procedures are in a very advanced stage, and that the intention is to act on the plans very soon,” an intelligence source told Sky News.

There is also evidence that Unit 400 has been given instructions to carry out more frequent and more daring ‘terror’ attacks around the world as a demonstration of ‘Iran’s asymmetric power’ – in the face of the growing threat of Israeli or American air strikes on its alleged nuclear weapons programme, the sources said.

The sources named a senior officer in Unit 400 as being a key Iranian agent who “has been working up plans for potential attacks in European countries”.

[...]

Several international intelligence sources confirmed that Ali Khamenei controlled the Quds Force through his close ally Qassem Suleiman.

“He runs the whole thing – directly. [Mahmoud] Ahmedinajad [the Iranian president] makes all the noise and gets the attention but it’s the Supreme Leader who is in charge of what is going on especially when it comes to international operations,” said a senior intelligence official.

[...]

“[The] Supreme Leader makes a decision to conduct an attack, the Unit activates a cell to perform it and recruits foreign agents as required… Training is sometimes given in Iran, as was the case prior to an attempted attack on the Israeli consul in Istanbul in 2011, and additional countries in the Middle East and Europe are used in order to blur Iran’s connection to the attack,” an intelligence document obtained by Sky says.

“The overall picture is one of an organisation which reaches out across the globe to commit carefully planned terror attacks of its own accord, as well as to arm proxy groups that will do so on its behest.”

However there is still a spot of good news in the region: Israel, the US and Greece took part in a joint military drill in the Eastern Mediterranean, which some people say was meant as a rebuff to Turkey. As the Times of Israel reports:

Israel, Greece and the US are conducting joint air and naval exercises this week, in part to simulate defending seaborne gas drilling installations around the eastern Mediterranean.

The exercises are also intended to simulate air-to-air combat and anti-submarine warfare and are being overseen by the US Sixth Fleet. According to multiple news outlets the exercises are scheduled from March 26 to April 5, but the IDF would not confirm those dates in response to a Times of Israel query.

Operation Noble Dina was inaugurated in 2011 in what is seen by some as a coup for Greece and reflective of diplomatic changes in the eastern Mediterranean, Haaretz reported.

The US had conducted similar exercises (“Reliant Mermaid”) with Turkey and Israel from 1998 to 2009, but these were canceled after Turkish president Tayyip Erdogan suspended military cooperation with Israel in 2010.

Since then Israel has pursued more military and economic ties with Turkish rivals Greece and Cyprus. Last week Israel, Greece and Cyprus announced a deal to cooperate on exploiting natural gas deposits in the Mediterranean.

While the long-running Reliant Mermaid was based on joint humanitarian search-and rescue missions, Noble Dina is much more military-oriented.

Israel Hayom gives some more regional context and background, especially concerning the recently discovered gas deposits:

The Noble Dina exercise, which has reportedly already begun and is expected to conclude on April 5, is aimed at confronting “virtual enemy forces” which, according to the Greek Reporter, “bear great resemblance to the Turkish aeronautical forces in this particular military operation scenario.”

The drill is apparently intended as a “message” for Ankara, the Greek Reporter said, as Turkey “is a barrier to the common interests of Israel and the U.S. in the broader region.”

[...]

Greece’s participation in Noble Dina is seen by some as an attempt to replace Turkey following the shifting diplomatic landscape in the Mediterranean in the wake of the worsening ties between Israel and Turkey.

The launch of the military drill was also scheduled to coincide with a meeting held last week between the Greek, Israeli and Cypriot energy ministers in Athens over a tripartite energy-sharing agreement. Also present at the meeting was Richard Morningstar, special U.S. envoy for Europe and Asia, who welcomed Mediterranean gas finds as a source of diversified energy supply for Europe.

The military drill was timed to take place during the Athens meeting in a bid to show “that cooperation between Israel, Greece, and the US goes beyond energy and includes military affairs as well,” the Greek Reporter said.

Commenting on the energy meeting, Morningstar said, “Gas in the eastern Mediterranean is a good thing. There are multiple pots of gold out there in the eastern Mediterranean and if equitable solutions are found, all of the countries and their citizens will gain.”

At the meeting near Athens, the ministers promised to increase cooperation to exploit natural gas deposits in the Mediterranean. Cypriot Industry Minister Neoklis Sylikiotis said the three countries were more likely to share gas-produced electricity, using undersea cables, before exports were possible. On the sidelines of the conference, Greece and Israel signed a water management cooperation agreement. Greek energy ministry officials said talks for a planned energy cooperation deal between Greece, Israel and Cyprus were close to completion.

“The geopolitical conversation has changed: We are not only taking about the Russian corridor and the corridor that brings Azeri gas. In the coming years, we will have third corridor, from the proven deposits of Israel and Cyprus as well as the ones we hope to find in Greece,’’ Greek Energy Minister George Papaconstantinou said.

Long may these relationships blossom to the benefit of all of us.

http://anneinpt.wordpress.com/2012/04/01/the-enemy-of-my-enemy-and-with-friends-like-these/