MidnightWatcher's Blogspot

Even the Father of Lies himself can actually speak the truth once in a blue moon …

By Tiffany Gabbay – “Following quickly on the heels of the U.S. presidential election, al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri proclaimed that the terror attack against the U.S. diplomatic outpost in Benghaz indicates that American ‘awe is lost’ in the region. In an audio message addressed to the Somali jihadist group, al-Shabaab, Zawahiri said American influence in the region is floundering due to weakness.

‘They were defeated in Iraq and they are withdrawing from Afghanistan and their ambassador in Benghazi was killed and the flags of their embassies were lowered in Cairo and Sanaa (Yemen),’ a translation the militant’s message reads in the Long War Journal.

‘Their awe is lost and their might is gone and they don’t dare to carry out a new campaign like their past ones in Iraq and Afghanistan.’

Al Qaeda is, of course, along with other militant groups, are still sweeping the Maghreb — in particular, Libya. On Tuesday turmoil reached a fever pitch in Benghazi after a car bomb exploded near a police station late in the day, a police officer told AFP.

He added that two of his colleagues were injured in a subsequent gunfight with the primary suspect. The vehicle reportedly belonged to a law enforcement officer and it was believed to have been ignited by a hand grenade or fishing explosives.

‘One of them is in a critical condition and the other was hit on his foot,’ said the police officer, adding that the suspect had escaped.

The country’s newly elected authorities are attempting to empower the national army and police but are losing control of militias that sprung from the 2011 uprising against Libya’s longtime dictator, Muammar Gadhafi.

AFP adds more on the wave of assassinations ravaging the country:

The city has also witnessed a wave of assassinations, targeting officials with links to the former regime, which are often blamed on hardline Islamists.

On Tuesday, also in Benghazi, the bullet ridden corpse of retired colonel Abdul Karim Mahfud, who backed the 2011 revolution, was found in his farm.

Libya held its first elections in July but the new government officials are struggling with how best to provide security in the volatile area.” Source – The Blaze.

By JODI RUDOREN, The New York Times -“JERUSALEM — Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday reiterated his willingness to attack the Iranian nuclear programwithout support from Washington or the world, returning to an aggressive posture that he had largely abandoned since his United Nations speech in September.

‘When David Ben-Gurion declared the foundation of the state of Israel, was it done with American approval?’ Mr. Netanyahu asked in an interview broadcast on Israel’s Channel 2 on Monday night. ‘When Levi Eshkol was forced to act in order to loosen the siege before 1967, was it done with the Americans’ support?

‘If someone sits here as the prime minister of Israel and he can’t take action on matters that are cardinal to the existence of this country, its future and its security, and he is totally dependent on receiving approval from others, then he is not worthy of leading,’ Mr. Netanyahu added. ‘I can make these decisions.’

Though American officials, including President Obama, have always acknowledged that Israel ultimately has the right to decide how to defend itself, Mr. Netanyahu’s tough tone and timing — on the eve of the American presidential election — are sure to reignite rifts with Washington over how best to prevent Tehran from developing a nuclear bomb.

As has been the case over the past two years, however, it is impossible to know whether his hawkish words are harbingers of deeds or part of a strategic campaign to scare nations into increasing economic and diplomatic pressure on Iran.

‘I am not eager to go to war,’ Mr. Netanyahu said in the seven-minute interview. ‘I have been creating very heavy pressure, and part of this pressure comes from the knowledge some of the most powerful nations in the world have that we are serious. This isn’t a show, this is not false.’

Besides the creation of diplomatic tensions if Israel were to act alone against Washington’s wishes, there is a more practical concern: the Israeli military lacks the capacity to penetrate all of Iran’s underground nuclear facilities, and thus could most likely only delay the potential development of a nuclear weapon by a few years. The United States has bunker-busting bombs that could do far more damage.” Read more.

By Prof. Louis René Beres, Op-Ed INN – “After too many years of delay and self-delusion concerning Tehran’s atomic intentions and capabilities, a militarily nuclear Iran is now pretty much a fait accompli.

For a distinctly identifiable period of time, selective preemptions against certain Iranian nuclear assets and corollary infrastructures could have made strategic sense. Now, for Israel, the country most directly threatened by these portentous enemy developments, self-defense options will be limited to mostly reactive counter-measures. Above all, this means fashioning critically improved nuclear deterrence, and also conspicuously-expanding programs for ballistic-missile defense.

Although never discussed publicly, these remaining options will likely announce an end to Israel’s longstanding policy of ‘deliberate nuclear ambiguity,’ or the so-called ‘bomb in the basement.’ Included, too, will be substantial engineering improvements to the Arrow, Iron Dome, and (later) Magic Wand missile interceptors. There will also be parallel and reinforcing efforts aimed very specifically at enhanced national plans for intelligence, counterintelligence, and cyber-defense. In military parlance, because these plans will be intersecting and inter-penetrating, or ‘synergistic,’ they will represent powerful ‘force multipliers.’

A successful and timely preemption might once have prevented a nuclear Iran. Similarly, Israel’s defensive anti-missile programs could become useful as an important adjunct to nuclear deterrence. This would come about because the rationality of any contemplated Iranian attack upon Israel could be affected by Israel’s deployed hard-target protections. In essence, with capable Israeli ballistic missile defenses in place, Teheran could require a steadily increasing number of offensive missiles just to ensure its necessary penetration capacity.

It is true, of course, that Israel’s active defenses could also provide certain limited protections for civilian populations or ‘soft’ targets, but any such post-attack benefits would be far less important than those gains associated with improved nuclear deterrence.

Whether rational, irrational, or ‘mad’ – and there are genuinely vital differences between these three decisional possibilities – any nuclear-capable Iranian leadership that inclines toward military conflict with the ‘Zionist Entity’ could Read more…