MidnightWatcher – Prophecy in Motion

By Rowan Scarborough – “The U.S. military’s fast-approaching Dec. 31 exit from Iraq, which has no way to defend its airspace, puts Israel in a better place strategically to strike Iran’s nuclear facilities.

Iraq has yet to assemble a force of jet fighters, and since the shortest route for Israeli strike fighters to Iran is through Iraqi airspace, observers conclude that the U.S. exit makes the Jewish state’s mission planning a lot easier.

Army Maj. Gen. Jeffrey Buchanan, the top U.S. military spokesman in Iraq, said the Iraqi military will maintain radars to monitor the country’s airspace, but it has not taken possession of American F-16s to guard that space.

‘The country has a capable and improving capability to see the airspace, a viable system to provide command and control, but no system to defeat incoming air threats until it gets either the F-16s or ground-based systems or, optimally, some of both,’ Gen. Buchanan told The Washington Times.

Iraq made the first payment in September for 18 F-16s that will not arrive until next fall at the earliest. This means Israel would have a theoretical window of about 12 months if it wants to fly over Iraq unimpeded by the Iraqi air force.

Retired Air ForceGen. Thomas McInerney, who advocates a U.S. strategic bombing raid to destroy Iran’s nuclear sites, agreed that Iraq’s open airspace would make it easier for an Israeli mission.

‘Yes, it will be,’ he said. ‘However, it will be much easier for Iranian forces to get to Israel through Iraq via land and air.’

Gen. McInerney said he thinks there is a good chance that Iran, stretched economically by Western sanctions and fearing threats from Israel, will launch a war against the Jewish state through Iraq.

‘Our departing Iraq will be a huge strategic mistake,’ he said of the Dec. 31 deadline for all U.S. forces to leave.” Read more.

And this is being said while Assad is listening. What Syria does next is anybody’s guess …

By Joel Greenberg – “JERUSALEM — In a shift, Israeli officials are welcoming the prospect that Syria’s president, Bashar al-Assad, will be overthrown, an event Defense Minister Ehud Barak says could be weeks away.

As Assad has come under mounting pressure from a revolt at home and moves to isolate him abroad, initial wariness of speaking out publicly about the fate of his regime has given way to open speculation by officials and analysts about how long he can hold on to power, who might replace him and the possible risks of a chaotic disintegration of his rule.

‘Basically, it’s inevitable,’ Barak said in a telephone interview before flying Wednesday to Washington for meetings with Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and other administration officials. ‘The Assad family, through their own behavior, have lost their last drop of legitimacy and put themselves beyond the point of no return with their brutal slaughter of their own people. He has ceased to be something relevant.’

‘It might take many weeks,’ Barak added, ‘but it’s not a matter of months or years.’

In a separate interview, Moshe Ya’alon, the minister of Strategic Affairs, said: ‘It’s a matter of time and bloodshed before we will witness Assad’s departure. That is our assessment.’

Barak predicted that an eventual removal of Assad would undermine an alliance of Israel’s enemies, including militant Islamist groups backed by Iran and Syria that have fought Israel across its northern and southern borders.” Read more.

Expert: A Threatened Assad May Attack Israel – “Middle East expert Professor Eyal Zisser warned on Monday against a possible Syrian attack on Israel, if President Bashar Assad feels threatened by the anti-regime protesters. In an interview with Arutz Sheva, Zisser said that in the short term there is no reason for particular concern, because a situation which is bad for Assad is good for Israel as this means that the Syrian president is preoccupied with his internal affairs and not with attacking Israel.” Read more.

Report: Syria Arms Medium-Range Missile Arsenal with Chemical Warheads – “The Syrian regime, which has endured nine months of civil unrest spurred by the Arab Spring as it swept across the Middle East, has armed its medium-range missile arsenal with chemical warheads … Damascus armed 600 one-ton chemical warheads to use in the event of a foreign military intervention. Furthermore, President Bashar al-Assad ordered the deployment of 21 missile launchers along its border with Turkey. Syria’s medium-range missiles that can be equipped with chemical warheads have a range of up to 1,300 kilometers…” Read more.

“A senior Israeli cabinet minister on Monday said Iran must be forced to face an existential question over its nuclear drive: choose between getting an atomic bomb, or survival.

‘We believe that in order to stop the Iranian military nuclear project, the regime in Tehran should face a dilemma — whether to have a bomb or to survive,’ Strategic Affairs Minister Moshe Yaalon told reporters in Jerusalem.

Yaalon said however it was for the international community, rather than Israel, to apply what he called an ‘achievable’ policy.

‘We prefer that the international community led by the United States will bring about this dilemma in order to convince the regime to give up its military nuclear programme,’ he said, stressing the need for political isolation and economic sanctions aimed at the banking and oil sectors.

Israel and much of the international community fear that Iran’s nuclear programme masks a drive for a weapons capability.

Tehran denies any such ambition and says the programme is for peaceful civilian energy and medical purposes only.

‘Our policy is very clear — by one way or another, the military nuclear project in Iran should be stopped,’ Yaalon said, indicating it “might be 12 months, might be 24 months” until Iran was able to reach a military nuclear capability.

Israel has pushed Washington and the European Union for tough sanctions against Tehran, but has repeatedly warned it would not allow Iran to obtain nuclear weapons.

Yaalon, a member of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s inner circle of eight ministers, also reiterated the line that while a military option was still on the table, as ‘the last resort.'” Read more.

(Reuters) – “TEHRAN (Reuters) – A member of the Iranian parliament’s National Security Committee said on Monday that the military was set to practice its ability to close the Gulf to shipping at the narrow Strait of Hormuz, the most important oil transit channel in the world, but there was no official confirmation.

The legislator, Parviz Sarvari, told the student news agency ISNA: ‘Soon we will hold a military maneuver on how to close the Strait of Hormuz. If the world wants to make the region insecure, we will make the world insecure.’

Contacted by Reuters, a spokesman for the Iranian military declined to comment.

Iran’s energy minister told Al Jazeera television last month that Tehran could use oil as a political tool in the event of any future conflict over its nuclear program.

Tension over the program has increased since the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) reported on November 8 that Tehran appears to have worked on designing a nuclear bomb and may still be pursuing research to that end. Iran strongly denies this and says it is developing nuclear energy for peaceful purposes.

Iran has warned it will respond to any attack by hitting Israel and U.S. interests in the Gulf and analysts say one way to retaliate would be to close the Strait of Hormuz.

About a third of all sea-borne shipped oil passed through the Strait in 2009, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), and U.S. warships patrol the area to ensure safe passage.” Read more.

Here is an addendum to some thoughts on this story …

By Elad Benari – “Middle East expert Professor Eyal Zisser warned on Monday against a possible Syrian attack on Israel, if President Bashar Assad feels threatened by the anti-regime protesters.

In an interview with Arutz Sheva, Zisser said that in the short term there is no reason for particular concern, because a situation which is bad for Assad is good for Israel as this means that the Syrian president is preoccupied with his internal affairs and not with attacking Israel.

Zisser added that the concern is in the long run, because it is quite possible that a desperate Assad may decide to rally his people around a common enemy, namely Israel.

Referring to Defense Minister Ehud Barak’s comments on Sunday that the end of Assad’s rule is approaching and that it would be a ‘blessing for the Middle East,’ Prof. Zisser said that these remarks do not have any special meaning for the Syrians as they do not pay attention to remarks made by an Israeli defense minister.

He also spoke of the interview Assad gave last week to ABC News, in which he told veteran journalist Barbara Walters that ‘no government in the world [would] kill its people unless it’s led by a crazy person.’ Zisser explained that the interview is a direct continuation of an attempt by Assad’s men to show him as an enlightened person who is different from his father. This attempt, he said, has been ongoing since Assad took over power from his father.” Read more.

Report: Syria Arms Medium-Range Missile Arsenal with Chemical Warheads – “The Syrian regime, which has endured nine months of civil unrest spurred by the Arab Spring as it swept across the Middle East, has armed its medium-range missile arsenal with chemical warheads. According to a report published by the Sabah daily Sunday, Damascus armed 600 one-ton chemical warheads to use in the event of a foreign military intervention. Furthermore, President Bashar al-Assad ordered the deployment of 21 missile launchers along its border with Turkey. Syria’s medium-range missiles that can be equipped with chemical warheads have a range of up to 1,300 kilometers…” Read more.