High expectations of a thaw are premature
Both Bush officials and Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert jumped in fast,
in the hope of capitalizing on the Moscow-Tehran impasse.
Washington put forward a compromise proposal for a joint US-Russian
mechanism to determine the point at which Iran’s long-range missiles
become a menace to Europe and warrant the activation of the US-led missile
defenses to be based in Poland and the Czech Republic, and possibly also
in Azerbaijan. Russian teams would also be present in these bases.
These concessions were offered to allay Putin’s firm objections to the
missile shield Bush planned to deploy in Europe . The eventual outcome of
such a deal, it was hoped in Washington , would be for Moscow to turn a
blind eye to a possible American attack on Iran if it stood by its refusal
to give up uranium enrichment.
Olmert made an unannounced trip to Moscow on Oct. 18 and spoke for three
hours with the Russian president. On Oct. 25, he described Putin to a
group of American Jewish leaders as “one of the most important friends
Israel has today.”
However, DEBKA-Net-Weekly’s Moscow sources report that the expectations of
an imminent thaw may have been premature in Washington and Jerusalem .
The Russian ruler has not burned all his bridges to Tehran . And whether
the Bushehr reactor is finished or not will not hold up Iran ’s military
program. With regard to the Caspian issue, Putin will be as tough with the
Americans as he was with Tehran .
He will drive a hard bargain with Washington for accepting a compromise on
the European missile deployment and maybe other issues: No less than US
acceptance of Russian control of Caspian natural resources and at least a
partial abandonment of the planned US military bases in that region.
If the Bush administration fails to come around, relations between Moscow
and Washington will remain at sub-Cold War temperatures.
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HOT POINTS
A Digest of DEBKAfile Round-the-Clock Exclusives in Week Ending Oct. 25,
2007
Nuclear watchdog is checking US spy satellite images of Syrian site hit by
Israel on Sept. 6 for signs of secret nuclear activity
19 Oct. DEBKAfile’s intelligence sources report that the credibility of
the data Israel presented to Washington before the strike continues to be
questioned in some Washington quarters. They contend that, even if the
target was a nuclear facility under construction, it would not have posed
a threat for years.
One purpose of this argument is to belittle Israel ’s intelligence
findings and detract from questions about how other agencies and the
nuclear watchdog missed them. Another is to put the Bush administration on
the spot for approving the Israeli air attack as a deterrent against a US
military strike against Iran .
DEBKAfile’s intelligence sources have reported from Day One that
the structure Israel attacked was located between the Euphrates and Lake
Assad and that the Syrians misled correspondents by showing them a site at
Deir al-Azur. Our military sources also refuted Damascus ’ claim that
Israeli bombers had ejected unmarked fuel tanks over Turkey . They were
dropped by the Turkish air force, as Syrian president Bashar Assad was
informed during his visit to Ankara this week. The authentic Israel fuel
tanks with Hebrew markings were shown this week by Al Arabiya TV.
Ahmadinejad’s Aggressive Nuclear Policy Prevails in Tehran
20 October: President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has laid down the gauntlet.
Having prevailed over the more pragmatic elements of the Islamic
Republican regime headed by supreme ruler Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, he and
his Revolutionary Guards are challenging the United States to do its
worst.
Saturday, Oct. 20, the fire-eating president succeeded in removing the
formidable Iranian nuclear negotiator, head of the National Security
Council, Ali Larijani, from his path. He then sent the Revolutionary
Guards missile and artillery commander, Gen. Mahmoud Chaharbaghshe, to
warn that, in the first minute of an attack on Iran , the Islamic Republic
would fire 11,000 missiles and mortars against enemy (US and Israeli)
bases. The scale of ordnance threatened implied Tehran ’s certainty that
Syria , Hizballah, Hamas and the pro-Iranian militias in Iraq would join
the assault.
DEBKAfile’s Iran sources report that the president’s venture into
brinkmanship points to his confidence that neither the US not Israel can
or will dare to strike at Iran ’s clandestine nuclear facilities. Khamenei
has shown no sign as yet of reining him in.
Our military sources stress that the Iranian nuclear program no longer
relies exclusively on uranium enrichment to attain a weapon, but has also
turned to plutonium as an alternative path to a weapons capacity. The
production of plutonium for weapons is relatively simple and cheap, a fact
that was exposed by Israel ’s air strike in northern Syria on Sept. 6.
If even Syria can build a small nuclear reactor for plutonium production
with North Korean help, there is no reason to assume that Iran has not
built an active reactor of this kind and is hiding it underground.
Shin Bet foils Palestinian Fatah faction plot to assassinate Olmert at
Jericho talks with Abbas. Israel lodges strong protest with PA
21 Oct. This first Palestinian conspiracy to kill an Israeli prime
minister was directed at his June meeting with Palestinian Authority
chairman Mahmoud Abbas in Jericho . The Shin Bet director Yuval Diskin
reported to the cabinet in Jerusalem Sun. Oct. 21, that five Fatah-Al Aqsa
terrorists plotted to shoot up the Israeli convoy bringing prime minister
for talks as it entered the West Bank town, which is under full
Palestinian security control.
Israel caught two of the five would-be assassins and, acting on Shin Bet
information, Palestinian officers arrested three.
However, last week, they released the detainees - all of them on the
payroll either of Abbas’ US-subsidized Force 17 presidential guard or
Tawfiq Tirawi’s General intelligence - in time for the US secretary of
state Condoleezza Rice’s visit.
Hamas gunmen injured in Israeli air attacks in Gaza Sunday afternoon
22 Oct. Earlier, the Palestinians fired six Qassam missiles from Gaza at
S. Ashkelon, Sderot and Erez. There were no casualties.
Palestinian Fatah leader Mahmoud Abbas said in Jakarta Sunday that no
progress towards a peace settlement was possible without Hamas which,
despite its violent takeover of Gaza , remains a part of the Palestinian
Authority.
DEBKAfile’s sources report that Abbas’ Fatah has for the past two weeks
been in secret dialogue with Hamas which is internationally boycotted as a
terrorist organization.
Relics of Solomon’s Temple uncovered for the first time in a sealed layer
on Temple Mount, Jerusalem
22 Oct. Undisturbed since circa 800 B.C.E., the layer yielded fragments of
bowls and shards decorated in the style of the First Temple Period, the
base and handle of a small jug used to ladle
oil, the rim of an
oil
storage jar and animal bone.
They may be the relics of a sacrificial rite held in the First Temple
built by King Solomon in the 10th century B.C.E. before it was destroyed
by the Babylonians in 586 B.C.E. thus ending the era in which Jewish
kingdoms reigned over much of the present-day area of Palestine .
Jerusalem regional archeologist Jon Seligman said the find could finally
help scholars place Solomon’s Temple at its precise location and
reconstruct its dimensions for the first time.
Over the centuries, the Muslim rulers of Jerusalem built the al Aqsa
Mosque and Dome of the Rock on the holiest site of Judaism, paving it,
calling it the Noble Sanctuary and making it the third holiest shrine of
Islam. They denied the Jewish Temple had ever stood there.