The hysteria over the expected arms deal between Russia and Syria should be directed elsewhere. Israel may indeed find it harder to strike Syria every time it feels like “sending a message” to Damascus. What should worry Jerusalem more, however, is the fact that it, and Syria, are now at the center of the great [...]

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But an unexpected war is imminent, according to best-selling new biblical analysis
According to Salus, the next war in the Middle East will involve Israel’s closest Arab neighbors – not faraway Iran or Russia, the re-emerging military power to the north. He says a sometimes overlooked or misinterpreted passage in Psalm 83 is the key to [...]

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With the assistance of Israeli defense companies Israel Military Industries (IMI), Soltam and Elbit, Kazakhstan’s Ministry of Defense is developing its indigenous defense industry to manufacture three modern artillery systems at its Petropavlovsk PZTM industrial complex to equip the Kazakh army (FGUP Rosoboroneksport, July 21). What is most striking about the three systems under development [...]

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Dutch author Leon de Winter talks with SPIEGEL about his new novel, which is set in 2024, the threats mounting against Israel and the assimilation of Muslims in Europe. more…

From the Archive: ‘We Are Making Fools of Ourselves in the Eyes of the World’
SPIEGEL 360: Our Full Middle East Coverage

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Despite Israel’s top-notch air force, launching a long-range strike against a multitude of hidden targets in Iran entails huge risks and uncertain rewards. At most, say Israeli intelligence sources, an attack — which Israel would only undertake with a nod and perhaps logistical support from the U.S. — is likely to stall Iran’s program by [...]

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ISRAEL will almost surely attack Iran’s nuclear sites in the next four to seven months — and the leaders in Washington and even Tehran should hope that the attack will be successful enough to cause at least a significant delay in the Iranian production schedule, if not complete destruction, of that country’s nuclear program. Because [...]

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What would happen to the world economy?
Quite simply the economic consequences of such a raid would be cataclysmic.
It isn’t just that Iran is the world’s second largest oil producer, with the third largest global reserves of oil and the second largest of natural gas. The truly significant part is where Iran actually is. Even assuming [...]

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Israel managed to bring two of its soldiers home on Wednesday. But even still, praise for the prisoner exchange with Hezbollah has been scant. Israel, say German commentators, has allowed itself to be blackmailed. more…

Two Coffins for a Murderer: Israel’s Delicate Prisoner Swap with Hezbollah
Photo Gallery: The Prisoner Swap between Hezbollah and Israel

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DEBKAfile’s military sources report that Israel has placed its military and air forces on its northern borders on high alert after Iran and Syria ignored Jerusalem’s warning, relayed to Washington, that the continued presence of Iranian, Syrian and Hizballah officers on the strategic Lebanese Sannine peak may spark a military clash.
Monday, July 14, two days [...]

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Greece has the same Russian S-300 ground-to-air radar systems as Iran. A June 2008 exercise with Israel may be preparation for strike.
While the Israeli-Greek air tactics were amply reported in the world’s media after initial reports in the New York Times, the pivotal information from Greece’s S-300 batteries has remained below the radar. By swarming [...]

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U.S. President George W. Bush has given Israel an “amber light” to begin preparations for a military attack on Iran, a Pentagon official told The Sunday Times this week.
“Amber means get on with your preparations, stand by for immediate attack and tell us when you’re ready,” the official said.
The official told the Times that Bush [...]

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Like Camus’ Oranians, who refused to believe in the plague, we are in grave danger of underestimating Iran
Have some commentators responded to the Iranian regime’s threat to the state of Israel in the same way as Oranians? The question is raised in a new study (PDF) by Joshua Teitelbaum, an academic who lays out exactly [...]

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AMERICA and Israel often hint at military action to stop Iran’s suspected nuclear-weapons programme. The latest rumblings, however, may be more serious. The atmosphere has been charged by a combination of factors: Iran’s expanding uranium-enrichment programme, faltering diplomatic efforts to halt it, a dying American administration and a nervous Israel. Throw in the latest war [...]

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A leading Israeli analyst said Hamas has been preparing its forces for an expected Israeli incursion into the Gaza Strip, Middle East Newsline reported. Jonathan Spyer, a senior researcher at the Global Research in International Affairs Center, said Hamas was adopting Hizbullah’s strategy of asymmetrical warfare meant to significantly improve its combat abilities.
Read More…

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Iran claimed to have launched a fresh battery of missiles in war games near the strategic Strait of Hormuz in a muscle-flexing exhibition meant to demonstrate its willingness and ability to defend itself against an invasion by Israel or the United States.
And Israel put its latest spy plane on display, which it claims can track [...]

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By Peter Zeihan
As students of geopolitics, we at Stratfor tend not to get overexcited when this or that plan for regional peace is tabled. Many of the world’s conflicts are geographic in nature, and changes in government or policy only rarely supersede the hard topography that we see as the dominant sculptor of the international [...]

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But we seem to keep arriving at them anyway. The news of Iran’s test Wednesday and the seemingly unstoppable nature of its nuclear program made me wonder whether we are close to another such tipping point. And whether it’s too late to turn back. Tehran’s test-firing of nine long- and medium-range missiles was intended to [...]

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An attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities would be far more extensive than the 1980 raid. Some of the would-be targets for the Israeli Air Force (IAF) are hardened with concrete coverings and underground rooms. Dozens of planes would have to dodge radar and antiaircraft missile batteries to deliver multiple payloads of penetrating warheads—bought from the [...]

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Analysts see a host of reasons to keep away from full-scale violence. Shlomo Ben-Ami, former Israeli foreign minister, and Trita Parsi, president of the National Iranian American Council, write in the Christian Science Monitor that bombing runs alone won’t destroy “any potential clandestine facilities in Iran nor Iran’s knowledge of the enrichment process.” Mohamad ElBaradei, [...]

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IRAN has issued a strident warning that it would “set on fire” Israel and target the US navy in the Persian Gulf as its first response to any American attack over its nuclear programme.
Rising tension in the area where Iran and the United States are both carrying out military exercises have contributed to driving oil [...]

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Assessing Israeli Capabilities to Destroy Iranian Nuclear Facilities
Orginally published in April 2006.
This paper will attempt to fill this gap in the existing literature by providing a rough net assessment of an Israeli strike on known Iranian nuclear facilities. It will do so by taking the strike on Osirak as a generic template for the strike [...]

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