USA, October 27, 2009, (Pal Telegraph) - Thursday saw the start of exercise Juniper Cobra between the US European Command and Israel. The main purpose of this exercise is to test Israel's air defence system against any possible attack. One doesn't need much imagination to know that Iran is the nation they are defending against.
The exercise should have included Turkey but they pulled out as a protest against Israel's previous attack on Gaza.
Basically this was a moral decision taken by the Turkish Government as they realised that their aircraft may be exercising with some of the Israeli aircraft and crews who had carried out raids on Gaza. They would have found it hard to work with crews who had attacked their Islamic brothers. It is good to see that some compassion still exists out there in this aggressive cruel world.
It was interesting to read another report in the Jerusalem Post that said: Even as Israel sought to tamp down tension with Ankara over its decision to refuse IDF participation in a joint military exercise this week, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan accused Israel of using phosphorous bombs on Gaza's children. I feel this comment by the Turkish PM let the Israeli Government off very lightly. Nothing was said about the use of weapons containing uranium components, DIME weapons or Fragmentation Bombs all of which are in breach of the Geneva Convention.
The same paper reported: Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem revealing that Turkey and Syria had held military manoeuvres last week - the same week Ankara cancelled the annual Anatolian Eagle exercise because the IDF was to participate. "One week ago, Syria and Turkey carried out manoeuvres near Ankara," Muallem said, according to Al-Jazeera. "This is important because it refutes reports of poor relations between the military and political institutes in Turkey over its strategic relations with Syria." Muallem's comments came on the same day that 10 Turkish cabinet ministers travelled to Syria for the first meeting of the newly formed Turkey-Syria High-Level Strategic Cooperation Council. It is good to see that such bonds exist and at the same time let the US and Israel know that Turkey and Syria have something in common. The other aspect that should be mentioned at this stage is the fact that the Russian intend to set up a large naval base in Syria and why not? The US has bases all around the Middle East and France has a base in the UAE. As they say "All is fair in love and war".
We continue to see this extremely close bond between the US and Israel despite the hundreds of UN violations and the current UN War Crimes verdict. As one would expect the US was bitterly disappointed at Turkey's decision but one must ask the question why was Turkey, a fellow NATO member involved in the first place. Is this some sort of tact by the US to involve other NATO members to participate in joint exercises with Israel so as not to single out the US as the only key supporter of Israel? Could this have been an indication that the US wants Israel to become part of NATO? This really would be a disaster for NATO.
The US continues to keep the pressure on Iran whilst at the same time Israel has made it very clear that they do not trust Iran. It will only be a short time before we know the results of the IAEA's investigation but will this really make any difference. We have seen these scenarios time and time again where the US and Israel remain on a sort of war footing just waiting for an excuse to attack. Are we likely to see another false excuse like the Iraq/Afghanistan wars and will Iran be added to the list? In this long standing tense standoff one could ask the same question can we trust Israel. When will the international community force Israel to accept an IAEA's inspection of their weapons programme? We already know that they received Harpoon Missiles from the US and then modified the warheads to nuclear.
One must also keep in mind that there could also be some sort of connection to oil and gas as we have seen time and time again. Let's just look at that for one moment. We know that there have been long standing plans to bring oil, gas and water from Turkey to Israel. Hurriyat Daily News reported the following: Turkey, Israel agreed to start to feasibility studies on the Mediterranean Pipeline Project (Medstream) that would consist of five pipelines that would carry water, natural gas, oil, electricity and fibre optics from Turkey's Mediterranean coast to Israel.
I find Middle East politics extremely hard to follow on one hand you have this extremely friendly relationship between US and Israel and an off on love affair between Turkey and Israel. Then we have the friction between US/Israel - Syria and between US/Israel - Iran with Russian sitting in the middle of all parties.
To give and example of the two faces of politics. Israel said it would never buy crude oil from Iran but does so via European ports i.e. crude oil goes to say Rotterdam in the Netherlands and Israeli commercial agents then buy that crude for onward shipment to Haifa.
We also have friction between Israel and Turkey and yet commercially they want to create a 480 kilometre underwater Mediterranean pipeline between Ceyhan in Turkey and Ashkelon in Israel. This pipeline will link up with an overland Israeli oil and natural gas transit pipeline to Eilat at the Red Sea where supplies will be reloaded to super tankers and shipped to India, China and other developing Asian countries.
It doesn't stop there because Russian is wrestling with the US in securing oil and gas global markets. The US is pushing to develop the TAPI pipeline via Afghanistan which is a US led project and Iran is rushing to put their IPI pipeline from Iran - Pakistan - India. Russia is supportive of Iran but not 100% with Israel and yet the proposed pipeline via Israel would carry Russian Gas.... Confused?
One thing you can guarantee is that along the way a conflict will erupt and many thousands of innocent civilian's will again fall victim to capitalism.
Let's take a look at the current pipeline that runs from Baku to Ceyhan and see how this new project (Medstream) fits in. It sure makes a mockery of Palestine's own natural resources that the West and Israel are holding to ransom. Israel would earn vast sums of money in transit fees for this project and yet would never contemplate paying Palestine the same for crossing their territory. As they say, the rich get richer and the poor get poorer!
The proposed Medstream pipeline would bring oil, gas and water from Turkey down to the Israeli port of Ashkelon. It was then intended to send this supply down to Eilat in the Gulf of Aqaba and then via super tanker down through the Red Sea to India and the Far East.
The critical factor here is that Israel must maintain good relations with Turkey. As we have seen this week Turkey pulled out of the joint exercises with the US and Israel. In some respects this was a very clear warning to the US and Israel to back off Palestine. The Medstream Project would have given Israel a guarantee supply for its energy requirements and would also have given them huge amounts of money in transit fees.
From my perspective to cancel this project would punish Israel immeasurably and would send a very clear message to stop its aggressive and arrogant approach towards Palestine or suffer the consequences. I feel that until the blockade of Palestine is lifted this and other actions would be the only way of punishing them.
Israel has broken almost every international law for some considerable time....it has turned its back on hundreds of UN resolutions passed against it, it has violated and committed terrible war crimes and has also broken its own rules of military engagement. It is time for the UN to get tough (if that is ever possible) and for the world to turn against Israel until it is brought to its knees.
Should Israel carry out its desire to attack Iran the consequences would be catastrophic with the entire Middle East totally contaminated with Uranium aerosols. Such an attack would also have the potential of destabilising the entire region with reprisal attacks against Israel.
As far as the Israeli Air Force is concerned the entire mission would be pushing the envelope of safety to its maximum with little room for error. Aircraft would be flying on their maximum endurance with the requirement to need in flight refuelling. The routes are equally as complicated with the need to use other countries airspace. They would have only one option.....to fly directly to target, launch their weapons and fly back without delay. They would not have enough fuel to hang around or to engage other aircraft. The targets are scattered over a very large area and again this would put crews into extreme danger with a clear possibility of not making it back to base.
- Peter Eyre, Middle East Consultant
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Tuesday, 27 October 2009
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