Saturday Headlines

Syria's Chemical Weapons: A Motivation For An Israeli Strike On Iran

The Obama administration, as former UN ambassador John Bolton observed yesterday, is taking extreme measures to forestall a prospective Israeli strike on Iran. Since when does one ally tip off an enemy about another ally’s possible route of attack, in this case, via Azerbaijan? The utter fecklessness of the administration’s foreign policy, though, is forcing the Israelis to act, whatever the administration’s concerns about the price of gas.

Insufficient attention has been given to the prospective collapse of Syria as a motivation for an Israeli strike on Iran’s nuclear program.

In the past several days, Israel has sounded public warnings regarding Syria’s chemical weapons stockpile, estimated to be the world’s largest.

Ehud Barak, the defense minister, emphasized the short-term dangers posed by turmoil in Syria. ‘We are monitoring events in Syria, with an eye on any efforts to transfer weapons that would alter the balance . . . Events in Syria increase the uncertainty and the need to prepare for any scenario,’ he warned.”

Israeli officials warn that an even graver risk would emerge if Iran were to intervene in Syria with regular forces to support the Assad regime, perhaps in response to actual or perceived Western backing for the Syrian opposition. In that case Iranian regular forces might have control over Syria’s chemical weapons, and with it the capacity to retaliate against any Israeli strike against Iran’s nuclear capacity.

Now - take a look at these highly prophetic statements:

Deterrence has always worked with the Assad regime: if Syria were to use chemical weapons against Israel, Damascus would be turned to glass.

The Assad family does not want that to happen, but the mullahs in Tehran do not care much one way or the other; they have never liked Arabs to begin with. If Iran gains control of some part of the chemical stockpile, it gains a retaliatory capability against Israel outside its own borders, and that is something Israel cannot tolerate.

For both Iran and Israel, the window of opportunity is closing. Iran cannot sustain the sanctions regime indefinitely, and its probable response is to accelerate its nuclear program. Israel faces the risk that Syria may become a platform for non-nuclear WMD attacks by Iran.

Syrian 'Peace': Fresh Clashes Break Out

Fresh clashes erupted between Syrian soldiers and rebels across many parts of Syria on Friday, despite President Bashar Assad having accepted a peace plan brokered by UN envoy Kofi Annan earlier this week.

According to The Associated Press, there were clashes in the suburbs of Damascus, in the northern Idlib province, the restive central province of Homs and in eastern Syria.

The Local Coordination Committees said 15 people were killed across the country, including eight who died in the town of Quriya in the eastern Deir el-Zour province. There, according to the organization, security forces opened fire to disperse anti-government protesters, triggering a shootout and fierce clashes with local rebels in the area.

The LCC and the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights also reported intense clashes between government forces and defectors in the suburbs of Damascus, between the towns of Zamalka and Arbeen.

On Thursday, the UN’s human rights chief Navi Pillay said there is enough evidenceto bring human rights charges against Assad over his year-long crackdown on protesters.

Waleed al-Bunni, a member of the Syrian National Council, told the London-basedAsharq Al-Awsat newspaper that the opposition would accept the plan only if Assad's regime complies with its points within two days, even though it does not include the opposition's main demand that Assad should step down.

Back to the U.S. and it's pending collapse which will help pave the way for a new world order:

Everything Is Going To Be Alright?

Is the U.S. economy going to be okay? Well, if the only source you listened to was the mainstream media, you would be left with the distinct impression that the U.S. economy is heading toward a full recovery and that everything is going to be alright. Unfortunately, that is not the case at all.

The United States is rapidly becoming poorer as a nation and less competitive in the global marketplace. At the same time, consumer debt levels are rising, corporate debt levels are rising, state and local government debt levels are rising and the U.S. government is indulging in a debt binge unlike anything the world has ever seen.

Instead, the employment statistics have barely moved and government dependence is at an all-time high. That is really sad, because this is as good as "the recovery" is going to get. The next major economic downturn is just around the bend, and in future years millions of us will desperately yearn for the "good old days" of 2012.

Also see:

The House That Jack Built

"Emergency" Gun Restrictions Struck Down