Russia warns NATO to stay away from Syria

Today Russia's Deputy Foreign Minister Gennady Gatilov stated, "In our contacts with partners in NATO and in the region, we are calling on them not to seek pretexts for carrying out a military scenario or to introduce initiatives such as humanitarian corridors or buffer zones," Gatilov said, according to the Interfax news agency.

I'm not advocating for NATO intervention, but with the body count in Syria at 30,000 and rising - while the world community watches and does nothing - it is worthy to note that the Russians are even opposed to the idea of a humanitarian corridor to provide some relief to the millions of suffering Syrians. 

Every now and then the Russians remind the world that they are just as cold-hearted and ruthless as they were during the Cold War. No wonder the United Nations is as useless as it ever was. Naked self-interest still rules the day. - R.O.

Russia warns NATO to stay away from Syria

REUTERS 10/02/2012

MOSCOW - Russia told NATO and world powers on Tuesday they should not seek ways to intervene in the Syrian war or set up buffer zones between rebels and government forces.

The statements from Deputy Foreign Minister Gennady Gatilov was one of Moscow's most specific warnings yet to the West and Gulf Arab leaders to keep out of the 18-month-old conflict.

"In our contacts with partners in NATO and in the region, we are calling on them not to seek pretexts for carrying out a military scenario or to introduce initiatives such as humanitarian corridors or buffer zones," Gatilov said, according to the Interfax news agency.

Russia and China have vetoed three UN Security Council resolutions condemning Syrian President Bashar Assad and blocked attempts to impose sanctions on the country or intervene more directly in its conflict.

Syria's neighbor Turkey has floated the idea of setting up "safe zones" inside Syria to protect civilians but that would also have to be approved by the Security Council.

Gatilov urged restraint between Syria and NATO-member Turkey, one of Assad's harshest critics. Ankara has repeatedly complained of artillery and gunfire spilling over its border and last week it signaled it would take action if there was a repeat of a mortar strike on its territory from inside Syria.

"We believe both Syrian and Turkish authorities should exercise maximum restraint in this situation, taking into account the risings number of radicals among the Syrian opposition who can intentionally provoke conflicts on the border," Gatilov was quoted as saying.

Assad gives orders to 'cleanse' Aleppo
Meanwhile, Syrian President Bashar Assad visited the city of Aleppo to take a first-hand look at the fighting between government forces and rebels, a Lebanese paper said on Tuesday. The report also claimed that Assad has ordered 30,000 more troops into the battle.

Al-Diyar newspaper, which is known for its pro-Assad stance, said the president had flown by helicopter at dawn from the presidential palace in Damascus to Aleppo. It did not specify what day the trip started but said that Assad was still in Aleppo. The visit was decided on after reports that the situation in the city, Syria's largest and its commercial center, had become very serious.

"President Assad ordered units 5 and 6, estimated to be 30,000 soldiers and 2,000 personnel carriers, to move from Hama to Aleppo and to attack any occupied areas of Aleppo province from the Turkish border," it said. The paper said that Assad gave orders that Aleppo must be "cleansed" during the visit.

Reuters was unable to independently verify the report.

Rebels mounted a new offensive last week to seize the city, which was until July firmly under Assad's control. They claim to hold most of the Old City but are struggling to hang on to their positions in the face of heavy artillery fire.

The rebel forces are in the east and Assad's forces in the west of Aleppo. Fires started by the combat have gutted the historic market in the Old City, a world heritage site.

Opposition activists say 30,000 people have been killed in the 18-month-old anti-Assad uprising, which has grown into a full-scale civil war.

Dangerously Doubting the IAEA Report on Iran

My op-ed published last week in Canada's National Post, was picked up and published today in the Windsor Star. I feel my op-ed is even more prescient now, given that the U.S., UK, and Canada went ahead with unilateral sanctions against Iran's central bank, just as Israel has conspicuously gone silent about the threat posed by Iran. The unwillingness of Russia and China to further sanction Iran, or contemplate additional Security Council resolutions, may ultimately force Israel to act alone. If you haven't read the full version of my article, check it out below here. -R.O.
http://www.windsorstar.com/news/death+truth/5776603/story.html

"The Death of Truth"
By: Robert D. Onley
Published in the Windsor Star: November 28, 2011

Fallout from the misleading intelligence that led to the 2003 war in Iraq is now leading the international community into dangerous, reactive skepticism of the IAEA's damning report on Iran's now exposed nuclear weapons program.

Despite the wide-ranging report, Russia and China have already rejected the possibility of increasing sanctions against Iran, arguing on disingenuous grounds that the U.K., France and U.S. will use sanctions as an "instrument for regime change in Iran." Major news outlets are similarly casting complete doubt on IAEA claims that Iran is actively working on nukes.

While the IAEA report was indeed preceded by loud sabre-rattling from the American and Israeli political establishments, the supposed "leak" of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's readiness to conduct unilateral airstrikes certainly was no accident.

Designed to spark global discourse on Iran prior to the report's release, the leaks underscored Netanyahu's long-standing fears about the truth of Iran's "peaceful" nuclear program.

Thus the sabre-rattling should not discredit the catastrophic implications of the report, which sets out in unprecedented detail the extent of Iran's nuke program.

Some skeptics dismissively claim that Iran's research into the design of nuclear weapons is not a breach of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which Iran is a signatory state and internationally bound not to "manufacture" or otherwise "acquire" nuclear weapons. However, this suggestion completely misses the point, highlighting the dangerous naivety of reactive skepticism.

The indisputable facts about Iran's nuclear weapons research are as follows. Since 2003, Iran has:

. Conducted extensive research into bomb designs and detonators

. Continued development of intercontinental ballistic missiles

. Covertly constructed numerous weapons-related facilities, notably the Fordow uranium enrichment facility - built inside of a mountain, itself inside of a military base.

Iran did so while repeatedly claiming its nuclear program is "peaceful." This blatant stall tactic deliberately impeded progress during years of nuclear negotiations with the West.

Russia and China have dismissed the IAEA report as a manufactured casus belli to attack Iran, and have painted Yukiya Amano, the IAEA head, as a pro-western dupe. Russian FM Sergei Lavrov obliquely warned the West that attacking Iran would be "a very serious mistake."

The tragic casualty in all of this misguided skepticism is the truth itself. The fact that a 25-page report from the IAEA - the one global institution tasked with preventing the proliferation of nuclear weapons - can so blithely be dismissed as a lie, emphasizes the abject depravity of the international community's moral core.

A country - the Islamic Republic of Iran - with a president who openly and callously denies that the Holocaust occurred, is now at the threshold of possessing the very weaponry that could cause the Second Holocaust.

In the face of this utterly malignant, horrifying historic juncture, the world's instinctive reaction is to render the IAEA's years of painstaking intelligence-gathering not as a terrifying truth, but rather as an unremitting lie.

Beset with widespread protests, a faltering global economy and a Middle East already in turmoil, hesitation to greenlight another conflict in the region is wholly understandable and with merit.

However, for these same nations to then simply ignore the threat of another country's obtaining nukes, out of fear of causing temporary instability in the Middle East, is to abandon the world's future to the enemies of peace, destroy the NPT and spark a nuclear arms race.

Israel, the one nation most directly threatened by the potential of a nuclear-armed Iran, is today at its gravest geopolitical crossroads since coming into existence.

If Israel decides to undertake unilateral military action against Iran, Netanyahu must convene with the UN Security Council and reveal all of Israel's intelligence on Iranian nukes. Israel must irrefutably prove that Iran is developing nuclear weapons and thus represents a threat to the peace of the world under UNSC Article 39.

The truth on this matter cannot be left in any doubt, because the truth - about Iran's nuclear weapons program and the threat from Iran's theocratic Shia "Twelver" leadership - is Israel's only ally in the long-standing fight for its very survival as the world's sole, immovable, Jewish state.

Robert D. Onley is vice-chair of YouthCan for International Dialogue and president of the Students' Law Society at the University of Windsor's Law School.
© Copyright (c) The Windsor Star

JPOST: 'Iran to give Hizbullah weapons'

Surprise, surprise: Iran is equipping Israel's enemy Hizbullah. Since the 2006 Second Lebanon War, when Israel fought Hizbullah after Israel soldiers were abducted by Hizbullah fighters near the border, Iran has consistently and openly supplying Hizbullah with advanced weaponry in defiance of numerous UN resolutions.

Today the Jerusalem Post reports an Italian story, which states that Turkey will "send sophisticated weapons, rockets and guns to Syria, that will end up in Lebanon," where the Iranian Army will ensure the weapons are transferred to Hizbullah. 

Meanwhile, the Iranian Revolutionary Guards "will facilitate the transition, ensure safety, watch loads on the routes, and provide support to the border," the report said.


Iran is blatantly equipping Israel's enemies in order to punish Israel in the event Israel takes pre-emptive action against Iran's nuclear facilities. Hizbullah, an Iranian-Syrian proxy, is welcoming the weapons and assistance after the 2006 war which severely depleted Hizbullah's munitions stores.


All of which will only increase tensions and increase the likelihood that Israel and Hizbullah will engage in hostilities once again, particularly following the border clash a week ago that left 5 dead. 

This story is not news to anyone following the situation in recent years, but proves once more than Iran is the world's largest state sponsor of terrorism, as recently reported by the U.S. State Department.

In light of Iran's perpetual shenanigans, does anyone need any more reason to not let Iran obtain nuclear weapons?


Read the JPost story here: http://www.jpost.com/MiddleEast/Article.aspx?id=184538