Israel

Why Russia Supports Assad

Jorge Benitez — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 11:20:06 -0600

From Dimitri Trenin, the International Herald Tribune: The Russian government is openly conservative; it abhors revolutions. This, however, is more than a self-serving ideological stance. When the Kremlin — or [director of Foreign Intelligence Mikhail] Fradkov’s office — looks at the Arab Awakening, they see democratization leading directly to Islamicization.

If the West’s historical analogy is Europe’s 1848 or 1989, theirs is Russia’s 1917. They cite recent election results in Tunisia and especially Egypt. They point out that post-Qaddafi Libya is chaotic, with a lot of the former regime’s weaponry finding its way into unsavory hands. In their view, Syria’s uprising could have even worse consequences in terms of sectarian violence and the potential to affect the country’s neighbors, particularly Lebanon and Israel.

Revolutions are bad enough, in the Kremlin’s view, but attempts to interfere in other countries’ civil wars can only make things worse.

The Russians appreciate that the United States and other Western powers would only intervene militarily if they could sustain zero losses themselves, as in Libya. Syria, however, is a more difficult case. Arming the Free Syria Army and providing it with intelligence will not be enough to prevail over Assad’s forces. A prospect of a wider war with Arab and Turkish participation looms on the horizon.

Such a war could only make sense if it were the first act of a more serious drama. Russians suspect that the real reason for the West’s pressure on Damascus is to rob Tehran of its only ally in the region. Behind the activity of the Gulf States, particularly Qatar, in the Syrian issue Moscow sees the rising regional influence of Saudi Arabia, Iran’s bitter rival in the region. Turkey’s “neo-Ottoman” ambitions are also playing a role. What the Russians are most worried about, however, is that Israel may strike at Iran, dragging in the United States and thus precipitating a major war with Iran sometime this year.

Russian policy makers may have a point or two when they discuss other people’s policies. They need, however, to step back and look at their own.

Delivering arms into a country going through civil war is damaging, both politically and morally. Confronting both America and Europe, even if Western policies are misguided, is clearly at odds with Russia’s wider interests. Telling Qatar to shut up is not merely undiplomatic, but unwise. And openly quarreling with Turkey and Saudi Arabia has to be avoided.

To this, some would say that, having lost $4 billion in Libyan arms and other contracts and facing the prospect of losing an equal amount in potential Syrian trade, Moscow has no other choice but to take a hard line. It will be a pity if, at the end of the day, this argument prevails.

Dmitri Trenin, director of the Carnegie Moscow Center, is the author, most recently, of “Post-Imperium: A Eurasian Story.”

Israel, Iran and the United States: All Options Are Bad!

Don Snow — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 09:29:19 -0600

The growing confrontation between Israel and Iran over the Iranian nuclear weapons program is spinning perilously out of hand, and it has within it the seeds of the most potentially dangerous threat to international peace since the Cold War ended over 20 years ago. What we are witnessing is a verbal run-up to a military conflict between the Middle East’s only nuclear power (Israel) and its most militant, populous state (Iran). It is a conflict that would serve no one’s interests, would only result in a worse situation–possibly catastrophically so–for all parties, and in which the extremely emotional basis of the conflict is driving all sides, including the United States, to consider essentially irresponsible acts that endanger the country’s national security interests. All of this is occurring in a presidential election year (probably no coincidence) in which cool analysis and action is undermined by hot electoral rhetoric aimed at grabbing votes at the possible endangerment of this country’s interests and safety. It needs to be stopped now, before it gets any worse.

Consider the situation in terms of three steps and their possible consequences. The steps are the pre-war confrontation, the Israeli attack on Iranian nuclear facilities (an event which, if it happens at all, will almost surely occur before the November election in the United States), and the Iranian response. All put the United States in an untenable, negative sum situation where, regardless of what we do, we will come out on the short end of the stick.

Start with the pre-war present. There are two salient features to consider. The first are Israeli threats that demand, in essence, that Iran stop and reverse its alleged weapons program (which, of course, the Iranians deny exists) before it proceeds any closer to a weapons outcome. The Israelis argue that if the Iranians get a nuclear weapon, they will use it against Israel, making the threat a truly existential one against them. Their assessment may be right or wrong, but there can be no doubt that the Netanyahu government believes this scenario to be the case and from that perspective, a preemptive strike against Iran can make sense. That its consequences could be dire to Israel matters less from this perspective because Israel will suffer in either case. An attack is essentially taking an eye for an expected eye, and national existence is the stake. No Masada this time; the Israelis will go down swinging, if they go down.

This puts the United States, as the protector and guarantor of Israel, in a terrible position that the campaign rhetoric is only making worse. The Obama administration says it is “working” with Israel to defuse the crisis, which effectively means they are trying everything they can think of to try to keep the attack from occurring, at least partly because they recognize that if the Israelis launch a raid, all regional bets are off and that the worst case is a general Middle Eastern war that serves no one’s interests, and especially not the interests of the United States. GOP presidential contenders, on the other hand, are falling all over themselves and one another courting the Jewish vote in the United States by favoring unrestricted support for whatever Israel decides to do. The most extreme view is held by Newt Gingrich, who summons the Holocaust to argue that anything less would be immoral.

The U.S. has essentially three options if an Israeli attack decision is unavoidable. None of them is especially good. They are:

1. Full support for any attack the Israelis carry out, which can include actions of differing severity. The U.S. can participate in the raid in varying ways, such as providing air cover for the Israeli bombers heading for Iranian nuclear sites; we can provide satellite reconnaissance (which we undoubtedly already do) for the Israelis, including warnings of Iranian countermeasures; we can supply special ordnance (deep penetrating bombs) to the Israelis to penetrate underground facilities (the Israelis do not themselves have such a capability); or, at the greatest extreme, we can participate with U.S. bombers dropping bombs. The more involved we are, of course, the more we will be caught up in the wake of international reactions to the attack.

2. We can acknowledge Israeli plans, say we understand but don’t fully support their actions on any of a variety of grounds, BUT warn sternly that we will not allow a response by Iran that would endanger Israeli existence. We would still be blamed for not preventing the attacks, but the criticism would be more muted, and we would uphold our pledge to guarantee Israeli existence. Critics, however, would argue that is not enough.

3. We can tell the Israelis, very publicly, that they are on their own if they attack, although we will protect them from an existential response. This option, regardless of its merits, would be political suicide in an election year (part of why the Israelis, who realize this, will probably act before the November election).

Options 1 and 2 are the only really domestically viable options, but both of them tie the U.S. to the Israeli attack, and that has consequences. Rationalizations notwithstanding, an Israeli strike would be an act of military aggression–an act of aggressive war–that is illegal under international law and the UN Charter, which Israel signed, making the action illegal under Israeli law as well. Calling it “preemptive” does not aid legality, because acts of preemption are only justifiable under international law when a hostile act that they prevent is imminent (e.g.an enemy’s army massing on your border); the Israeli attack does not rise to that level. Thus, the United States indirectly supports violating international law by supporting the Israelis. The U.S, has, of course, done so in the past–the invasion of Iraq in 2003, for instance–but the world will at least rhetorically line up against an aggression. Moreover, the Russians and Chinese will undoubtedly co-sponsor a Security Council condemnation of the aggression, and the U.S. will be left with the unpleasant choices of supporting Israel in the face of overwhelming global disapproval or, as it did in 1956 at the time of the Suez War, of condemning the action of a close ally. Once again, electoral politics may require thumbing our noses at the world. Moreover, if the Israelis do attack, they will not be able to take out the Iranian program entirely, instead only setting it back, while Israeli attacks will take its toll in civilian casualties (collateral damage) that will only add to condemnation of the attacks. Anyone who can see some good in this for United States interests beyond some votes in the presidential election, is seeing something this observer does not.

As if that was not enough, an Israeli attack will trigger some very violent form of Iranian counterattack with equally or even more dangerous potential consequences for the U.S. and the region. Those possibilities, none of which are desirable from a U.S. viewpoint, will be the subject of the next column. All the options are bad!

Donald M. Snow, Professor Emeritus at the University of Alabama, is the author of over 40 books on foreign policy, international relations, and national security topics. This essay first appeared at his blog What After Iraq?.

Fixing All the World's Problems

Bernard Finel — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 12:12:16 -0600

Okay, I’m king for a day, and I am going to fix all the world’s problems. Here goes:

Syria: Arm the rebels, impose a no-fly zone, strike any government forces that try to suppress the uprising. Why? Because at this point we’re witnessing a long, drawn-out mass killing scenario, and it is only likely to get worse given the minority character of the regime. Syria is also a rogue regime. It supports transnational terrorism, has played footsie with the North Koreans on nuclear issues, and continues to destabilize Lebanon. There are good humanitarian and regional security justifications for intervention. I’m not enthusiastic about this, but as a practical matter, I don’t think inaction is better. The costs of this sort of intervention should be relatively low. Lack of UNSC authorization is no bar. We can use the Kosovo precedent to act under auspices of regional organization — but this would require Arab League approval.

Iran: Since we’re unlikely to engage in sustained military action, we should take the option off the table. Offer Iran a straight-forward quid pro quo — we commit to not use force to change their regime in return for them normalizing their international status through a new IAEA-based inspection regime of their nuclear facilities. Assuming they don’t accept — as they won’t — continue to use sabotage and assassinations to slow their progress toward nukes. And most importantly dramatically step up efforts to promote change in Iran through aggressive efforts to defeat Iranian government censorship of radio, TV, and internet. Assuming that does not work either, we need to work on promoting regional resilience so that the rest of the region doesn’t freak out about developments in Iran. Mitigation of the Iranian problem is key rather than solving it for now.

China: Look, China is our biggest economic partner. Yes, they are a rising power, and yes they will want a larger role in global rule-setting. Give it to them. As a matter of geopolitics, we have fundamental shared interests — secure sea lanes, vigorous trade, economic stability. They want what we want. The debates we’re having are over how to get it, not about a completely different international architecture. Sure, we’ll need to play hardball on trade issues. But this is NOT like the Cold War. The one issue we do need to resolve is:

Taiwan: Our ability to defend Taiwan is going to inevitably diminish. Our need to plan for its defense is already one of the largest drivers of our defense budget since it requires us to stay a generation ahead technologically of a rapidly rising power. And not only is this a costly commitment, in the final analysis it is just a bridge too far. Within a generation — at most — our ability to project power onto the Chinese coast will decline to the point where protecting Taiwan is a pure bluff. Instead, we need establish a time-line with the Taiwanese so that they understand that at some point in the very near future our commitment to them will come to an end. I am not sure what happens next. But sometimes you just need to acknowledge reality and move on. Hong Kong and long-term internal Chinese trends make me relatively sanguine, however.

Israel: I like Israel. Indeed, like many Jews, I have something of an emotional attachment to Israel. But their approach to the Palestinians is both criminal and criminally stupid, and we can no longer be on the hook for their intransigence. We need to state simply that either a two-state solution is implemented quickly, or that we’re going to have to begin treating Israel as just another country rather than a close ally and beneficiary of American aid. I hate saying this, but the reality is that at this point, we’re acting as enablers for the bizarre obsession among some Israeli with the idea of recreating Biblical Israel. I don’t see how supporting this weird goal is consistent with American interests.

Afghanistan: Transition rapidly to a Plan Colombia-style relationship: intelligence sharing, financial aid, technical assistance, and limited SOF training and direct action. Communicate directly with the existing insurgent groups about our red lines — no support for transnational terrorism, some adherence to international humanitarian norms (think Saudi standards). Encourage negotiations leading to power-sharing and/or regional autonomy agreements that will take at least some of the insurgents off the field. Or not. Who really cares? Afghanistan is an absolute strategic backwater — poor, isolated, irrelevant.

Pakistan: If we can reduce our commitment to Afghanistan and essentially give Pakistan primary responsibility for enforcing our red lines there, I think we can open the door on a more productive relationship with Islamabad. The problem right now is that our entire relationship is currently focused on those things that they either can’t or won’t do. That isn’t healthy. We’d be better off trying to build on those areas of shared interests. One of those is normalizing the status of their nuclear program. Another is in trying to ease tensions with India in a way that is consistent with Pakistani security requirements. That said, this is a dysfunctional state with many broken institutions. It is also too big to influence directly. We’ll be dealing with this one for a long time.

Mexico: I think the first step to understanding the challenge of Mexico is to realize we’re the cause of many of the problems there. We can mitigate those problems through two substantively simple, but politically impossible steps: (1) End the war on drugs. Legalize marijuana outright. Reduce criminal penalties and enforcement of harder drugs like cocaine and heroin. Get military/paramilitary organization out of domestic law enforcement. (2) Fix our immigration policies: amnesty for those in the U.S., a fence to control the border, and a dramatic increase in legal immigration. Look, we currently have fewer legal immigrants coming to the United States than we did in 1906 when our population was about one quarter of what it is today. If instead of 1 million legal immigrants a year, we were allowing 4 million, we’d have virtually no problems with illegal immigration. And legal immigrants would pay more in taxes and would be less of a drain on public services as a consequence. Would that many immigrants change the character of the United States but turning the U.S. in Mexico? No, no more than German immigration turned Pennsylvania into Prussia or Jewish immigration turned the Lower East Side into Israel. Also, by the way, more legal immigration is the answer to our entitlements “crisis” since it increases the ratio of workers to retirees. Anyway, end the drug war and end the war on immigrants, and you’ll find that many of Mexico’s problems become more manageable.

Europe: Tell the Germans to get their heads out of their collective asses. Signal a willingness to accept a sustained period of higher inflation to aid in debt deleveraging and in internal adjustments.

See. Was that so hard?

Dr. Bernard I. Finel, an Atlantic Council contributing editor, is Associate Professor of National Security Strategy at the National War College. His arguments are his own and do not represent the views or opinions of the National War College, National Defense University, or the Department of Defense. This was originally posted on his personal blog BernardFinel.com.

Most security experts believe cyber arms race is on

Jorge Benitez — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 13:34:10 -0600

From Rachel King, ZDNet: The digital arms race is already underway, according to many global experts and their opinions included in McAfee’s global cyber defense report.

At least 57 percent of the study participants concurred with this point, while another 36 percent went so far as to argue that cyber security is more important than missile defense.

For reference, the report, conducted by the Brussels-based Security & Defense Agenda think tank, is based upon responses from 80 policymakers and cyber-security experts in government, business and academic sectors in 27 countries — not to mention anonymous surveys of more than 250 world leaders in 35 countries.

Out of the 23 nations ranked within the study, the smaller ones proved to be more prepared for cyber threats — most notably Israel, Sweden and Finland. The least prepared were found to be China, Russia, Italy and Poland. (graphic: McAfee)

New Sanctions Aimed at Averting Wider Conflict

Barbara Slavin — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 14:29:26 -0600

European countries are imposing unprecedented sanctions against Iran in part in hopes of preventing an Israeli attack on Iranian nuclear installations that could further destabilize the Middle East and wreak havoc on the global economy.

The decision Monday by the European Union to phase out purchases of Iranian oil by Jul. 1 is timed to US legislation that has the same deadline for sanctions against foreign banks that continue to do business with the Iranian central bank. However, European and US experts on Iran cite the fear of a new war as a key reason for the EU decision.

"The French administration is worried about Israel attacking Iran this year," a French researcher, speaking on condition of anonymity because he advises the French government, told IPS Wednesday.

British Foreign Secretary William Hague, answering questions Tuesday in the House of Commons, said the new sanctions are designed to "to lead us away from any conflict by increasing the pressure for a peaceful settlement of these disputes."

The EU decision reflects Israeli success in pressuring both the United States and Europe. Israeli officials have repeatedly called for "crippling" sanctions against Iran, suggesting that might forestall their use of military force against Iran's nuclear facilities – and collateral damage in terms of sharply higher oil prices and increased regional instability.

There is particular concern that Israel might act in 2012 out of concern that Iran is nearing nuclear weapons capability and in the belief that the Barack Obama administration would be obliged to support Israel in a US presidential election year.

Stuart Eizenstat, who negotiated with Europeans a decade ago after the US Congress first enacted sanctions that sought to penalise foreign oil companies doing business with Iran, told IPS Wednesday that the EU turnaround was "remarkable and stunning…given where they were on sanctions in general and Iran in particular."

Eizenstat credited the Obama administration's success in "multilateralizing" the dispute, building on the basis of UN Security Council resolutions initiated by the George W. Bush administration.

Eizenstat, who co-chairs an Iran task force of the Atlantic Council, a Washington-based think tank, added that the current US government has benefited from a dual track policy of extending "the hand of friendship along with the club of sanctions".

Europe's willingness to deprive itself of Iranian oil at a time when it is facing a possible new recession is also the result of Iran's actions, particularly since the disputed 2009 presidential elections.

Iran's government, once practiced at driving a wedge between the United States and Europe over policy toward Iran, has instead united them by accelerating its nuclear programme, abusing human rights and targeting European nationals and the staff of European embassies.

Accusing Europeans of fomenting anti-government protests, the Iranian government in 2009 detained several Iranian staff of the British embassy, a British-Greek journalist and a French academic.

Last January, Iran executed a Dutch-Iranian woman, Zahra Bahrami, a rare use of capital punishment against a dual national. Bahrami was arrested during the post-election disturbances and subsequently convicted of being a drug smuggler.

Finally, last November, Iranian paramilitaries invaded and trashed the British embassy in Tehran, leading Britain to close the embassy, withdraw foreign staff and expel Iranian diplomats from London.

At the same time, Iran has continued to enrich uranium to higher levels and earlier this month began enrichment at a facility near Qom that is burrowed into a mountain and less vulnerable to attack.

"There has been a hardening of the European position, that's for sure," Anne Penketh, programme director of the British American Security Information Council, a think tank that seeks a nuclear weapons-free world, told IPS.

Penketh pointed to the leading role of France under President Nicolas Sarkozy in pushing for more concerted European action against Iran. At times, Sarkozy – who is also running for re-election this year – has been even more hawkish than President Obama.

The French expert on Iran attributed the tough stance to Sarkozy's personal political views and to Iranian actions, including the detention of French academic Clothide Reiss. Reiss spent six weeks in Tehran's notorious Evin prison in 2009 and was forced to remain in Iran for nine more months after being convicted of spying.

Eizenstat said that the combination of Sarkozy and the leaders of Germany and Great Britain has been crucial in building a consensus against the Iranian nuclear programme. Europe, Eizenstat said, fears that an Iran with nuclear weapons would "unravel the entire nonproliferation regime".

He added that "there was and is genuine concern that if they didn't go this way on sanctions, there was a real threat of an Israeli military strike." The consequences of a European oil embargo on Iran pale in comparison to those of a new war, which would be "catastrophic", Eizenstat said.

Writing in an upcoming article for The New York Times Magazine, Ronen Bergman, an Israeli journalist and expert on Iran, added to the media drumbeat by predicting an Israeli strike on Iran in 2012.

Asked if Israeli threats of military action were designed to produce an oil embargo, Eizenstat said the Israelis "are legitimately planning it (military action) but are aware of the grave risks. They have played their hand with considerable skill."

In his State of the Union address to the US Congress Tuesday night, President Obama took credit for Iran's growing isolation.

"Through the power of our diplomacy, a world that was once divided about how to deal with Iran's nuclear programme now stands as one," he said.

While repeating that the US would "take no options off the table" to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons, the president asserted that "a peaceful resolution of this issue is still possible, and far better, and if Iran changes course and meets its obligations, it can rejoin the community of nations."

There have been no negotiations with Iran for over a year and optimism about a renewal of talks is limited. Despite statements by Iranian officials that they are ready to return to negotiations, the Iranian government has not responded in writing to a letter last October from the chief European official in charge of foreign policy, Catherine Ashton.

The United States and its partners in the so-called P5+1 – the five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany – are discussing what they might propose to Iran should new negotiations take place. The most urgent demand is for Iran to stop enriching uranium to a level of 20 percent U-235, the isotope necessary for nuclear explosions.

However, the US and its partners have not decided what to offer Iran beyond fuel for a reactor that produces medical isotopes.

A hard-line Iranian newspaper, Keyhan, defiantly suggested Wednesday that Iran immediately cut off oil sales to Europe, which in the past has purchased about 18 percent of Iran's oil exports. Keyhan also repeated Iranian threats to close the Strait of Hormuz, through which 20 percent of world oil supplies pass.

Other Iranian media were more sober, reflecting a deepening economic crisis that has seen the Iranian currency, the rial, lose more than half its value in recent months. The newspaper Javan, according to a translation by Mideast Mirror, called the new sanctions "a planned conspiracy, which we need to deal with wisely and cautiously and not provide opportunity to our enemies."

Barbara Slavin is a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council and member of its Iran Task Force, former senior diplomatic reporter for USA Today and former Mideast correspondent for The Economist. This article originally appeared on IPSNews.net.

Digital Spies: The Alarming Rise of Electronic Espionage

Jorge Benitez — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 12:09:14 -0600

From Adam Piore, Popular Mechanics: The first warning that hackers had penetrated the American oil company came soon after the initial breach, in the summer of 2009. The computer help desk received complaints from employees who were locked out of their accounts or whose computers had already been logged onto.

Then the complaints abruptly ceased: The digital spies had obtained an administrator password and were intercepting help-desk tickets, unlocking accounts, and notifying users that their problems had been fixed. With that access, the hackers copied thousands of confidential emails—including those of top executives—and transmitted them to China in massive files late at night, after the oil company's employees had left for the day.

By the time the FBI informed the company of suspicious network traffic in the summer of 2010, Chinese firms had outbid the oil company on several high-stakes acquisitions by just a few thousand dollars. But it could have been far worse: For months, malware that allowed the hackers to take over terminals had been burrowing deeper into the company's systems and had wormed its way into computers that controlled oil-drilling and pipeline operations.

"People were alarmed that their email was compromised, but the hackers could have crippled the business," says Jonathan Pollet, the founder of Red Tiger Security in Houston. In early 2011, Pollet helped the oil company identify some of the hackers' breaches; he refused to name the company, citing a confidentiality agreement.

The example Pollet cites is just one incident in an ongoing, aggressive campaign of electronic espionage that costs U.S. firms billions of dollars, endangers our military secrets, and threatens to erode our technological edge, as computer hackers—often but not exclusively traced to China—help their clients, and their countries, gain the upper hand in business deals and steal intellectual property. (An October 2011 report prepared for the Director of National Intelligence titled "Foreign Spies Stealing U.S. Economic Secrets in Cyberspace" explicitly accuses China and Russia of hacking U.S. companies, calling Chinese hackers "the world's most active and persistent perpetrators of economic espionage.")

The phenomenon blurs the lines between white-collar crime, international spying, and even acts of war, but the attacks are known in the intelligence community as advanced persistent threats, or APTs. Well-financed, patient teams of hackers that U.S. intelligence agencies believe are backed by foreign governments now constitute a major national security risk. The hackers use tactics that are inherently difficult to trace and choose targets that have deep roots within U.S. infrastructure, government, and military. Recent news accounts have identified APT victims that include Google, ExxonMobil, Royal Dutch Shell, Morgan Stanley, Dow Chemical, Symantec, Northrop Grumman, and Lockheed Martin, to name just a few.

Private industry is understandably reluctant to reveal such breaches, even to the government: If a digital attack strikes fear in the hearts of a company's executives, one can only imagine how it would make shareholders feel. But digital spying is like a cockroach infestation—for every one that you see, thousands thrive out of view. "I can't find an organization, an entity, a business, or a department that hasn't suffered from cyber intrusions," says Gordon M. Snow, assistant director of the FBI's Cyber Division. "If they really believe they haven't, they're just not aware of it yet."

In August 2011, a report by the security firm McAfee detailed hacks into some 72 public and private computer networks in 14 countries and warned of "the biggest transfer of wealth in terms of intellectual property in history."

Technology theft is the most common motive for digital espionage, but China and other nations have used it to squelch internal political dissent as well. Stolen source code from Google was used to hack into the accounts of Chinese dissidents, and after an Iranian hacker broke into Dutch security firm DigiNotar, the stolen technology was used to help his government spy on troublemakers in Iran. These attacks can cause collateral damage that compromises the security of everyone online. Digital security certificates from DigiNotar were part of the basic verification system of the Internet. If you can fake one of those, you can fool a browser into thinking any site is safe. . . .

Computer espionage has a history almost as long as that of the modern Internet. In the late 1980s, the German hacker Markus Hess and several associates were recruited by the KGB to penetrate computers at American universities and military labs. They made off with sensitive semiconductor, satellite, space, and aircraft technologies. Today, China, Israel, and Russia are reportedly the most aggressive about stealing secrets. But China is playing a game of a different magnitude. "The Chinese didn't create this problem," [former head of U.S. counterintelligence during the Bush and Obama administrations Joel] Brenner says. "But there's no question China is the worst offender now. They are all over us. It's just relentless. . . ."

Byzantine Hades, linked to the People's Liberation Army Chengdu Military Region First Technical Reconnaissance Bureau, an electronic espionage unit of the Chinese military. According to the cables, Byzantine Hades targeted not only the U.S. government and industry, but also high-level European officials. The Chinese hackers even managed to remotely activate the computer microphones and Web cameras of French officials so they could peek in on everything from office gossip to high-level diplomatic planning sessions. In the past, surveillance like that would have required spies to know where their targets were staying and mic the room—but in the age of cellphones and laptops, spies can listen in on foreign officials half a world away. (graphic: Popular Mechanics)

Obama: 'We’ve made it clear that America is a Pacific power'

Jorge Benitez — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 10:15:16 -0600

From Barack Obama, the White House: Ending the Iraq war has allowed us to strike decisive blows against our enemies. From Pakistan to Yemen, the al Qaeda operatives who remain are scrambling, knowing that they can’t escape the reach of the United States of America.

From this position of strength, we’ve begun to wind down the war in Afghanistan. Ten thousand of our troops have come home. Twenty-three thousand more will leave by the end of this summer. This transition to Afghan lead will continue, and we will build an enduring partnership with Afghanistan, so that it is never again a source of attacks against America.

As the tide of war recedes, a wave of change has washed across the Middle East and North Africa, from Tunis to Cairo; from Sana’a to Tripoli. A year ago, Qaddafi was one of the world’s longest-serving dictators -– a murderer with American blood on his hands. Today, he is gone. And in Syria, I have no doubt that the Assad regime will soon discover that the forces of change cannot be reversed, and that human dignity cannot be denied. . . .

The renewal of American leadership can be felt across the globe. Our oldest alliances in Europe and Asia are stronger than ever. Our ties to the Americas are deeper. Our ironclad commitment -- and I mean ironclad -- to Israel’s security has meant the closest military cooperation between our two countries in history.

We’ve made it clear that America is a Pacific power, and a new beginning in Burma has lit a new hope. From the coalitions we’ve built to secure nuclear materials, to the missions we’ve led against hunger and disease; from the blows we’ve dealt to our enemies, to the enduring power of our moral example, America is back.

Excerpts from remarks by the President in State of the Union Address. (photo: Getty)

What to do about Iran

R. Nicholas Burns — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 16:20:24 -0600

What to do about an increasingly truculent and threatening Iran is now the most important foreign policy challenge of 2012. Republican presidential candidates are all over the strategic map. Rick Santorum wants the United States and Israel to bomb. Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich accuse President Obama of weakness, but it isn’t clear that they would act much differently. Ron Paul opposes force against Iran because “they don’t threaten our national security.’’

A more sophisticated plan would be to stick with the strategy that two unlikely partners - Presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush - have tried since 2005: punish and isolate Iran with ever tougher sanctions while leaving the door open to negotiations and an eventual diplomatic solution. As an Iranian nuclear weapon is rightly unacceptable to the United States, both presidents left the threat of force on the table to concentrate the attention of mullahs in Tehran. This strategy is not by any means guaranteed to succeed. But it is beginning to gather greater support in key capitals and has quiet bipartisan support among many congressional leaders, keeping us, so far, out of another Mideast war.

Iran is the leading state sponsor of terrorism in the Middle East and a pernicious troublemaker in Iraq and Afghanistan. That it wants to go nuclear is not contested seriously in any major world capital. As the Bush administration’s undersecretary of state working to stop Iran’s nuclear program, I didn’t encounter a single international official, including from China and Russia, who disagreed that Iran’s enrichment efforts and missile tests are designed for just one purpose - to achieve a nuclear weapons capacity. To complicate matters, Iran has recently threatened to shut down the strategic Strait of Hormuz to international shipping, raising the stakes in an already tense standoff between US and Iranian navies in the Persian Gulf.

Proponents of a US or Israeli military strike have not made a credible case that it would resolve the problem. Military strikes cannot destroy every Iranian lab and kill every scientist involved with the program. At best, a major assault would delay Iran’s program but not end the threat. It could also lead to a wider war. Obama would have to weigh the benefit of an attack against the probability that Iran, a foe much stronger than Saddam Hussein’s Iraq ever was, would hit back.

The more deliberate strategy pursued by Obama and Bush to convince Tehran to step away from the nuclear precipice is backed by our European allies, Russia, and China. These countries have made repeated offers to Iran to negotiate. Iran has refused to deal, believing, no doubt, that the US-led international coalition is weak and divided. That, in turn, has emboldened critics to charge sanctions can’t work and that force is the only way to resolve the issue.

But newly approved bipartisan sanctions may change that calculation. At the insistence of congressional leaders, Obama will now have the authority to target Iran’s Central Bank and foreign firms that do business with it. Meanwhile, the European Union is on the verge of approving an equally powerful oil embargo. These will be, by far, the most lethal sanctions ever imposed on Iran. And just last week, the Obama team launched a major push to convince the three key Asian importers of Iranian energy - China, South Korea, and Japan - to join the sanctions effort. The president has also quietly continued Bush’s program to accelerate US military support for Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and other Arab countries to contain Iran’s growing military power. This promises to make Iran an international pariah and is the most serious US counterstrike in our long-running chess match against Iran’s myopic supreme leader, Ali Khamenei.

What does this mean for our national debate on Iran and the 2012 election? First, it would be a serious strategic mistake to strike Iran now and give up on the most promising sanctions campaign in years. That is why restraining Israel from attacking Iran on its own is so important this year. Second, we should not discount the possibility that diplomacy might be the ultimate answer to the Iran threat. We have not had a serious and sustained negotiation with the Iranian government in more than 30 years. To choose war when we have not yet given diplomacy a serious try would be foolhardy and unconscionable. Third, we are a lot stronger than Iran will ever be and can outlast them in a match of strength and will. Time and geopolitics lean heavily on our side in this long-term test - a 21st century version of President Kennedy’s “long twilight struggle.’’

Of course, Obama’s rational and carefully nuanced approach to Iran may not quiet impatient critics in our overheated political arena who will castigate him for being soft and insufficiently martial. But for now, Obama has skillfully kept open the possibility of negotiations while leaving force as a last resort and at a time of our choosing, not Iran’s. John Quincy Adams famously warned Americans “not to go abroad in search of monsters to destroy.’’ We may yet have to consider force against a dangerous Iran but, for now, Obama and Bush’s careful strategic patience is a far smarter path for our country.

R. Nicholas Burns is Professor of the Practice of Diplomacy and International Politics, Harvard Kennedy School, and Atlantic Council Board director. This article originally appeared in The Boston Globe.