World Press on Iran, Turkey and the Caucasus (February 7, 2012)

The Washington Post published the article headlined “America’s red lines in the sand on Iran.” It says that there are three red lines when it comes to Iran’s nuclear program. The first is the moment when Iran tunnels so deeply underground that Israeli bombs will be incapable of doing real damage. The second is when the tunneling goes even deeper, and the United States’ “bunker buster” bombs will be insufficient. And the third — well, that has already passed. It is the conviction that the current Iranian regime will never let Israel live in peace. The real danger for Israel and the Middle East in general is not an Iranian nuclear attack on Israel — although the use of a proxy to do something like that cannot be ruled out. Instead, the danger is that Israel will lose its nuclear monopoly, and Iran can lose Hezbollah (50,000 or so rockets) from the north and Hamas (even more rockets) from the south on Israel. A nuclear Iran would probably mean a nuclear Turkey, Egypt and Saudi Arabia as well. An increasingly unstable Middle East would become even more so.

The Los Angeles Times reported that The Obama administration closed the U.S. Embassy in Damascus on Monday and pulled all American diplomats out of violence-wracked Syria as the U.S. stepped up pressure on President Bashar Assad to leave power. Robert Ford, the American ambassador, and 17 other U.S. officials left Syria and were expected to travel back to the United States. Ford informed Syrian authorities of the decision to leave earlier in the day, State Department officials said. Two diplomats left by air and the others went overland to Jordan. Their departure comes two weeks after the State Department warned that it would close the embassy unless Assad's government better protected the mission, citing safety concerns about embassy personnel and a recent series of car bombs. And it coincides with a U.S. effort to build an international coalition in support of Syria's opposition.

The Turkish information agency published the article subtitled “Israel faces Turkey airfield question on Iran issue.” It says that as Israel prepares for a possible attack on Iran, its ability to strike the Islamic republic might be hampered by an inability to use airfields in countries like Turkey and Jordan, according to Associated Press. AP said the risk of an attack is at a 20-year high – causing worry among U.S. officials who have been working to prevent such a raid – but the U.S. news agency also doubted Israel’s logistic capability. Israel possesses enough weaponry¬¬, including U.S.-made, state-of-the-art fighter jets, unmanned aerial vehicles and nuclear weapons, but potential burdens of such an array of available tools remains questionable, AP said, adding that airfields located in Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Syria were essential for Israeli aircraft but that it was unlikely these countries would provide permission for Tel Aviv to use their airfields.

The same agency reported that Sergey Lavrov's visit comes days after Syrian allies Russia and China vetoed a Western- and Arab-backed resolution at the United Nations that would have condemned the Assad regime's crackdown on dissent and calling on him to transfer some of his powers to his deputy. The Syrian government had rejected the Arab plan as intervention in Syria's internal affairs. Regime forces, meanwhile, stepped up an assault on the flashpoint city of Homs, using tanks and machine guns in a push to recover rebel-held districts.