Israel to provide missile shield for Jordan and Egypt?
The Tower
cites an AP report with comments from Brig. Gen. John Shapland, the chief US military attache in Israel, suggesting that Israel could
provide a missile shield for Jordan and Egypt.
“If we were able to build a regional defense capability
in, say, Jordan, that capability could easily defend Israel, Jordan and
even Egypt, if you so desired, adding one more layer to your
multi-layered defense,” he told Israeli officials and experts gathered
at the INSS think-tank.
Yair Ramati, head of the Israel Missile Defence Organisation,
appeared open to the idea. “The policy of the (Israeli) Defence Ministry
is always to cooperate with the countries of the region, including the
countries cited,” Ramati said at the conference, in reference to Jordan
and Egypt.
Well, yeah. But why in Jordan? Wouldn't the best geographic location for such a missile shield be in southern Israel?
Labels: anti-missile systems, Arrow 3, David's sling, Egypt, Jordan, missile shield, US-Israel relationship
US linking Israel's missile shield to Turkey and Saudi Arabia
It should be interesting to hear what Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has to say about this story.
You will recall that on Friday I reported on Eli Lake's Newsweek story that says that the Obama administration
sold bunker busters to Israel in 2009.
The full story is now out and it includes this little tidbit: The United States is
linking the missile defense shields of its Middle East allies - including Israel, Turkey and Saudi Arabia - via the use of x-band radar which the US insists on controlling.
The Obama administration also initiated a diplomatic effort to persuade Arab and Muslim states in the Middle East like Saudi Arabia and Turkey to commit to an ambitious plan to inter-connect their missile defenses with Israel’s. This topic is particularly sensitive because most Arab states today have no formal diplomatic ties with Israel, and those that do have seen a downgrade in relations since the start of the Arab Spring protests.
Cartwright described the missile shield this way: “Give them the capability, but make the capability inter-dependent between more than one state, so if one pulls out it can never be stronger than the group.”
But the states being forced into cooperation by Washington are not all playing nice. An X-band radar is scheduled to be shipped to Turkey by the end of the year. Yet Turkey’s leaders have threatened not to share data from the radar with Israel. The White House continues to push back against Ankara. Cartwright said that another, similar radar would be installed in a Gulf state in the near future, declining to be more specific.
This vision of an interconnected missile defense for U.S. allies in the Middle East started all the way back with Ronald Reagan. But it is Obama who has pushed it into implementation. “He gets credit,” Cartwright said of Obama. “He is the one that gave the go-ahead.”
But that isn't helping Obama much with Israel's supporters.
“In some ways the U.S.-Israel security relationship continues to get stronger with each new administration,” says Josh Block, the former chief spokesman for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. “But this administration, in airing private disputes and sometimes publicly distancing itself from Israel, has encouraged Israel’s adversaries to pursue their hostile aims against the Jewish state.” Obama’s poll numbers among U.S. Jews have plummeted from 83 percent at the start of his presidency to 54 percent this month.
Perhaps that's because with the US
controlling the radar, there are no guarantees that a country will be
able to use it when it needs it. The good news is that - for now at least - Israel is
in the control room.
Labels: Barack Hussein Obama, Israel, missile shield, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, x-band radar
Major showdown coming between Turkey and NATO over Iran
Turkey is on a
collision course with NATO over Turkey's refusal - in connection with the placement of a land-based missile defense system on its territory by NATO - to have Iran designated an enemy (Hat Tip:
Joshua I).
"We do not see any threat from any of our neighbouring countries, whether it is Iran, Russia, Syria or others," Turkish foreign minister Ahmet Davutoglu said during the weekend as he was visiting China.
"I state quite clearly that Turkey will not be a frontal or flanking country [of the Nato missile shield] and we do not want to see again a zone of the Cold War and its psychology in our region," he added, noting that any Nato shield should be developed along these principles.
The line has irked the US, the main motor behind the shield, which is an upgraded version of a controversial plan by the previous George W. Bush administration.
According to unnamed US officials quoted by the Daily Telegraph, the missile defence deal is being seen as an "acid test" of Turkey's commitment to the transatlantic security alliance.
"I would say that we are not putting pressure on the Turks [in regard to missile defence]," said US defence secretary Robert Gates at a Nato meeting in Brussels on 14 October. "But we are having continuing conversations with them as one of our allies."
...
Adding to Ankara's reluctance in backing the Nato shield are America's close links to Israel. According to the daily newspaper Today's Zaman, Ankara has sought and reportedly received assurances from the US that intelligence gathered using the missile shield's sensors will not be shared with Israel.
Under Washington's plans, the ballistic missile defence system would be rolled out in two phases. In the next two years, US Navy ships would be deployed in the Mediterranean. This would be followed by land-based interceptors in Romania and Poland and a high-tech radar in Bulgaria or Turkey by 2015.
It's time for Turkey to be thrown out of NATO. The West has to decide whether they are going to be allied with Israel or whether they are going to be allied with an Islamist ally of terror states like Iran and Syria. The choice should be obvious.
Labels: Ahmet Davutoglu, Iran, missile shield, NATO, Turkey
