Russian President Vladimir Putin is in over-drive to recover Moscow’s overriding influence in the Arab world, which it lost to the United States in 1973. To roll the march of history back 39 years, Putin is enlisting China and Iran.  The latest DEBKA-Net-Weekly issue out last Friday focuses on Russia’s comeback and Barack Obama’s prospects of pushing it back, given his reliance on the sympathy of the Muslim Brotherhood and the backing of an unpopular Turkey and a systematically disempowered Israel.
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debkafile postulates Syria’s ...

Military tensions around Syria shot up again Monday, June 18, with an Iranian report that a joint Russian-Chinese-Iranian exercise is to take place in Syria, called “the biggest of its kind ever staged in the Middle East,” with 90,000 personnel, 400 air planes and 900 tanks taking part.  debkafile: This would be the first time Russia and China have deployed substantial military strength in the Middle East. It points to their determination to deter a US-lead military operation against the Assad regime.

Islamist candidate Muhammad Mursi did not wait for the ballots to be counted before proclaiming himself President of Egypt. Shafiq’s protest that final results were not in was drowned out by street celebrations preparing the masses to confirm the Brotherhood win. The Netanyahu government did not oppose Obama’s policy of bringing Muslims to power through the ballot box and now faces Moslem adversaries from a strategic pit. To recover its deterrent effectiveness, Israel must dismantle Iran’s nuclear program by force.

Moscow is using the time up until Russian President Vladimir Putin faces US President Barack Obama across the G20 conference table in Los Cabos, Mexico Sunday, June 17 – or its corridors - to ship sophisticated anti-air, anti-ship arms to Syria able to prevent a no-fly zone being imposed. A fleet of Russian warships is also heading for Tartus. If the two presidents come to terms on Syria and Iran, the planned US and allied intervention in Syria may be delayed. If not - quickened.

Russia is not averse to Bashar Assad’s exile from Damascus to his retreat in the Alawite Mountains because his army would move west with him and the new coastal enclave would secuire secure Russia’s Tartus and Latakia naval and marine bases (see attached map).

The US President Barack Obama has ordered the US Navy and Air Force to accelerate preparations for a limited air offensive against the Assad regime and the imposition of no-fly zones over Syria - depending on Moscow's reaction.

Tehran early Sunday June 10 accused Syrian rebels of arming themselves with chemical weapons originating in Libya and acquiring training in their use - sending shudders of alarm through the West and Israel. They fear the Assad regime is preparing the ground for chemical assaults to finally crush its foes. Both sides to the conflict are talking about chemical warfare openly. If they go through with it, President Barack Obama will have to reconsider non-intervention and turn to limited force to stop the escalating horror.

A new contact group, a Syrian military council for provisional rule under the group’s orders, and Russian-Iranian moves to make Assad step down – these are the key points of Obama’s plan for Syria, part of his grand design that also embraces Iran and its nuclear program.

Not all is dandy in the cyber war collaboration between the US and Israel. Since Stuxnet, Iran has made strides in its cyber war capabilities and attained a level largely unknown to Western intelligence.

Iran stalled the US Secretary and UN-Arab League Envoy Kofi Annan’s plan for a contact group based on five permanent Security Council members and Iran to handle the Syrian impasse, refusing to join the group so long as it faces nuclear conditions. Tehran's non-cooperation on Syria reflected its flat-out rejection of the US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s demand that Iran come to the nuclear talks in Moscow “ready to take concrete steps” to curb its enrichment of uranium to 20 percent purity.

 US President Barack Obama has again persuaded Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to hold off attacking Iran’s nuclear program in the coming months by promising a new set of tough sanctions against Iran. US administration officials assured debkafile’s Washington sources that Israel’s leaders, were won over once more – this time by the Obama administration’s promise to impose an air and sea blockade on Iran, failing progress at the Moscow nuclear talks. Tehran may hit back by closing the Strait of Hormuz.

Obama focuses on obtaining Vladmir Putin’s consent to deploying 5,000 largely Russian monitors in Syria in order to gain a partner also for his Iran nuclear diplomacy. HIzballah risks being cut off from its heavy weapons arsenal hidden in Syria.

Obama has come up with yet another seven-point plan for breaking down Iran’s resistance to abandoning its nuclear weapon aspirations. This time he believes it will work, after obtaining Iran’s consent. Our experts are skeptical.

Why did Netanyahu and Barak agree to subscribe to Obama’s latest game plan for Iran and again delay a strike on its nuclear facilities? They were promised that harsher sanctions would be imposed against Iran, even in the course of negotiations.

US President Barack Obama, widely expected to pursue direct action against Syrian ruler Bashar following the Houla atrocity, is preoccupied with what he regards as the greater threat to the world: a potential grab for the huge Syrian stock of chemical and biological weapons by Al Qaeda or other terrorist organizations, to prevent which, debkafile reports, he has reached out to Russian President Vladimir Putin with a fresh plan for Syria: 5,000 international monitors, most Russian, to guard those stocks.

US President Obama recently vetoed a detailed Franco-Saudi plan for ending President Bashar Assad’s rule by means of a massive air strike against his palace that would wipe him, his family and top leadership circle out, debkafile reports. French warplanes from the Charles de Gaulle aircraft carrier off Syria and Saudi and United Arab Emirates bombers flying in through Jordan would devastate the palace atop Mount Qassioun northeast of Damascus. The US was asked to pitch in by disrupting Syrian air defenses.

All six powers confronting Iran in Baghdad last Friday, 25 May, knew diplomacy was dead in the water when Tehran flatly vetoed every nuclear compromise. Nothing more is expected from the next round in Moscow. But President Barack Obama still refuses to admit the negotiations are an exercise in futility. When, if ever, will he go for military action against Iran? You will have found answers in DEBKA-Net-Weekly’s latest issue out Friday.
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The Iranian nuclear impasse and the Syrian civil war are more tightly interlinked than ever by President Barack Obama’s decision to cooperate with Moscow for solutions of both - a partnership that promises the eventual three-way carving-up of Middle East influence. The six-month break Israel allowed Obama for diplomatic solutions before exercising its military option, gives Tehran the freedom to defy the six powers in nuclear negotiations and ties US hands against Bashar Assad’s atrocities. Obama's diplomatic path is already cluttered with obstacles.

After three months of exploring every possible diplomatic channel to persuade Iran to give up its nuclear program, Obama enlisted Moscow’s help for getting messages to and from Tehran. But meanwhile his diplomatic network had become a maze in which the Baghdad talks lost their objective.