American officials said Wednesday, Dec. 4, that they believed bombs had been made ready with sarin gas, but not yet loaded onto fighter planes and Assad had not issued the “go” order. The USS Eisenhower Strike Group has reached the Syrian coast with 8 fighter bomber squadrons and 8,000 servicemen. With the USS Iwo Jima, the US has posted opposite Syria 70 fighter-bombers, 17 warships and 10,000 American fighting men – all in apparent readiness for US intervention in the Syrian conflict.

As NATO in Brussels gave the go-ahead Tuesday night Dec. 4, for the deployment of Patriots to protect Turkey against Syrian missiles, debkafile’s military and intelligence sources reported convoys of the Syrian army’s chemical weapons units heading out of Damascus under cover of dark and turning north up the road to Aleppo. They were ferrying self-propelled cannons and shells armed with poisonous sarin gas. Assad used the heavy winds, cloud and rain to obstruct Western attacks on the convoys.

Iranian and Pakistani warships had planned a joint Red Sea drill to start Friday, Nov. 30 in Port Sudan. It was rumored in Khartoum that the Pakistani Shashmir carrying nuclear arms or nuclear-related equipment had docked Thursday ready to meet two Iranian warships. Washington then warned Tehran that the US-Iranian nuclear talks due to open Saturday, Dec. 1, would be called off, if this first ever joint drill between a Muslim nuclear power and a close nuclear candidate went ahead.

Thursday night, Nov. 29, the UN General Assembly grants Palestine non-member observer status within the 1967 borders by majority vote. But to which Palestinian rule does it apply?  Abbas’s Fatah is fading, whereas the extremist Hamas in the Gaza Strip is a rising force. If it qualifies for a place in the Sunni Middle East grouping Egypt, Turkey and Qatar are building with US backing and Israeli approval, Hamas may become the beneficiary of the upgraded Palestinian status won by Abbas.

Israel’s operation was an intel coup to shut Iran’s gateway to Cairo via Hamas.

Tuesday, Nov. 27, the Middle East military spotlight swung around from Gaza to Syria with the start of US and NATO intervention. A game changer began unfolding with the site survey begun by a joint Turkish-NATO team for the deployment of Patriot Air and Missile Defense Systems manned by American military teams. debkafile: Although billed for “defensive purposes,” the Patriots will in fact impede Syrian air bombardments over all of northern Syria, including the embattled towns of Aleppo and Homs.

Even before the Gaza conflict was over, the next major steps were in motion: US-manned Patriots and Awacs are in the pipeline for deployment on the Turkish Syrian border; Moscow moved its Black Sea Fleet’s naval task force opposite Gaza/Israeli shores, joining Tehran’s concern that the US-led coalition which wrecked Iran’s “southern front” in Gaza would turn against Syria and Hizballah. The US and Israel are braced for violent Iranian retribution; while Egyptian President Morsi’s troubles could undo the fragile Gaza ceasefire.

The Black Sea Fleet's naval task force has been ordered  to remain in the eastern Mediterranean ready to evacuate Russian citizens from the Gaza Strip. debkafile: Moscow used the same pretext as Washington, readiness to evacuate nationals in an emergency, to account for the presence last week of the USS Iwo Jima and two other warships in the east Mediterranean. Both flotillas are in fact on standby for developments in the Syrian crisis. The Iwo Jima has since moved quietly into waters off Syria.

The Gaza operation was an exercise in deception, designed by six intelligence chiefs to trigger two coups – one to restore Mohamed Morsi’s powers as Egyptian president and the other to purge Hamas of its pro-Iranian elements.

Barack Obama second term is a changed president. After approving Israel’s operation in Gaza he is no longer holding back from direct US military involvement in Syria and has big plans to plug the Sinai smuggling routes through which Iran arms and supplies its surrogates in the Gaza Strip ...

Iran suffered a serious setback in the Gaza Strip as a result of the Israeli operation to get rid of Hamas’s pro-Iranian leaders. Tehran had conceived of the Gaza Strip as its gateway to the Muslim Brothers of Egypt and Jordan. Though small in time and scale - and relatively inconsequential in the large Middle East picture - the eight-day Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip helped elevate the US to the Middle East major league at Iran's expense.

For Egypt’s President Mohamed Morsi and US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to obtain Hamas’s consent to a ceasefire Wednesday, Nov. 21, Israel made certain concessions. The most damaging was acceding to Egypt’s role as truce monitor and arbitrator between itself and Hamas and the address for complaints of violations, misunderstandings and brokering future negotiations for regulating future relations. By this step, Israel accepted Egypt’s superior authority and demoted itself to an equal footing with a terrorist group, Hamas.

A bombing attack on a bus in cenral Tel Aviv Wednesday, Nov. 21, left at least 25 people injured, five seriously.  A missile siren earlier alerted the towns and kibbutzim just west of Jerusalem – up to Beit Shemesh – Wednesday morning, Day 8 of the Gaza operation – the day after two Palestinian rockets missed the Israeli capital and landed at a West Bank Palestinian village. Two houses in Beir Tuvia took direct hits, injuring a woman and causing shock. Iron Dome saved Ashkelon and Beersheba from missile barrages.

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Jerusalem, Cairo and Gaza awaited US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's arrival Tuesday night, Nov. 20, to clinch the Gaza ceasefire accord. Israel held back from approval until then and the Palestinians stepped up their missile blitz. debkafile’s analysts say that by giving in to international pressure for a ceasefire – against the objections of top military chiefs and intelligence pros - Israel’s leaders would show they have not learned from their predecessors’ mistakes in ending two wars inconclusively. 

Knowing that the Muslim Brotherhood of Egypt had egged Hamas on to launch a major missile offensive against Israel, the Netanyahu government took the precaution of getting US backing before launching Israel’s counter-offensive to degrade the terrorist group’s rocket capabilities.

Most Palestinians groups met in Gaza City Monday night, Nov. 12, to approve a ceasefire after a three-day, 300-rocket assault on Israel. But the Salafists stayed away, instead firing 5 heavy Grad rockets against Netivot, Beersheba and Ofakim and taking delivery of a fresh load of Grads through the Sinai tunnels, assisted by Tehran’s proxy, Jihad Islam. Yet Israel, Egypt and even Hamas continued to delude themselves that a ceasefire can work - although Israel’s top command reckons it will collapse within days.

Barack Obama’s decision to go for direct talks with Iran comes too late to stop its nuclear program. He is left with bargaining over the size of the Iranian nuclear arsenal and its disposal with Ali Khamenei holding most of the high cards.

Some Middle East nations, including the Persian Gulf and Israel, view with trepidation four more years of Barack Obama. They envisage the continued hitching of US regional influence on the Muslim world – Sunni and Shiite alike – through the acceptance of a nuclear Iran and the sponsorship of Muslim Brotherhood rule of Sunni Arab nations. Israel is caught in a vise between Iran, whose leaders call openly for Israel’s extinction, which is achievable only by nuclear aggression, and the hostile Muslim Brotherhood.

CIA director David Petraeus arrived in Cairo to lead a new anti-terror campaign against al Qaeda in cooperation with Egyptian security. It was launched after the discovery that Ayaman al-Zawahiri has set in motion a new wave of terror after reconstituting his old Egyptian Islamic Jihad and turning Sinai ...

If France and Israel were to combine their air and sea assets, they could clobber Iran’s nuclear program without any other partners. However, neither is yet about to move in this direction without the United States, although their intelligence ties are in closer rapport than they are with US ...