What a surprise.

Yesterday, the French were saying let’s look at this thing for a week or so. But then there was a sudden surge of urgency, not least on the part of the Russians, and it was quickly passed.

So today we have the official Presidential Statement On The Joint Special Envoy For Syria of March 21, 2012, and the accompanying… and somewhat more visible… official UN press release about the Statement. The links to the documents are so you can contemplate them in their full glory at your leisure. Interestingly, it was insisted by someone at the meeting (although it is not clear who it was) that both be passed at exactly the same time by the UN Security Council.

And pass them they did. All 15 members of the Security Council. Including prior holdouts Russia and China. Which is the real surprise to almost everyone. But not everyone.

I say not everyone, because it seems something dark is going on behind the scenes, sheltered from the light of public scrutiny. Otherwise what happened makes no sense at all.

But more about that later. On to the particulars….

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Just as the remake of Ocean’s Eleven was a thin shadow of the original movie, today’s announcement of Obama’s Eleven… his exemption of 11 countries from Iran oil sanctions… makes U.S. sanctions against Iran a shadow of what they promised to be.

Impresario Hilary Clinton says Japan, Belgium, Britain, the Czech Republic, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland and Spain have really tried hard to cut their dependence on Iranian oil. And some of them did cut down a little bit. So they get to continue buying Iranian oil. Despite the fact that the EU sanctions on Iranian oil are still scheduled to go into effect in July.

China and India, which receive the bulk of Iranian oil imports, are not on the list of good little boys. No matter… they have already put into place ways of paying for all the Iranian oil they want, and they want lots and lots.

One wonders what the Israel reaction to this odd remake will be.

One wonders, because there is simply stunned silence from the Israelis. Israeli media report the facts, but so far there is not one word from Netanyahu, or Barak, or an editorial. Not even a comment from readers on at least one media outlet.

Either the Obama administration had warned the Israeli government in advance, and the Israelis have their media in hand on this one. Or it came as a complete shock, parallel to Israel making a preemptive strike on Iran without warning the U.S. first… as they have said they might do.

Just yesterday, after holding closed-door meetings with Germany’s defense minister, (more…)

Get a cup of coffee… this may take some time.

There are a lot of very serious things going on at the moment, three of which could plunge the world into war. Two of those… instantly.

First up, the big news of the hour:

SYRIA: car bombs kill 27, about 100 other casualties

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It’s quiet.

Really quiet.

Maybe too darned quiet.

Thursday night, local time, four missiles were fired into Israel from Gaza. Three were probably Qassams, hitting nothing and doing no damage. One was definitely a Grad, headed toward Ashdod, but Iron Dome took it down.

Gazans reported Israeli helicopter gunships struck a site in the northwest. They also said the Israeli Navy fired missiles at the Gazan coast… which may be a first, if true. Israeli Defense Forces neither confirmed nor denied.

A group of at least four Beduin tried to enter Israel clandestinely from the Sinai. IDF and Egyptian forces killed one, wounded three. The would-be infiltrators fired back at both the IDF and Egyptian Army units. The IDF says they were just smugglers. Nothing to worry about. Nothing like last month when unnamed ‘terrorists’ tried to smuggle two large bombs into Israel. And no need to mention that a few weeks ago Beduins took over most of the posts abandoned by the Egyptians along the Israel-Egypt border, and were given anti-aircraft missiles sophisticated enough to keep the IAF from covering that area with warplane patrols.

There may have been other missiles fired from Gaza: there may have been other IDF action. But no media reported any action on Friday from either side. According to media reports… or more precisely, the lack of them… the Egyptian brokered Gaza-Israel truce is back in place and holding.

But it does not seem to matter.

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The Israeli Air Force (IAF) struck targets in both northern and southern Gaza Wednesday night, Israel-Gaza time. Mainstream Israel media says one or more rocket launchers were hit in the north, and a ’smuggling tunnel’ was hit in the south. No causalities yet reported by Gaza.

It is not certain if those were the only airstrikes made… or if there has been any retaliation by Gaza yet.

The strikes were clearly in retaliation for the three Grads fired earlier at Beerseba and Ofakim, one causing a small casualty in the second of the two towns.

Same media repeated earlier remark of OC Southern Commander Russo (see previous post) that the ‘IDF might need large ground operation’ in the Gaza Strip.

Wednesday night, Israel-Gaza time, the fragile truce between the two neighbors lay in shards on the sands of the Middle East.

Three heavy Grads… there is a hint that one missile was more than a Grad, but only an unconfirmed hint… were fired from Gaza on Wednesday. One was intercepted by Iron Dome over Be’er Sheva (Beersheva) the largest Israeli population center in the south, and one hit in open unoccupied fields outside the city. But one exploded in the smaller town of Ofakim, a dozen miles closer to the Gaza Strip. Several people were treated for shock.

There is no word of Israeli airstrikes in reprisals as this post is being written, although mainstream Israeli media said,” The IDF was expected to retaliate to the renewed rocket fire.”

Commander of GOC Southern Command, Major-General Russo, ‘warned that Israel might be required to launch a large-scale operation in Gaza in the near future to stop the attacks,’ according to mainstream media. ‘GOC’, sometimes written just ‘OC’, refers to the ground arm of the Israeli Defense forces, an amalgamation of all branches of the army’s ground forces. In Hebrew it is called Zro’a HaYabasha, with the unofficial acronym Mazi, which is technically incorrect but has a long history.

Bottom line on that quote from Russo:
He would most likely be responsible for Israeli troops if they went in on the ground into Gaza in a Cast Lead 2 type of operation. And he is saying something like that may be ‘required’ soon.

Today in the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, Prime Minister Netanyahu said… a lot of things, including:

“Gaza is Iran’s forward position…”

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The Egyptian-brokered truce between Israel and Gaza was scheduled to begin at 1 AM Tuesday.

There were a couple of bottle rockets and a mortar shell fired into Israel after the truce began, but everyone expected that.

But the missiles kept on coming… and getting bigger.

12 projectiles hit Israel, but the Israelis kept their airforce in check, no strikes.

Then a thirteenth, a large Grad missile, slipped through their Iron Dome defenses - perhaps because there are only 3 batteries, and the Israelis keep moving them around. The Grad exploded in Netivot, 5 miles from the Gaza Strip, under-30 thousand population almost totally without an Arab component.

One Israeli was injured, apparently a hand injury, and about a dozen others were treated for shock.

Warplanes of the Israeli Air Force lit their jets, and took off for Gaza. Reports say they hit 2 targets, type unspecified as yet, before they returned. No word of casualties, if any.

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A truce between Israel and Gaza was brokered in Egypt without any actual negotiations between the two sides.

If one could even define what the Gaza side is… Hamas?… Jihad Islami?… both… including or not a couple of dozen splinter groups of militants?

Be that as it may, after more than 200 missiles fired from Gaza, and 44 sites in Gaza hit by Israeli airstrikes, there is a truce as of 1 am Tuesday, local time.

Of course, one mortar shell and two or three small Qassam rockets have been fired into Israel since then. But that’s de rigueur for an Israeli-Gazan truce. Those three minor projectiles were probably fired by one or two of the minor splinter groups mentioned above, or some Jihad Islami unit who did not get the word. Or a guy in his backyard who had cobbled together a Qassam, or something like it. They’re very simple. That’s why they usually do little or no damage.

So no problem there.

And the Israelis made no airstrikes after 1 am, at least as of the writing of this post, so no problem there.

No, the problem is that the truce is based on the Palestinians no longer planning… stress planning… to do anything at all to Israel. And Israel stopping assassinations of Palestinian leaders in Gaza.

In other words, total peace. No more ‘resistance’, as the Arab world calls all aggressive actions against Israel. Gaza gives up. Therefore no need for Israel to assassinate anybody.

Does anyone believe that will happen? In a word… no.

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U.S. aircraft carrier USS Enterprise and Carrier Strike Group 12 left their home port of Norfolk Naval Station in Virginia on Sunday, according to U.S. mainstream media and official announcements. This is the final deployment for Enterprise. It is scheduled to be scrapped in Washington State in December when it returns from this voyage. It is not a candidate for being a museum, because the removal of its eight nuclear powerplants means the ship has to be ripped apart.

It is, by all measures, completely expendable.

Except, of course, for its crew of 4,600, including air wing personnel.

Oddly… or perhaps not so oddly… the ships’ destination and purpose is indeterminate. Official word is that they will be deployed in the Sixth Fleet and Fifth Fleet areas of responsibilities, their ‘main job’ being ‘presence missions’ (read: gunboat diplomacy), and the ‘ever-present possibility of a major international flare-up involving Syria or Iran’ (read: war).

But they cannot be in both AOR’s at the same time.

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“I have given orders to strike all those who plan on attacking us,” Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu told his cabinet during a meeting on Sunday. He promised that operations “will continue as long as necessary.”

“Escalation will be met with escalation, and what is coming is even greater,” responded Islamic Jihad shortly after Netanyahu’s remarks were released. “… operations will continue whatever the price.”

There are reports in various media that seem to suggest the Israelis are not really into the truce process at this point in time.

Backing that up that thought, Israel hit Gaza with at least 6 airstrikes Sunday night, Israel-Gaza time. 35 casualties are reported, severity unknown. The strikes occurred east of Gaza City, Beit Lahiya in the northern part of the Gaza Strip, Khan Yunis in central Gaza, and two strikes in ‘open fields’, presumably where there were missile launchers but not a structured town.

40 more missiles were fired from Gaza toward Israel on Sunday, making 160 the official total from Friday through Sunday 4 am, local time. (more…)