That’s the surprising news of the day. Every private and mainstream Israeli media indicate that Israel will go along with the deal President Obama and the West have been negotiating privately with Iran, and that deal is promised to be trotted out into the light of day May 23 in Bagdad at the P5 meeting.

Although the leaked details are still subject to whatever happens between now and Wednesday, here is a sketch of the basics:
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Israeli media with Mossad connections are detailing what they say are the inner secrets of the U.S.-Iran deal on the Iranian nuclear program. They warn us that Iran has not signed off on it yet, so the final deal may be somewhat different. But if Iran does accept it as is, the deal will ‘endanger’ Israel.

They also say that the way the deal is structured, it would be very difficult for Israel to make a unilateral strike on Iran after it is finalized… if it is actually finalized… on May 23.

So. Reading between the lines, they seem to be saying that the window for an Israeli strike on Iranian nuclear facilities is only between now… and May 22. Which is this Tuesday.

I can’t say if any of this is true or not, especially the conclusion that is between the lines. No one outside of Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu’s closest inner circle knows if he is actually thinking this way.

It is just barely enough of a possibility that I must bring it up; because of the potential gravity of the situation, it requires High Alert status… although most likely it is yet another false alarm.

But you know… the Stock Market has been sliding downward in a very scary way lately, which I’ve always thought would be a prerequisite for war. Stock futures, as of this moment, are down yet another 78 points.

A word to the wise is sufficient.

The next IAEA-Iran meeting had been scheduled for May 21, in Vienna.

Instead, the meeting has been moved up to this Sunday, May 20, and more significantly, will be held in Tehran, Iran.

Heading the visiting IAEA party will be no less than the UN nuclear agency’s Director General, Yukiya Amano. He has never gone to Iran, so far as we know. It will be the first visit by the IAEA’s head man since Amano’s predecessor, Mohamed ElBaradei… who currently is a sometimes candidate for the Egyptian presidency… went to Iran in 2009. And told the world Iran had no nuclear weapons program. And got fired.

But Amano is different from ElBaradei. He is Japanese, with a long history of taking a hard line against nukes of any kind. He has been much harder on the Iranians than ElBaradei ever was. But there is also the general acknowledgment, or at least the sly rumor, that he takes his marching orders from Western governments, which ElBaradei never did.

It will be interesting to see how Amano’s history and proclivities play out against the deal that Iran and the West have supposedly entered into.

Amano’s official task this weekend is to ‘discuss issues of mutual interest with high Iranian officials’, according to the official IAEA statement issued today.

Everyone knows he is there to get some solid movement on the issue of Parchin, and to see if the Iranians are really serious about an agreement that can be displayed at the P5 meeting May 23. (more…)

It may not be wise to take anything at face value at this point in time. The U.S. and Iran are clearly jockeying for position before the P5 meeting on the 23rd.

But it may be wise to remember that the kind of negotiations that are happening at P5 normally take months to conclude. It is altogether possible that despite the urgency of the issue there may be no breakthrough announced after the meeting.

If a significant agreement is reached, it looks like it will include the U.S. allowing Iran to continue enriching uranium to at least 5 percent. Maybe 20.

If no agreement is reached, Iran will continue enriching uranium to 20 percent in their Fordo facility. Global media reports Iran is installing many more centrifuges for that purpose.

It is difficult to see how Prime Minister Netanyahu… who Time Magazine today named ‘King of Israel’… can accept either outcome.

The options seem to be waging war with Iran on a military level, or on an economic level. If the economic war becomes as total as people are saying it needs to be, it is difficult to see how it would not provoke a shooting war.

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The May 14-15 meetings of Iran and the IAEA are to be continued next week, with everyone meeting again in Vienna on Monday, May 21.

The cone of silence has descended upon the issue in the meantime.

There is no mention of IAEA in Iranian official media, and only a brief article in unofficial media. Official U.S. media has the same brief comments. Global press simply picks up those comments. There is essentially nothing about IAEA in Israeli press of any kind.

The brief comments are mostly limited to verbal smiles, but there are a couple of inferences to be had.

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“My ambition is that we come away with the beginning of the end of the nuclear weapons program in Iran. I hope we’ll see the beginnings of success.”

– Catherine Ashton, EU foreign policy chief, in Brussels on Friday

Woah.

Nuclear weapons program in Iran?

Not simply ‘nuclear program’?

Was this a faux pas, a slip of the lip, a moment of unguarded speech? Or a policy statement.

We have not heard a retraction since she spoke yesterday, so it looks like we can take her pronouncement at face value. And it is one of those very telling phrases which defines an entire issue.

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Exercise Eager Lion was held June 11-30, 2011 in Jordan. whose northern border is almost entirely shared by Syria. It was a ‘bilateral strategic cooperation exercise’ between the U.S. and Jordan only. The agenda was irregular warfare, special operations and counterinsurgency.

Exercise Eager Lion 2012 is about to begin, according to the United States Central Command. This time, however, they say it will involve ‘more than 19 countries from five different continents and more than 12,000 participants’. Other sources say that besides the U.S. and Jordan, “Arab and friendly states” make up the roster. Still other sources connected with Mossad name Saudi Arabia and Qatar as two of the countries, some of the others being the usual list of Britain, Canada and France (looks like the French election did not change everything overnight).

Official U.S. media says, “The focus of Eager Lion is to strengthen military-to-military relationships of participating partner nations through a joint, whole-of-government, multinational approach, integrating all instruments of national power to meet current and future complex national security challenges”.

They also say this year’s ’scenarios’ have been in the works for years… some sources say three years. So, clearly and absolutely, they sure don’t have anything to do with the situation in Syria. Nope. Not at all. In fact, Russian media quote the Saudi Defense Ministry as ‘insisting’ that Eager Lion is ‘in no way linked to the situation in Syria and Iran, despite the media claims to the reverse’.

It is sheer serendipity that the exercise is set to start May 15, the second day of the crucial IAEA-Iran meeting, according to Israeli media with Mossad connections. Interestingly, the first Eager Lion was held in June, shortly after the March onset of the Syrian crisis.

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The various faces of the Israeli government had been hemming and hawing for months about presenting a believable threat of a strike on Iranian nuclear facilities. Feet were placed in mouths, taken out, put back in. The threat was semi-credible, but not very solid.

Prime Minister Netanyahu’s political masterstroke of conjuring up a national unity government has solidified the threat and made it palpable.

The first action of the new government was to meet with European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton, who is responsible for negotiations on the Iranian nuclear program vs. U.S./EU/UN sanctions in advance of the May 23 P5 meeting.

Aston few to Jerusalem today to meet with Netanyahu and his new Vice Premier Mofaz (Chairman of Israel’s Kadima party), his Defense Minister Barak, and his Foreign Minister Liberman, according to Israeli mainstream media. It was not reported whether Netanyahu or Ashton asked for the meeting, but it seems likely the UN official came at Netanyahu’s request.

Netanyahu and his posse had a distinct message for Ashton, one that was clearly meant to be transmitted to all those in the West who are trying to cobble together a deal with Iran.

They told her in no uncertain terms that in order for an agreement to be acceptable to Israel, Iran must:

1. Absolutely halt all uranium enrichment whatsoever.
2. Remove all enriched uranium from Iran.
3. Dismantle the underground nuclear facility of Fordo near Qom.

Iran has already said distinctly, many times, that they will do none of the above. (more…)

In the wee hours of Tuesday morning, Israel time, a surprising, dramatic, and quite fascinating event occurred.

Prime Minister Netanyahu formed a national unity government.

That means early elections, scheduled for September 4, will not happen. The dissolution of the Knesset (parliament) will not happen.

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Fordo, just outside the Shia religious city of Qom, is about 97 miles southwest of Tehran, the capital city of Iran. All agree that Iran has build significant underground nuclear facilities into a mountain there. Those facilities may or may not be hardened enough to withstand the largest U.S. bunker busters.

Parchin is about 19 miles southeast of Tehran. This is where Parchin Military Complex is located. This is the site IAEA headman Amano wants to sniff around for traces of nuclear weaponization tests. The Iranians are not to thrilled about that. The last time the IAEA was actually there seems to be November 1, 2005. Since then, the West has relied primarily on satellite snooping to guess what goes on at Parchin.There are hints that Mossad and/or U.S. intelligence agencies get some humint (information from spies), but the IAEA plausibly denies that.

Iran’s Great Salt Desert, called Dasht-e Kavir or Kavir-e Namak, starts roughly a hundred miles southeast of Tehran. It has an area of 30,000 extremely arid square miles, the 23rd largest desert in the world. (It is an eerie place. You can see what it looks like here.) This is where, according to Wikipedia, ‘Iranians developed a sophisticated system of water-wells known as “Qanats.” These are still in use, and modern globally used water-revenue systems are based on their techniques’. It is good to keep remembering that Iran has produced exceedingly competent and creative engineers since Persian times.

It is especially good to remember that today, because Israeli media with Mossad connections are reporting that Iran has completed ‘a new chain of underground facilities deep inside the Dasht e-Kavir (Great Salt Desert) - all linked together by huge tunnels’. They say that is where all the secret Iranian nuclear weaponization facilities are being transferred, including centrifuges for uranium enrichment to high levels.

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