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# The Global Intelligence Files

On Monday February 27th, 2012, WikiLeaks began publishing The Global Intelligence Files, over five million e-mails from the Texas headquartered "global intelligence" company Stratfor. The e-mails date between July 2004 and late December 2011. They reveal the inner workings of a company that fronts as an intelligence publisher, but provides confidential intelligence services to large corporations, such as Bhopal's Dow Chemical Co., Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon and government agencies, including the US Department of Homeland Security, the US Marines and the US Defence Intelligence Agency. The emails show Stratfor's web of informers, pay-off structure, payment laundering techniques and psychological methods.

## RE: DISCUSSION - Risking the wrath of George and playing the devil'sadvocate on Iran-Israel-US

Released on 2012-03-27 12:00 GMT

Email-ID | 1134490
Date | 2010-03-23 23:29:23
From | burton@stratfor.com
To | analysts@stratfor.com
List-Name | analysts@stratfor.com

I'm with Reva.
BB will attack Iran when he looses his intel window.
>From my lips to your ears.
Plus, he doesn't trust Obama. Do you?
-----Original Message-----
From: analysts-bounces@stratfor.com [mailto:analysts-bounces@stratfor.com]
On Behalf Of Reva Bhalla
Sent: Tuesday, March 23, 2010 5:11 PM
To: Analyst List
Subject: DISCUSSION - Risking the wrath of George and playing the
devil'sadvocate on Iran-Israel-US
I'm going to play the devil's advocate on the Iran-Israel-US issue.
George is obviously the authority on Israel, but we could all benefit from
some competitive analysis on an issue of this magnitude.
The situation: US-Israeli relations are under stress following an Israeli
decision to flare up the settlement issue. Meanwhile, the US has backed off
of "crippling" sanctions against Iran, is reiterating its interest in
reaching out diplomatically to Iran and is publicly standing up to Israel on
the settlement/Palestinian issue.
Iran, meanwhile, is sitting cool. They rejected Obama's Nowruz message and
are quite content with the way things are playing out between Israel and US.
In other words, we don't see Iran under pressure to respond to the US's
diplomatic opening and since the June election, the Iranian regime has
reasserted its authority over the state.
a) Domestic Israeli politics certainly plays into the US-Israel crisis.
Bibi is trying to manage a very polarized Cabinet, with guys like Lieberman
on one end and Barak on the other. The centrist figures like Livni are
sitting in the opposition. REMEMBER, however, that the Israeli elections
were in Feb. 2009. Bibi has been managing this Cabinet for a while. It's
not like this is something new, although internal political tensions can and
do arise. Last time this happened we saw the Gaza offensive.
b) If you look at Israel's strategic imperatives, the threat of a nuclear
Iran outweighs the threat of the Palestinians. The Palestinians, in their
current form, are fractured politically, economically, militarily and
geographically. This allows Israel to
argue that it has no Palestinian negotiating partner to deal with.
That suits Israel just fine. THe more divided the Palestinians, the better.
As we've written in our own analysis, the Palestinian threat in its current
form (and without a hostile Egypt) is a nuisance, not a strategic threat.
As Israel has flared up the settlements issue, we've seen Hamas and Fatah
actually working toward reconciliation, which works AGAINST the Israeli
strategic interest.
c) The potential for a nuclear Iran poses a strategic threat to Iran.
Israel is a tiny place with a tiny population that doesn't want to risk
getting wiped off the map.
George argued in today's meeting that the Israeli decision to flare up the
settlements issue when VP Biden visited was purely political and
non-strategic. As he said, the right hand did not know what the left hand
was doing, and Bibi did not anticipate that the US would respond so
strongly. He was just attending to a domestic political issue to hold his
coalition together.
I disagree.
Keep in mind the strategic imperatives above. You cannot ignore the fact
that this settlements spat between the US and Israel comes right as the US
has backed off crippling sanctions against Iran. Go back 1 month. Israel
was making clear that deadline after deadline had passed and that the
diplomatic chapter had closed. Bibi also said he wanted crippling sanctions
by mid-Feb while reiterating that the military option remained on the table.
For a while, the US echoed the ISraeli tone on the Iran issue. Then, we saw
a shift. As the US tried to deal with Russia and China, as new intel
assessments were likely coming in, as Obama examined closely what would be
at stake the day after such a strike, etc., the US backed off the hardline
approach. Instead, the US circulated a draft of sanctions that were most
clearly NOT crippling, by removing the energy sanctions from the draft.
Israel at that point realized it's running short of options. The US was
saying it's not going to get pushed around on the Iran issue and that it
could afford to buy time. This is an issue, i would argue, that would
enflame members of Bibi's Cabinet. If Iran is designated as the number one
foreign policy threat, and Bibi, who prides himself as someone who knows how
to deal with the Americans, can't get the US to deliver on Iran, then that
would constitute a political crisis.
It is at this point that we see Israel flare up another issue --
settlements. This is an issue that would pacify the right-wingers in Bibi's
Cabinet. I do not believe this sprung up out of nowhere. and I don't see
how this can be viewed in isolation of the shift we saw this past quarter in
how the US has decided to deal with Iran. No, everything doesn't have to be
interlinked and sometimes politics really is politics. A big element of this
is Israeli domestic politics, but I don't think that's all there is to it
given the factors above.
Finally, we've discussed to some extent what would Israel do if it realizes
it's run into a dead-end on Iran. It could try to work out a Plan B with
the US. As George mentioned, Plan B could involve keeping US troops in
Iraq.
Two problems I have with that: a) that goes against US imperatives -- why
would we want to remain bogged down in Iraq? we can still use regional
allies like Turkey and Saudi Arabia to keep a balance. IT's not llike Iran
is able to completely dominate the Iraqi state. That needs to be put into
perspective
b) how does keeping US troops in Iraq contain an Iranian nuclear threat? If
you look at Iran's core imperatives, a long-term US presence in Iraq
(especially as the US is in Afghanistan) increases
Iranian insecurity, thus increasing the need for defense, ie. a nuke.
If you look at the military reality of the situation, the US can't easily
neutralize the Iranian nuclear program through military action.
So, again, what does keeping US troops in IRaq do for the nuclear threat?
Also note that the Israelis themselves have been coupling statements on the
Iranian threat with what's happening with the crisis over settlements.
Netanyahu did this today, and Ashkenazi did this today when he said anyone
who thinks an opposition force in Iran is sufficient to contain the nuclear
threat is smoking crack. I'm paraphrasing, but that is exactly the message
the US is delivering to Israel in trying to stave off action against Iran --
that a military strike will bring about all kinds of mess, and that it would
knock the wind out of a legitimate opposition force. Israel's message is
'yeah, we don't buy that.'
I'm not tying down to old assumptions, but I'm seeing some real flaws in the
new assumptions that are being introduced as we go through this quarterly
process. Let's work this out.