Vol. 73/No. 43      November 9, 2009

Roughly 1,000 U.S. troops and a similar number of Israeli soldiers are participating in the three-week maneuvers—“a scenario in which U.S. forces deploy to Israel to help defend the country against incoming missiles,” reported the October 23 Wall Street Journal.

The maneuvers occur as Washington and other imperialist powers mount pressure on Tehran to agree to send its uranium abroad for enrichment, rather than continuing to process it at Iranian facilities. The U.S. government charges Tehran is developing nuclear energy in order to build a bomb, which requires highly enriched uranium. Tehran answers that its nuclear program is for peaceful energy use only.

Tel Aviv has repeatedly threatened to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities with air strikes. Israel is the only Middle East power today with nuclear weapons.

The “Juniper Cobra” exercise is testing the operation of Israel’s Arrow II antiballistic missile system with U.S. systems, Reuters reported, and establishing “procedures for the emergency U.S. ‘enhancement’ of Israeli forces.” This is the fifth Juniper Cobra exercise since 2001.

The Israeli military said the exercise “is not in response to any world events.” But Israel Radio quoted an anonymous Israeli commander who said the maneuvers were “to prepare for a nuclear Iran.” The Israeli news agency JTA said the exercise “will simulate long-range missile attacks on Israel from Iran, Syria, and Lebanon.” In September, Tehran test-fired Shabab-3 missiles it said had a range of 1,200 miles, enough to strike Israel and some U.S. military sites in the Middle East.

The October 23 Stars and Stripes reported that the exercise involves “some of the U.S. Army’s most sophisticated weaponry.” The exercise will deploy Washington’s Patriot missiles, Theater High Altitude Area Defense, and naval Aegis systems, as well as the X-Band radar system, which Washington installed at the Nevatim Air Base southeast of Beersheba, Israel, in 2008. The deployment also permanently stations 120 U.S. military personnel there, establishing the first permanent U.S. military presence in Israel.

The radar system, said to provide rapid detection when missiles are launched as far as 1,500 miles away, receives its data from the U.S. Joint Tactical Ground Station. The information is simultaneously fed to Israel’s Arrow Weapon System. Time magazine noted in October 2008 that “Israel will have no direct access to the data collected by the radar… . It will only be fed intelligence second hand, on a need-to-know basis, from the Americans—unless the radar picks up an immediate, direct attack on Israel, Israeli sources claim.”

Meanwhile, Moscow confirmed it has not yet approved Iran’s request for S-300 missiles, which would make Iranian nuclear facilities much less vulnerable to Israeli air strikes. The Russian news agency Interfax quoted an unnamed Russian government source saying that the deal was frozen. “Much depends on an array of political circumstances,” the official said, “since this contract has ceased to be simply a commercial deal.” Washington and Israel in particular have pressured Moscow not to sell Iran the weapons.

Iran’s Press TV reported October 23 that a new bill has been introduced into the U.S. House of Representatives to block non-U.S. telecommunications companies from doing business with Iran. Called the Accountability for Business Choices in Iran Act, the bill requires foreign firms seeking U.S. contracts to certify they are not doing business with Iran. Press TV said Nokia and Siemens would be affected if the bill passed.
 
 
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