{"id":16498,"date":"2012-10-17T19:12:40","date_gmt":"2012-10-17T18:12:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/?p=16498"},"modified":"2012-10-17T19:12:40","modified_gmt":"2012-10-17T18:12:40","slug":"u-s-and-israel-try-to-provoke-iran","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/war-terrorism\/u-s-and-israel-try-to-provoke-iran\/","title":{"rendered":"U.S. and Israel try to provoke Iran"},"content":{"rendered":"

Spencer Ackerman<\/a>, Wired<\/a> |<\/p>\n

Just in time for a presidential election in which both candidates compete to be besties with Israel, the U.S. and Israeli militaries are holding a big, high-profile exercise to practice shooting\u00a0Iranian missiles\u00a0<\/a>out of the sky. Only neither country wants to say the exercise is about either Iran or presidential politics.<\/p>\n

Starting in late October, the U.S. and Israel will spend three weeks jointly testing the abilities of their Patriot missile batteries, Aegis ships, networked command systems and newer interceptors to prevent everything from rockets to armed drones to long-range ballistic missiles from hitting Israel from multiple locations. It\u2019ll be the closest operational look the U.S. has gotten thus far to\u00a0Israel\u2019s new Iron Dome system<\/a>\u00a0to protect against short-range missiles and rockets. About 3,500 U.S. troops will participate in what Lt. Gen. Craig Franklin, commander of the U.S. Third Air Force, called \u201cthe largest exercise in the history of the longstanding military relationship between the U.S. and Israel.\u201d<\/p>\n

The joint tests, dubbed \u201cAustere Challenge 2012,\u201d are part of a series of missile-defense drills that the U.S. and Israel schedule every two years. Only this year, there\u2019s a contextual difference that\u2019s hard to ignore: the prospect of an Israeli strike on Iran, which is likely to\u00a0prompt retaliation from Iran<\/a>\u00a0and its terrorist proxies on Israel\u2019s borders; and\u00a0persistent tension between President Obama and Prime Minister Netanyahu<\/a>, which has become an issue in the politics of both countries. On a conference call with reporters, Franklin and his Israeli colleague, Brig. Gen. Nitzan Nuriel refused to address either issue. The exercise \u201cdoesn\u2019t look at any particular threat\u201d and is \u201cnot related to national elections,\u201d Franklin insisted.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

But that\u2019s hard to believe. The exercise was supposed to happen in the spring, before Israel abruptly requested a rescheduling, prompting a minor media freakout that the\u00a0U.S. and Israel couldn\u2019t even agree to drill together<\/a>\u00a0in the face of the Iranian threat. The rescheduled exercise will feature a smaller number of U.S. troops, which Nuriel characterized as a lighter logistics and support footprint.<\/p>\n

Hovering in the background: forthcoming elections in both countries in which bilateral cooperation is an issue. Mitt Romney has made Israel and Iran central to his foreign-policy critique of Obama, contending the president has \u201cthrown Israel under the bus\u201d and vowing to keep any disagreement with Jerusalem over\u00a0a possible joint Iran strike<\/a>\u00a0private. In Israel, former premier Ehud Olmert is considering a challenge to Netanyahu \u201con a platform accusing Mr. Netanyahu of spoiling Israel\u2019s relations with the United States<\/a>,\u201d as\u00a0The New York Times<\/em>\u00a0reported Monday. And now Austere Challenge will proceed as Americans go to the polls.<\/p>\n

Senior U.S. military officials might have\u00a0misgivings about attacking Iran<\/a>, but not to helping Israel repel a missile assault from either Iran or its proxies. The test will be more simulation than live-fire, Franklin and Nuriel said, but will test what Franklin called \u201cnew technologies\u201d to stop incoming enemy fire. Those include Israel\u2019s Iron Dome short-range missile and rocket defense system, a piece of hardware that claims an\u00a080 percent success rate<\/a>\u00a0against rounds that impact in as little as 12 seconds. The Pentagon helped bankroll it, but doesn\u2019t quite understand how it\u00a0actually works<\/a>. And they\u2019ll also practice defending against missiles fired from drones, a drill that has some urgency now that Hezbollah claims responsibility for a drone flown into Israel over the weekend (and which\u00a0Israel shot down<\/a>).<\/p>\n

Franklin ducked a question about the message Iran should take away from the exercise. Nuriel was blunter. \u201cEverybody can get any type of message he wants from this exercise,\u201d the Israeli general said. \u201cThe fact that we are practicing together and working together is a strong message by itself.\u201d And one that might be directed at Americans and Israelis as much as Iranians.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Spencer Ackerman, Wired | Just in time for a presidential election in which both candidates compete to be besties with Israel, the U.S. and Israeli militaries are holding a big, high-profile exercise to practice shooting\u00a0Iranian missiles\u00a0out of the sky. Only neither country wants to say the exercise is about either Iran or presidential politics. Starting […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,16],"tags":[34,67],"class_list":{"0":"post-16498","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-latest-news","7":"category-war-terrorism","8":"tag-iran","9":"tag-israel"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16498","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16498"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16498\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16498"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16498"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16498"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}