WarSclerotic

AFP: Iran to unveil nuclear ‘achievements’ Wednesday.

TEHRAN — Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is to unveil several unspecified nuclear “achievements” on Wednesday, his government’s website said.

“Several completed nuclear projects will be unveiled tomorrow in the presence of the president,” the official website said on Tuesday.

“Experts believe these achievements will show the world the extraordinary capability and knowledge of Iranians.”

It added that the progress will underline Iran’s scientific adherence to “nuclear power for all and nuclear weapons for none,” the website said.

The announcement confirmed a vow made by Ahmadinejad on Saturday to inaugurate “important nuclear projects” within “days,” in a speech marking the anniversary of Iran’s 1979 Islamic revolution.

Iran’s progress in its nuclear programme has deeply unsettled the West and Israel, which see it masking a drive for atomic weapons. A report by the UN nuclear watchdog in November also expressed strong suspicions in that sense.

Tehran, though, has repeatedly said its nuclear activities are exclusively peaceful in nature.

The international showdown over Iran’s nuclear programme has deepened in recent months, with the United States and the European Union slapping unprecedentedly tough economic sanctions on the Islamic republic to pressure it to halt its activities.

Israel has threatened to possibly unleash air strikes against Iranian nuclear facilities, while the United States has intimated it, too, could take military action if it thought it necessary.

Iran has reacted defiantly, beginning uranium enrichment in a fortified bunker under a mountain in Fordo, near the holy city of Qom, and promising soon to insert its first domestically made nuclear fuel plates into its Tehran research reactor.

It has also claimed to be ready to resume stalled talks with world powers over its nuclear programme but has yet to formally reply to a letter sent by EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton nearly four months ago offering negotiations.

Israel to “settle the score” for Bangkok attack – CBS News.

© 2012 CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Muslim Brotherhood Warns U.S. Aid Cut May Affect Egypt’s Peace Treaty With Israel | CNSnews.com.

CNSNews.com) – A top Muslim Brotherhood official has warned that any cuts in U.S. aid to Egypt could affect Cairo’s peace treaty with Israel – the latest sign that Egypt’s emerging political forces intend to call Washington’s bluff over the diplomatic dispute triggered by a crackdown on non-governmental organizations.

Egyptian judges have referred 16 Americans and 27 others linked to NGOs for trial, accusing them of using foreign funds to encourage disruptive protests. Among the targeted NGOs whose assets and funds have been seized are the U.S. government-funded International Republican Institute and National Democratic Institute.

On Capitol Hill, the chorus of senior lawmakers calling for aid to Egypt to be suspended over the affair is growing, and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has warned that the funds could be in jeopardy.

So far, the defiant response from Cairo has been attributed mostly to government figures with links to the deposed Mubarak regime, including the anti-Western minister for international cooperation, Fayza Abul-Naga. The military-appointed Prime Minister Kamal el-Ganzouri – who also served during the Mubarak era – told reporters last Wednesday that the authorities “won’t change course because of some aid.”

But now the Muslim Brotherhood (MB), which won almost 50 percent of the seats in recent legislative elections and dominates parliamentary committees, is making its position clear, too.

Any U.S. aid cut to Egypt, top MB lawmaker Essam el-Erian told the pan-Arabic al-Hayat newspaper, would violate the U.S.-brokered 1979 peace agreement with Israel.

The Jerusalem Post quoted Erian as saying that if the U.S. cuts aid to Egypt, the MB would consider changing the terms of the peace treaty. He is warning that the U.S. should understand that “what was acceptable before the revolution is no longer.”

Erian chairs the parliamentary foreign affairs committee and is deputy leader of the MB’s political wing, the Freedom and Justice Party (FJP).

The FJP was an early critic of the crackdown on the NGOs (although it also said Egyptian NGOs should get their funding from Egyptians). But threats to cut U.S. aid appear to have rallied various factions behind the government, feeding into long-held suspicion of and hostility towards the West.

“This is only the beginning of the anti-American populism/nationalism/Islamism we are going to be seeing in Egypt from now on,” Mideast expert Barry Rubin, director of the Global Research in International Affairs Center in Israel, wrote in a column Sunday.

“What’s amazing is that nobody is pointing out that if an Egyptian government is willing to risk U.S. aid and have a confrontation on this small issue, what are they going to do regarding big issues?’ Rubin said. “What happens when the Egyptian government moves toward Islamism or helps Hamas fight Israel on some level? We have been told that fear of losing U.S. aid will constrain Egypt. But we are now seeing that this simply isn’t true.”

Egyptians don’t want US aid

Among the biggest uncertainties sparked by the toppling of Mubarak a year ago was the future of the peace treaty. After four wars involving the two neighbors – in 1948, 1956, 1967 and 1973 – the treaty negotiated at Camp David led to Israel handing back to Egypt the Sinai Peninsula, an area three times bigger than Israel itself, which it had captured in the 1967 Six Day War.

Although never particularly popular in Egypt, the agreement kept the peace between the former foes for three decades and secured Egypt more than $1.3 billion in U.S. military and economic aid each year.

Legislation signed into law last December ties the provision of $1.3 billion in military aid to Egypt in fiscal year 2012 to certification that the government in Cairo “is supporting the transition to civilian government including holding free and fair elections; implementing policies to protect freedom of expression, association, and religion, and due process of law.”

Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee’s foreign operations subcommittee, inserted the language. He warned this month that the NGO clampdown would affect the certification requirements.

Other lawmakers who have warned the aid is in jeopardy include House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.); Rep. Kay Granger (R-Texas), who chairs the House Appropriations Committee’s foreign operations subcommittee; and Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.), Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H.) and Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.).

A Gallup poll, released last week, but conducted before the furor over the NGO prosecutions, found that a large majority of Egyptians – 71 percent – are opposed to U.S. aid.

About half of the poll respondents said they supported Egypt receiving aid from international institutions, and 68 percent were in favor of aid from other Arab countries.

James Lindsay, senior vice president of the Council on Foreign Relations, argued that while Americans would naturally be upset if the recipients of their hard earned money are ungrateful, “gratitude isn’t the primary objective of U.S. foreign aid”

“Washington doles out aid primarily based on calculations about how to advance U.S. strategic interests. And the United States certainly has great interests at stake in how Egypt’s political transition plays out even if it doesn’t have a lot of influence over where it ends up.”

Over the past year, Americans’ views of Egypt have deteriorated significantly. A Gallup poll a year ago found favorable ratings had dropped from 58 percent in 2010 to 40 percent a year later, with more Americans having a negative than a positive view of Egypt for the first time since Gallup began polling the issue in 1991.

The trend was borne out in a survey by the Arab American Institute (AAI), released on Thursday, in which only 33 percent of respondents said their attitudes regarding Egypt were favorable, compared to 34 percent who said they viewed Egypt unfavorable light.

The AAI said Egypt’s favorable ratings among Americans in polls since the 1990s had been much higher – between 55-65 percent.

Bangkok blasts prompt more accusations against Iran, a day after bombing attempts target Israelis – The Washington Post.

By Joel Greenberg, Simon Denyer and Debbi Wilgoren, Tuesday, February 14, 4:48 PM

JERUSALEM — Israel ratcheted up security levels in public places and at key strategic targets on Tuesday, a day after accusing Iran of responsibility for twin bombing attempts aimed at Israeli embassy personnel in New Delhi and Tbilisi, Georgia.

In Thailand, meanwhile, a man believed to be an Iranian national sustained serious injuries to his legs when a grenade he was carrying detonated on the street, wire services reported. The man is suspected of having left a house in Bangkok where an explosion was reported moments earlier, according to the wire service reports. Several other people also were injured in the blasts.

In Singapore, visiting Israeli defense minister Ehud Barak continued to shine a spotlight on Tehran’s alleged role in terror attacks around the globe, telling reporters that the series of explosions in Bangkok “proves once again that Iran and its proxies continue to perpetrate terror.”

Barak offered no evidence that the man in Bangkok was acting on behalf of Teheran, and no information about who the explosives might have been targeting. But his remarks reflected Israel’s increasing concern about a recent wave of international attacks, and the intensifying confrontation between Israel and Iran over the Islamic republic’s nuclear program.

In New Delhi, meanwhile, the Israeli embassy employee injured in Monday’s bombing underwent surgery to have shrapnel removed from near her spine, Dr. P.K. Sachdeva, a neurosurgeon treating her at Primus Hospital.

Tal Yehoshua-Koren, who works at the embassy and is married to an Israeli Defense Ministry official who is based there, “is responding to verbal commands,” Sachdeva told the Associated Press. “Her husband has met her. There is partial paralysis of the legs, but we are hoping that with time she will improve.”

Yehoshua-Koren was being driven to pick her children up at school when a motorcyclist slapped a magnetic bomb onto her vehicle and it detonated, authorities say.

Israeli investigators and forensic scientists are working with New Delhi police to investigate the attack, which India’s Home Minister Palaniappan Chidambaram said appeared to have been carried out by a “very well-trained person.”

“At the moment, I am not pointing a finger at any particular group or any particular organization,” Chidambaram told reporters. “But whoever did it, we condemn it in the strongest terms.”

The rare coordinated attempts on the lives of Israeli diplomatic representatives came a month after the latest assassination of an Iranian nuclear scientist and were set against an escalating war of words between Israel and Iran over a possible Israeli strike on Iranian nuclear facilities.

The attempted attacks also coincided with the fourth anniversary of the assassination of Imad Mughniyeh, a leader of Hezbollah, a militant Shiite Lebanese group backed by Iran.

Tehran has vowed revenge for the killing of its scientists, which it has blamed on Israel, and Hezbollah has vowed to avenge the slaying of its leader, considered a mastermind of some of the group’s deadliest attacks.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for Monday’s incidents, but Israeli officials said they appeared to have been directed by Iran, and they warned that if the Islamic republic becomes a nuclear power, it could provide greater protection for militant groups that would be emboldened by its support. Iran denied responsibility for the bombing attempts, calling them an Israeli provocation.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu cited places where he said attacks on Israelis and Jews had recently been foiled, including Thailand and Azerbaijan, and he accused Tehran of orchestrating Monday’s plots, calling Iran “the greatest exporter of terrorism in the world.”

“In all these cases, the elements behind the attacks were Iran and its proxy, Hezbollah,” Netanyahu said. “We will continue to act with a strong hand, systematically and patiently, against international terrorism, whose source is Iran.”

In Washington, White House spokesman Jay Carney was more cautious, saying that the United States had “no information yet on who is responsible for these attacks” and adding, “We have not made a judgment yet.”

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton issued a condemnation of the bombing incidents, calling them acts of terrorism, but she avoided any accusation of responsibility.

The United States is leading a global push for sanctions that it hopes will force Iran to suspend its uranium-enrichment program, while urging caution on Israel, which is weighing a preemptive strike against Iranian nuclear facilities. The United States, Israel and others suspect that Iran is trying to acquire the material and technology needed to build a nuclear weapon. Iran, however, says its nuclear program is aimed only at producing energy and medical isotopes.

‘Psychological warfare’

Iran’s ambassador to India, Mehdi Nebizadeh, said Iran played no role in Monday’s attack in New Delhi. Yehoshua-Koren’s driver also was slightly injured, as were two people in a nearby car.

At about the same time as the attack in New Delhi, officials said, a grenade was found taped to the bottom of the car of a driver for the Israeli Embassy in Tbilisi, capital of the former Soviet republic of Georgia. It was safely defused.

The Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman, Ramin Mehmanparast, said Israel was behind the bombing incidents, which he said were intended to “tarnish Iran’s friendly ties with the host countries” and wage “psychological warfare against Iran,” according to the state-run Islamic Republic News Agency. “Iran condemns terrorism,” the spokesman added.

The New Delhi attack, a few hundred yards from the prime minister’s residence, bore eerie similarities to the Jan. 11 killing of Iranian nuclear chemist Mostafa Ahmadi-Roshan, a 32-year-old deputy head of procurement at the Natanz enrichment facility. The scientist was killed in an explosion after an unknown assailant on a motorcycle slapped a magnetic bomb on his car as he commuted to work.

Iran has openly threatened retaliation for the recent killings of its nuclear scientists and has blamed the assassinations on Israel and the United States. Clinton has categorically denied any U.S. involvement; Israeli officials have refused to comment.

Already on high alert

Netanyahu offered no specific evidence for his claim that Iran was responsible for Monday’s incidents. But Israel had put its foreign missions on high alert in recent days because of the anniversary of the death of Mughniyeh, the Hezbollah mastermind, who was killed in Damascus, Syria, on Feb. 12, 2008, when a bomb planted in a headrest in his car was detonated.

Yuli Edelstein, the Israeli minister of public diplomacy, said Hezbollah and other militant groups sponsored by Iran would gain additional protection if Tehran were allowed to obtain a nuclear bomb.

“If the umbrella is based on a strategic weapon — a nuclear weapon — then it will be very difficult to penetrate that umbrella,” he told Israel Radio. “As terrorist groups, it will be very comfortable for them to be under that umbrella.”

But Shlomo Brom, an analyst at the Institute for National Security Studies at Tel Aviv University, drew a distinction between Monday’s incidents and the standoff over Iran’s nuclear program. He said the bombing attempts were part of a shadow war that has been going on for years between Israel and Iran and the militant groups it supports.

“This is part of the covert war between the two sides,” Brom said. “The secret war is a separate playing field and is not something new. As long as both sides want to keep it there, it won’t affect the general tension.”

Denyer reported from New Delhi. Wilgoren reported from Washington. Correspondents Thomas Erdbrink in Tehran and Kathy Lally in Moscow contributed to this report.

Bangkok, Thailand – Iranian Blows Off Legs In Botched Bomb Attack; Target Unknown; 2nd Iranian Under Arrest (Note:Graphic Photo) — VosIzNeias.com.

EDS NOTE GRAPHIC CONTENT – A Suspected bomber lies injured at an explosion site in Bangkok, Thailand Tuesday, Feb. 14, 2012.  Three explosions in Bangkok have wounded four Thai civilians and blown off the legs of the foreign suspect whom police blamed for the violence. (AP Photo)

Iranian men behind bomb blasts that injured five in Bangkok, police say | thetelegraph.com.au.

A Thai Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) official makes a check on a backpack that was left on the bomb site by a suspect bomber in Bangkok. Picture: AP Source: AP

The first explosion took place at a house rented by three Iranian men in the Klongton district, south of the city’s center, at about 2pm local time, police deputy commissioner Pisit Pisutsak said.

Two of the men fled the scene, and a third man, who was injured, then tried to take a taxi, Pisit said.

The taxi driver refused to pick up the man, so he threw a bomb, which rolled underneath the vehicle and exploded it, according to The Nation.

The man later attempted to throw a bomb at police outside the nearby Kasem Pitthaya School, but it slipped out of his hands and blew up.

The man lost both of his legs in the blast and was taken to the Chulalongkorn Hospital, the newspaper said.

The suspected bomber, identified by police as Saci Morabi, 50, was arrested. Police were searching for the two other suspects.

Police identified four people who were injured in the blast as Sinchai Boonsoongnern, Sangwal Horprasartthong, Juthatip Sajjadamrong and Apichart Khamlue.

They said Sinchai was the taxi driver but did not release any further details about the others.

Police later used a high-pressure water cannon to defuse another device found inside the suspects’ house, according to AFP.

Thai prime minister Yingluck Shinawatra urged the public “not to panic” following the attacks.

“Let the police and intelligence agencies do their work, and the public must not panic because the perpetrator was detained,” she told reporters.

The Israeli embassy is within four blocks of the explosion, and a Jewish community centre is also close, according to Sky News.

The attacks come a day after an Israeli diplomat’s wife and three Indian nationals were injured in a car bomb in New Delhi. The attack, along with a separate car bomb plot against Israeli embassy staff in Georgia, put Jewish diplomats around the world on high alert.

Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu accused Iran of being behind the attacks, although Tehran immediately branded the accusation as “sheer lies.”

Last month, Thai police charged a Lebanese man, with alleged links to terror group Hizbollah, of planning an attack in Bangkok. The US had earlier issued a warning that foreign terrorists might be plotting attacks in Bangkok.

Bangkok blast wounds Iranian attacker, 4 others a day after India bomb; more explosives found – 680News.

Thanyarat Doksone,Todd Pitman, The Associated Press
2012/02/14

BANGKOK – An Iranian man carrying grenades blew off his own legs and wounded four civilians in a trio of blasts Tuesday in Bangkok, Thai authorities said. The explosions came a day after an Israeli diplomatic car was bombed in India — an attack Israel blamed on Iran.

Authorities say it’s unclear whether Tuesday’s Bangkok explosions were linked to the New Delhi attack, but Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor said, “we can’t rule out any possibility.”

Thai security forces found more explosives in a house where the Iranian man was staying in Bangkok, but it was not known what targets they might have been meant for, Police Gen. Pansiri Prapawat said.

Pansiri said a passport found at the scene of one of the blasts in Bangkok indicated the assailant was Saeid Moradi from Iran. Authorities in Tehran could not immediately be reached for comment.

Tuesday’s violence began in the afternoon when a stash of explosives apparently detonated by accident in Moradi’s house, blowing off part of the roof. Police said two foreigners quickly left the residence, followed by a wounded Moradi.

“He tried to wave down a taxi, but he was covered in blood, and the driver refused to take him,” Pansiri said. He then threw an explosive at the taxi and began running.

Police who had been called to the area then tried to apprehend Moradi, who hurled a grenade to defend himself. “But somehow it bounced back” and blew off his legs, Pansiri said.

Photos of the wounded Iranian showed him covered in dark soot on a sidewalk strewn with broken glass. He lay in front of a Thai primary and secondary school. No students were reported wounded.

A dark satchel nearby was investigated by a bomb disposal unit. Pansiri said police found Iranian currency, US dollars and Thai money in the bag.

Three Thai men and one Thai woman were brought to Kluaynamthai Hospital for treatment of injuries, said Suwinai Busarakamwong, a doctor there.

Another Iranian was detained Tuesday night at Bangkok’s international airport as he attempted to leave for neighbouring Malaysia, said police commander Winai Thongsong. Authorities were interrogating the man, but it was not yet known whether he was involved in Tuesday’s blasts.

Last month, a Lebanese-Swedish man with alleged links to pro-Iranian Hezbollah militants was detained by Thai police. He led authorities to a warehouse filled with more than 8,800 pounds (4,000 kilograms) of urea fertilizer and several gallons of liquid ammonium nitrate.

Israel and the United States at the time warned their citizens to be alert in the capital, but Thai authorities said Thailand appeared to have been a staging ground but not the target of any attack.

Pansiri said that “so far, we haven’t found any links between these two cases.”

Immigration police are trying to trace Moradi’s movements, but initial reports indicated he flew into Thailand from Seoul, South Korea on Feb. 8, Pansiri said. He landed at the southern Thai resort town of Phuket, then stayed in a hotel in Chonburi, a couple hours drive southeast of Bangkok, for several nights.

Bangkok’s blasts came one day after bombs targeted Israeli diplomats in India and Georgia. The attack in India wounded four people, while the device found in Georgia did not explode. Iran has denied it was responsible.

In Jerusalem, Israeli foreign ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor said there was not yet any sign that any targets in Bangkok were Israeli or Jewish.

Israeli police have increased the state of alert in the country, emphasizing public places, foreign embassies and offices, as well as Ben-Gurion International Airport.

Thailand has rarely been a target for foreign terrorists, although a domestic Muslim insurgency in the country’s south has involved bombings of civilian targets.

Iranian boats shadow US aircraft carrier in Gulf – KTAR.com.

Associated Press

ABOARD THE USS ABRAHAM LINCOLN (AP) – Iranian patrol boats and aircraft shadowed a U.S. aircraft carrier strike group as it passed through the Strait of Hormuz on Tuesday, ending a Gulf mission amid heightened tensions with Tehran that include threats to choke off vital oil shipping lanes.

But officers onboard the USS Abraham Lincoln said there were no incidents with Iranian forces and described the surveillance as routine measures by Tehran near the strategic strait, which is jointly controlled by Iran and Oman.

Although U.S. warships have passed through the strait for decades, the trip comes during escalating showdown between Iran and the West over the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program. The last time an American carrier left the Gulf- the USS John C. Stennis in late December- Iran’s army chief warned the U.S. it should never return.

There was no immediate comment by Iran about the Lincoln’s departure.

Iran’s Revolutionary Guard has said it plans its own naval exercises near the strait, the route for a fifth of the world’s oil supply. But Iran’s military has made no attempts to disrupt oil tanker traffic- which the U.S. and allies have said would bring a swift response.

Two American warships, one in front and one in the rear, escorted the Abraham Lincoln on its midday journey through the strait and into the Arabian Sea after nearly three weeks in the Gulf. The narrow waterway is only about 30 miles (50 kilometers) across at its narrowest point.

On one side, the barren, fjord-like mountains of Oman were visible through the haze. Iran’s coast was just beyond the horizon on the other side of the ship, but too far away to be seen.

Gunners in red jerseys manned the 50-caliber machine guns as the ships moved out of the Gulf. An Iranian patrol boat pulled nearby.

Later, just after the Lincoln rounded the “knuckle”- the nub of Oman jutting out at the southern end of the strait- an Iranian patrol plane buzzed overhead. Another patrol boat was waiting further down the coast, said Rear Adm. Troy Shoemaker, commander of the Abraham Lincoln Carrier Strike Force.

Besides Iran’s regular patrol boats, the Revolutionary Guard operates a large number of small, fast-attack boats. Some are armed with only a machine gun, while others also carry anti-ship missiles. They can be difficult to spot because they resemble the swift-moving smuggling boats that ply the strait.

Shoemaker said none of those fast boats appeared Tuesday, likely deterred by the rough seas.

He predicted before the transit that the Iranians would likely keep a close eye on the Lincoln throughout its passage, including with ground-based radars. He wasn’t surprised by the attention from Iranian forces.

“We would do the same things off the coast of the United States … It’s more than reasonable. We’re operating in their backyard,” he said. “We’ve been doing it for years.”

Several U.S. choppers flanked the carrier group throughout the transit, watching out for potentially hostile vessels and relaying real-time pictures back to the Lincoln’s crew.

Dozens of F/A-18 strike fighters and other planes in Lincoln’s embarked air wing sat parked silently on deck throughout the trip. Today was a no-fly day for their crews, though some fighters were prepped and armed, ready to launch in as little as 15 minutes should things go wrong.

Officers on board were eager to describe the transit, in which the Lincoln was accompanied by the cruiser USS Cape St. George and destroyer USS Sterett, as a routine maneuver despite the growing speculation that Israel could launch a military strike against Iran’s nuclear program.

The U.S. and allies fear Iran’s uranium enrichment program could eventually lead to the production of weapons-grade nuclear material. Iran claims it only seeks reactors for energy and medical research.

“I wouldn’t characterize … us going through the strait as: ‘Hey, this is a huge show of force, we’re coming through.’ It’s an international strait to transit. We’re going from one body of water to the other,” said Capt. John Alexander, the Lincoln’s commanding officer, as preparations for the trip got under way late Monday.

The Lincoln is expected to provide air support for the NATO mission in Afghanistan starting Thursday. Navy brass in the Gulf say another American carrier is due back through the strait soon, but gave no firm timetables.

Barak blames Iran for bomb blasts in Ban… JPost – International.

Hezbollah chief’s reply to Haaretz – Haaretz Daily Newspaper | Israel News.

No wonder Nasrallah feels a little shaky and is trying to shore up his public image by insisting he’s an independent factor in the Middle East equation.

By Moshe Arens

Is it possible that Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah reads Haaretz? Not the Hebrew edition, of course. But does he read the English edition online, or is the print edition smuggled to him in Beirut by one of his agents in Israel? Or is it translated to him by one of his aides?

One way or another, he seems to have decided to react to an article on Haaretz’s op-ed page, not very prominently displayed, on January 24; the piece discussed a statement by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon during his recent visit to Beirut. There he said Hezbollah’s arsenal outside the authority of the Lebanese government was unacceptable.

	Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in a broadcast to supporters last week. He must be really foolish if he believes he can hoodwink the people of Lebanon.
	Photo by: Reuters

Commenting on Ban’s statement, the Haaretz article stated that whereas a situation where a terrorist organization had deployed tens of thousands of rockets aimed at Israel was unacceptable to the UN secretary-general, it was intolerable for Israel. What’s more, it was creating a situation where all Lebanon was sitting on a time bomb. If Israel were forced to destroy this vast rocket arsenal, great destruction would inevitably rain down on all Lebanon. In other words, Hezbollah was putting all Lebanon in danger.

Hezbollah’s rockets, it was pointed out, serve as a protective shield against Iran’s nuclear ambitions and will be unleashed against Israel on orders from Tehran. Therefore, sooner or later, action will have to be taken to bring about the dismantling of these rockets.

It took Nasrallah about two weeks to digest the full meaning of this message and all its implications – just what the people of Lebanon, sitting on the powder keg he had built under them, would conclude, and how that would affect Hezbollah’s standing in Lebanon. Also an issue was the danger of international moves forcing the dismantling of his rockets in Lebanon, and failing that the possibility of military action to destroy his rocket arsenal.

On February 7, from his hideout in Beirut, Nasrallah broadcast by video-link a message to the people of Lebanon, a message also of interest to Haaretz’s readers. Yes, he said, Hezbollah receives financial and material aid from Iran, but he denied that it takes operational instructions from Iran. Then he added a key sentence. If Israel were to attack Iran’s nuclear sites, Iran’s leadership “would not ask anything of Hezbollah.” If that were to happen, he continued, Hezbollah’s own leadership would “sit down, think and decide what to do.”

So there you have it, believe it or not. Hezbollah, though it receives financial and material aid from its “brothers” in Iran, is an “independent organization,” does not take orders from Tehran, and will decide when to launch or not to launch the tens of thousands of rockets it has deployed all over Lebanon against Israel. It will do this only after it has “sat down, thought about the problem and decided what to do.” So, Nasrallah says, the people in Lebanon and the people in Tel Aviv have nothing to worry about.

Nasrallah must be really foolish if he believes he can hoodwink the people of Lebanon, the people of Israel or the international community. His ties to his masters in Tehran are too well known. It is they who call the shots. It is they who are trying to bolster the Assad regime in Syria. It is the continuation of Bashar Assad’s rule in Damascus that assures the Iranian supply line to Hezbollah in Lebanon.

No wonder Nasrallah feels a little shaky and is trying to shore up his public image by insisting he’s an independent factor in the Middle East equation. But the basic facts remain. Hezbollah’s rockets in Lebanon are part and parcel of the Iranian effort to attain nuclear weapons, and neutralizing this rocket threat must be part of the strategy to keep Iran from attaining a nuclear weapons capability.