WarSclerotic

US-led Sinai peacekeeping mission under al Qaeda attack: Fatalities reported.

DEBKAfile Special Report September 14, 2012, 8:34 PM (GMT+02:00)

First reports of many fatalities when scores of Salafi Bedouin linked to al Qaeda stormed the Multinational Force’s camp in northern Sinai with grenades, mortars and automatic guns Friday night Sept. 14.The 1,500 troops from the United States and other countries have been posted in Sinai to monitor the 1979 peace accords between Egypt and Israel. The gunmen first blocked the roads to the Al Ghora base southwest of El Aris before smashing through the guard post and mowing down the peacekeepers serving there.

This was the second al-Qaeda-instigated assault on a primarily US target in the Middle East in four days after the murder of four US diplomats including Ambassador Chris Stevens in Benghazi, Libya Tuesday.
More information is awaited…

Netanyahu’s Finest Hour? – Op-Eds – Israel National News.

This year, I happened to be in lower Manhattan during the 9/11 commemorations. Eleven years have passed since that terrible morning, and America has thankfully killed Ben-Laden.

From a historical perspective, however, Ben-Laden did achieve one of his objectives: to replace US-backed Arab regimes with Islamic ones.

Iran has played a major role, and continues to play a major role, in the Islamic takeover of the Middle-East and of North Africa. It also pursues nuclear weapons with the declared aim of wiping Israel off the map.

History has taught us that when Jew-haters threaten to kill Jews, they should be taken seriously. But History has also taught us that no country has ever abandoned its nuclear ambitions as a result of economic sanctions.

The Reagan administration didn’t want Pakistan to go nuclear, and the Bush junior Administration didn’t want North Korea to get the bomb either. Yet in spite of pressures and sanctions, both countries went ahead.

Iraq and Libya, on the other hand, did forego their nuclear programs only because they either suffered or feared a military strike. Saddam Hussein abandoned his nuclear ambitions after his French-built nuclear reactor was bombed by Israel in 1981. Muammar Gaddafi stopped his nuclear program right after the US and British invasion of Iraq in 2003, because he feared that he would be next in line. Even Iran temporarily suspended its nuclear program after the invasion of Iraq for fear of a US strike. As soon as it became clear that the Bush Administration had abandoned the idea of destroying Iran’s nuclear plants, Iran renewed its nuclear program.

Not surprisingly, economic sanctions are not convincing Iran to stop its nuclear program. For a start, these sanctions are a sham because they are not enforced by China (which needs Iran’s oil) and by Russia (which sees in Iran the last rampart against US hegemony in the Middle East). In addition, Iran and Egypt are now negotiating an oil deal to make up for Iran’s lost sales to the European Union. Iran supported the 2011 uprising that brought Muhammad Morsi to power. Now it is ripping the economic benefits of having a new Islamic ally.

But even if sanctions were actually enforced against Iran, they would be powerless: a leadership that has declared its readiness to sacrifice millions of its own citizens for the sake of destroying Israel surely has no qualms about temporarily lowering the living standards of its future victims.

So saying, as Hillary Clinton just did, that sanctions are the best way to get Iran to abandon its nuclear ambitions is simply ridiculous and nonsensical.

Containment is not an option either. The threat of Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) is what deterred both the United States and the Soviet Union from going to war. Such deterrence will not apply to Islamists because they are suicidal. If anything, they believe that an Israeli nuclear strike will grant them a short-cut to heaven.

Nothing, bar a devastating military strike, will prevent Iran from getting the bomb.

America has the military capability of mostly annihilating Iran’s nuclear installations, but candidate Obama will not attack Iran while on the campaign trail. More worryingly for Israel, a re-elected President Obama will unlikely order a military strike. After all, the United States has already lost most of its Middle-East allies to Islamic regimes. So why contain and deter Iran when the latter has already achieved its goal of replacing US-backed Arab regimes with Islamic ones?

A nuclear-armed Iran could technically close the Straits of Hormuz (a major oil route) without fear of American retaliation. But such a move would be so harmful to Iran’s economy that it wouldn’t make sense. America was able to live with a nuclear Soviet Union, and it is able to live today with a nuclear Russia, a nuclear China, a nuclear Pakistan, and a nuclear North Korea.

A nuclear-armed Iran would further undermine US interests and power, but it would not constitute an unbearable threat to the United States. The Iranian bomb constitutes an existential threat to Israel, not to America. So Israel has good reasons to suspect that the current US Administration is bluffing when it says that all options are on the table to prevent Iran from getting the bomb.

Last week, the International Atomic Energy Agency declared that Iran is moving its nuclear production underground by doubling the number of centrifuges it has installed at its facility near the city of Qom. While Iran is approaching the “immunity zone” that would make its underground nuclear fuel sites impregnable to attack, the US Government isn’t sending any ultimatum to the Mullahs.

So it does look like Israel is on its own with Iran. To add insult to injury, the Obama Administration is now trying to hold us back. Prime Minister Netanyahu’s remark that “those in the international community who refuse to put red lines before Iran don’t have a moral right to place a red light before Israel” was spot-on.

Israel is on its own today the same way that it was on its own when it declared its independence in 1948, when it grounded the Egyptian air force in 1967, and when it rescued Jewish hostages in Uganda in 1976. In all cases, the Jewish leadership made a tough decision that defied logics but that relied on what Israel’s Declaration of Independence calls “The Rock of Israel.”

Making hard decisions and taking calculated risks is what leadership is all about. The coming New Year will be decisive. May it be remembered as Netanyahu’s finest hour.

The writer is a Likud Candidate for the 2013 Knesset Elections

Romney, Ryan accuse Obama of failing to lead in a time of global crisis – The Washington Post.

To Defend Obama, U.S. Media Goes Global « Commentary Magazine.

Yesterday, I wrote about how the liberal establishment’s ignorance of Israeli politics and history has severely hampered their ability understand the words and actions of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, resulting in some serious and unfounded accusations against him that he’s trying to meddle in the American presidential election. David Frum points readers to a good post by Michael Koplow in which he makes a similar point but adds another element: the American media’s tendency to think everything is about the U.S.

Koplow writes that Netanyahu’s recent spate of comments about the Iranian nuclear program were about Israeli domestic politics, amid concerns that he may not have everyone he needs on board should he feel the window on stopping Iran is closing and the U.S. balks at military action. Koplow notes some of the more sensational outbursts from the media, including David Remnick’s accusation that Netanyahu is attempting to be a one-man super-PAC in Mitt Romney’s corner. This morning, the Associated Press has followed up with another perfect example of this problem. After scanning an interview Netanyahu conducted with the Israeli newspaper Israel Hayom, the AP writes:

In an interview published Friday, Netanyahu hinted Israel may have to strike Iran even without U.S. support to prevent Tehran from building a nuclear weapon.

The comments indicate Netanyahu is not backing down from his thinly-veiled criticism of the Obama administration, despite a phone call from the U.S. president this week that was meant to smooth over their differences.

The errors here are all quite obvious. First of all, Netanyahu doesn’t speak to Obama through Israeli newspapers, especially when–as the AP reports in that same sentence–the two talk on the phone. Second, the idea that Israel may have to act on its own, while no one’s ideal conclusion to the Iran crisis, is not criticism of Obama, “veiled” or otherwise. It is simply one of the options on the table, and Netanyahu has to test the waters of public opinion and prepare his country for any eventuality–not to mention the political needle he would have to thread to keep a coalition together and unite, if possible, the political class.

This whole episode is reminiscent of the Obama administration’s frantic and unseemly tantrum over plans to build more homes in a Jewish neighborhood of Jerusalem, Ramat Shlomo. The announcement in 2010 by the housing ministry concerning Ramat Shlomo coincided with Joe Biden’s visit to Israel. If it was meant to embarrass anyone it was Netanyahu, not Biden or Obama, but in all likelihood it was not aimed at anyone since building there has become commonplace and uncontroversial to residents of Jerusalem–Jewish and Arab alike.

But the Obama administration assumed it was all about them, in part because Obama has such a weak understanding of Israeli politics and culture and has not made an effort to expand his very limited frame of reference on the subject. So Netanyahu, who was probably just as surprised as Biden by the announcement, was yelled at for 45 minutes on the phone by Hillary Clinton, who also seemed not to know what was going on.

The hysteria of the media has been on full display this week, with reporters expressing their outrage that Romney dared criticize Obama on foreign policy. But that tells you that what is actually happening is a sort of inverse of what is being reported. It is not that Netanyahu is trying to intervene in a presidential election, but rather that the American media’s sense of defensiveness about Obama is heightened during the home stretch of the election, causing them not just to attack Obama’s opponents at home but to take their cause global and go looking for enemies abroad as well.

Israel’s window for action against Iran ‘is getting much smaller,’ says Ambassador Oren | The Times of Israel.

‘The issue is not whether we trust the US,’ says Israel’s envoy to Washington. ‘The issue is our responsibility as a sovereign Jewish state’

Michael Oren (photo credit: Wikipedia Commons CC-BY-Anne Mandlebaum)

It’s not easy being an ambassador in a high-profile posting when your home country and your host country are in the midst of a very public row over an acutely sensitive issue.

Just ask Dan Shapiro, the US envoy to Israel who reportedly broke protocol to remonstrate with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for misrepresenting President Barack Obama’s Iran policy at a meeting last month. Shapiro publicly denied the report as “a very silly story,” only for the third man in the room — Rep. Mike Rogers — to declare that there was “a very sharp exchange.”

Ordinarily Shapiro, and his Washington counterpart, Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren, would expect their work to be sensitive, demanding, and extraordinarily important — but not hugely controversial. They are, after all, the representatives of two profoundly allied countries, partners committed to democracy and freedom.

But these are not ordinary times. Iran, a common threat, is progressing relentlessly with its nuclear program.

If Israel doesn’t use its military capacity soon, it will no longer be able to impact that program. But the United States is urging Israel to hold its fire — to give more time for diplomacy and sanctions. Extraordinarily fateful decisions are being weighed. Perhaps inevitably, tensions are fraying even between these firmest of allies.

And the diplomats — along with the politicians and the security chiefs — need to be acutely careful about what they say and do. Every word and deed comes under the microscope — whether it is US military chief Martin Dempsey’s use of the word “complicit” to denounce the notion of an Israeli attack; or Netanyahu’s assertion that it is not “moral” for those who are not setting red lines for Iran to seek to prevent an Israeli strike; or the resonant failure of the presidential schedulers to find a time-slot for an Obama-Netanyahu tete-a-tete during the prime minister’s admittedly brief visit to the US at the end of this month.

In a telephone interview from his Washington offices on Thursday, Oren — a former paratrooper who fought in the 1982 Lebanon War; author of “Six Days of War” and other highly regarded works of history; and now three years into the post of ambassador — was at his diplomatically polished best.

He gave no ground whatsoever on the curious case of the Obama-Netanyahu non-meeting, insisting that it was simply a matter of scheduling difficulties. He was slightly more forthcoming, though unsurprisingly non-specific, when acknowledging that some of the recent Israeli-American rhetoric has not been helpful.

Where he was most insightful was in describing the “structural differences” between the US and Israel when they grapple with the Iranian danger, and when bringing his historian’s perspective to the crisis. Without remotely diminishing what he called the “existential” threat posed by Iran, he noted that Israel faces moments of truth “all the time.” That, he said, is “the nature of Jewish sovereignty. It’s the responsibility that comes with it.”

Excerpts:

The Times of Israel: You have to be diplomatic and ambassadorial. Your job is to tell us that all is well between the US and Israel, but it doesn’t seem as though it is. I’m very struck by the statement by the American chief of staff about not wanting to be “complicit” in an Israeli strike at Iran. I was struck when the prime minister questioned the “moral” right of those who seek to prevent Israeli military action. And I’m amazed that it has not been possible to schedule a meeting between the president and the prime minister. Essentially the president is asking Israel to not fire (at Iran), and to put its destiny in American hands, and is not prepared to discuss this face to face? It seems very hard to fathom.

Michael Oren: First, you have to understand the nature of our relationship with the United States. The newspapers — I’m not faulting the newspapers here — tend to focus on specific issues, issues that capture the eye, or evoke some kind of curious interest. But the US-Israel relationship is vast. It’s multi-faceted and deep. Even though I spent about 30 years studying it, and thought I had a good grasp of it, I had no idea of how vast it was.

Even on the strategic issues, the spectrum of our common interests and communications is vast. So for example during the summer, we had a long list of high-ranking US officials come — Deputy Secretary of State Bill Burns, National Security Adviser Tom Donilon, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Defense Secretary Leon Panetta.

What do you think those conversations are like? The conversations open up first of all with the situation in Sinai… a source of great concern not just for Israel but for the United States. It impacts Jordan. It has impacted Saudi Arabia. Egypt itself. If Sinai becomes a safe haven for international terrorism…

The next topic is the Syrian situation. Together we are very concerned over the future control of chemical weaponry there.

We talk about the peace process… We’re talking about ways to incentivize the Palestinians to get back to the negotiating table, and to keep them at the negotiating table, and trying to dissuade them from going off on a unilateral path at the UN, which we think will be disastrous for them and certainly not helpful for us.

These are serious talks. They are substantive and detailed to the extreme.

And then, yes, we come to Iran.

When we talk about Iran, we proceed on the assumption that we have a structural difference. The structural difference is that Israel is a small country, living in Iran’s backyard, with certain capabilities. And Israel is threatened almost daily with national annihilation. And of course the United States is a big country, far away from Iran, with much greater capabilities, and not threatened with national annihilation.

And what we’re trying to do is find a middle road where these structural differences can sort of meet a golden mean that would allay our fears and guarantee our security and also satisfy American interests.

That makes absolute sense, and yet the three points that I made seem to be a departure from the logical picture you give of the meetings. You have Iran watching as the American military chief is basically suggesting that Israeli military action would be something criminal. You’ve got moral accusations. And then this failure to meet. It doesn’t sit easily with what I’m sure is indeed a very serious and substantive, measured, incredibly intensive coordination.

Clearly, things have been said which might not have been helpful for the situation. But at the same time in the last few weeks the prime minister had telephone conversations with American officials — he had an hour-long conversation with the president the other night — and things are also said not for public consumption. And they are part of this very intimate, candid and continuous dialogue that we have with the United States.

Is there any remote likelihood that Israel feels the need to resort to military action now, before the American elections?

I’m not going to go into any details about operations. I would like to say that the American elections don’t play any role in our calculations. The only issue that is crucial here is the speed with which the Iranian nuclear program is accelerating, both in terms of its accumulation rate — the rate at with which they are producing enriched uranium, both at 3.5% and 20% — and the rate at which the Iranian nuclear program (is being moved) underground (with) its facilities beyond our capabilities to interdict.

On that second point, is there an estimate? Is Israel incapable of having a substantive impact on the Iranian program if nothing is done within the next six months, or year? Or three months?

All I can say is that our window is small, and it’s growing much smaller.

The counter-argument to why there is no Obama-Netanyahu meeting in the context of a military warning about complicity might be that Israel is about to do something, and therefore the last thing the president wants to do is be complicit by meeting the prime minister. Do you think that’s possibly the case?

I think that what happened there was a scheduling problem. I know it sounds mundane but the fact is these are two busy individuals and the prime minister was coming to New York between Jewish holidays (in between Yom Kippur and Succot) and the president couldn’t be in New York at that time.

They’re not going to move the heavens and the earth and cancel, I don’t know, the president’s meeting with the leader of Egypt, who’s a 9/11 semi-denier, for the sake of a meeting with Mr Netanyahu?

You have to ask the Egyptian ambassador but I think that (Obama meeting with President Mohammed Morsi) is happening prior to Netanyahu’s arrival in New York.

So the meeting’s a lost cause?

The prime minister will meet with the secretary of state (Hillary Clinton).

And you don’t think that ultimately there will be an Obama-Netanyahu meeting, maybe in Washington, at some stage on this trip?

As far as I know there’s a scheduling difficulty.

It seems remarkable. It wouldn’t seem as remarkable at any other time, but at a time when the window, as you put it, is closing, and therefore if Israel doesn’t act it is placing its destiny in American hands, it seems astonishing that the president and the prime minister would not be able to get together in America.

I think I answered all these questions. I’d like to talk about other things we deal with besides dealing with scheduling issues.

I’m happy to talk about other things. Netanyahu talks about wanting “red lines” (which, if crossed by Iran in its nuclear drive would prompt military intervention). One red line that’s been suggested to me, that America could be able to set quite easily, is if the Iranians start enriching beyond 20%. Do you have any sense of what red lines Israel would like to hear, that would reassure Israel?

I’m not going to go into details about the actual location of this red line. What I will say is that we believe the Iranians can discern the color red. We’ve seen them do it in the Strait of Hormuz, for example.

They understand what a red line is. And we believe that the redder the line, the less the chance the Iranians will actually cross it. We think that the clearer the red lines, the less the chance that anybody will be drawn into a military engagement. By drawing them, you diminish the chance of a military engagement. You also diminish the kind of scope of a military engagement. Because if you wait until a much later stage, to a time when the Iranians have advanced this program in multiple facilities in places that we may not know, the scope of your interdiction is much greater.

Do you share President Peres’s public faith that the American administration will stop Iran from attaining nuclear weapons?

The issue is not whether we trust the United States, or don’t trust the United States. They are a great ally. The issue is our responsibility as a sovereign state, as a sovereign Jewish state. Previous Israeli governments, in 1967, 1956, 1948, have faced very similar situations, where they were asked to wait for longer periods of diplomacy. And diplomacy wasn’t succeeding. The leaders of the (Israeli) governments during those years perceived an existential threat to the country. And you know the Americans didn’t agree to everything we did in 1948, 1956 and 1967, but we acted to defend ourselves, and to assure our continued existence as a sovereign Jewish state.

David, it’s the reason why we came home, after 2,000 years — to assume that responsibility.

I understand. And that makes it sound as though, holding to that determined, independent assertion of sovereignty, Israel could not allow its window of opportunity to close. That’s the conclusion one might draw from this history.

One should never forget at the same time that no country in the world has a greater stake in resolving the Iranian nuclear threat peacefully than  the state of Israel. We have the most at stake. My kids babysat for your kids, David. We have those kids to think about… We seek to exhaust all diplomatic options.

We’ve been preternaturally patient over the last 20 years that we’ve been warning about this program. It took the world 10 years to take us seriously, till (the uranium enrichment facility at) Natanz was revealed in 2002.

We waited for all these years. We’ve supported the sanctions. The sanctions have unfortunately not set back the Iranian nuclear program. According to the IAEA report of August, the program is speeding ahead. The 20% enrichment has tripled. The amount of centrifuges in the fortified underground facility in Qom has doubled. They are also building a plutonium reactor at Arak. All of this they’re doing in the face of sanctions. And all of this they’re doing in the face of diplomacy… There’s been nothing whatsoever from the Iranians. Not a millimeter of concessions.

The question then is how long you wait? And those are profoundly weighty questions for the decision-makers of Israel.

How do you think this is going to play out? I can’t imagine the Iranians are going to change course. We’re coming to the moment of truth, aren’t we?

I think Israel faces moments of truth all the time, and has since its founding in 1948. Because I came to this job as a historian, I always approach a contemporary situation through a historic lens. And I see how different Israeli leaders, including Israeli leaders from different parties, acted very similarly at different junctures. It’s the nature of Jewish sovereignty. It’s the responsibility that comes with it.

From a historian’s perspective, do you think the United States gets the Middle East? Do you think the administration gets the Middle East, when the secretary of state professes herself confounded by the killing of the US ambassador to Libya? For us in Israel, it was not hugely surprising that there are some terrible people in our ruthless region who go around killing.

I think the Middle East is an enormously complex region and fluid place. Anybody who says they understand the Middle East has to be regarded with a sense of skepticism. In Hebrew, you say “the things you see from here, you don’t see from there.” The same is true for what is going on in Washington. The distance, the cultural divides, all make it very difficult…

I think many Israelis fear that maybe this administration thinks that it sometimes knows better than Israel, but doesn’t understand this region sufficiently?

I disagree. The same day that we have these riots, and the terribly tragic death of our colleague (US Ambassador Chris) Stevens, the State Department led a delegation of 50 very senior industrial heads to Egypt, encouraging investment in Egypt. They understand, and I think we would agree, that a strong Egyptian economy is in our interest. A stable Egypt is in our interest. The Administration is working in all different ways to address a truly dizzying array of rapidly changing challenges in the Middle East.

How troubled are you by the reality that Israel is becoming a factor in the US presidential elections — which each party accusing the other of not being as supportive?

The president’s Rosh Hashanah letter to Ambassador Oren (photo credit: Courtesy)

Bipartisan support for Israel is a paramount national interest for us. Several days a week, including today, I go up to Capitol Hill, and I go visit Republican and Democratic representatives — congressmen and senators. And wherever I walk in, I am greeted enthusiastically, with great understanding. That part of my job is making sure that we remain aligned with both parties, and with the American people. I got a beautiful Rosh Hashanah letter from President Obama this week — very personal.  It talks about my kids, by name. It has this great line — “Not bad for a guy from New Jersey.” I’m from New Jersey. I am very touched by it. I have very good and close working relations and many personal friendships with people in the administration.

It’s not just part of my job. It’s part of my privilege to be able to serve in this capacity. We tend to see things through the prism of headlines. Here (In Washington), certainly through the prism of a tough election. In Israel, through the prism of an existential threat. But beyond those prisms, there is a vista of relationships which are very deep and very close. And they are bipartisan.

You don’t think Israel is rising to become some sort of wedge issue?

I don’t think it’s becoming a wedge issue.

How do you defend this Israeli government’s fairly empathetic policy on settlements to Americans — Jews, politicians — who think it is destructive  for the prospect of resumed negotiations and progress?

History comes in handy. In 2000 and 2008 we made serious offers for the creation of a Palestinian state, and the Palestinians turned that down — not because of the settlements. You could say that Israel tried to create a Palestinian state in 1967, or an autonomous entity, right after the Six-Day War. There were no settlements. But the Palestinians turned that down too. They turned down the Partition Resolution of 1947 and 1937 (a reference to the Peel Commission). The settlements are not the issue.

On a personal level, I participated as a reserve officer in the disengagement from Gaza in 2005. And it was one of the most traumatic  experiences not just of my military career, but of my life. And we did that to advance peace, and we didn’t get peace. We uprooted 21 settlements and we didn’t get peace. We got rockets.

It’s not about settlements. We understand that settlements is an issue that will be determined within negotiations with the Palestinians. Prime Minister Netanyahu got up in front of both houses of the Congress and said that he understood that in the event of peace with the Palestinians there would be settlements that would lie beyond Israel’s borders.

Romney slams Obama for not meeting with Netanyahu | The Times of Israel.

Republican candidate calls president’s decision ‘confusing and troubling’

Republican presidential candidate, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney meets with Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem, in July (photo credit: AP/Charles Dharapak)

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney criticized US President Barack Obama Friday for not planning to meet in person with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu later this month, calling the decision “confusing and troubling.”

Romney said at a New York fundraiser that Israel is America’s “closest ally” and “best friend in the Middle East.” He urged Obama to meet with Netanyahu when the prime minister comes to the US for the United Nations General Assembly meetings.

Israel’s Ambassador to the United States, Michael Oren, told The Times of Israel on Thursday that no meeting could be arranged because of scheduling problems. ”I know it sounds mundane but the fact is these are two busy individuals and the prime minister was coming to New York between Jewish holidays (in between Yom Kippur and Succot) and the president couldn’t be in New York at that time.”

The White House this week denied claims by aides to the prime minister that Obama rejected Netanyahu’s request for a meeting with the president, saying no such request was made or rejected. An Israeli government official on Wednesday said that was not true. “We requested a meeting on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York and also suggested that the prime minister could come to Washington,” for a meeting, a senior government official in Jerusalem told the German DPA news agency.

The White House said Obama and Netanyahu spoke for an hour Tuesday night and reaffirmed their countries’ commitment to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.

At a Rosh Hashanah reception at his residence, on Wednesday, US Vice President Joe Biden said “there is no daylight” between the United States and Israel when it comes to Iran.

Netanyahu is expected to arrive in New York on September 27 to speak before the UN General Assembly. He is expected to use his UN speech to focus on the Iranian nuclear threat. “I am going to the UN General Assembly, to tell the nations of the world in a loud and clear voice the truth about the Iranian regime of terror, which constitutes the greatest threat to world peace,” he said in a statement two weeks ago.

Protests breach Yemen, Sudan US embassies;… JPost – Middle East.

Obama and Ahmadinejad – Forbes.com.

Amir Taheri, 10.26.08, 01:33 PM EST

Is Barack Obama the “promised warrior” coming to help the Hidden Imam of Shiite Muslims conquer the world?

The question has made the rounds in Iran since last month, when a pro-government Web site published a Hadith (or tradition) from a Shiite text of the 17th century. The tradition comes from Bahar al-Anvar (meaning Oceans of Light) by Mullah Majlisi, a magnum opus in 132 volumes and the basis of modern Shiite Islam.

According to the tradition, Imam Ali Ibn Abi-Talib (the prophet’s cousin and son-in-law) prophesied that at the End of Times and just before the return of the Mahdi, the Ultimate Saviour, a “tall black man will assume the reins of government in the West.” Commanding “the strongest army on earth,” the new ruler in the West will carry “a clear sign” from the third imam, whose name was Hussein Ibn Ali. The tradition concludes: “Shiites should have no doubt that he is with us.”

In a curious coincidence Obama’s first and second names–Barack Hussein–mean “the blessing of Hussein” in Arabic and Persian. His family name, Obama, written in the Persian alphabet, reads O Ba Ma, which means “he is with us,” the magic formula in Majlisi’s tradition.

Mystical reasons aside, the Khomeinist establishment sees Obama’s rise as another sign of the West’s decline and the triumph of Islam. Obama’s promise to seek unconditional talks with the Islamic Republic is cited as a sign that the U.S. is ready to admit defeat. Obama’s position could mean abandoning three resolutions passed by the United Nations Security Council setting conditions that Iran should meet to avoid sanctions. Seeking unconditional talks with the Khomeinists also means an admission of moral equivalence between the U.S. and the Islamic Republic. It would imply an end to the description by the U.S. of the regime as a “systematic violator of human rights.”

Obama has abandoned claims by all U.S. administrations in the past 30 years that Iran is “a state sponsor of terrorism.” Instead, he uses the term “violent groups” to describe Iran-financed outfits such as Hamas and Hezbollah.

Obama has also promised to attend a summit of the Organization of the Islamic Conference within the first 100 days of his presidency. Such a move would please the mullahs, who have always demanded that Islam be treated differently, and that Muslim nations act as a bloc in dealings with Infidel nations.

Obama’s election would boost President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s chances of winning a second term next June. Ahmadinejad’s entourage claim that his “steadfastness in resisting the American Great Satan” was a factor in helping Obama defeat “hardliners” such as Hillary Clinton and, later, it hopes, John McCain.

“President Ahmadinejad has taught Americans a lesson,” says Hassan Abbasi, a “strategic adviser” to the Iranian president. “This is why they are now choosing someone who understands Iran’s power.” The Iranian leader’s entourage also point out that Obama copied his campaign slogan “Yes, We Can” from Ahmadinejad’s “We Can,” used four years ago.

A number of Khomeinist officials have indicated their preference for Obama over McCain, who is regarded as an “enemy of Islam.” A Foreign Ministry spokesman says Iran does not wish to dictate the choice of the Americans but finds Obama “a better choice for everyone.” Ali Larijani, Speaker of the Islamic Majlis, Iran’s ersatz parliament, has gone further by saying the Islamic Republic “prefers to see Barack Obama in the White House” next year.

Tehran’s penchant for Obama, reflected in the official media, increased when the Illinois senator chose Joseph Biden as his vice-presidential running mate. Biden was an early supporter of the Khomeinist revolution in 1978-1979 and, for the past 30 years, has been a consistent advocate of recognizing the Islamic Republic as a regional power. He has close ties with Khomeinist lobbyists in the U.S. and has always voted against sanctions on Iran.

Ahmadinejad has described the U.S. as a “sunset” (ofuli) power as opposed to Islam, which he says is a “sunrise” (toluee) power. Last summer, he inaugurated an international conference called World Without America–attended by anti-Americans from all over the world, including the U.S.

Seen from Tehran, Obama’s election would demoralize the U.S. armed forces by casting doubt on their victories in Iraq and Afghanistan, if not actually transforming them into defeat. American retreat from the Middle East under Obama would enable the Islamic Republic to pursue hegemony of the region. Tehran is especially interested in dominating Iraq, thus consolidating a new position that extends its power to the Mediterranean through Syria and Lebanon.

During the World Without America conference, several speakers speculated that Obama would show “understanding of Muslim grievances” with regard to Palestine. Ahmadinejad hopes to persuade a future President Obama to adopt the “Iranian solution for Palestine,” which aims at creating a single state in which Jews would quickly become a minority.

Judging by anecdotal evidence and the buzz among Iranian bloggers, while the ruling Khomeinists favor Obama, the mass of Iranians regard (and dislike) the Democrat candidate as an appeaser of the mullahs. Iran, along with Israel, is the only country in the Middle East where the United States remains popular. An Obama presidency, perceived as friendly to the oppressive regime in Tehran, may change that.

Amir Taheri is the author of 10 books on Iran, the Middle East and Islam. His new bookThe Persian Night: Iran Under the Khomeinist Revolutionwill be published by Encounter Books in November.

Anti-Islam Film Protests Spread Through Arab World.

* Egyptian demonstrators clash with police before mass protest

* Protests in Malaysia, Bangladesh, Yemen, expected in Sudan

* Western embassies tighten security

By Edmund Blair

CAIRO Sept 14 (Reuters) – Demonstrators, furious at a film they say insults the Prophet Mohammad, clashed with police near the U.S. embassy in Cairo on Friday before a nationwide protest called by the Muslim Brotherhood which propelled Egypt’s Islamist president to power.

Protesters also clashed with police in Yemen, where one person died and 15 were injured on Thursday when the U.S. embassy compound was stormed, and crowds gathered against the California-made film in Malaysia, Bangladesh and Iraq.

The film was blamed for an attack on the U.S. consulate in Libya’s eastern city of Benghazi that killed the U.S. ambassador and three other Americans on Tuesday, the anniversary of the Sept 11, 2001 al Qaeda attacks on the United States.

In Nigeria, where radical Islamist sect Boko Haram has killed hundreds this year in an insurgency, the government put police on alert and stepped up security around foreign missions.

State-backed Islamist scholars in Sudan called a mass protest after Muslim prayers on Friday and an Islamist group threatened to attack the U.S. embassy in the capital Khartoum. The government also criticised Germany for tolerating criticism of the Prophet.

Security forces in Yemen fired warning shots and used water cannons against hundreds of protesters near the U.S. embassy in Sanaa. “Today is your last day, ambassador!”, and “America is the devil”, some placards read.

The embassy told U.S. citizens it expected more protests against the film. “The security situation remains fluid,” it said in a statement posted on its website.

German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle said the video was “unspeakable” but should not be used as an excuse for violence. He also appealed to nations affected by the protests to strengthen protection of diplomatic missions.

U.S. and other Western embassies in other Muslim countries had tightened security, fearing anger at the film may prompt attacks on their compounds after the weekly worship.

The protests present U.S. President Barack Obama with a new foreign policy crisis less than two months before seeking re-election and tests Washington’s relations with democratic governments it helped to power across the Arab world.

Obama has vowed to bring those responsible for the Benghazi attack to justice, and the United States sent warships towards Libya which one official said was to give flexibility for any future action.

DELICATE BALANCE

Cairo protesters threw rocks at police, who threw them back and fired tear gas. A burnt-out car was overturned in the middle of the street leading to the fortified embassy from Tahrir Square, focus of protests that ushered in democracy.

Egypt has said the U.S. government, which has condemned the film, should not be blamed for it, but has also urged Washington to take legal action against those insulting religion.

President Mohamed Mursi, an Islamist who is Egypt’s first freely elected president, is having to strike a delicate balance, protecting the embassy of a major donor while also showing a robust response to a film that angered Islamists.

“What happened a few days ago was a pernicious attempt to insult the Prophet Mohammad. It is something we reject and Egypt stands against. We will not permit that these acts are carried out,” said Mursi, on a visit to Italy, adding:

“We cannot accept the killing of innocent people nor attacks on embassies. We must defend diplomats and tourists who come to visit our country. Killing people is forbidden…by our faith.”

The Muslim Brotherhood called for a peaceful nationwide protest on Friday. Mursi was the Brotherhood’s presidential candidate, although he formally resigned his membership on taking office saying he wanted to represent all Egyptians.

In Libya, authorities said they had made four arrests in the investigation into the attack that killed Ambassador Christopher Stevens. U.S. officials said it may have been planned in advance – possibly by an al Qaeda-linked group.

Pope Benedict arrived in Lebanon on Friday for a religiously sensitive visit, especially given anger over the film, which depicts the Prophet Mohammad in terms seen as blasphemous by Muslims, although the only protests in Lebanon against it were due to take place far from the capital.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Washington had nothing to do with the crudely made film posted on the Internet, which she called “disgusting and reprehensible”, and the Chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff called a Christian pastor in Florida to ask him to withdraw his support for it.

About 300 people protested in Cairo, some waving flags with religious slogans. State media reported 224 injured since violence erupted on Wednesday night after a protest in which the embassy walls were scaled on Tuesday.

“Before the police, we were attacked by Obama, and his government, and the Coptic Christians living abroad,” shouted one protester, wearing a traditional robe and beard favoured by some ultraorthodox Muslims, as he pointed at the police cordon.

Egypt’s Coptic Orthodox church has condemned what it said were Copts abroad who had financed the film.

GERMANY CRITICISED

Sudan’s Foreign Ministry also criticised Germany for allowing a protest last month by right-wing activists carrying caricatures of the Prophet and for Chancellor Angela Merkel giving an award in 2010 to a Danish cartoonist who depicted the Prophet in 2005 triggering protests across the Islamic world.

President Omar Hassan al-Bashir is under pressure from Islamists who feel the government has given up the religious values of his 1989 Islamist coup.

The official body of Sudan’s Islamic scholars called for the faithful to defend the Prophet peacefully, but at a meeting of Islamists, some leaders said they would march on the German and U.S. embassies and demanded the ambassadors be expelled.

“Tomorrow we will all get out to defend Prophet Mohammad … We will do this peacefully but with strength,” Salah el-Din Awad, general secretary of the scholars’ body in Khartoum state told reporters after meeting government officials on Thursday.

The Foreign Ministry said in its statement: “The German chancellor unfortunately welcomed this offence to Islam in a clear violation of all meanings of religious co-existence and tolerance between religions.”

Sudan used to host prominent militants in the 1990s, such as Osama bin Laden, but the government has sought to distance itself from radicals to improve ties with the West.

Protesters in Afghanistan set fire to an effigy of Obama and burned a U.S. flag after Friday prayers in the eastern province of Nangarhar.

Directing their anger against the U.S. pastor who supported the film, tribal leaders in province also agreed to put a $100,000 bounty on his head.

Israel Hayom | Deputy PM Dan Meridor says no need to set red line for Iran.