WarSclerotic

Israel Hayom | Iran’s ‘moderate’ new government.

Elliott Abrams is a senior fellow for Middle East Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. This piece is reprinted with permission and can be found on Abrams’ blog “Pressure Points” here.

The new Iranian government under President Hasan Rouhani is very often described as “moderate” these days. The Wall Street Journal’s story on his election was entitled “Moderate Cleric Hasan Rouhani Wins Iran Vote.” The Financial Times referred to his “moderate outlook.” One could cite a hundred more examples.

But this “moderate” chose as his defense minister a Revolutionary Guard leader who appears to have been partly responsible for the attack on the Marine Barracks in Beirut in 1983. In this attack, 220 American Marine peacekeepers and 21 additional soldiers, airmen and sailors were killed.

Iran’s direct role in the Marine Barracks attack has long been known, because the U.S. intercepted a secret message from Tehran to Hezbollah in Lebanon telling it to strike.

Col. Timothy Geraghty, commander of the 24th Marine Amphibious Unit in Beirut (on a peacekeeping mission) wrote in 2008 that the intercepted order was received “unbeknownst to us at the time. The suicide attackers struck us 28 days later, with word of the intercept stuck in the intelligence pipeline until days after the attack.”

The new Iranian defense minister is Brig. Gen. Hossein Dehghan. Dehghan was commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard unit in Lebanon at the time. A new Israeli analysis, from the Jerusalem Center on Public Affairs, continues:

“One of his first goals was to set up a central command for the Iranian force … At the beginning of September 1983, Hezbollah, with the help of the Revolutionary Guard headed by Dehghan, took over the Sheikh Abdullah barracks … It had been the main base of the Lebanese army in the Beqaa Valley and now became the Imam Ali barracks, the main headquarters of the Revolutionary Guard. It was from this headquarters that Iran controlled Hezbollah’s military force and planned, along with Hezbollah, the terror attacks on the Beirut-based Multinational Force and against IDF forces in Lebanon.

“The attacks were carried out by the Islamic Jihad organization, headed by Imad Mughniyah, which was actually a special operational arm that acted under the joint direction of Tehran and Hezbollah until it was dismantled in 1992. Instructions for the attack on the Multinational Forces were issued from Tehran to the Iranian ambassador to Damascus, who passed them on to the Revolutionary Guards forces in Lebanon and their Lebanese Shiite allies.

“According to the U.S. Marine commander, the U.S. National Security Agency intercepted the Iranian orders to strike on Sept. 26, 1983. It is difficult to imagine that such a high-level directive to the Revolutionary Guards in Lebanon would be transmitted without the knowledge of their commander, Hossein Dehghan.”

So that is the background of Iran’s new defense minister, who is part of Iran’s “moderate” government under its “moderate” new president. This history is worth recalling. Terrorism and close ties to Hezbollah remain at the heart of the regime — apparently no matter who is president and no matter how “moderate” Western journalists wish to believe Iran’s government is becoming.

America Must Respond to the Atrocities in Syria – Council on Foreign Relations.

Author: Richard N. Haass, President, Council on Foreign Relations
August 22, 2013
Financial Times

With much of the world’s attention fixed on the drama playing out in the streets of Egypt, the civil war in Syria that has claimed as many as 100,000 lives grinds on in the shadows. But new allegations of massive use of chemical weapons by the regime of Bashar al-Assad have once more brought Syria into focus and raised anew the question of what more, if anything, should be done to stop what is going on there.

The US, France and the UK have called upon the UN Security Council to undertake an urgent investigation of this latest evidence of the possible use of chemical weapons that may have caused the deaths of hundreds. Meanwhile, Barack Obama’s administration is in a grave predicament, much of its own making. The US president has, on several occasions, declared that Syrian use of chemical weapons would cross a “red line”, constituting a “game changer” that would alter his calculus of what his country was prepared to do.

What makes all this awkward and more is that the US essentially opted not to do anything when it became clear that the Syrian regime did use chemical weapons against its own citizens several months ago. To be precise, it chose not to respond with military force, but instead to open the possibility that it would supply less radical opposition forces with lethal weaponry. The reality that such support has been more rhetorical than real, and has done nothing to alter the military balance, makes US warnings appear empty.

So what should be done if the new allegations of chemical-weapons use are true? It is essential to respond directly and meaningfully to any use of such weapons so they are not used again by the regime. But the reasons for a strong response transcend Syria. It will be a very different 21st century if weapons of mass destruction – whether they are chemical, biological or nuclear – come to be seen as just another type of weapon. There needs to be a robust taboo surrounding their use. Any leader must know that a decision to deploy them will sacrifice sovereign immunity and result in many in the world accepting nothing less than ousting and arrest.

There is also the more immediate question of American credibility. A president of the US cannot say something crosses a red line and then go on conducting business as usual. Doing so dilutes the impact of both threats to foes and assurances to friends. There is no way of knowing if past US inaction may have emboldened the regime to again use chemicals, but it is all too possible that not following through on threats could have consequences where the stakes are arguably larger – namely, Iran. On numerous occasions this president has said the US had no interest in containing an Iran with nuclear weapons but rather was committed to preventing Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon. A president cannot afford to be selective when it comes to drawing red lines if he wants them to be respected.

There is, however, another consideration to take into account. This administration and the world have shown considerable caution about being drawn into the Syrian imbroglio, fearing for good reason that direct military involvement could prove costly by every measure and that many in the opposition constitute an alternative no better than the odious regime they are fighting. In the Middle East, the enemy of your enemy can still be your enemy.

Indeed, the top military figure in the US, General Martin Dempsey, chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, argued in a letter to a congressman just this week that the US should largely remain militarily aloof from Syria given the weak and divided nature of the opposition and the poor prospects for military options making an appreciable difference. Implicit in his letter was the view that large-scale military involvement would be a costly strategic distraction of uncertain promise.

Is there a way, then, to balance both the need to respond and the need for restraint? Two initiatives come to mind. The first would be to launch cruise missile strikes against select targets: anything associated with chemical weapons, command and control sites, and airfields used by government forces. The second would be to make good on the promise to supply those opposition forces deemed politically acceptable with significant numbers of anti-air and anti-armour capabilities.

Such a punitive response sends the message that use of chemical weapons will not be tolerated and will be costly for the regime. It does not preclude additional responses if warranted. But a limited action of this sort avoids enmeshing the US or any other government joining the effort in open-ended involvement in Syria’s civil war.

Such action is likely to be too much for some and not enough for others; be that as it may, it offers a way to reinforce critical norms without getting drawn into a costly and uncertain war.

Pro-Iranian Jihad Islami aimed four rockets at Israel from S. Lebanon. Two caused damage.

Grad rocket hits northern Israel

The four rockets striking  northern Israel from South Lebanon Thursday, Aug. 22, turned out to have been Grad 120mm rockets launched by the Jihad Islami from the Palestinian Burj Al-Shamali refugee camp near Tyre. This emerged after a stream of muddled and conflicting communiqués came from the IDF spokesman.

The Jihad Islami takes its orders from Tehran and the Lebanese Hizballah. One of the rockets was intercepted by Iron Dome. None caused casualties, except for three shock victims, but they did cause damage to buildings and vehicles in Kibbutz Gesher Haziv and another unidentified location near the coastal town of Acre. The fourth rocket landed on vacant ground.
Witnesses in Nahariya, Acre, Shlomi and the affected sites, all reported that the rocket explosions were heard before the siren alerts were sounded. They asked why Iron Dome had intercepted only one rocket – not the other three.
The general impression conveyed by this incident to debkafile’s military experts is that the rocket attack caught IDF unawares, notwithstanding the constant harping on the dangers to Israel’s borders emanating from the upheavals in Syria, Lebanon and Egypt. Even after endless military exercises and mock alerts, Iran, Hizballah and its Palestinian pawn were able to land a surprise attack on northern Israel.
They appear to have timed it for the UN Security Council meeting scheduled for Thursday night to approve the extension of the UNIFIL mandate for Lebanon. Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has labeled Syria “Iran’s test site.” He forgot to mention Lebanon.

Iran and Hizballah want UNIFIL peacekeepers out of Lebanon because their act as a buffer between their forces and the IDF and an obstacle to their latest plans for igniting the Lebanese-Israeli border.

debkafile reported immediately after the attack:

Residents of northern Israel – from the coastal towns in the West to Upper Galilee – have been ordered to go into shelters after sirens alerted the region to four rockets fired from South Lebanon. After returning fire, the IDF closed Israeli air space over Galilee. Three rockets landed around Nahariya, Acre and Shlomi and further east near Kiryat Shemona. A fourth was intercepted by an Iron Dome battery. The rockets were launched in two volleys from the Tyre and Kleia regions of South Lebanon, according to Lebanese sources. No injuries are reported. Police are scouring the area for the fallen ordnance.

IAF carries out airstrike on target near Beirut | JPost | Israel News.

Assad butchers his people with nerve gas while Obama weasels and the MSM makes excuses for him. – YouTube.

From “Morning Joe” 8/22/13

It makes me ashamed to be an American.  SICKENING !