WarSclerotic

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Over the past ten days whilst traveling between Riyadh, Delhi, Mumbai, Bahrain, and Dubai, the debate has been over Iran; will it be attacked or not and will it be able to withstand [an attack] and so on. There is no doubt that Iran is suffering sustained bleeding both externally and internally; the regime is isolated and has no solid ground domestically to stand upon. US Vice President Joe Biden was right when he considered the Iranian regime “fragile” and said that it is “more isolated than ever before” both domestically and regionally. There are many examples [that support this view].

Within Iran, we have Mir Hossein Mousavi saying that the regime is facing a crisis and we have US intelligence turning Iran into a theatre, as it is infiltrating it to implement what it calls a process of “brain drain” by smuggling scientists [out of Iran] and accessing information that is pouring out of Iran, some of which demonstrates internal confusion. For example, it was revealed that Iranian intelligence apparatus inspected the home of physician Masoud Ali Mohammadi and gathered documents and notes from him before he was killed the next day. Tehran then accused Western and Israeli agents of being responsible for his murder!

Externally, it is enough to look at the regime’s ties with regional and Western states and international organizations. The sanctions are imminent, and it seems that they will be very strict. It is also enough to look at the surge of Western warnings issued to Iran. On the Arab level, we have [UAE Foreign Minister] Sheikh Abdullah Bin Zayed responding to the Iranian rebuttal to his comments on the Iranian occupation of the three UAE islands, which Bin Zayed likened to Israel’s occupation of Arab territories. It is noteworthy that Sheikh Abdullah responded to the Iranian response from Ramallah [West Bank], and that has important connotations, the most important of which is that Arabs have begun to take action on grounds that are sensitive to Iran i.e. the Palestinian Cause, which represents the one of the most important Iranian playing cards in the region. Also we must not ignore the positive comments made by the Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit about Damascus and the negative comments about Tehran that he made from Lebanon, the stronghold of Iranian-affiliated Hezbollah!

Moreover, the isolation of Iran, and its sustained bleeding, is apparent from Iran’s attempt not to miss a thing in order to show cohesion of its alliances in the region, especially after it received painful two blows in the form of the Lebanese and Iraqi elections. The clearest example of this came a few days ago when the official Iranian news agency broadcast statements attributed to the Syrian president about Iranian-Syrian ties, but what was striking was that the Syrian media did not broadcast any of those statements!

The danger of the Iranian regime’s sustained bleeding can be summarized in the words of an Arab official, citing another Arab official who has excellent ties with Tehran following the Iranian presidential elections and the emergence of demonstrations against Ahmadinejad and the Supreme Guide. The Arab official told me that the Iranian rulers and the Supreme Guide have now turned into a wounded lion and this poses a threat to everybody considering that Iran will not get through this stage peacefully. This is accurate as it has become apparent today that Iran is bleeding a lot, which might lead to a major collapse, or lead towards committing a fatal error and there is not much difference between the two as “whoever does not die by the sword will die by other means,” in the words of the Arab poet

Iran…Sustained Bleeding Asharq Alawsat Newspaper (English).

Over the past ten days whilst traveling between Riyadh, Delhi, Mumbai, Bahrain, and Dubai, the debate has been over Iran; will it be attacked or not and will it be able to withstand [an attack] and so on. There is no doubt that Iran is suffering sustained bleeding both externally and internally; the regime is isolated and has no solid ground domestically to stand upon. US Vice President Joe Biden was right when he considered the Iranian regime “fragile” and said that it is “more isolated than ever before” both domestically and regionally. There are many examples [that support this view].

Within Iran, we have Mir Hossein Mousavi saying that the regime is facing a crisis and we have US intelligence turning Iran into a theatre, as it is infiltrating it to implement what it calls a process of “brain drain” by smuggling scientists [out of Iran] and accessing information that is pouring out of Iran, some of which demonstrates internal confusion. For example, it was revealed that Iranian intelligence apparatus inspected the home of physician Masoud Ali Mohammadi and gathered documents and notes from him before he was killed the next day. Tehran then accused Western and Israeli agents of being responsible for his murder!

Externally, it is enough to look at the regime’s ties with regional and Western states and international organizations. The sanctions are imminent, and it seems that they will be very strict. It is also enough to look at the surge of Western warnings issued to Iran. On the Arab level, we have [UAE Foreign Minister] Sheikh Abdullah Bin Zayed responding to the Iranian rebuttal to his comments on the Iranian occupation of the three UAE islands, which Bin Zayed likened to Israel’s occupation of Arab territories. It is noteworthy that Sheikh Abdullah responded to the Iranian response from Ramallah [West Bank], and that has important connotations, the most important of which is that Arabs have begun to take action on grounds that are sensitive to Iran i.e. the Palestinian Cause, which represents the one of the most important Iranian playing cards in the region. Also we must not ignore the positive comments made by the Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit about Damascus and the negative comments about Tehran that he made from Lebanon, the stronghold of Iranian-affiliated Hezbollah!

Moreover, the isolation of Iran, and its sustained bleeding, is apparent from Iran’s attempt not to miss a thing in order to show cohesion of its alliances in the region, especially after it received painful two blows in the form of the Lebanese and Iraqi elections. The clearest example of this came a few days ago when the official Iranian news agency broadcast statements attributed to the Syrian president about Iranian-Syrian ties, but what was striking was that the Syrian media did not broadcast any of those statements!

The danger of the Iranian regime’s sustained bleeding can be summarized in the words of an Arab official, citing another Arab official who has excellent ties with Tehran following the Iranian presidential elections and the emergence of demonstrations against Ahmadinejad and the Supreme Guide. The Arab official told me that the Iranian rulers and the Supreme Guide have now turned into a wounded lion and this poses a threat to everybody considering that Iran will not get through this stage peacefully. This is accurate as it has become apparent today that Iran is bleeding a lot, which might lead to a major collapse, or lead towards committing a fatal error and there is not much difference between the two as “whoever does not die by the sword will die by other means,” in the words of the Arab poet

American Thinker Blog: America’s enemies testing our resolve.

Jerry Philipson

Iran hardliner issues Strait of Hormuz warning to U.S..

Reuters
Tuesday, April 27, 2010; 9:53 AM

Iran, not Israel, will start the war – International Analyst Network.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said yesterday: “There is no truth to insinuations that Israel is allegedly planning a move against Syria.  I estimate that this is an attempt made by Iran and Hezbollah to distract the international community from the sanctions planned against Iran.”

Mr. Netanyahu’s short but decisive statement actually unveils the ongoing vicious Iranian scheme that is in the works. The mullahs in Iran are cunningly working day and night on the last details of a devastating war that they are planning to ignite against Israel from Lebanon through their militant terrorist proxy, Hezbollah, when the time is appropriate for them, exactly as was the case in 2006.

Meanwhile, Iran’s intentions to annihilate the Jewish state are becoming bolder and more aggressive.  On 18/04/2010, Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said that Israel was on its way to collapse, as Iran’s military displayed a range of home-built drones and missiles at the annual Army Day parade.  In a speech marking the event, Ahmadinejad also reiterated his view that the presence of foreign forces is causing conflict in the region. “The Zionist regime is on its way to collapse.  This regime is the main instigator of sedition and conflict in the region,” the Iranian president added. “This is the will of the regional nations that after 60 odd years, the root of this corrupt microbe and the main reason for insecurity in the region be pulled out…  Its supporters and creators ought to stop backing it and allow the regional nations and the Palestinians to settle things with them,” he said.

In 2006 Iran was under tremendous pressure from Western countries to halt its nuclear program or face very tough sanctions. To distract the entire world away from their program they gave orders to their Hezbollah army in Lebanon to engage the Jewish State in a war that they did without any hesitation. The war lasted for 33 days and shifted all the heat away from Iran and its suspicious nuclear activities.

In fact, Syria under President Bashar Al Assad has become an Iranian puppet and has no say in what Hezbollah in Lebanon does or does not do. Meanwhile, the current relationship between Syria’s president Bashar Al Assad and Iran’s president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is a replicate of the master-slave one that existed during World War II between Hitler and Mussolini where the first was in full control of the decision making process and the second just a puppet who carried out his orders with no say whatsoever.

Retired Lebanese army officer, and renowned worldwide expert on Hezbollah and terrorism, Colonel Charbel Barakat, wrote yesterday for our site, the LCCC, an analysis with the title, “Who is beating the war drums this time?” In this article he addresses the Scud missile crisis that has led to a war of rhetoric between Iran, Syria and Hezbollah on one side, and Israel and the USA on the other.

Barakat, based on his extensive first hand military and anti-terrorism expertise, strongly believes that Iran, and not Syria,  is in full control all the Middle East Axis of Evil and Islamic fundamentalist terror groups’ (Syria, Hamas, Hezbollah, Jihad, etc.) activities, finances, plans, leadership, cadres and decision making processes, while Hezbollah is a mere militant Iranian brigade.

In contrast to many Western analysts who have claimed that Hezbollah does not strategically need the Scud missiles due to its self defense military resistance status, Barakat said: “these claims would have been true if Hezbollah was actually Lebanese and in an actual self defense status, but it is not, and it is totally affiliated to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC)”.

Barakat concluded that Iran desperately wants Hezbollah to pile these Scud missiles in its arsenal because their longest range is 700 km and thus they are a must for its scheme that aims to reach Israel’s nuclear plant in Demona, the Israeli Nagave airports and other vital military and civil institutions.

He added that “The Iranian improved M 600 missiles that are currently in Hezbollah’s possession have a range that does not go beyond Tel Aviv, and here comes the importance of the Scud missiles that can reach locations all over Israel. The M 600 missile and the Scud both can carry a load of up to 500 kg”.

Were the Scud missiles actually transferred from Syria to Hezbollah’s military bases in Lebanon or not yet? Barakat played down the importance of such futile, time wasting and camouflaging rhetoric because he believes that Syria’s rulers have merely become Iranian puppets and accordingly they will without a shred of a doubt transfer these missiles or any other weapons in their arsenal to Hezbollah whenever the Iranian leadership orders them to do so.

What is actually very striking and scary in Barakat’s in depth analysis is his strong conviction that Iran is the one which will soon launch through its militant proxy, Hezbollah, a preemptive war against Israel’s nuclear plants, before the Israelis or the US attack Iran’s nuclear facilities.

Barakat stressed the pivotal role of the Scud missiles in such an Iranian war scenario and urged the Free World to take such an impending possibility into consideration and act swiftly in a bid to abort it.

He reminded all those concerned in the Middle East,US, and Europe of a possible repeat by Iran of the surprise tactics that Israel used in 1976 in which its air force attacked all of Egypt’s military airports and won the war before it started. He therefore thinks the issue of the Scud missiles should be taken seriously and dealt with accordingly.

Barakat considered that all the Lebanese officials’ statements with regard to the Scud smuggling crisis to be baseless and have no credibility because of Hezbollah’s hegemony over the whole country including its military institutions.

*Elias Bejjani
Canadian-Lebanese Human Rights activist, journalist and political commentator
Email phoenicia@hotmail.com
Web sites http://www.10452lccc.com & http://www.clhrf.com
Mailing phoenicia group http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Phoenicia/
LCCC Face Book http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=1797472293

Letting the mullahs get the bomb – NYPOST.com.

Schmoozing with the ladies of “The View,” Vice President Joseph Biden predicted last week that the Security Council would impose sanctions on Iran by the end of this month or early next. Let’s hope he knows something that the negotiators in New York don’t.

Many diplomats here are skeptical that a punitive resolution could be enacted at the United Nations before June — which gives Iran and its Security Council enablers, starting with Brazil and Turkey, enough time to undermine the sanctions.

So unless America’s UN Ambassador Susan Rice quickly pulls a rabbit out of her diplomatic hat, preferably this week, much of the Obama administration’s indecisive Iran maneuvering will be further compromised.

AFP/Getty Images

Rice: UN envoy dithering on sanctions.

Yes, there’s an agreement in principle that it’s time for sanctions, but as April comes to a close, the UN diplomats negotiating in New York are falling into a familiar routine. Ambassadors from the five permanent members of the Security Council and Germany meet almost daily, while the Chinese or Russian representatives raise objections to this or that American-proposed sanction.

The others try to defend it, leading to a bit of give and take around the table. But, in the end, no agreement is reached, so it’s on to the next item.

So April is all but gone. How about next month?

“We work 12 months a year,” Rice told me last week, dismissing the widely held notion that May is off the table.

But some diplomats worry that an anti-Iranian resolution in May might be disruptive for Lebanon, which holds the rotating council presidency for the month, because Tehran’s Lebanese proxy, Hezbollah, controls half of the seats in the Beirut government.

Also, world leaders, including Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, are scheduled to gather in New York early next week for a month-long periodic review of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Egypt plans to raise demands for Israel’s nuclear disarmament.

Other powerful Third Worlders will attack the recent Russian-American arms-reduction treaties as insufficient, calling on the nuclear powers to disarm before they “preach” to the nuclear have-nots.

Why spoil such a perfectly inane UN session by raising Iran’s violation of the NPT? As Brazil’s foreign minister, Celso Amorim, said recently, May’s NPT conference shouldn’t be “contaminated” by discussing Iran.

Rice hasn’t yet shown her sanctions proposal to Brazil and Turkey, which now sit on the Security Council. Instead, the two countries are attempting to revive the dead horse of negotiations with Iran. As Amorim told me during a recent UN visit, “Iran has to show flexibility, but I think the West also has to show flexibility.”

Amorim was in Tehran yesterday, preparing a mid-May visit there by the Brazilian President Lula da Silva. Along with the Turkish foreign minister, Ahmet Davutoglu, who visited Tehran a week earlier, Amorim hopes to get the Iranians to send nuclear fuel to another country, ensuring that enrichment doesn’t reach weapons-grade level.

Iran has dangled this nuclear-fuel “swap” idea in front of diplomats for years, but as the Obama team has learned recently, the mullahs never deliver, and their terms aren’t sufficient, anyway.

Nevertheless, a new, 11th-hour Turkish-Brazilian “swap” plan (perhaps using Turkish soil) could emerge soon. Any indication that Iran may agree — yesterday Iran’s foreign minister, Manoucher Mottaki, told Amorim that he hoped such a plan could be finalized “in the near future” — would severely undermine sanctions talks, even if the six powers are close to an agreement by then.

All this maneuvering at the UN, where big and midsize nations’ influence is much weightier than their real power, is seriously setting back Obama’s Iran agenda.

Yet, even as Congress sought to impose severe American sanctions on Iran back in January, the president reportedly asked for a delay until the UN agreed on sanctions. (Now, Congress is set to impose sanctions by the end of May.)

Sooner or later, Rice will likely convince enough of her colleagues to impose sanctions. After all, the “isolationist” Bush administration got the UN to impose sanctions three times. But why wait? By now we could have created, say, a virtual naval blockade on our own by pressing the world’s major insurance companies to deny policies to shipping firms that deliver goods to Iran. Or we could have better aided Israel’s secret sabotage operations against Iran’s nuclear program.

Yet, Obama wasted a whole year hopelessly chasing negotiations and then, overestimating his ability to convince “the world” to formally adopt grand resolutions, wasted months at the UN while doing almost nothing elsewhere. No wonder insiders like Defense Secretary Robert Gates ask aloud whether Obama even has a long-term Iran strategy. beavni@gmail.com

Wrestling with rogues – NYPOST.com.

The South Korean government is now reporting that a large undersea explosion (e.g., a torpedo) is likely responsible for sinking its warship Cheonan in the Yellow Sea in March, with the loss of more than 40 souls.

South Korea has yet to officially lay blame, but the probable culprit for the unprovoked attack — the most serious act of aggression against it in years — is, of course, its hostile neighbor North Korea. But if South Korean President Myung-bak Lee forgoes any military response, it’s largely out of concern that North Korean leader Kim Jong Il could lob nukes south across the infamous Demilitarized Zone.

Getty

Sunk: The Cheonan was likely torpedoed.

So South Korea just may let North Korea act with near impunity — all because of the risk of Pyongyang exercising the nuclear option. (Seoul will likely reduce ties, trade and aid to Pyongyang, at a minimum.)

This migraine-inducing dilemma for South Korea (and its American ally) in dealing with a nuclear-armed North Korea throws into sharp relief the challenges the world will face when Iran — a bigger country with much greater resources and ambitions than North Korea — gets the bomb in the next few years.

With nukes, Iran will magnify its regional power, eclipsing major Middle Eastern states like Saudi Arabia and Egypt, stirring up trouble with Shia minorities in neighboring countries and subverting small local states likes Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates.

Iran could also step up its meddling in Iraq and Afghanistan and increase its overt support for terrorist groups Hamas and Hezbollah and kindred-spirit Syria, relentlessly harassing US ally Israel and thwarting Middle East peace.

A nuclear Tehran could also try to turn the Persian Gulf into an Iranian lake, controlling the transit of shipping and 40 percent of the world’s oil exports through the Strait of Hormuz.

What if Iran were to transfer nuclear-weapons technology, warheads or ballistic missiles to its ally Hugo Chavez’s Venezuela, right here in the Americas?

The inability — or unwillingness — of the United States and others to resist or counter Iranian actions because of its nuclear status could undermine American interests in a whole raft of nasty ways.

Unfortunately, in 15 months on the job, President Obama has shown an appalling lack of progress on the Iranian nuclear dossier. It’s not clear that the administration “gets it.” In fact, it seems to be trying to ease us into some sort of tacit acceptance of a nuclear Iran, mumbling beneath its breath about containment, deterrence and massive retaliation.

This latest North Korean provocation should serve as a cautionary tale of how far a nuclear rogue state can go, if it believes it can act with a free hand with even a small nuclear arsenal. The fact is, once Iran goes nuclear, it can cause all sorts of mischief in advancing its regional, anti-Israel and anti-American interests — short of fighting an atomic Armageddon.

Team Obama needs to understand that the time to prevent Iran from becoming an even bigger nightmare than it already is for American national security is now — not later. Iran’s behavior will only get worse after its nuclear breakout.

Peter Brookes, a Heritage Foundation senior fellow, is a former deputy assistant secretary of defense. peterbrookes@heritage.org

Clinton: US seeks ‘tough’ Iran sanctions – Israel News, Ynetnews.

US secretary of state says Islamic Republic has made no shift in its weekend talks with International Atomic Energy Agency, continues to defy world community on its nuclear program

Reuters

“So far as we are aware based on the readout of the meeting between the Iranian foreign minister and the director general of the IAEA, there was nothing new that was presented,” Clinton told reporters during a meeting with a visiting European Union official.

“Iran’s continued disregard for its international obligations underscores the importance of united international pressure to change its policies,” she added. “The United States is working with our partners … on tough new sanctions that will further sharpen the choices that Iran’s leaders face.”

The fuel plan calls for Iran to ship 1,200 kg (2,646 pounds) of low-enriched uranium to Russia and France to make fuel for a medical research reactor. Iran agreed to the offer in principle last October but later balked at it.

“We still don’t have anything other than just an ongoing effort to try to influence public opinion as opposed to sitting down and providing an answer on the outstanding offer on the TRR (Tehran Research Reactor), which is many, many months old now,” Clinton said.

The United States and other Western nations believe Iran’s nuclear program is aimed at making atomic weapons. Tehran denies the charge, saying it wants to enrich uranium for energy production.

Obama, are you listening? – Israel Opinion, Ynetnews.

Real problem is Palestinian desire to destroy Israel, not home construction

Dan Calic

President Obama’s new face? – Israel Opinion, Ynetnews.

White House may be realizing rift with Israel not a wise move

Yitzhak Benhorin