Hear, hear! Excellent arguments and common sense ideas the United States could take to stop gun violence. - R.O.
Sunday, December 16, 2012
Tuesday, December 11, 2012
Obama recognises Syria opposition
Did Obama just implicitly declare war on Assad? - R.O.
Obama recognises Syria opposition
The US has formally recognised Syria's opposition rebel coalition as the "legitimate representative" of the Syrian people, says President Obama.
Speaking to ABC News in the US, Mr Obama said the coalition was now "inclusive enough, is reflective and representative enough".
He described the move - already made by the UK and the EU - as "a big step".
Activists say some 40,000 people have died in more than 18 months of battle against President Bashar al-Assad.
Mr Obama said the emerging coalition had earned the right to represent the Syrian people, but issued a note of caution as well.
"Obviously, with that recognition comes responsibilities," Mr Obama said.
"To make sure that they organise themselves effectively, that they are representative of all the parties, [and] that they commit themselves to a political transition that respects women's rights and minority rights."
Recognition does not mean the US will begin arming rebel groups, but officials told ABC that might be approved if it was thought to help achieve a political solution in Syria.
The Syrian conflict is the bloodiest and most bitterly fought of the Middle East and north African revolts that have become known as the Arab Spring.
The uprisings began two years ago with a revolt in Tunisia, and saw long-serving leaders in Egypt and Libya toppled from power.
BBC © 2012
Thursday, December 6, 2012
We Ignore Islamism at Our Own Peril
For any avid foreign affairs reader, the distinction between Islam and Islamism is critical to properly understanding the drama of the Middle East. Moreover a full appreciation of what it is that defines these concepts will facilitate a much broader understanding of the threat facing Western and Arab powers alike. As we watch the violence unfolding in Syria, and the protests rising in Egypt, read the following article and carefully assess the distinction. - R.O.
Headlines to watch:
- Egyptian President's Defiant, Confrontational Speech
- Syria loads chemical weapons into bombs; military awaits Assad's order
- Islamic Fighters in Northern Syria Not United
- Assad faces life or death choice
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Islamology 101: What's the difference between Islam and Islamism?
By: Clifford D. May - Dec. 6, 2012 - National Review Online
 |
| White House counterterrorism adviser John Brennan |
Google “Islamist” and you’ll get more than 24 million hits. Google “jihadist” and you’ll get millions more. Yet I bet the average American could not tell you what it is that Islamists and jihadists believe. And those at the highest levels of the U.S. government refuse to do so.
Why? John Brennan, the top counterterrorism adviser in the White House, argues that it is “counterproductive” to describe America’s “enemy as ‘jihadists’ or ‘Islamists’ because jihad is a holy struggle, a legitimate tenet of Islam, meaning to purify oneself or one’s community, and there is nothing holy or legitimate or Islamic about murdering innocent men, women and children.” To describe terrorists using “religious terms,” he adds, would “play into the false perception” that the “murderers” waging unconventional war against the West are doing so in the name of a “holy cause.”
I get it. I understand why it would be useful to convince as many of the world’s more than a billion Muslims as possible that Americans are only attempting to defend themselves against “violent extremists.” By now, however, it should be obvious that this spin — one can hardly call it analysis — has spun out. The unpleasant fact is that there is an ideology called Islamism and, as Yale professor Charles Hill recently noted, it “has been on the rise for generations.”
So we need to understand it. We need to understand how Islamism has unfolded from Islam, and how it differs from traditional Islam as practiced in places as far-flung and diverse as Kuala Lumpur, Erbil, and Timbuktu. This is what Bassam Tibi attempts in his most recent book, published this year, Islamism and Islam. It has received nowhere near the attention it deserves.
A Koret Foundation Senior Fellow at Stanford University, Tibi describes himself as an “Arab-Muslim pro-democracy theorist and practitioner.” Raised in Damascus, he has “studied Islam and its civilization for four decades, working in the Middle East, South and Southeast Asia, and Africa.” His research has led him to this simple and stark conclusion: “Islamism is a totalitarian ideology.” And just as there cannot be “democratic totalitarianism,” so there cannot be “democratic Islamism.”
Brennan and other American and European officials are wrong, Tibi says, to fear that “fighting Islamism is tantamount to declaring all of Islam a violent enemy.” As for the Obama administration’s insistence that “the enemy is specifically, and only, al-Qaeda,” that, Tibi writes, “is far too reductive.”
Tibi also faults Noah Feldman, the young scholar who advised the Bush administration, and who insisted, despite abundant evidence to the contrary, that sharia, Islamic law, can be viewed as “Islamic constitutionalism.” Feldman failed to grasp the significance of the “Islamist claim to supremacy (siyadat al-Islam),” the conviction that Christians, Jews, Hindus, and Buddhists are inferior and that their inferiority should be reflected under the law and by government institutions.
Tibi makes this important distinction: All jihadists are Islamists, but not all Islamists are jihadists. In other words, not all Islamists are committed to violence, including terrorism, as the preferred means to achieve their goals. He asks: “Can we trust Islamists who forgo violence to participate in good faith within a pluralistic, democratic system?” He answers: “I believe we cannot.”
Chief among Islamist goals, Tibi writes, is al-hall al Islami, “the Islamic solution, a kind of magic answer for all of the problems — global and local, socio-economic or value-related — in the crisis-ridden world of Islam.” Islamists ignore the fact that such governance has been implemented, for example, in Iran for over more than 30 years, in Afghanistan under the Taliban, in Gaza under Hamas, and in Sudan. It has never delivered development, freedom, human rights, or democracy. As for Turkey, Tibi sees it as “not yet an Islamist state” but heading in that direction.
Tibi makes some arguments with which I’d quarrel. For example, he views Saudi religious/political doctrines as a “variety of Salafism (orthodox, traditional Islam) not Islamism.” I would counter that Salafism is a variant of Islamism, albeit one based not on the writings of Hassan al-Banna, who founded the Muslim Brotherhood in 1928, but on nostalgia for the glory days of the seventh century.
Nevertheless, the debate Tibi is attempting to initiate is necessary — and long overdue. During the Cold War there was a field of study known as Sovietology. It was taught in our most elite universities with strong U.S. government support.
Why isn’t Islamology — not Islamic theology, or “Muslim-Christian understanding,” or “Islamic thought” — a discipline today? For one, Tibi observes, because to “protect themselves against criticism, Islamists have invented the formula of ‘Islamophobia’ to defame their critics.” (How did Stalin not come up with Sovietophobia or Russophobia?) And of course if such slander fails to intimidate, there are other ways to shut people up: Tibi has “survived attempts on my life by jihadists.”
A second reason for the absence of Islamology: The U.S. government cannot back the study of an ideology it stubbornly insists does not exist. Finally, those who do fund anything to do with Islam on campus — for example, the Gulf petro-princes who have given tens of millions of dollars to Georgetown and Harvard — have a different agenda, one that does not include free and serious inquiry. We ignore what they are doing — and what Tibi is telling us — at great peril.
— Clifford D. May is president of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a policy institute focusing on national security.
Why? John Brennan, the top counterterrorism adviser in the White House, argues that it is “counterproductive” to describe America’s “enemy as ‘jihadists’ or ‘Islamists’ because jihad is a holy struggle, a legitimate tenet of Islam, meaning to purify oneself or one’s community, and there is nothing holy or legitimate or Islamic about murdering innocent men, women and children.” To describe terrorists using “religious terms,” he adds, would “play into the false perception” that the “murderers” waging unconventional war against the West are doing so in the name of a “holy cause.”
I get it. I understand why it would be useful to convince as many of the world’s more than a billion Muslims as possible that Americans are only attempting to defend themselves against “violent extremists.” By now, however, it should be obvious that this spin — one can hardly call it analysis — has spun out. The unpleasant fact is that there is an ideology called Islamism and, as Yale professor Charles Hill recently noted, it “has been on the rise for generations.”
So we need to understand it. We need to understand how Islamism has unfolded from Islam, and how it differs from traditional Islam as practiced in places as far-flung and diverse as Kuala Lumpur, Erbil, and Timbuktu. This is what Bassam Tibi attempts in his most recent book, published this year, Islamism and Islam. It has received nowhere near the attention it deserves.
A Koret Foundation Senior Fellow at Stanford University, Tibi describes himself as an “Arab-Muslim pro-democracy theorist and practitioner.” Raised in Damascus, he has “studied Islam and its civilization for four decades, working in the Middle East, South and Southeast Asia, and Africa.” His research has led him to this simple and stark conclusion: “Islamism is a totalitarian ideology.” And just as there cannot be “democratic totalitarianism,” so there cannot be “democratic Islamism.”
Brennan and other American and European officials are wrong, Tibi says, to fear that “fighting Islamism is tantamount to declaring all of Islam a violent enemy.” As for the Obama administration’s insistence that “the enemy is specifically, and only, al-Qaeda,” that, Tibi writes, “is far too reductive.”
Tibi also faults Noah Feldman, the young scholar who advised the Bush administration, and who insisted, despite abundant evidence to the contrary, that sharia, Islamic law, can be viewed as “Islamic constitutionalism.” Feldman failed to grasp the significance of the “Islamist claim to supremacy (siyadat al-Islam),” the conviction that Christians, Jews, Hindus, and Buddhists are inferior and that their inferiority should be reflected under the law and by government institutions.
Tibi makes this important distinction: All jihadists are Islamists, but not all Islamists are jihadists. In other words, not all Islamists are committed to violence, including terrorism, as the preferred means to achieve their goals. He asks: “Can we trust Islamists who forgo violence to participate in good faith within a pluralistic, democratic system?” He answers: “I believe we cannot.”
Chief among Islamist goals, Tibi writes, is al-hall al Islami, “the Islamic solution, a kind of magic answer for all of the problems — global and local, socio-economic or value-related — in the crisis-ridden world of Islam.” Islamists ignore the fact that such governance has been implemented, for example, in Iran for over more than 30 years, in Afghanistan under the Taliban, in Gaza under Hamas, and in Sudan. It has never delivered development, freedom, human rights, or democracy. As for Turkey, Tibi sees it as “not yet an Islamist state” but heading in that direction.
Tibi makes some arguments with which I’d quarrel. For example, he views Saudi religious/political doctrines as a “variety of Salafism (orthodox, traditional Islam) not Islamism.” I would counter that Salafism is a variant of Islamism, albeit one based not on the writings of Hassan al-Banna, who founded the Muslim Brotherhood in 1928, but on nostalgia for the glory days of the seventh century.
Nevertheless, the debate Tibi is attempting to initiate is necessary — and long overdue. During the Cold War there was a field of study known as Sovietology. It was taught in our most elite universities with strong U.S. government support.
Why isn’t Islamology — not Islamic theology, or “Muslim-Christian understanding,” or “Islamic thought” — a discipline today? For one, Tibi observes, because to “protect themselves against criticism, Islamists have invented the formula of ‘Islamophobia’ to defame their critics.” (How did Stalin not come up with Sovietophobia or Russophobia?) And of course if such slander fails to intimidate, there are other ways to shut people up: Tibi has “survived attempts on my life by jihadists.”
A second reason for the absence of Islamology: The U.S. government cannot back the study of an ideology it stubbornly insists does not exist. Finally, those who do fund anything to do with Islam on campus — for example, the Gulf petro-princes who have given tens of millions of dollars to Georgetown and Harvard — have a different agenda, one that does not include free and serious inquiry. We ignore what they are doing — and what Tibi is telling us — at great peril.
— Clifford D. May is president of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a policy institute focusing on national security.
Wednesday, December 5, 2012
U.S.-Iran War Deadline: March 2013?
It is often argued that the 2003 War in Iraq was a "war of choice". But in fact it was a war of last resort. As Micah Zenko puts it in the article below, "After 12 years of diplomacy, 17 U.N. Security Council resolutions, increasingly targeted economic sanctions, multiple international inspection efforts, no-fly zones over both northern and southern Iraq, the selective use of U.S. military force in 1998, and Saddam Hussein's rejection of a final opportunity to leave Iraq and avoid war, the United States and the international community were out of options."
Almost a full decade later, the United States has begun to shift its strategy with respect to Iran. As with Iraq in 2003, the United States and its allies recognize that negotiations with Iran cannot drag on ad infinitum. Zenko explains, "Last week... the United States made a significant shift in its strategy. This move, if it plays out, could finally result in the long-rumored and much-debated military attack on Iran's known nuclear sites. In a prepared statement to the agency's Board of Governors, Robert A. Wood, chargé d'affaires to the IAEA, said:
Iran cannot be allowed to indefinitely ignore its obligations by attempting to make negotiation of a structured approach on PMD [possible military dimensions] an endless process. Iran must act now, in substance.... If by March Iran has not begun substantive cooperation with the IAEA, the United States will work with other Board members to pursue appropriate Board action, and would urge the Board to consider reporting this lack of progress to the UN Security Council."
This is certainly a development to watch in the months ahead. The world cannot allow the fanatical Iranian authoritarian Islamic theocracy, driven by 7th Century eschatology, to obtain nuclear weapons. Zenko's article is below. - R.O.
Headlines to watch:
- Iranian nuclear bomb would trigger arms race: Iran ex-official
- USS Eisenhower aircraft carrier arrives off Syrian shore
- Israeli Intelligence Official: Border With Syria Will Soon be “the Hottest Border in Israel”
If you have followed the covert and diplomatic efforts to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon over the past five years, you know that new or noteworthy movements from Tehran, Tel Aviv, or Washington are few and far between. Iran makes fantastic claims about advances in its civilian nuclear program, many of which are subsequently confirmed by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); Israel threatens to attack Iran in a thinly veiled effort to impel the P5+1 negotiating group (China, Russia, the United States, France, the United Kingdom, and Germany) to increase economic and diplomatic sanctions; and American officials repeatedly pledge to prevent a nuclear Iran, while the U.S. military gradually strengthens its capabilities in theater and deepens its cooperation with Gulf states in order to contain Iran.
Underpinning this rhetorical bluster is the recognition that negotiations to compel Iran to cooperate with the IAEA -- to demonstrate that the Iranian civilian nuclear program does not have possible military dimensions, forbidden by the NPT Safeguards Agreement signed by Iran in 1974 -- are not sustainable. Experts predict that the nuclear dispute between the P5+1 (predominantly the United States) and Iran will ultimately be resolved -- either through negotiations or the use of force.Some (including yours truly) have speculated this resolution will come this year, or the following year, or the year after that. During a press conference on Thursday, Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak acknowledged this enduring forecasting problem: "I think that it will happen during 2013, but I thought that it will happen during 2012, and saw what happened -- and 2011."
Last week, however, the United States made a significant shift in its strategy. This move, if it plays out, could finally result in the long-rumored and much-debated military attack on Iran's known nuclear sites. In a prepared statement to the agency's Board of Governors, Robert A. Wood, chargé d'affaires to the IAEA, said:
Then, Clinton introduces a vague new goal for negotiations. Until now, Obama administration officials have repeated three claims about U.S. intelligence on Iran's nuclear program.
First, Iran has not decided to pursue a nuclear weapon. In February 2011, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper testified, "We continue to assess Iran is keeping open the option to develop nuclear weapons." But, he added, "We do not know...if Iran will eventually decide to build nuclear weapons." The following February, Clapper stated, "We don't believe they've actually made the decision to go ahead with a nuclear weapon."
Second, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei will make the final decision. As Clapper phrased it: "The decision would be made by the Supreme Leader himself, and he would base that on a cost-benefit analysis in terms of -- I don't think you want a nuclear weapon at any price."
Third, because Iran's nuclear program is an intelligence collection priority, U.S. officials would know when the Supreme Leader made this decision and what sort of evidence would reveal his intentions. Clapper: "[A] clear indicator would be enrichment of uranium to a 90 percent level." The declared nuclear sites where such enrichment occurs are subject to IAEA physical inventory verifications, which track progress in Iran's low-enriched uranium stockpiles and are published in quarterly reports.
Why did the Obama administration decide to set this new March deadline? Perhaps, like the Bush administration, it has simply become tired of confronting Iran. Here, the Bush administration's approach to Iraq is worth recalling. In a recent Foreign Policy piece reviewing U.S. policy options toward Iran, Steven Hadley, deputy national security adviser during the run-up to the invasion of Iraq, wrote:
The confrontation with Iran over its nuclear program dates back to August 2002, when it was first revealed that Iran had begun a covert uranium-enrichment program in the late 1980s. Since then, the IAEA has repeatedly stated what its Director General Yukio Amano declared last week: "Iran is not providing the necessary cooperation to enable us to provide credible assurance about the absence of undeclared nuclear material and activities, and therefore to conclude that all nuclear material in Iran is in peaceful activities."
At some point in February or early March of 2013, there will be two significant events relating to a potential countdown to an attack on Iran. Clapper will testify before the House and Senate as part of his annual threat briefings, and the IAEA will release its next quarterly report. Unless there is new intelligence, it is likely that Clapper will maintain his assessment that the Supreme Leader has not made the decision to pursue a bomb -- meaning to enrich enough uranium to bomb-grade level that can be formed into sphere that could be compressed into a critical mass. Meanwhile, absent breakthrough in the P5+1 negotiations or a decision by Tehran that unprecedented transparency with the IAEA will make things better, Amano will again report that there is inadequate cooperation.
In that case, the IAEA Board of Governors could refer Iran to the UN Security Council, which might pass a more robust version of Resolution 1929, which imposed sanctions. But then what? If the Supreme Leader does not make a decision to pursue a bomb (which the United States claims it would detect), and if Iran does not produce sufficient highly-enriched uranium for a bomb at a declared site (which the IAEA would detect), then what would trigger an attack by the United States and/or Israel? What would the "redline" be?
The answer depends greatly on whether the timeline to attack Iran is based on Israel's national interest and its military capabilities, or those of the United States. Israeli officials have stated at various times that redlines should be "clear" (without providing clarity) and that they "should be made, but not publicly." One also said, "I don't want to set redlines or deadlines for myself." Since November 2011, Israeli officials have also warned about a "zone of immunity," which Barak has described as "not where the Iranians decide to break out of the non-proliferation treaty and move toward a nuclear device or weapon, but at the place where the dispersal, protection and survivability efforts will cross a point that would make a physical strike impractical."
It is unclear how dispersed, protected, or survivable Iran's nuclear program would have to be, but Secretary Clinton's warning of "components...on a shelf somewhere" could indicate that the Obama administration is moving toward the zone of immunity logic. But what are these components, how many would be required to assume "weaponization," and how would this new intelligence be presented as a justification for war? In addition, it is tough to make the case for going to war with Iran because it refused to concentrate its nuclear sites (that are under IAEA safeguards) in above-ground facilities that can be easily bombed.
Previously, U.S. officials have been less eager than the Israelis to define a specific redline, largely because the two countries have different perceptions of the Iranian threat and vastly different military capabilities. Setting a March deadline provides some certainty and perhaps coercive leverage to compel Iran to cooperate with the IAEA. But declaring deadlines also places U.S. "credibility" on the line, generating momentum to use force even if there is no new actionable intelligence that Iran has decided to pursue a nuclear weapon. Based on what we know right now, that would be a strategic miscalculation.
- Israeli Intelligence Official: Border With Syria Will Soon be “the Hottest Border in Israel”
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Final Countdown: Did the U.S. just set a March deadline for war with Iran?
By: Micah Zenko - December 4, 2012 - Foreign Policy.com
 |
| Robert A. Wood, chargé d'affaires to the IAEA. Credit: Foreign Policy.com |
If you have followed the covert and diplomatic efforts to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon over the past five years, you know that new or noteworthy movements from Tehran, Tel Aviv, or Washington are few and far between. Iran makes fantastic claims about advances in its civilian nuclear program, many of which are subsequently confirmed by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); Israel threatens to attack Iran in a thinly veiled effort to impel the P5+1 negotiating group (China, Russia, the United States, France, the United Kingdom, and Germany) to increase economic and diplomatic sanctions; and American officials repeatedly pledge to prevent a nuclear Iran, while the U.S. military gradually strengthens its capabilities in theater and deepens its cooperation with Gulf states in order to contain Iran.
Underpinning this rhetorical bluster is the recognition that negotiations to compel Iran to cooperate with the IAEA -- to demonstrate that the Iranian civilian nuclear program does not have possible military dimensions, forbidden by the NPT Safeguards Agreement signed by Iran in 1974 -- are not sustainable. Experts predict that the nuclear dispute between the P5+1 (predominantly the United States) and Iran will ultimately be resolved -- either through negotiations or the use of force.Some (including yours truly) have speculated this resolution will come this year, or the following year, or the year after that. During a press conference on Thursday, Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak acknowledged this enduring forecasting problem: "I think that it will happen during 2013, but I thought that it will happen during 2012, and saw what happened -- and 2011."
Last week, however, the United States made a significant shift in its strategy. This move, if it plays out, could finally result in the long-rumored and much-debated military attack on Iran's known nuclear sites. In a prepared statement to the agency's Board of Governors, Robert A. Wood, chargé d'affaires to the IAEA, said:
Iran cannot be allowed to indefinitely ignore its obligations by attempting to make negotiation of a structured approach on PMD [possible military dimensions] an endless process. Iran must act now, in substance.... If by March Iran has not begun substantive cooperation with the IAEA, the United States will work with other Board members to pursue appropriate Board action, and would urge the Board to consider reporting this lack of progress to the UN Security Council.Later that day, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was asked about Wood's mention of a March deadline. Her reply contained several interesting points:
What was meant about the March reference was either about the IAEA and its continuing work or the fact that we finished our election and now would be a good time to test the proposition that there can be some good-faith serious negotiations before the Iranians get into their elections, which are going to heat up probably around the March period, heading toward a June election.
It's a difficult matter to predict, because it really depends upon how serious the Iranians are about making a decision that removes the possibility of their being able to acquire a nuclear weapon or the components of one that can be in effect on a shelf somewhere and still serve as a basis for intimidation...We'll see in the next few months whether there's a chance for any kind of a serious negotiation.Here, Clinton implies that the reason to "test" Iran now is not because of progress toward alleged weaponization, but because there is a window for negotiations, after the U.S. election and before the Iranian election. It is interesting that the Obama administration deemed it wrong to "test" Iran during the heat of the U.S. presidential elections but thinks it plausible that, during similar electoral uncertainty, Iranian leaders will reach a broad strategic agreement limiting the country's uranium-enrichment program.
Then, Clinton introduces a vague new goal for negotiations. Until now, Obama administration officials have repeated three claims about U.S. intelligence on Iran's nuclear program.
First, Iran has not decided to pursue a nuclear weapon. In February 2011, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper testified, "We continue to assess Iran is keeping open the option to develop nuclear weapons." But, he added, "We do not know...if Iran will eventually decide to build nuclear weapons." The following February, Clapper stated, "We don't believe they've actually made the decision to go ahead with a nuclear weapon."
Second, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei will make the final decision. As Clapper phrased it: "The decision would be made by the Supreme Leader himself, and he would base that on a cost-benefit analysis in terms of -- I don't think you want a nuclear weapon at any price."
Third, because Iran's nuclear program is an intelligence collection priority, U.S. officials would know when the Supreme Leader made this decision and what sort of evidence would reveal his intentions. Clapper: "[A] clear indicator would be enrichment of uranium to a 90 percent level." The declared nuclear sites where such enrichment occurs are subject to IAEA physical inventory verifications, which track progress in Iran's low-enriched uranium stockpiles and are published in quarterly reports.
Why did the Obama administration decide to set this new March deadline? Perhaps, like the Bush administration, it has simply become tired of confronting Iran. Here, the Bush administration's approach to Iraq is worth recalling. In a recent Foreign Policy piece reviewing U.S. policy options toward Iran, Steven Hadley, deputy national security adviser during the run-up to the invasion of Iraq, wrote:
The U.S. military action [in Iraq] was not, as many suggest, either a war of choice or a war of preemption. It was, rather, a war of last resort. After 12 years of diplomacy, 17 U.N. Security Council resolutions, increasingly targeted economic sanctions, multiple international inspection efforts, no-fly zones over both northern and southern Iraq, the selective use of U.S. military force in 1998, and Saddam Hussein's rejection of a final opportunity to leave Iraq and avoid war, the United States and the international community were out of options.It is difficult to understand why the Bush administration decided to abandon a successful containment strategy of Iraq that cost $14.5 billion a year and no loss of life, for another that will ultimately cost over $3 trillion and the lives of 4,422 U.S. troops. Undertaking a war of choice without definitive evidence of an active chemical or biological weapons program -- let alone a nuclear program -- or threats to the U.S. homeland was an enormous strategic miscalculation with dire consequences.
The confrontation with Iran over its nuclear program dates back to August 2002, when it was first revealed that Iran had begun a covert uranium-enrichment program in the late 1980s. Since then, the IAEA has repeatedly stated what its Director General Yukio Amano declared last week: "Iran is not providing the necessary cooperation to enable us to provide credible assurance about the absence of undeclared nuclear material and activities, and therefore to conclude that all nuclear material in Iran is in peaceful activities."
At some point in February or early March of 2013, there will be two significant events relating to a potential countdown to an attack on Iran. Clapper will testify before the House and Senate as part of his annual threat briefings, and the IAEA will release its next quarterly report. Unless there is new intelligence, it is likely that Clapper will maintain his assessment that the Supreme Leader has not made the decision to pursue a bomb -- meaning to enrich enough uranium to bomb-grade level that can be formed into sphere that could be compressed into a critical mass. Meanwhile, absent breakthrough in the P5+1 negotiations or a decision by Tehran that unprecedented transparency with the IAEA will make things better, Amano will again report that there is inadequate cooperation.
In that case, the IAEA Board of Governors could refer Iran to the UN Security Council, which might pass a more robust version of Resolution 1929, which imposed sanctions. But then what? If the Supreme Leader does not make a decision to pursue a bomb (which the United States claims it would detect), and if Iran does not produce sufficient highly-enriched uranium for a bomb at a declared site (which the IAEA would detect), then what would trigger an attack by the United States and/or Israel? What would the "redline" be?
The answer depends greatly on whether the timeline to attack Iran is based on Israel's national interest and its military capabilities, or those of the United States. Israeli officials have stated at various times that redlines should be "clear" (without providing clarity) and that they "should be made, but not publicly." One also said, "I don't want to set redlines or deadlines for myself." Since November 2011, Israeli officials have also warned about a "zone of immunity," which Barak has described as "not where the Iranians decide to break out of the non-proliferation treaty and move toward a nuclear device or weapon, but at the place where the dispersal, protection and survivability efforts will cross a point that would make a physical strike impractical."
It is unclear how dispersed, protected, or survivable Iran's nuclear program would have to be, but Secretary Clinton's warning of "components...on a shelf somewhere" could indicate that the Obama administration is moving toward the zone of immunity logic. But what are these components, how many would be required to assume "weaponization," and how would this new intelligence be presented as a justification for war? In addition, it is tough to make the case for going to war with Iran because it refused to concentrate its nuclear sites (that are under IAEA safeguards) in above-ground facilities that can be easily bombed.
Previously, U.S. officials have been less eager than the Israelis to define a specific redline, largely because the two countries have different perceptions of the Iranian threat and vastly different military capabilities. Setting a March deadline provides some certainty and perhaps coercive leverage to compel Iran to cooperate with the IAEA. But declaring deadlines also places U.S. "credibility" on the line, generating momentum to use force even if there is no new actionable intelligence that Iran has decided to pursue a nuclear weapon. Based on what we know right now, that would be a strategic miscalculation.
By: Micah Zenko
Tuesday, December 4, 2012
Israel's irrationality is our fault
The article below is absolutely one of the best I've read all year about Israel's situation in the world today. A highly worthy read. - R.O.
Headlines to watch:
- NATO approves Turkey missile-defence system
Headlines to watch:
- NATO approves Turkey missile-defence system
- NATO warns Syria not to use chemical weapons
- Jerusalem rejects UN call to open nuke program to probe
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Israel's irrationality is our fault - The Commentator
Israel's actions in expanding settlements is a direct result of being maligned and bullied by the international community, writes Executive Editor Raheem Kassam
Britain has a major problem and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office is clearly tied up in knots about it.
On the one hand, you have a strong and legitimate will to solve the issue of Palestinian statehood. The problem isn't going away and last week's UN General Assembly vote cemented the fact that the international community wants, sooner rather than later, the Palestinian state to come into its own.
But in doing this in such a manner, decades of negotiations have effectively been defenestrated.
Many have argued that this is a good thing. After all, where have decades of negotiations led? Frankly, nowhere.
But it's naive and dishonest to argue that there are not rejectionists and appeasers in this scenario. That there has been equal will from both sides is a misnomer that is being propagated by the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office. Calling Mahmoud Abbas, a man who presides over incitement, glorification of terrorism and deals with terrorists, a "courageous man of peace" is to move the goalposts distinctly away from Israel's favour.
The reality is that Israel's favour must come foremost in the equation. Before we hear the arguments why not, as we are sure there will be plenty in the comments section, let's consider why.
Israel remains the most legitimate, functioning, transparent and safe democracy in the region. There is little chance, as the considerations are made of its newly democratic neighbours, of Israel turning its back on this form of government that lends to enshrined freedoms not just for Jews, but for the many Christians, Muslims, Druze and Baha'i that live within Israel's borders.
This is also true for women. It is true for homosexuals. It is true for young and old, for rich and poor - Israel is a model for the region. If anyone can doubt this, they are free to name another, but a list of Israel's neighbours does nothing to detract from this statement. Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia Yemen, Syria, UAE, Jordan, Lebanon, the Palestinian territories, Oman, Kuwait, Qatar, and Bahrain.
None of these countries ranks as highly for core tests on matters of liberty as Israel does.
But granted, this is not the be all and end all of why Western allies should treat Israel differently, though it does form an important and undeniable foundation.
Israel, though not perfect, has gone to great lengths to protect both its own citizens and the Palestinian people at the very same time. The knives come out very quickly against Israel, usually in the form of phrases like 'apartheid wall' and 'prison camp' - but remind yourselves that only five percent of Israel's security fence is a 'wall', and that terror attacks from the West Bank have decreased by more than 90 percent. Unless you're on the side that actively wishes for Israeli civilians to be killed (and sadly there are many) - doesn't this statistic prove that it was a legitimate endeavour at a time when the Palestinian leadership showed no interest in furthering peace negotiations?
In Gaza, does Israel act as an 'oppressor' in limiting and searching goods that it actually helps filter through, or does it protect both the Gazan people from a terrorist outfit who created a de facto dictatorship in the area, and itself from further attacks across the border? All the while, Israel has increased the amount of traffic in goods to Gaza and reciprocally, many Gazans make the daily commute into Israel to do business. Despite what the anti-Israel lobby would have you think, I myself spoke to Palestinian businessmen in June this year who indicated their will to work with and inside Israel, if only Hamas would disappear.
Consider again what great lengths Israel goes to in an attempt to limit civilian causalities in its ongoing conflict with Hamas. Does Israel place Hamas rocket sites metres away from schools? No, Hamas does. Does Israel target civilians? No, Hamas does.
And when the international community called upon Israel to withdraw from its occupation of Gaza, to allow 'democracy to flourish' - pray tell what happened? The unilateral disengagement in 2005 led to a terrorist organisation not simply taking the reins of government, but brutally smashing the opposition (the Palestinian Authority) and proceeding to fire well over 8,000 rockets into Israel as a result. Hamas has turned Gaza into a weapons storage and launch facility for Iran - nothing more, nothing less.
And yet Israel is now also expected to lend diplomatic legitimacy in that direction - as we saw with Egypt's negotiation of a ceasefire between Hamas and Israel just weeks ago.
The facts you'd think would speak for themselves - but while Israel is not guilt-free, she has been consistently rational and more often than not, responsible towards not only her own people, but towards Palestinians also.
Now the international community, Britain at the fore, is pushing Israel beyond the scope of what is reasonable.
The failure to get the Palestinians around the negotiating table prior to a UN statehood bid is a blow to Israel's continued efforts to renew talks. A settlement moratorium was ignored by the Palestinians, as has been every offer to sit down with no preconditions, an offer made as recently as October 2012 by Prime Minister Netanyahu.
So Israel has finally responded in a manner that befits David, rather than the Goliath it is made out to be. As the only Jewish state, the only legitimate and transparent and free democracy in the region, Israel has been pushed to taking an offensive stance rather than a defensive stance.
This relates to the announcement of 3,000 new settler units and plans to develop the E1 area east of Jerusalem - a position that may well cut the Palestinian areas off from the West Bank.
Is this the fault of some super right-wing expansionist plot? Not likely. It will cost Israel time, money, political and diplomatic capital and is the equivalent not just to kicking the can down the road, but to booting it over the fence and into a pond.
When actions have been taken repeatedly to undermine the position of an ally whose actions are broadly reflective of a strong will for peace - then certain rational and responsible actions go out the window with it.
Expanding and building settlements in areas that could and would be Palestinian areas is of course irrational and irresponsible, but the international community, Britain especially, has placed Israel in a position whereby it sees, from the world's feelings and dealings on Hamas and the Palestinian Authority, that aggression seems to be consistently rewarded.
In now talking about 'tough sanctions' against Israel for its actions, Britain espouses yet another inconsistent response to bringing parties in the region to the table - and has landed itself a position of increasing irrelevance and opposition to its allies in Israel and the United States.
For Britain, Israel's actions are unpalatable. For Israel, Britain's reaction is unconscionable.
Raheem Kassam is the Executive Editor for The Commentator
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Israel's irrationality is our fault - The Commentator
Israel's actions in expanding settlements is a direct result of being maligned and bullied by the international community, writes Executive Editor Raheem Kassam
Britain has a major problem and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office is clearly tied up in knots about it.
On the one hand, you have a strong and legitimate will to solve the issue of Palestinian statehood. The problem isn't going away and last week's UN General Assembly vote cemented the fact that the international community wants, sooner rather than later, the Palestinian state to come into its own.
But in doing this in such a manner, decades of negotiations have effectively been defenestrated.
Many have argued that this is a good thing. After all, where have decades of negotiations led? Frankly, nowhere.
But it's naive and dishonest to argue that there are not rejectionists and appeasers in this scenario. That there has been equal will from both sides is a misnomer that is being propagated by the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office. Calling Mahmoud Abbas, a man who presides over incitement, glorification of terrorism and deals with terrorists, a "courageous man of peace" is to move the goalposts distinctly away from Israel's favour.
The reality is that Israel's favour must come foremost in the equation. Before we hear the arguments why not, as we are sure there will be plenty in the comments section, let's consider why.
Israel remains the most legitimate, functioning, transparent and safe democracy in the region. There is little chance, as the considerations are made of its newly democratic neighbours, of Israel turning its back on this form of government that lends to enshrined freedoms not just for Jews, but for the many Christians, Muslims, Druze and Baha'i that live within Israel's borders.
This is also true for women. It is true for homosexuals. It is true for young and old, for rich and poor - Israel is a model for the region. If anyone can doubt this, they are free to name another, but a list of Israel's neighbours does nothing to detract from this statement. Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia Yemen, Syria, UAE, Jordan, Lebanon, the Palestinian territories, Oman, Kuwait, Qatar, and Bahrain.
None of these countries ranks as highly for core tests on matters of liberty as Israel does.
But granted, this is not the be all and end all of why Western allies should treat Israel differently, though it does form an important and undeniable foundation.
Israel, though not perfect, has gone to great lengths to protect both its own citizens and the Palestinian people at the very same time. The knives come out very quickly against Israel, usually in the form of phrases like 'apartheid wall' and 'prison camp' - but remind yourselves that only five percent of Israel's security fence is a 'wall', and that terror attacks from the West Bank have decreased by more than 90 percent. Unless you're on the side that actively wishes for Israeli civilians to be killed (and sadly there are many) - doesn't this statistic prove that it was a legitimate endeavour at a time when the Palestinian leadership showed no interest in furthering peace negotiations?
In Gaza, does Israel act as an 'oppressor' in limiting and searching goods that it actually helps filter through, or does it protect both the Gazan people from a terrorist outfit who created a de facto dictatorship in the area, and itself from further attacks across the border? All the while, Israel has increased the amount of traffic in goods to Gaza and reciprocally, many Gazans make the daily commute into Israel to do business. Despite what the anti-Israel lobby would have you think, I myself spoke to Palestinian businessmen in June this year who indicated their will to work with and inside Israel, if only Hamas would disappear.
Consider again what great lengths Israel goes to in an attempt to limit civilian causalities in its ongoing conflict with Hamas. Does Israel place Hamas rocket sites metres away from schools? No, Hamas does. Does Israel target civilians? No, Hamas does.
And when the international community called upon Israel to withdraw from its occupation of Gaza, to allow 'democracy to flourish' - pray tell what happened? The unilateral disengagement in 2005 led to a terrorist organisation not simply taking the reins of government, but brutally smashing the opposition (the Palestinian Authority) and proceeding to fire well over 8,000 rockets into Israel as a result. Hamas has turned Gaza into a weapons storage and launch facility for Iran - nothing more, nothing less.
And yet Israel is now also expected to lend diplomatic legitimacy in that direction - as we saw with Egypt's negotiation of a ceasefire between Hamas and Israel just weeks ago.
The facts you'd think would speak for themselves - but while Israel is not guilt-free, she has been consistently rational and more often than not, responsible towards not only her own people, but towards Palestinians also.
Now the international community, Britain at the fore, is pushing Israel beyond the scope of what is reasonable.
The failure to get the Palestinians around the negotiating table prior to a UN statehood bid is a blow to Israel's continued efforts to renew talks. A settlement moratorium was ignored by the Palestinians, as has been every offer to sit down with no preconditions, an offer made as recently as October 2012 by Prime Minister Netanyahu.
So Israel has finally responded in a manner that befits David, rather than the Goliath it is made out to be. As the only Jewish state, the only legitimate and transparent and free democracy in the region, Israel has been pushed to taking an offensive stance rather than a defensive stance.
This relates to the announcement of 3,000 new settler units and plans to develop the E1 area east of Jerusalem - a position that may well cut the Palestinian areas off from the West Bank.
Is this the fault of some super right-wing expansionist plot? Not likely. It will cost Israel time, money, political and diplomatic capital and is the equivalent not just to kicking the can down the road, but to booting it over the fence and into a pond.
When actions have been taken repeatedly to undermine the position of an ally whose actions are broadly reflective of a strong will for peace - then certain rational and responsible actions go out the window with it.
Expanding and building settlements in areas that could and would be Palestinian areas is of course irrational and irresponsible, but the international community, Britain especially, has placed Israel in a position whereby it sees, from the world's feelings and dealings on Hamas and the Palestinian Authority, that aggression seems to be consistently rewarded.
In now talking about 'tough sanctions' against Israel for its actions, Britain espouses yet another inconsistent response to bringing parties in the region to the table - and has landed itself a position of increasing irrelevance and opposition to its allies in Israel and the United States.
For Britain, Israel's actions are unpalatable. For Israel, Britain's reaction is unconscionable.
Raheem Kassam is the Executive Editor for The Commentator
Thursday, November 29, 2012
Falling for Hamas’s media manipulation
Legitimate criticism of the Western media's biased reporting of the Israel-Hamas conflict. - R.O.
By Michael Oren, Published: November 28, 2012 - Washington Post
Michael Oren is Israel’s ambassador to the United States.
What makes better headlines? Is it numbing figures such as the 8,000 Palestinian rockets fired at Israel since it unilaterally withdrew from Gaza in 2005, and the 42.5 percent of Israeli children living near the Gaza border who suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder? Or is it high-resolution images of bombed-out buildings in Gaza and emotional stories of bereaved Palestinians? The last, obviously, as demonstrated by much of the media coverage of Israel’s recent operation against Hamas. But that answer raises a more fundamental question: Which stories best serve the terrorists’ interest?
Hamas has a military strategy to paralyze southern Israel with short- and middle-range rockets while launching Iranian-made missiles at Tel Aviv. With our precision air force, top-notch intelligence and committed citizens army, we can defend ourselves against these dangers. We have invested billions of dollars in bomb shelters and early-warning systems and, together with generous U.S. aid, have developed history’s most advanced, multi-layered anti-missile batteries. For all of its bluster, Hamas does not threaten Israel’s existence.
But Hamas also has a media strategy. Its purpose is to portray Israel’s unparalleled efforts to minimize civilian casualties in Gaza as indiscriminate firing at women and children, to pervert Israel’s rightful acts of self-defense into war crimes. Its goals are to isolate Israel internationally, to tie its hands from striking back at those trying to kill our citizens and to delegitimize the Jewish State. Hamas knows that it cannot destroy us militarily but believes that it might do so through the media.
One reason is the enlarged images of destruction and civilian casualties in Gaza that dominated the front pages of U.S. publications. During this operation, The Post published multiple front-page photographs of Palestinian suffering. The New York Times even juxtaposed a photograph of the funeral of Hamas commander Ahmed Jabari, who was responsible for the slaughter of dozens of innocent Israelis, with that of a pregnant Israeli mother murdered by Hamas. Other photos, supplied by the terrorists and picked up by the press, identified children killed by Syrian forces or even by Hamas itself as victims of Israeli strikes.
In reporting Palestinian deaths, media routinely failed to note that roughly half were terrorists and that such a ratio is exceedingly low by modern military standards — much lower, for example, than the NATO campaign in the Balkans. Media also emphasize the disparity between the number of Palestinian and Israeli deaths, as though Israel should be penalized for investing billions of dollars in civil-defense and early-warning systems and Hamas exonerated for investing in bombs rather than bomb shelters. As in Israel’s last campaign against Hamas in 2008-09, the word “disproportionality” has been frequently used to characterize Israeli military strikes. In fact, during Operation Pillar of Defense this year, Hamas fired more than 1,500 missiles at Israel and the Israeli Air Force responded with 1,500 sorties.
The imbalance is also of language. “Hamas health officials said 45 had been killed and 385 wounded,” the Times’ front page reported. “Three Israeli civilians have died and 63 have been injured.” The subtext is clear: Israel targets Palestinians, and Israelis merely die.
The media perpetuated Hamas propaganda that traced the fighting to Jabari’s elimination and described Gaza as the most densely populated area on earth. Widely forgotten were the 130 rockets fired at Israel in the weeks before Jabari’s demise. For the record, Tel Aviv’s population is twice as dense as Gaza’s.
Hamas is a flagrantly anti-democratic, anti-Semitic, anti-Christian, anti-feminist and anti-gay movement dedicated to genocide. The United States, Canada and the European Union all consider it a terrorist organization. Hamas strives to kill the maximum number of Israeli civilians while using its own population as a human shield — under international law, a double war crime. Why, then, would the same free press that Hamas silences help advance its strategy?
Media naturally gravitate toward dramatic and highly visual stories. Reports of 5.5 million Israelis gathered nightly in bomb shelters scarcely compete with the Palestinian father interviewed after losing his son. Both are, of course, newsworthy, but the first tells a more complete story while the second stirs emotions.
This is precisely what Hamas wants. It seeks to instill a visceral disgust for any Israeli act of self-defense, even one taken after years of unprovoked aggression.
Hamas strives to replace the tens of thousands of phone calls and text messages Israel sent to Palestinian civilians, warning them to leave combat zones, with lurid images of Palestinian suffering. If Hamas cannot win the war, it wants to win the story of the war.
Veteran journalist Marvin Kalb, writing for Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government on the terrorists’ successful media strategy against Israel, warned that “the trajectory of the media, from objective observer to fiery advocate,” had become “a weapon of modern warfare.” Kalb quotes a U.S. military expert who describes how perception has replaced reality on the battlefield and that the terrorists know it.
Israel will take all legitimate steps necessary to defend our citizens. We know that, despite our most painstaking efforts, tragic stories can emerge — stories that the enemy sensationalizes.
Like Americans, we cherish a free press, but unlike the terrorists, we are not looking for headlines. Our hope is that media resist the temptation to give them what they want.
Michael Oren is Israel’s ambassador to the United States.
What makes better headlines? Is it numbing figures such as the 8,000 Palestinian rockets fired at Israel since it unilaterally withdrew from Gaza in 2005, and the 42.5 percent of Israeli children living near the Gaza border who suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder? Or is it high-resolution images of bombed-out buildings in Gaza and emotional stories of bereaved Palestinians? The last, obviously, as demonstrated by much of the media coverage of Israel’s recent operation against Hamas. But that answer raises a more fundamental question: Which stories best serve the terrorists’ interest?
Hamas has a military strategy to paralyze southern Israel with short- and middle-range rockets while launching Iranian-made missiles at Tel Aviv. With our precision air force, top-notch intelligence and committed citizens army, we can defend ourselves against these dangers. We have invested billions of dollars in bomb shelters and early-warning systems and, together with generous U.S. aid, have developed history’s most advanced, multi-layered anti-missile batteries. For all of its bluster, Hamas does not threaten Israel’s existence.
But Hamas also has a media strategy. Its purpose is to portray Israel’s unparalleled efforts to minimize civilian casualties in Gaza as indiscriminate firing at women and children, to pervert Israel’s rightful acts of self-defense into war crimes. Its goals are to isolate Israel internationally, to tie its hands from striking back at those trying to kill our citizens and to delegitimize the Jewish State. Hamas knows that it cannot destroy us militarily but believes that it might do so through the media.
One reason is the enlarged images of destruction and civilian casualties in Gaza that dominated the front pages of U.S. publications. During this operation, The Post published multiple front-page photographs of Palestinian suffering. The New York Times even juxtaposed a photograph of the funeral of Hamas commander Ahmed Jabari, who was responsible for the slaughter of dozens of innocent Israelis, with that of a pregnant Israeli mother murdered by Hamas. Other photos, supplied by the terrorists and picked up by the press, identified children killed by Syrian forces or even by Hamas itself as victims of Israeli strikes.
In reporting Palestinian deaths, media routinely failed to note that roughly half were terrorists and that such a ratio is exceedingly low by modern military standards — much lower, for example, than the NATO campaign in the Balkans. Media also emphasize the disparity between the number of Palestinian and Israeli deaths, as though Israel should be penalized for investing billions of dollars in civil-defense and early-warning systems and Hamas exonerated for investing in bombs rather than bomb shelters. As in Israel’s last campaign against Hamas in 2008-09, the word “disproportionality” has been frequently used to characterize Israeli military strikes. In fact, during Operation Pillar of Defense this year, Hamas fired more than 1,500 missiles at Israel and the Israeli Air Force responded with 1,500 sorties.
The imbalance is also of language. “Hamas health officials said 45 had been killed and 385 wounded,” the Times’ front page reported. “Three Israeli civilians have died and 63 have been injured.” The subtext is clear: Israel targets Palestinians, and Israelis merely die.
The media perpetuated Hamas propaganda that traced the fighting to Jabari’s elimination and described Gaza as the most densely populated area on earth. Widely forgotten were the 130 rockets fired at Israel in the weeks before Jabari’s demise. For the record, Tel Aviv’s population is twice as dense as Gaza’s.
Hamas is a flagrantly anti-democratic, anti-Semitic, anti-Christian, anti-feminist and anti-gay movement dedicated to genocide. The United States, Canada and the European Union all consider it a terrorist organization. Hamas strives to kill the maximum number of Israeli civilians while using its own population as a human shield — under international law, a double war crime. Why, then, would the same free press that Hamas silences help advance its strategy?
Media naturally gravitate toward dramatic and highly visual stories. Reports of 5.5 million Israelis gathered nightly in bomb shelters scarcely compete with the Palestinian father interviewed after losing his son. Both are, of course, newsworthy, but the first tells a more complete story while the second stirs emotions.
This is precisely what Hamas wants. It seeks to instill a visceral disgust for any Israeli act of self-defense, even one taken after years of unprovoked aggression.
Hamas strives to replace the tens of thousands of phone calls and text messages Israel sent to Palestinian civilians, warning them to leave combat zones, with lurid images of Palestinian suffering. If Hamas cannot win the war, it wants to win the story of the war.
Veteran journalist Marvin Kalb, writing for Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government on the terrorists’ successful media strategy against Israel, warned that “the trajectory of the media, from objective observer to fiery advocate,” had become “a weapon of modern warfare.” Kalb quotes a U.S. military expert who describes how perception has replaced reality on the battlefield and that the terrorists know it.
Israel will take all legitimate steps necessary to defend our citizens. We know that, despite our most painstaking efforts, tragic stories can emerge — stories that the enemy sensationalizes.
Like Americans, we cherish a free press, but unlike the terrorists, we are not looking for headlines. Our hope is that media resist the temptation to give them what they want.
Thursday, November 22, 2012
Egyptian fury over Mursi 'coup' - BBC News
"The decree states that the president's decisions cannot be revoked by any authority, including the judiciary."
Did anyone expect the Arab Spring to actually bring about change with a regime driven by fundamentalists embracing a backward, 7th century religious ideology? -R.O.
Egyptian fury over Mursi 'coup' - BBC News
November 22, 2012 7:57 PM
Opposition leaders Mohamed ElBaradei, Sameh Ashour and Amr Mussa called for protests
Opposition groups in Egypt have called for mass protests on Friday against President Mohammed Mursi's decree that gives him sweeping powers.
They have described his move as a "coup against legitimacy" and accused the president of appointing himself Egypt's "new pharaoh".
The decree states that the president's decisions cannot be revoked by any authority, including the judiciary.
His supporters say the move is designed to protect Egypt's revolution.
On Thursday, thousands celebrated the decree in front of the Egyptian High Court in Cairo.
But leading opposition figures later denounced it.
"This is a coup against legitimacy," said Sameh Ashour, head of the lawyers syndicate, in a joint news conference with Mohamed ElBaradei and Amr Moussa.
"We are calling on all Egyptians to protest in all of Egypt's squares on Friday."
Wael Ghonim, a key figure in last year's uprising against President Hosni Mubarak, said the revolution had not been staged "in search of a benign dictator".
"There is a difference between revolutionary decisions and dictatorial decisions," he said.
"God is the only one whose decisions are not questioned."
Mr ElBaradei, a Nobel Peace Prize winner, had earlier said the decree placed the president above the law.
"Mursi today usurped all state powers and appointed himself Egypt's new pharaoh. A major blow to the revolution that could have dire consequences ," he wrote on his Twitter account.
Thursday's decree bans challenges to Mr Mursi's decrees, laws and decisions.
It also says no court can dissolve the constituent assembly, which is drawing up a new constitution.
"The president can issue any decision or measure to protect the revolution," presidential spokesman Yasser Ali announced on national TV.
"The constitutional declarations, decisions and laws issued by the president are final and not subject to appeal."
Mr Mursi also sacked chief prosecutor Abdel Maguid Mahmoud and ordered the retrial of people accused of attacking protesters when Mr Mubarak held office.
Mr Mahmoud's acquittal of officers accused of involvement in attacks on protesters led to violent clashes in Cairo's Tahrir Square in October, when supporters and opponents of Mr Mursi clashed.
Thousands of protesters have returned to the streets around Tahrir Square over the past week demanding political reforms and the prosecution of officials blamed for killing demonstrators.
The president had tried to remove Mr Mahmoud from his post by appointing him envoy to the Vatican.
But Mr Mahmoud defied the Egyptian leader and returned to work, escorted by judges and lawyers.
New prosecutor Talaat Ibrahim is tasked with re-examining all the investigations led by Mr Mahmoud into the deaths of protesters, and re-trying people already acquitted in the case.
Mr Mursi said his decree was aimed at "cleansing state institutions" and "destroying the infrastructure of the old regime".
The declaration also gives the 100-member constituent assembly two additional months to draft a new constitution, to replace the one suspended after Mr Mubarak was overthrown.
The rewrite of the constitution, which was meant to be finished by December, has been plagued by lawsuits questioning the make-up of the constituent assembly.
Once completed, the document is due to be put to a referendum. If it is approved, legislative elections will be held two months later.
BBC © 2012
Monday, November 19, 2012
Is this How the Israel-Iran War Begins?
Probably. Expect the second front in the north to open up sooner than later. Marching as to... - R.O.
Friday, November 16, 2012
Despicable Silence from UN Human Rights Chief on Gaza Rocket Attacks
More proof of the hypocritical irrelevance of the UN Human Rights Council and its blatant, persistent disregard of Israeli human rights. How is it that what should be a critical international institution has been corrupted into festering anti-Semitic bile? Shame on Navi Pillay and the UNHRC. What a disgusting display of moral duplicity. - R.O.
The Israeli Foreign Ministry on Thursday slammed the head of the United Nations Human Rights Council over her silence on the constant rocket fire from Gaza.
In a press release headlined “Has the High Commissioner for Human Rights gone mute?” spokesman Yigal Palmor complained that this year alone, more than 800 rockets were fired into Israel from Gaza, lamenting that the high commissioner, Navi Pillay, has not issued any condemnations of these attacks.
“The lives of 1 million Israelis are threatened, and daily life in southern Israel has been severely disrupted. Children do not attend school; civilians sleep in shelters. Only this morning, three Israeli civilians were killed in their home in Kiryat Malachi town, when a Hamas rocket hit their building. Some others, including a 4-year-old boy, where injured,” Palmor wrote.
The press release, which did not name Pillay, accused the high commissioner of not caring about Israelis human rights.
“The High Commissioner has gone mute,” Plamor wrote. “Not a word of sympathy, not a word of concern for the violation of the human rights of Israeli citizens. Just a ringing silence.”
In March, Jerusalem cut off all relations with the United Nations Human Rights Council, after it announced the establishment of a fact-finding mission into Israel’s settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, a decision that was condemned by the government.
“From now on, we will no longer work together in any way, shape or form with any officials from the council, including the high commissioner,” Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman said at the time. “If anyone from the council calls us, we just won’t answer the phone.”
In a press release headlined “Has the High Commissioner for Human Rights gone mute?” spokesman Yigal Palmor complained that this year alone, more than 800 rockets were fired into Israel from Gaza, lamenting that the high commissioner, Navi Pillay, has not issued any condemnations of these attacks.
“The lives of 1 million Israelis are threatened, and daily life in southern Israel has been severely disrupted. Children do not attend school; civilians sleep in shelters. Only this morning, three Israeli civilians were killed in their home in Kiryat Malachi town, when a Hamas rocket hit their building. Some others, including a 4-year-old boy, where injured,” Palmor wrote.
The press release, which did not name Pillay, accused the high commissioner of not caring about Israelis human rights.
“The High Commissioner has gone mute,” Plamor wrote. “Not a word of sympathy, not a word of concern for the violation of the human rights of Israeli citizens. Just a ringing silence.”
In March, Jerusalem cut off all relations with the United Nations Human Rights Council, after it announced the establishment of a fact-finding mission into Israel’s settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, a decision that was condemned by the government.
“From now on, we will no longer work together in any way, shape or form with any officials from the council, including the high commissioner,” Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman said at the time. “If anyone from the council calls us, we just won’t answer the phone.”
Monday, November 12, 2012
Gaza Missiles a Bigger Threat Than Syria
Gaza Missiles a Bigger Threat Than Syria
By: Jonathan S. Tobin
Over the weekend, provocations on two of Israel’s borders presented the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with new challenges. In the Golan Heights, what was described in reports as “erratic mortar fire” from Syrian army positions brought a sharp, though limited, response from the Israel Defense Forces. In the south, Hamas launched a rocket offensive aimed at Israeli civilian targets. But while the Syrian incident made headlines in the international press since it threatened to drag Israel into the Syrian civil war, it was the situation in Gaza that was the more troubling.
As troubling as the possibility that Israel could be dragged into the ongoing chaos of Syria is, the country’s Gaza dilemma is far more worrisome. Rockets continued to fall on Israel Monday as the Hamas rulers of Gaza continued their own attempt to provoke Israel into an offensive. While both Israel and neighboring Egypt have little to gain from either a repeat of the 2008 Operation Cast Lead, in which Israel knocked out terrorist positions inside Gaza, or a more far-reaching offensive, in which the Islamist terrorist group would actually be deposed, the possibility that at some point Netanyahu will have to do something to stop the rain of fire on his country is very real.
Israelis don’t know for sure whether, as some observers seem to think, the fire from Syria was an attempt by the faltering Assad regime to portray its struggle as one against Israel rather than its own people. Given that such a ploy is a tried and true standby for Arab dictators, it seems logical to think that a desperate Bashar Assad thinks involving Israel in the fighting will bolster support for his embattled government. Yet it is just as likely that the fire into the Golan was unintentional spillover from that war. Certainly it was nothing comparable to the deliberate attacks from the regime on the Turkish border, which is actually a transit and supply route for the rebels who have the support of Ankara.
While Israel has no love for Assad and would be happy to see Iran’s ally fall, it must also ponder whether his replacement by a weak rebel regime would lead to more conflict in the future. Israel is likely to do just about anything to stay out of that mess, and it will take more than a few stray mortar shells to drag it into that war.
But Netanyahu’s choices with regards to Gaza are not so easy. Though Israel’s main strategic focus in the last year has understandably been on the Iranian nuclear threat, Hamas’ ability to make the lives of Israelis living in the south a living hell is a reminder that the enemies on the Jewish state’s border can’t be ignored. Since Saturday, more than 160 rockets have fallen on the region bordering Gaza. Their motives for this offensive are complex.
The impetus for the escalation may stem in part from a desire to remind the world that the Palestinian Authority is merely one of two groups competing for control of a future Palestinian state. The surge in violence doesn’t help PA leader Mahmoud Abbas’s efforts to get the United Nations to unilaterally recognize Palestinian independence without first making peace with Israel, and that suits Hamas’s purposes.
The Hamas fire may also have a tactical purpose. Last Thursday, the Israel Defense Forces discovered a tunnel along the border with Gaza, the intent of which was obviously to facilitate a cross-border terror raid along the lines of the one that resulted in Gilad Shalit’s kidnapping as well as the murder of two other soldiers. Israel has sought to establish a 300-meter no-go zone on the Gaza side of the border in order to prevent such attacks, but Hamas uses rocket fire to defend its freedom of action.
Whether thinking tactically or strategically, Hamas continues to hold approximately one million Israelis living in the south hostage. Anti-missile defense systems like Iron Dome help limit the damage, but they can’t stop all or even most of the rockets, as the last two days showed. Hamas seems to be assuming that an Israeli counter-offensive into Gaza to silence the fire would be too bloody and too unpopular abroad to be worth it for Netanyahu. Another option would be to return to targeted killings of Hamas leaders, but that is likely to lead to more rockets fired at Israeli civilians rather than to stop the attacks.
The bottom line is that Israel has no good choices open to it with regard to Gaza. But with elections looming in January, Netanyahu can’t afford to let the people of the south sit in shelters indefinitely. If their Muslim Brotherhood friends in Egypt — who also worry about the spillover from a new war — can’t persuade Hamas to stand down soon, the prime minister may have to consider raising the ante with the Islamist terrorist movement. While the world is more interested in the violence in Syria, Gaza remains the more difficult dilemma facing the Israelis.
Wednesday, November 7, 2012
UK leads calls to 'shape' Syria opposition - Al Jazeera
Very interesting development within hours of Barack Obama's re-election: the UK is now saying it will "deal directly with rebel military leaders" in Syria. Is this the right move for the West? Should Western governments escalate the conflict there? Were Western nations simply waiting for the US election to finish before deciding their next move?
The answer to the latter question seems obvious, as NATO allies (such as the UK) are now openly advocating for an escalation of support for Syrian rebels. The question is: what is the West's end game in Syria? After Assad is toppled, who will take control? Will they take control? Are the "rebels" people that the West can trust? What about the extremist factions within the Syrian rebellion?
My fear is that, like Iraq, the West will entrench itself in another intractable sectarian conflict, one that this time borders Israel. This is certainly a story to watch. - R.O.
British Prime Minister David Cameron said UK and allies should do more to open direct communication with rebel leaders.
Western efforts to oust Syrian President Bashar Assad have shifted dramatically, with Britain saying it will deal directly with rebel military leaders and Turkey saying NATO members have discussed protecting a safe zone inside Syria with Patriot missiles.
The developments came within hours of President Barack Obama's re-election on Tuesday, which US allies said they have been waiting for before implementing new strategies to end the deadlocked civil war that has killed more than 36,000 people over the past year and a half.
British Prime Minister David Cameron, visiting a camp for Syrian refugees in Jordan, said the US, Britain and other allies should do more to "shape the opposition'' into a coherent force and open channels of communication directly with rebel military commanders.
Previously, Britain and the US have acknowledged contacts only with exile groups and political opposition figures inside Syria.
And a Turkish official said Turkey and allies, including the United States, have discussed the possibility of using Patriot missiles to protect a safe zone inside Syria.
The foreign ministry official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of ministry prohibitions on contacts with the news media, said planning for the safe zone had been put on hold pending the US election.
He said any missile deployment might happen under a "NATO umbrella'', though NATO has insisted it will not intervene without a clear United Nations mandate.
"There is an opportunity for Britain, for America, for Saudi Arabia, Jordan and like-minded allies to come together and try to help shape the opposition, outside Syria and inside Syria,'' Cameron said. "And try to help them achieve their goal, which is our goal of a Syria without Assad.''
International pressure
Cameron is currently on a tour of the Middle East and speaking on Obama's re-election said: "I am hearing appalling stories about what has happened inside Syria so one of the first things I want to talk to Barack about is how we must do more to try and solve this crisis.”
The news comes as the Syrian National Council's (SNC) general assembly of nearly 420 members met on Wednesday to choose two leadership bodies and a president during a conference in the Qatari capital Doha.
Syria's main opposition bloc has succumbed to intense international pressure from critics and begun electing new leaders to appease critics who say the exile-dominated group does not represent those risking their lives on the frontlines to oust the regime.
The SNC, largely made up of exiles, has been criticised as ineffective and out of touch with those trying to topple Assad.
The US has called for a more unified and representative opposition, suggesting an end to the SNC's leadership.
SNC officials say the internal election may not be enough to deflect such criticism and halt US-backed efforts to set up an alternate leadership group.
Al Jazeera's Omar Al Saleh, reporting from Doha, said: "The new leadership will discuss an initiative given by an opposition member who is also a current of the SNC.
"That initiative is backed by the international community, France, US as well as Qatar, KSA and other countries. According to that initiative, a new council might emerge," he said
"The SNC fears that that council might be a replacement to them and this is for the political wrangling and negotiations will be decisive for the fate of the Syrian revolution" he added.
Wednesday, October 24, 2012
Europe Volunteers Churches to Become Mosques
More than a little troubling, to say the least. What does this mean for the future of Europe? -R.O.
Europe Volunteers Churches to Become Mosques
Wed, October 24, 2012
by: Giulio Meotti
The writer Emile Cioran cast a sad prophecy on Europe: “The French will not wake up until Notre Dame becomes a mosque.”
This is now a reality. But unlike the Middle East, where non-Muslim sites were razed or violently converted to Islam, in Europe this process is voluntary.
The church of Saint-Eloi in the French region of Vierzon will soon become a mosque. The diocese of Bourges has put on sale the church and a Muslim organization, l’Association des Marocains, made the most generous offer to buy the site.
The church of Saint-Eloi is located in an area inhabited by Turks and Moroccans. It’s the “de-Christianization” of Europe, which is naturally followed by its gradual Islamization and increasing anti-Semitism. Of 27.000 inhabitants in the town of Vierzon, only 300 go to church once a week.
In the past decade, French Catholic bishops formally closed more than 60 churches, many of which are destined to become mosques, according to the research conducted by the newspaper La Croix.
According to a recent report of the U.S. Pew Center, Islam is already “the fastest-growing religion in Europe,” where the number of Muslims has tripled over the past 30 years. One-third of all European children will be born to Muslim families by 2025.
Demography is the most important symptom of exhaustion: Without a cradle, you can't sustain a civilization.
To understand this historic process, one has to see the number of churches converted into mosques.
In the Netherlands, more than 250 buildings where Catholics, Lutherans and Calvinists have prayed for centuries, have changed owners. Like the Fatih Camii Mosque in Amsterdam, which once was Saint Ignatius, a Catholic church. Or the church of S. Vincentius, which was put on sale along with the benches, the crucifixes and the chandeliers. Today more than half of the Dutch population is buitenkerkelijk, free from any religious affiliation. Catholics have decreased by 70 percent.
Islam is now considered the “most widely practiced religion” in the Netherlands. The Oude Kerk, the oldest church in Amsterdam, built in 1309, stands solidly in the heart of downtown. Around it is the red-light district with the South American and Eastern European prostitutes knocking on the glass to attract the attention of passersby.
The Neuwe Kerk, the church where the Dutch kings were crowned, is a museum. The only "church" in the city that is crowded is that of Scientology, which offers free stress tests.
4,400 church buildings remain in the Netherlands. Each week, two close their doors forever.
In Duisburg, Germany, the Catholic church closed six churches. In Marxloh, the only church that survives, that of St. Peter and Paul, will close at the end of 2012. In Germany 400 churches have been closed.
The municpality of Antwerp, Belgium proposed to transform the empty churches into mosques. Scandinavia lives the same phenomenon. To cite one case, the Swedish church of St. Olfos is used by the Muslims. The main mosque in Dublin is a former Presbyterian church.
In England, 10,000 churches have been closed since 1960. By 2020, another 4.000 churches will close while another 1,700 new mosques will be built, many of which will arise on sites of former churches.
“God is dead” declared Friedrich Nietzsche and Europe obliged. Now, Europe is poised to adopt the Koranic, “There is no God but Allah.” And the old Gregorian chants will be substituted by the muezzin.
Europe's tragedy is embodied by the sterile blocks of concrete and glass of the European Union in Bruxelles. Symbols of the moral emptiness within. Meanwhile the top seven baby boys’ names in Brussels are Mohammed, Adam, Rayan, Ayoub, Mehdi, Amine and Hamza.
A couple of years ago I visited Rotterdam, the Dutch industrial polmon. Everywhere are casbah-cafes, travel agencies offering flights to Rabat and Casablanca, and posters expressing solidarity with Hamas. Most of the population are immigrants, and the city has the tallest and most imposing mosque in Europe.
When arriving in the city by train, most striking are the mosques framed by the green, luxuriant, wooded, watery countryside. Rotterdam has the tallest minarets in Europe. The city was buzzing when the newspapers published a letter by Bouchra Ismaili, a city councilmanwho declared, "Listen up, crazy freaks, we're here to stay. You're the foreigners here. With Allah on my side, I'm not afraid of anything. Take my advice: Convert to Islam, and you will find peace."
A French friend showed me one of Rotterdam's main squares, where there is a mosque with Arabic writing outside proclaiming, "This used to be a church.”
Is Islam the destiny for the world's most affluent, relaxed and pacified societies which opted for self-liquidation?
Giulio Meotti is an Italian journalist with Il Foglio. He is the author of the acclaimed book, A New Shoah, that researched the personal stories of Israel's terror victims (published by Encounter). His writing has appeared in publications such as the Wall Street Journal, Frontpage, Makor Rishon and Jerusalem Post. He is working on a book about the Vatican and Israel.
Sunday, October 14, 2012
Muslim Brotherhood Chief Calls for "Holy Jihad" Against Israel
Phewf! For a second there I thought the Muslim Brotherhood had the world fooled into believing they might actually be moderate. What a farce. Note the Brotherhood Chief's use of the terms "purify" and "cleanse" in reference to Palestine's liberation. We've heard this language before; things didn't end very well last time. - R.O.
by IPT News
The head of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood called for Muslims to "raise the flag of Jihad in the way of God" to liberate Jerusalem. In a statement issued Thursday in Egypt's Al-Ahram newspaper, Mohammed Badie said negotiations are pointless.
"Let Muslims know and let Believers be certain that the recovery of the holy sites and the safeguarding of goods and blood from the hands of the Jews will not be through the corridors of the United Nations, nor through negotiations," a translation of Badie's statement said. "The Zionists only know the method of force. They will not step back from transgression, unless they are forced to. This will only be by holy Jihad, and enormous sacrifices and all forms of resistance. One day they will be certain that we will choose this Way, and raise the flag of Jihad in the Way of God. We will go forth to the field of Jihad. This will curb their hands and prevent their tyranny."
Egypt's new President Mohamed Morsi, "grew up in the Muslim Brotherhood" and was the group's designated candidate for leadership. He has not disavowed similar threatening statements from Badie, his Brotherhood colleague. In a July sermon, after Morsi's election, Badie said Muslims have a duty "to purify it from the hands of usurpers and cleanse Palestine from the clutches of the Occupation - that is an individual duty on all Muslims. They must wage Jihad with their money and lives and free it, and free its prisoners, male and female … and enable all of the displaced to return to their homeland, their homes, and their possessions."
IPT News
Wednesday, October 10, 2012
The Truth about Militant Islam
This is a must watch video for anyone concerned about the ongoing threat posed by al-Qaeda and militant Islam (skip ahead to about the 8 minute mark below if you want to get to the meat of her arguments).
Lara Logan is the CBS News reporter who was sexually assaulted by an Egyptian mob in Cairo's Tahrir Square a year and a half ago. Last week Logan was the keynote speaker at the annual luncheon of the Chicago Better Government Association last week, and she blasted the Obama administration for lying to the American people about the threat that they face from militant Islam. (Courtesy the Israel Matzav blog.) - R.O.
Eleven years later, “they” still hate us, now more than ever, Logan told the crowd. The Taliban and al-Qaida have not been vanquished, she added. They’re coming back.
“I chose this subject because, one, I can’t stand, that there is a major lie being propagated . . .” Logan declared in her native South African accent.
The lie is that America’s military might has tamed the Taliban.
“There is this narrative coming out of Washington for the last two years,” Logan said. It is driven in part by “Taliban apologists,” who claim “they are just the poor moderate, gentler, kinder Taliban,” she added sarcastically. “It’s such nonsense!”
Logan stepped way out of the “objective,” journalistic role. The audience was riveted as she told of plowing through reams of documents, and interviewing John Allen, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan; Afghan President Hamid Karzai, and a Taliban commander trained by al-Qaida. The Taliban and al-Qaida are teaming up and recruiting new terrorists to do us deadly harm, she reports.
She made a passionate case that our government is downplaying the strength of our enemies in Afghanistan and Pakistan, as a rationale of getting us out of the longest war. We have been lulled into believing that the perils are in the past: “You’re not listening to what the people who are fighting you say about this fight. In your arrogance, you think you write the script.”
Our enemies are writing the story, she suggests, and there’s no happy ending for us.
...Logan even called for retribution for the recent terrorist killings of Christopher Stevens, the U.S. ambassador to Libya, and three other officials. The event is a harbinger of our vulnerability, she said. Logan hopes that America will “exact revenge and let the world know that the United States will not be attacked on its own soil. That its ambassadors will not be murdered, and that the United States will not stand by and do nothing about it.”Unfortunately, I was not able to find video of Logan's talk on line. Two other speeches have been posted, but so far Logan's has not. I guess that President Obama still has friends in Chicago.
http://israelmatzav.blogspot.ca/2012/10/video-cbs-reporter-lara-logan-blasts.html
Tuesday, October 9, 2012
Arab Spring and the Israeli Enemy
The following article was published in Saudi Arabia’s English-language newspaper, the Arab News. The author bravely calls attention to that fact that the bloodshed and suffering of Muslims across the Middle East is occurring at the hands of other Muslims, and not by Israel, and thus questions the anti-Israel narrative venomously espoused across the region. The author notes,
Arab Spring and the Israeli Enemy
By: ABDULATEEF AL-MULHIM
Saturday 6 October 2012
Thirty-nine years ago, on Oct. 6, 1973, the third major war between the Arabs and Israel broke out. The war lasted only 20 days. The two sides were engaged in two other major wars, in 1948 and 1967.
The 1967 War lasted only six days. But, these three wars were not the only Arab-Israel confrontations.
I decided to write this article after I saw photos and reports about a starving child in Yemen, a burned ancient Aleppo souk in Syria, the under developed Sinai in Egypt, car bombs in Iraq and the destroyed buildings in Libya.A highly worthy read, and a rare, critical Arab voice that needs to be heard around the world. Consider sharing this article with someone you know. Link below. - R.O.
Arab Spring and the Israeli Enemy
By: ABDULATEEF AL-MULHIM
Saturday 6 October 2012
Thirty-nine years ago, on Oct. 6, 1973, the third major war between the Arabs and Israel broke out. The war lasted only 20 days. The two sides were engaged in two other major wars, in 1948 and 1967.
The 1967 War lasted only six days. But, these three wars were not the only Arab-Israel confrontations.
From the period of 1948 and to this day many confrontations have taken place. Some of them were small clashes and many of them were full-scale battles, but there were no major wars apart from the ones mentioned above. The Arab-Israeli conflict is the most complicated conflict the world ever experienced. On the anniversary of the 1973 War between the Arab and the Israelis, many people in the Arab world are beginning to ask many questions about the past, present and the future with regard to the Arab-Israeli conflict.
The questions now are: What was the real cost of these wars to the Arab world and its people. And the harder question that no Arab national wants to ask is: What was the real cost for not recognizing Israel in 1948 and why didn’t the Arab states spend their assets on education, health care and the infrastructures instead of wars? But, the hardest question that no Arab national wants to hear is whether Israel is the real enemy of the Arab world and the Arab people.
I decided to write this article after I saw photos and reports about a starving child in Yemen, a burned ancient Aleppo souk in Syria, the under developed Sinai in Egypt, car bombs in Iraq and the destroyed buildings in Libya. The photos and the reports were shown on the Al-Arabiya network, which is the most watched and respected news outlet in the Middle East.
The common thing among all what I saw is that the destruction and the atrocities are not done by an outside enemy. The starvation, the killings and the destruction in these Arab countries are done by the same hands that are supposed to protect and build the unity of these countries and safeguard the people of these countries. So, the question now is that who is the real enemy of the Arab world?
The Arab world wasted hundreds of billions of dollars and lost tens of thousands of innocent lives fighting Israel, which they considered is their sworn enemy, an enemy whose existence they never recognized. The Arab world has many enemies and Israel should have been at the bottom of the list. The real enemies of the Arab world are corruption, lack of good education, lack of good health care, lack of freedom, lack of respect for the human lives and finally, the Arab world had many dictators who used the Arab-Israeli conflict to suppress their own people.
These dictators’ atrocities against their own people are far worse than all the full-scale Arab-Israeli wars.
In the past, we have talked about why some Israeli soldiers attack and mistreat Palestinians. Also, we saw Israeli planes and tanks attack various Arab countries. But, do these attacks match the current atrocities being committed by some Arab states against their own people.
In Syria, the atrocities are beyond anybody’s imaginations? And, isn’t the Iraqis are the ones who are destroying their own country? Wasn’t it Tunisia’s dictator who was able to steal 13 billion dollars from the poor Tunisians? And how can a child starve in Yemen if their land is the most fertile land in the world? Why would Iraqi brains leave Iraq in a country that makes 110 billion dollars from oil export? Why do the Lebanese fail to govern one of the tiniest countries in the world? And what made the Arab states start sinking into chaos?
On May 14, 1948 the state of Israel was declared. And just one day after that, on May 15, 1948 the Arabs declared war on Israel to get back Palestine. The war ended on March 10, 1949. It lasted for nine months, three weeks and two days. The Arabs lost the war and called this war Nakbah (catastrophic war). The Arabs gained nothing and thousands of Palestinians became refugees.
And on 1967, the Arabs led by Egypt under the rule of Gamal Abdul Nasser, went in war with Israel and lost more Palestinian land and made more Palestinian refugees who are now on the mercy of the countries that host them. The Arabs called this war Naksah (upset). The Arabs never admitted defeat in both wars and the Palestinian cause got more complicated. And now, with the never ending Arab Spring, the Arab world has no time for the Palestinians refugees or Palestinian cause, because many Arabs are refugees themselves and under constant attacks from their own forces. Syrians are leaving their own country, not because of the Israeli planes dropping bombs on them. It is the Syrian Air Force which is dropping the bombs. And now, Iraqi Arab Muslims, most intelligent brains, are leaving Iraq for the est. In Yemen, the world’s saddest human tragedy play is being written by the Yemenis. In Egypt, the people in Sinai are forgotten.
Finally, if many of the Arab states are in such disarray, then what happened to the Arabs’ sworn enemy (Israel)? Israel now has the most advanced research facilities, top universities and advanced infrastructure. Many Arabs don’t know that the life expectancy of the Palestinians living in Israel is far longer than many Arab states and they enjoy far better political and social freedom than many of their Arab brothers. Even the Palestinians living under Israeli occupation in the West Bank and Gaza Strip enjoy more political and social rights than some places in the Arab World. Wasn’t one of the judges who sent a former Israeli president to jail is an Israeli-Palestinian?
The Arab Spring showed the world that the Palestinians are happier and in better situation than their Arab brothers who fought to liberate them from the Israelis. Now, it is time to stop the hatred and wars and start to create better living conditions for the future Arab generations.
— This article is exclusive to Arab News.
almulhimnavy@hotmail.com
The questions now are: What was the real cost of these wars to the Arab world and its people. And the harder question that no Arab national wants to ask is: What was the real cost for not recognizing Israel in 1948 and why didn’t the Arab states spend their assets on education, health care and the infrastructures instead of wars? But, the hardest question that no Arab national wants to hear is whether Israel is the real enemy of the Arab world and the Arab people.
I decided to write this article after I saw photos and reports about a starving child in Yemen, a burned ancient Aleppo souk in Syria, the under developed Sinai in Egypt, car bombs in Iraq and the destroyed buildings in Libya. The photos and the reports were shown on the Al-Arabiya network, which is the most watched and respected news outlet in the Middle East.
The common thing among all what I saw is that the destruction and the atrocities are not done by an outside enemy. The starvation, the killings and the destruction in these Arab countries are done by the same hands that are supposed to protect and build the unity of these countries and safeguard the people of these countries. So, the question now is that who is the real enemy of the Arab world?
The Arab world wasted hundreds of billions of dollars and lost tens of thousands of innocent lives fighting Israel, which they considered is their sworn enemy, an enemy whose existence they never recognized. The Arab world has many enemies and Israel should have been at the bottom of the list. The real enemies of the Arab world are corruption, lack of good education, lack of good health care, lack of freedom, lack of respect for the human lives and finally, the Arab world had many dictators who used the Arab-Israeli conflict to suppress their own people.
These dictators’ atrocities against their own people are far worse than all the full-scale Arab-Israeli wars.
In the past, we have talked about why some Israeli soldiers attack and mistreat Palestinians. Also, we saw Israeli planes and tanks attack various Arab countries. But, do these attacks match the current atrocities being committed by some Arab states against their own people.
In Syria, the atrocities are beyond anybody’s imaginations? And, isn’t the Iraqis are the ones who are destroying their own country? Wasn’t it Tunisia’s dictator who was able to steal 13 billion dollars from the poor Tunisians? And how can a child starve in Yemen if their land is the most fertile land in the world? Why would Iraqi brains leave Iraq in a country that makes 110 billion dollars from oil export? Why do the Lebanese fail to govern one of the tiniest countries in the world? And what made the Arab states start sinking into chaos?
On May 14, 1948 the state of Israel was declared. And just one day after that, on May 15, 1948 the Arabs declared war on Israel to get back Palestine. The war ended on March 10, 1949. It lasted for nine months, three weeks and two days. The Arabs lost the war and called this war Nakbah (catastrophic war). The Arabs gained nothing and thousands of Palestinians became refugees.
And on 1967, the Arabs led by Egypt under the rule of Gamal Abdul Nasser, went in war with Israel and lost more Palestinian land and made more Palestinian refugees who are now on the mercy of the countries that host them. The Arabs called this war Naksah (upset). The Arabs never admitted defeat in both wars and the Palestinian cause got more complicated. And now, with the never ending Arab Spring, the Arab world has no time for the Palestinians refugees or Palestinian cause, because many Arabs are refugees themselves and under constant attacks from their own forces. Syrians are leaving their own country, not because of the Israeli planes dropping bombs on them. It is the Syrian Air Force which is dropping the bombs. And now, Iraqi Arab Muslims, most intelligent brains, are leaving Iraq for the est. In Yemen, the world’s saddest human tragedy play is being written by the Yemenis. In Egypt, the people in Sinai are forgotten.
Finally, if many of the Arab states are in such disarray, then what happened to the Arabs’ sworn enemy (Israel)? Israel now has the most advanced research facilities, top universities and advanced infrastructure. Many Arabs don’t know that the life expectancy of the Palestinians living in Israel is far longer than many Arab states and they enjoy far better political and social freedom than many of their Arab brothers. Even the Palestinians living under Israeli occupation in the West Bank and Gaza Strip enjoy more political and social rights than some places in the Arab World. Wasn’t one of the judges who sent a former Israeli president to jail is an Israeli-Palestinian?
The Arab Spring showed the world that the Palestinians are happier and in better situation than their Arab brothers who fought to liberate them from the Israelis. Now, it is time to stop the hatred and wars and start to create better living conditions for the future Arab generations.
— This article is exclusive to Arab News.
almulhimnavy@hotmail.com
Saturday, October 6, 2012
Turkey 'fires over Syrian border' - BBC News
Is this a prelude to war? Will NATO defend Turkey if there's an outbreak of hostilities? Serious questions need to be asked. -R.O.
Turkey 'fires over Syrian border'
6 October, 2012 1:51 AM
Turkey has fired into Syria for a fourth day after a Syrian mortar landed near a Turkish village, reports say.
Turkish troops responded immediately after the mortar landed near the village of Guvecci in Hatay province, according to Turkey's Anadolu Agency.
Turkey has been firing into Syria since Syrian mortar fire killed five Turkish civilians on Wednesday.
It was the first time Turkey has taken military action across the border since the Syrian uprising began.
Early on Saturday, the Anadolu Agency said the Syrian mortar had landed over the border during intense fighting between government troops and rebels in Syria's Idlib province.
The rebels are fighting to topple Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's government in an uprising that began in March last year.
There were no immediate reports of casualties on the Turkish side.
Following the killing of two women and three children in the Turkish border town of Akcakale this week, Turkey's parliament authorised troops to launch cross-border operations against Syria and strike at Syrian targets for a period of one year.
The UN Security Council said the incident showed the "grave impact" of the Syrian crisis on "regional peace and stability".
On Friday, Turkey moved tanks and anti-aircraft missiles into Akcakale, though Turkey's Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said his country did not want war.
BBC © 2012
Tuesday, October 2, 2012
Russia warns NATO to stay away from Syria
Today Russia's Deputy Foreign Minister Gennady Gatilov stated, "In our contacts with partners in NATO and in the region, we are calling on them not to seek pretexts for carrying out a military scenario or to introduce initiatives such as humanitarian corridors or buffer zones," Gatilov said, according to the Interfax news agency.
I'm not advocating for NATO intervention, but with the body count in Syria at 30,000 and rising - while the world community watches and does nothing - it is worthy to note that the Russians are even opposed to the idea of a humanitarian corridor to provide some relief to the millions of suffering Syrians.
Every now and then the Russians remind the world that they are just as cold-hearted and ruthless as they were during the Cold War. No wonder the United Nations is as useless as it ever was. Naked self-interest still rules the day. - R.O.
REUTERS 10/02/2012
The statements from Deputy Foreign Minister Gennady Gatilov was one of Moscow's most specific warnings yet to the West and Gulf Arab leaders to keep out of the 18-month-old conflict.
"In our contacts with partners in NATO and in the region, we are calling on them not to seek pretexts for carrying out a military scenario or to introduce initiatives such as humanitarian corridors or buffer zones," Gatilov said, according to the Interfax news agency.
Russia and China have vetoed three UN Security Council resolutions condemning Syrian President Bashar Assad and blocked attempts to impose sanctions on the country or intervene more directly in its conflict.
Syria's neighbor Turkey has floated the idea of setting up "safe zones" inside Syria to protect civilians but that would also have to be approved by the Security Council.
Gatilov urged restraint between Syria and NATO-member Turkey, one of Assad's harshest critics. Ankara has repeatedly complained of artillery and gunfire spilling over its border and last week it signaled it would take action if there was a repeat of a mortar strike on its territory from inside Syria.
"We believe both Syrian and Turkish authorities should exercise maximum restraint in this situation, taking into account the risings number of radicals among the Syrian opposition who can intentionally provoke conflicts on the border," Gatilov was quoted as saying.
Assad gives orders to 'cleanse' Aleppo
Meanwhile, Syrian President Bashar Assad visited the city of Aleppo to take a first-hand look at the fighting between government forces and rebels, a Lebanese paper said on Tuesday. The report also claimed that Assad has ordered 30,000 more troops into the battle.
Al-Diyar newspaper, which is known for its pro-Assad stance, said the president had flown by helicopter at dawn from the presidential palace in Damascus to Aleppo. It did not specify what day the trip started but said that Assad was still in Aleppo. The visit was decided on after reports that the situation in the city, Syria's largest and its commercial center, had become very serious.
"President Assad ordered units 5 and 6, estimated to be 30,000 soldiers and 2,000 personnel carriers, to move from Hama to Aleppo and to attack any occupied areas of Aleppo province from the Turkish border," it said. The paper said that Assad gave orders that Aleppo must be "cleansed" during the visit.
Reuters was unable to independently verify the report.
Rebels mounted a new offensive last week to seize the city, which was until July firmly under Assad's control. They claim to hold most of the Old City but are struggling to hang on to their positions in the face of heavy artillery fire.
The rebel forces are in the east and Assad's forces in the west of Aleppo. Fires started by the combat have gutted the historic market in the Old City, a world heritage site.
Opposition activists say 30,000 people have been killed in the 18-month-old anti-Assad uprising, which has grown into a full-scale civil war.
Friday, September 28, 2012
Syria's slaughter is the real insult to Islam
A worthy read. McParland states that since it is Muslims killing Muslims in Syria, while the Arab world sits back and does nothing, this is the real insult to Islam - not some obscure video produced in the United States. - R.O.
Kelly McParland: Syria’s slaughter is the real insult to Islam
Kelly McParland, National Post
Friday, Sept. 28, 2012
The UN General Assembly is a talking shop, where calling for action takes the place of actual action, but sometimes the talk becomes so opaque that even sorting out what the words mean becomes a challenge.
Such is the case this week in New York, where the world’s leaders met for their annual opportunity to lecture one another. Syria’s president Bashar al-Assad wasn’t there, because he’s still at home directing the slaughter of his countrymen. But his spirit was on hand, as a British organization announced that 305 people has been killed in a single day if fighting, the bloodiest day so far, and the UN’s own High Commissioner for Refugees warned that 700,000 refugees may have fled the country by year-end.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the daily death count included only victims whose names had been documented. “If we count the unidentified bodies, the figure will be much higher,” said Rami Abdel Rahman, according to Reuters. The group said 199 of the dead were civilians.
By some counts, the monthly carnage in Syria has now surpassed the highest levels reached during the Iraq war. There is no similar international effort in the works to oust Assad, probably because the U.S. organized the last one, and isn’t about to blunder into that hornets nest again. President Barack Obama ran on the promise he’d get U.S. troops out of Iraq and Afghanistan, not into new foreign adventures. And the U.S., for all the talk of its global influence having diminished, is still the only power that organizes these things.
That leaves the diplomats to demand action, without explaining what that might mean. Ban Ki-moon, the UN secretary-general, told the assembled worthies the Syrian revolt is “a regional calamity with global ramifications”.
“This is a serious and growing threat to international peace and security which requires security council action,” Ban said. “The international community should not look the other way as violence spirals out of control.”
He also called for those responsibility for atrocities in Syria to be held accountable, noting “there is no statute of limitations for such extreme violence”, and placing most of the blame on the Assad regime.
“Brutal human rights abuses continue to be committed, mainly by the government, but also by opposition groups. Such crimes must not go unpunished,” he said. “It is the duty of our generation to put an end to impunity for international crimes, in Syria and elsewhere. It is our duty to give tangible meaning to the responsibility to protect.”
In the world of diplomacy, these are unusually blunt words. But what exactly does Ban want? He didn’t say, exactly. He urged “the international community – especially the members of the Security Council and countries in the region – to solidly and concretely support the efforts” of a UN special envoy seeking to end the violence. “We must stop the violence and flow of arms to both sides and set in motion a Syrian-led transition as soon as possible.”
Well and good, but those efforts are going nowhere. Mr Ban’s predecessor, Kofi Annan, walked away from the job of special envoy, declaring it a hopeless task. His successor, Lakhdar Brahimi, lacks his stature and hasn’t made any headway. He says he’s working on a new plan, but won’t say when it might be ready.
Egypt’s new president, Mohamed Morsi, said the conflict is “the tragedy of the age,” and must be brought to an end. How? Again, he didn’t say, except that the West should keep its nose out of things and leave it to regional powers like Egypt, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Turkey.
“I am against foreign intervention by force in what happens in Syria,” Morsi said. “I do not condone this and I think that it is a big mistake if it happens,” he added through an interpreter. “Egypt does not agree to this.”
Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, has blocked earlier UN peace efforts and also thinks the West should [external] mind its own business.
“We are not imposing – especially by force -what we believe in, but we want to stimulate the internal development,” said Putin. “We have warned that we must act with caution, without imposing by force in order not to cause chaos. And what do we see today? We see a chaotic condition.”
So, everyone wants action, but not by Western powers that have the military muscle to force a climax. The regional powers that demand jurisdiction have done nothing to stem the spiraling body count. They want it ended, but are either incapable or unwilling to end it themselves and don’t want anyone else stepping in to try. Despite the hollering of domestic critics, the U.S. president seems disinclined to defy them, and has the body of the murdered Ambassador to Libya as a evidence of how good intentions often go off the rails once military action is put into play.
The truth seems to be that, despite what Mr. Ban and Mr. Morsi have to say, intervention in Syria doesn’t suit anyone’s purpose just now. No enough to risk their own skins, or those of their countrymen, anyway. If the Turks and the Egyptians and the Saudis want a solution, no one is going to block them from formulating one. For all the outrage over insults to Islam that have played out over an amateurish film on the Prophet, it’s Muslim corpses that are piling up in Syria, Muslim refugees who are fleeing for the border, and Muslim countries that are standing by. If Mr. Ban is increasingly frustrated about it, let him talk to Mr. Morsi.
National Post
Friday, September 21, 2012
Iranian Official: 'Big War' means Islamic Messiah's arrival
The 'Mahdi' is the prophesied Shi'ite Islamic "Messiah". As the article below explains,
Israel's unilateral military precedents are explicit and numerous: when Israeli leaders declare a threat to be existential, they have acted, every single time. Will the West truly abandon the world's only Jewish State at this perilous time? If they do, and Israel acts against Iran, the riots seen after the release of the anti-Islamic movie will pale in comparison to the vitriol and violence that will be aimed at Israel. The world's military response against Israel may be exponentially worse, mark my words.
We live in disturbing times, and the world is sleepwalking into cataclysmic war. Check out the video at the end of the article for more unnerving proof. - R.O.
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Iran Official: 'Big War' means Mahdi's is coming
By: Reza Khalili
For the first time, Iran’s highest-ranking military official has tied the reappearance of the last Islamic messiah to the regime being prepared to go to a war based on ideology.
“With having the treasure of the Holy Defense, Valayat (Guardianship of the Jurist) and martyrs, we are ready for a big war,” Defense Minister Ahmad Vahidi said, according to Mashregh news, which is run by the Revolutionary Guards.
“Of course this confrontation has always continued; however, since we are in the era of The Coming, this war will be a significant war.”
Shi’ites believe that at the end of time great wars will take place, and Imam Mahdi, the Shi’ites’ 12th imam, will reappear and kill all the infidels, raising the flag of Islam in all corners of the world.
Vahidi became the Revolutionary Guards intelligence officer after the 1979 Islamic revolution and later was promoted to chief commander of the Quds Forces. He is on the Interpol most-wanted list for the Jewish community center bombing in Buenos Aires in 1994 that killed 85 and injured hundreds.
Vahidi also played a major role in the 1996 Khobar Tower bombing in Saudi Arabia that killed 19 U.S. servicemen.
Speaking at a mosque in remembrance of the martyrs who died in service to Iran, Vahidi stated that, “The Islamic republic is going to create a new environment on the world stage, and without a doubt victory awaits those who continue the path of martyrs. … we can defeat the enemy at its home and our nation is ready for jihad. Martyrdom has taught us to avoid wrong paths and return to the right path. Martyrdom is the right path, it’s the path to God.”
Vahidi said Iran’s enemies would have taken action in Syria in the past couple of years if they had the capability. Iran is a much more formidable power than Syria, he said, and concluded that Tehran can easily wipe out the “Zionist regime” of Israel.
Several U.S. officials, including Gen. Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, have called the officials of the Islamic regime “rational actors.”
Meanwhile, a Revolutionary Guards report quoting the head of the Guards’ public relations, Ramezan Sharif, revealed that Iran has military assets in several countries.
The presence of Quds Forces in Syria and Lebanon, Sharif said, is with the goal of supporting the Islamic nations and for the special situations that exist in those countries.
Sharif said Iranian presence is based on international laws and that, “Currently the Revolutionary Guards has presence in 15 countries, among them Syria and Lebanon, while the Iranian military also has presence in some other countries.”
As revealed recently, terrorist assets of the Islamic regime have been put on high alert for attacks on Israeli and U.S. interests. This extends from the Middle East to Africa, Latin America and the United States.
In a report Thursday in the Washington Times, Kevin L. Perkins, deputy director of the FBI, told a hearing of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee that the agency considered Iran’s assets a “serious threat.”
“Quds Forces, Hezbollah and others have shown they both have the capability and the willingness to extend beyond that (Middle East) region of the world and likely here into the homeland itself,” he testified.
Guard commanders have openly stated that they have recruited assets from Latin America and even some from European countries to avoid suspicion by intelligence agencies and will target America should it get involved militarily against Iran.
Reza Kahlili translated this Iranian video about Islamic prophecies of a coming messiah and the destruction of Israel:
Reza Kahlili is a pseudonym for a former CIA operative in Iran’s Revolutionary Guards and author of the award-winning book “A Time to Betray” (Simon & Schuster, 2010). He serves on the Task Force on National and Homeland Security and the advisory board of the Foundation for Democracy in Iran (FDI).
"Shi’ites believe that at the end of time great wars will take place, and Imam Mahdi, the Shi’ites’ 12th imam, will reappear and kill all the infidels, raising the flag of Islam in all corners of the world."If anyone had any doubts as to why the Iranian Regime is seeking nuclear weapons, those doubts should be cast aside after reading this news story. When the highest-ranking Iranian military official ties the probable war with Israel (and the U.S.) to the reappearance of the Islamic Messiah, the world should take notice, and fast. The article quotes Iran's Defense Minister Ahmad Vahidi, who stated,
"Since we are in the era of The Coming, this war will be a significant war.”This kind of dialogue is not part of an action movie, nor a work of fiction, but rather this represents the underlying narrative that is truly driving forward the present day, real life Iran-Israel nuclear crisis. When Israeli leaders (such as Prime Minister Netanyahu) read/hear these stories, how can they not take the Iranians 100% seriously when the Iranians declare that they seek Israel's literal destruction? No other nation on earth, except Israel, faces such a persistent, pernicious threat from an enemy (and enemies) on nearly every border. These are enemies who believe it is their duty to Allah to carry out acts of martyrdom. As Vahidi stated,
“The Islamic republic is going to create a new environment on the world stage, and without a doubt victory awaits those who continue the path of martyrs. … we can defeat the enemy at its home and our nation is ready for jihad. Martyrdom has taught us to avoid wrong paths and return to the right path. Martyrdom is the right path, it’s the path to God.”Israel is already (arguably) the most virulently hated nation on earth. For the President of the United States to then tell Israel not to attack Iran, while simultaneously failing to set any 'red lines' on Iran's nuclear weapons program, represents the height of arrogance and is a dangerous sign of non-commitment.
Israel's unilateral military precedents are explicit and numerous: when Israeli leaders declare a threat to be existential, they have acted, every single time. Will the West truly abandon the world's only Jewish State at this perilous time? If they do, and Israel acts against Iran, the riots seen after the release of the anti-Islamic movie will pale in comparison to the vitriol and violence that will be aimed at Israel. The world's military response against Israel may be exponentially worse, mark my words.
We live in disturbing times, and the world is sleepwalking into cataclysmic war. Check out the video at the end of the article for more unnerving proof. - R.O.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Iran Official: 'Big War' means Mahdi's is coming
By: Reza Khalili
For the first time, Iran’s highest-ranking military official has tied the reappearance of the last Islamic messiah to the regime being prepared to go to a war based on ideology.
“With having the treasure of the Holy Defense, Valayat (Guardianship of the Jurist) and martyrs, we are ready for a big war,” Defense Minister Ahmad Vahidi said, according to Mashregh news, which is run by the Revolutionary Guards.
“Of course this confrontation has always continued; however, since we are in the era of The Coming, this war will be a significant war.”
Shi’ites believe that at the end of time great wars will take place, and Imam Mahdi, the Shi’ites’ 12th imam, will reappear and kill all the infidels, raising the flag of Islam in all corners of the world.
Vahidi became the Revolutionary Guards intelligence officer after the 1979 Islamic revolution and later was promoted to chief commander of the Quds Forces. He is on the Interpol most-wanted list for the Jewish community center bombing in Buenos Aires in 1994 that killed 85 and injured hundreds.
Vahidi also played a major role in the 1996 Khobar Tower bombing in Saudi Arabia that killed 19 U.S. servicemen.
Speaking at a mosque in remembrance of the martyrs who died in service to Iran, Vahidi stated that, “The Islamic republic is going to create a new environment on the world stage, and without a doubt victory awaits those who continue the path of martyrs. … we can defeat the enemy at its home and our nation is ready for jihad. Martyrdom has taught us to avoid wrong paths and return to the right path. Martyrdom is the right path, it’s the path to God.”
Vahidi said Iran’s enemies would have taken action in Syria in the past couple of years if they had the capability. Iran is a much more formidable power than Syria, he said, and concluded that Tehran can easily wipe out the “Zionist regime” of Israel.
Several U.S. officials, including Gen. Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, have called the officials of the Islamic regime “rational actors.”
Meanwhile, a Revolutionary Guards report quoting the head of the Guards’ public relations, Ramezan Sharif, revealed that Iran has military assets in several countries.
The presence of Quds Forces in Syria and Lebanon, Sharif said, is with the goal of supporting the Islamic nations and for the special situations that exist in those countries.
Sharif said Iranian presence is based on international laws and that, “Currently the Revolutionary Guards has presence in 15 countries, among them Syria and Lebanon, while the Iranian military also has presence in some other countries.”
As revealed recently, terrorist assets of the Islamic regime have been put on high alert for attacks on Israeli and U.S. interests. This extends from the Middle East to Africa, Latin America and the United States.
In a report Thursday in the Washington Times, Kevin L. Perkins, deputy director of the FBI, told a hearing of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee that the agency considered Iran’s assets a “serious threat.”
“Quds Forces, Hezbollah and others have shown they both have the capability and the willingness to extend beyond that (Middle East) region of the world and likely here into the homeland itself,” he testified.
Guard commanders have openly stated that they have recruited assets from Latin America and even some from European countries to avoid suspicion by intelligence agencies and will target America should it get involved militarily against Iran.
Reza Kahlili translated this Iranian video about Islamic prophecies of a coming messiah and the destruction of Israel:
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