Category Archives: Iran

Arab Counterrevoltion, Arab Revolutions, Arabian Peninsula, GCC, Iran, Religion, Saudi Arabia

Arab Counterrevolution: Stoking Royal Salafi Fires on the Gulf…………..

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      BFF

“The external opposition continues to fudge its stance on external intervention, and with good reason: the internal opposition rejects it. This is the flaw to the model – for the majority in Syria deeply oppose external intervention, fearing civil conflict. Hence Syrians face a long period of externally mounted insurgency, siege and international attrition. Both sides will pay in blood. But the real danger, as Hannah himself noted, is that the Saudis might “once again fire up the old Sunni jihadist network and point it in the general direction of Shiite Iran”, which puts Syria first in line. In fact, that is exactly what is happening, but the west, as before in Afghanistan, prefers not to notice – so long as the drama plays well to western audiences. As Foreign Affairs reported last month, Saudi and its Gulf allies are firing up the radical Salafists (fundamentalist Sunnis), not only to weaken Iran, but to do what they see is necessary to survive – to disrupt and emasculate the awakenings that threaten absolute monarchism. This is happening in Syria, Libya, Egypt…………..”

It is all part of the Saudi-led GCC-funded Arab Counterrevolution. Its only goal is to maintain the status quo on the Gulf , at any price. Status quo means only one thing: keeping the al-Saud dynasty in power, with absolute unquestionable authority. Before the Arab “Spring”, it was aimed at any change in the broader Arab status quo. At the time they used developments in Iraq, post the invasion they had supported and participated in, to stoke sectarian fires. Even old Hosni Mubarak managed, with Saudi help, to ‘discover’ plots by Shi’as to convert his people and take over Egypt. They exaggerated fears of an Iranian threat with the goal of dividing the somnolent and often tame peoples of the GCC states into Sunni and Shi’a factions. It always works on the Gulf: fearful Sunnis seek the protection of the corrupt ruling dynasties, angry Shi’as become more vocal in their demands, which in turn is used by the palace Salafis to further stoke the fires of division.
Amazing how one ancient doubtful Hadith about absolute loyalty to the (Muslim) ruler is being used by Salafi clerics to counter the Arab revolutions, but only in selective countries.
Cheers
mhg


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Iran, Israel, Middle East Nuclear, nuclear Iran, Pakistan, United Nations International Organizations, US Foreign Policy

An Iranian Mystery, a Western Dilemma…….

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“And we keep forgetting the inconvenient fact that, even if the regime changed, the nuclear program — which is popular as an expression of Iranian nationalism and power — will continue. The leaders of the Green movement strongly support that program and have repeatedly criticized President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for making too-generous offers to the West. (All Iranian officials repeat constantly that they would never develop nuclear weapons. And in a recent interview with Seymour Hersh in the New Yorker, Mohamed ElBaradei, the former head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said he had never “seen a shred of evidence that Iran has been weaponizing, in terms of building nuclear-weapons facilities and using enriched materials.”…………“

This is another dilemma that the West will continue to face from Iran, something I and a few others have written about. What they don’t seem to understand is that no matter who is in power in Tehran, be it the mullahs, the Mujahideen Khalq, the Greens, the Communists, or the American Tea Party, they all want to keep the nuclear program going. They all claim they have no intention of developing nuclear weapons, but they know that an independent nuclear program, of the sort the Israelis and the Pakistanis have, is a matter of national pride. Regime change in Iran is desirable by the West and very likely by many Iranians, but that does not mean an acceptance of the loss of independent decision-making.
Cheers
mhg


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Iran, Iraq, Middle East, Middle East Nuclear, U.S. Politics, US Foreign Policy

Is Condi Rice as Smart as Henry Kissinger? Iraq, Iran, and Indochina……………

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“Former US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said on Monday that it’s time for the United States to confront Iran, and that it should never take the military option off the table, in an ABC interview with Christiane Amanpour. “I think it’s time to confront the Iranian regime because It’s the poster child for state sponsorship of terrorism, it’s trying to get a nuclear weapon, it’s repressed its own people. The regime has absolutely no legitimacy left. We should be doing everything we can to bring it down and never take military force off the table,” she said.
In addition to keeping the military option open, Rice pointed to “even tougher sanctions” as a means of confronting the Islamic Republic…………Rice also commented on plans for the United States to withdraw its troops from Iraq this year, noting that, “This is one of the downsides of having our forces out of Iraq, because we can confront the Iranians in Iraq.” ………….”

I am beginning to think that Condi Rice is almost as smart as Henry Kissinger, almost. Kissinger had a brilliant solution for the United States to stop losing the Vietnam War: escalate into Cambodia and Laos. Brilliant move: within four years the Communists were in power in South Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos.
So Rice wanted the Obama administration to keep forces in Iraq to “confront Iran”. I assume she doesn’t mean having a few thousand American boys and girls sitting targets in a hostile environment. Maybe she would also agree to leave Palo Alto and go to Iraq to advice the troops she wants to remain in harm’s way. maybe Messrs Romney and Gingrich and Perry and some of the airwaves gasbag warriors will volunteer go go with her.
Cheers
mhg


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Iran, Iraq, Middle East Nuclear, nuclear Iran, US Foreign Policy

New IAEA Iran Nuclear Report and another “Slam Dunk”………

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“This week, the International Atomic Energy Agency is expected to release its latest report on Iran’s nuclear weapons ambitions. If the leaks are to be believed, that report will accuse Iran of constructing a steel tank at the Parchin military complex for testing explosives associated with atomic weapons design. The allegation is hardly new. Since 2004, there have been suspicions of work at Parchin related to weapons design and in May this year the agency listed a series of research projects it suggested could not make sense unless related to weapons research. If the report is significant, it is because with each new IAEA report on Iran comes a familiar diplomatic ritual of threatened new sanctions from the US and its allies and reports of threatened military strikes from Israel. If there is a difference this time, it is in the strong impression, after years of veiled threats from Israel, that it will act alone if necessary to stop Iran acquiring a nuclear weapon, that the country’s prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, and his closest allies in a cabinet split on the issue would like to launch a pre-emptive military strike, a view opposed by other senior figures in Israel’s security establishment…………..”

So the IAEA chief flies to Washington, media report, but not to Tehran, and soon after leaks start springing about Iran moving closer to a nuclear weapon, or is it just a nuclear capability. Maybe it is so, but it is so reminiscent of the preparations for the 2003 Iraq war and all the talk and leaks and “intelligence” about WMD, isn’t it? That one even tricked me, not that I needed much convincing of the need to get rid of Saddam Hussein and his vile Ba’ath Party rule.
So the Iranians, it is now leaked, may have constructed a steel tank at the Parchin military complex for testing explosives “associated” with atomic weapons design. And what are the sources of all this? Reports say the sources are “Western” intelligence. So some Western intelligence services supply the IAEA with new “intelligence” about Iran’s nuclear intentions, the IAEA dutifully includes it in its report, then the same Western governments scream that the IAEA has provided proof.
It is possible that the unnamed “Western” intelligence, be it the CIA, Mossad, or the Germans are correct this time. It is also possible that they are not. Remember: according to “Western” intelligence, the Iranians were supposed to have developed a nuclear bomb some six or seven years ago. The same folks who brought us “slam dunk” (no not the late Chick Hearn of the L.A. Lakers) and the Iraq invasion in 2003. These guys would never win an NBA title with the kind of “slam dunking” they are capable of.

Cheers
mhg


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Arab Counterrevoltion, Iran, Israel, US Foreign Policy, War on Iran

Obama Administration and Israel Playing “Good Cop, Bad Cop”? The Wahhabi Route to Iran…………..

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“U.S. officials are concerned that Israel will not warn them before taking military action against Iran’s nuclear facilities, a senior U.S. military official said Friday. The official, who asked to remain anonymous, told the CNN network that although in the past, U.S. officials thought they would receive warning from Israel if it did take military action against Iran, “now that doesn’t seem so ironclad.” The U.S. is “absolutely” concerned that Israel is preparing an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities, and this concern is increasing, CNN reported the official as saying. The U.S. has increased its “watchfulness” of Iran and Israel…….…..”

If anybody truly believes that the US administration worries about Israel “attacking” Iran without them knowing, then I still have that perfect three legged and half-blind camel for sale. Clearly the Obama-Clinton administration and the Likud coalition are playing a game of good cop and bad cop, in the style of the Keystone cops.
Israel has no way of getting into Iranian airspace without American knowledge. The United States owns the airspace over the entire Middle East, with the possible exception of Iran and Syria. Israel also has no way of getting into Iranian airspace without the cooperation of some other Middle East regimes. Iraq and Turkey and Syria will not allow attacking jets to cross their territory. That leaves only the potentates on my Gulf (and Jordan). The controlled Saudi media have been softening their people, and in some other Persian-American Gulf GCC states, by beating the sectarian drum. It is possible now, after this long and fierce media campaign by the al-Saud that a “not insubstantial” segment of Saudi society will not object to cooperation with the Israelis in an attack across the Persian-American Gulf. That segment includes the crucial Wahhabi palace ulema, the tamed Salafi royal clerics like Shaikh Al Al Shaikh, who will no doubt issue the appropriate fatwa.
Then again, all this can be just part of psychological war against the mullahs. It might just stay that way, hopefully.
Cheers
mhg


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Arab Counterrevoltion, Arab Politics, Arab Revolutions, GCC, Human Right, Iran, Lebanon, NATO, Salafi, Saudi Arabia, US Foreign Policy

The West and the Syrian Taliban: Advise from a Saudi Prince of Thieves?…………

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“This summer a senior Saudi official told John Hannah, Dick Cheney’s former chief of staff, that from the outset of the upheaval in Syria, the king has believed that regime change would be highly beneficial to Saudi interests: “The king knows that other than the collapse of the Islamic Republic itself, nothing would weaken Iran more than losing Syria.” This is today’s “great game” – losing Syria. And this is how it is played: set up a hurried transitional council as sole representative of the Syrian people, irrespective of whether it has any real legs inside Syria; feed in armed insurgents from neighbouring states; impose sanctions that will hurt the middle classes; mount a media campaign to denigrate any Syrian efforts at reform; try to instigate divisions within the army and the elite; and ultimately President Assad will fall – so its initiators insist……….. The radical armed elements being used in Syria as auxiliaries to depose Assad run counter to the prospect of any outcome emerging within the western paradigm. These groups may well have a bloody and very undemocratic agenda of their own………The origins of the “lose Assad” operation preceded the Arab awakening: they reach back to Israel’s failure in its 2006 war to seriously damage Hezbollah, and the post-conflict US assessment that it was Syria that represented Hezbollah’s achilles heel – as the vulnerable conduit linking Hezbollah to Iran. US officials speculated as to what might be done to block this vital corridor, but it was Prince Bandar of Saudi Arabia………….”

Bandar Bin Sultan, Saudi Prince of thieves, is advising the West on how to topple the Ba’athist dictatorship in Damascus and almost certainly install a worse regime of Salafis and other fundamentalists. That may be fine with the al-Saud rulers in Riyadh: the Salafis are their fifth columnists, bought and paid for, from the Persian-American Gulf states to Egypt and North Africa. The West will almost certainly miss the Assad dictatorship, once the Islamists rule in Damascus. Imagine the Taliban wedged between Turkey, Iraq, Lebanon, and Israel. It is especially the latter border that should give the West second thoughts.
(I trust there is no need for my regular readers to have me repeat the well-known story that BAE Systems had given bribes commissions of about GBP1 billion (US$ 2 billion) to Saudi Prince Bandar Bin Sultan for his role in a huge British-Saudi arms deal. Tony (Yo) Blair killed the British Serious Frauds Office (SFO) investigation of it because it threatened a new British deal to sell weapons systems and pay the princes yet more bribes commissions. That came to be known as the al-Yamama scandal, and it set Tony Blair on his path to multimillion contracts with Arab and other oil potentates after he left office).

Cheers
mhg


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Iran, Iraq, U.S. Politics, US Foreign Policy

Iraq after SOFA: Next Year in Baghdad? Camp Romney, Camp Gingrich, about that Border Hike……..

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“But for both sides the politics proved too tricky. Iraq’s prime minister, Nuri al-Maliki, has managed to cling onto his post but heads a parliament so angrily divided that it rarely makes a decision—and his mandate is by no means strong enough to force one through on his own. The movement led by Muqtada al-Sadr, a populist Shia cleric, which is powerful both in government and on the street, remained vehemently opposed to letting any American troops stay. When it became clear that Iraqi politicians, mindful of the residual Iraqi anger over American abuses at Abu Ghraib prison and elsewhere, could not publicly approve of letting American soldiers have immunity from arrest, as any American administration must insist, the talks broke down and plans for a rapid and complete withdrawal began in earnest. In the United States, where Iraq has long been absent from the front page of newspapers, there were a few howls of protest at the news of the withdrawal………..”

Republicans are mostly pissed about the end of SOFA and withdrawal from Iraq. Candidates who never fired a shot in anger on a battle field are screaming against the “loss” of Eyeraq. You’d think Mesopotamia as there Jerusalem. Maybe the Republican National Convention next year the battle cry of this GOP diaspora will be “Next Year in Baghdad”, or is it Fallujah or Basrah or Abu Ghreib.
Now I shall have to insist on all Republican Tea Party candidates going to Iraq. Not just the “viable” candidates like, well, I have to think more deeply on this “viability” thing. The American people are fickle and are prone to  the “next morning: what the hell did I vote for” syndrome.
By all means go to Iraq, talk to al-Maliki, talk to al-Sadr, text al-Sistani about staying. Then go for a group hike all he way to he Iranian border. And should you stray a bit and inadvertently cross over into the domain of the mullahs, the American people will understand. There is always 2016 or 2020…………

Cheers
mhg


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Al-Qaeda, Arab Counterrevoltion, Egypt, Iran, Israel

Iran, al-Qaeda, and Israel to Invade Egypt! Asharq Alawsat and Ignatius……….

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You won’t see an English translation of this junk analysis piece from the Saudi semi-official daily Asharq Alawsat. There are many pieces like this one in the same paper and they are never shown on the English website, only in the Arabic version in order to keep the faithful, faithful. The stupidity of the story is just too breathtaking (or rather the implied and assumed stupidity of the Arab reader is breathtaking). It is a wild story written by a Lebanese chick named Huda al-Husseini who is a regular on the daily and its sister Alarabiya website. She specializes in outlandish stories. It tells of how the Iranian mullahs have made a deal with al-Qaeda to take over Egypt! Yes, Wahhabi Saudi al-Qaeda, that same al-Qaeda.
 
But wait, there is more: according to  the story either Israel or Iran will sooner or later attack the “Arab world”, wtf that be (Saudi? Egypt? Syria? Algeria? Somalia? All of the above?). Unfortunately you need to read it in Arabic and it is too long for me to bother translating now: maybe the weekend during the Cowboys-Seahawks game. If you thought the Saudi embassy plot was ‘fanciful’, this one will knock your socks off, provided you wear socks.
“Al-Qaeda returns to Egypt under an Iranian cover…”
Now all we need to confirm this story and make it legitimate and credible is a corroborating column by David Ignatius quoting the usual “high Saudi official” that all this is true. We know these people never lie, not when they are overseeing the holy places.
Cheers
mhg


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Arab Revolutions, Iran, Israel, US Foreign Policy, War on Iran

A Strange Iranian General to Match any Likudnik………….

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“Chairman of Iran’s Joint Chiefs of Staff Hassan Firouzabadi warned on Wednesday that any possible attack on Syria will put an end to the existence of the United States and the Zionist regime.
“If the Westerners break up the resistance front against the occupying Zionist regime, all Muslims will rise up, and in that case there will remain no U.S. and no Zionist regime,” he said.
They are talking about the use of Libya’s model for Syria to frighten and weaken the position of the Syrian government, but in fact they are not capable of implementing such a plan for Syria, he said.
On the developments in the Middle East and North Africa, he said that the Zionist regime is the real loser of the Islamic awaking in the region.…..”

About his threat of “no USA and no Zionist regime“: somehow I don’t buy it. Besides, it is very un-General-like and rude. Even Patton would not use such terms. Patton used worse, but not in public, and he was a realist, not a panderer.
I got news for this strange Iranian general. This Arab ‘awakening’ did not start as an Islamic awakening. Many Islamists went AWOL, stayed home, or sided with the regimes initially. They joined toward the end, and I suspect some of them, nay many of them, especially the Salafis, are on the side of the Arab Counterrevolution led by Saudi Arabia and others. Yet he is right in the sense that Islamists will gain much, perhaps more than the secular young people who started the uprisings. Unfortunately.
Cheers
mhg


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GCC, Iran, Israel, Persian-American Gulf, Saudi Arabia, US Foreign Policy, War on Iran

A Poodle that Roars: British Readying for New Gulf War? GCC Dilemma……………..

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“Britain’s armed forces are stepping up their contingency planning for potential military action against Iran amid mounting concern about Tehran’s nuclear enrichment programme, the Guardian has learned. The Ministry of Defence believes the US may decide to fast-forward plans for targeted missile strikes at some key Iranian facilities. British officials say that if Washington presses ahead it will seek, and receive, UK military help for any mission, despite some deep reservations within the coalition government. In anticipation of a potential attack, British military planners are examining where best to deploy Royal Navy ships…………”

Having liked Iraq (2003 and WMD and W and all that) the (new) British regime is doing it again. They are now being more ‘royal’ than the American king. Maybe there have been promises by the petroleum potentates of my Gulf, promises to pay the costs of war, promises to buy more useless weapons. Most oligarchies of the Persian-American Gulf would like nothing better than for the West and Israel to attack the mullahs in Iran. They would like a Saddam II (or is it III), except this will not be a retake of previous wars. There will be no UN resolution authorizing aggression against a member state that has not attacked anyone. The geriatric polygamous al-Saud absolute tribal monarchy would likes nothing better than for the West to destroy Iran (the head of the snake), making them by default the new Western “viceroy” in charge of the region.

Yet a war against Iran will have ominous consequences for some Gulf states. The danger will not be from the Iranians, it will come from the Saudis who have always been expansionist at the expense of the smaller GCC states. They have taken territory from almost all the Gulf states and Yemen. After all, the Iranians are safely on the other side, they must cross the Persian-American Gulf and plow through all the Western navies to reach the Arab side, the GCC states. As the invasion of Bahrain proved, all the Saudis need do is drive their tanks across the border. Only Bahrain can feel safe from Saudi tanks: the tanks are already in Manama.
Cheers
mhg


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