Iran's Evil Plan

[Semsem]

http://www.maarivenglish.com/index.c...rticleID=10957

Arafat in danger of being hoisted by Iranian petard

The sudden united western front against Syria, with France joining the US in tabling a UN resolution demanding Syria withdraw from Lebanon was prompted by new evidence of Iranian-Syrian collusion to transform Lebanon into a safe haven for al Qaeda.
Jonathan Ariel


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Syria has, after a short break, returned into Uncle Sam’s crosshairs. The immediate consequences were Israel’s warning to Syria after the Beer Sheba terror attack, and a US diplomatic offensive aimed at forcing Syria to get out of Lebanon.

The criticism leveled against IDF CoS Moshe (Bugi) Ye’elon for his remarks regarding Syria were unjustified. He did not make them out of a sense of frustration and incompetence, as the critics implied. Quite the contrary, the remarks were made in full coordination with the US.

The attack in Beer Sheba got the limelight, but the really important events this week in the Middle East occurred in Lebanon and Gaza.

On the 29th of August a firefight broke out in the Palestinian refugee camp Ein Hilweh, near the port of Sidon, in which two Palestinians were killed, supposedly by operatives of Sabaath al-Nasr, a small radical Islamic Palestinian terrorist organization. It seemed like just another small incident of random violence endemic to this part of the world, and was treated accordingly, relegated to the international media’s peanut gallery.

However much more was at stake. The firefight was the end result of a botched assassination campaign hatched by Iran, intended to allow its proxies to replace Arafat’s Fatah movement as the most important armed Palestinian force in Lebanon.

According to western intelligence sources, the attackers were not al Nasr operatives, but Pasderan (Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guards, an independent elite military force answerable only to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, similar to the SS in the Third Reich) officers.

The prime target of the offensive were not the two relatively junior Fatah officers killed, but Col Abdul Jaafar, one of the most senior Fatah officers in the camp, in charge of internal security.

Ein Hilweh is Arafat’s most important base in Lebanon. Home to some 60,000 Palestinians, it is controlled by a well-armed militia of 5,000 men, with another 5,000 reserves. It is the last Palestinian autonomous stronghold in Lebanon, and as far as the Lebanese government and military is concerned, a foreign country.

Between 2-3 weeks Col. Sultan Abu Einan, the Fatah commander in the camp sent Arafat an urgent communication, warning him that his erstwhile Hezbullah and Iranian allies were planning to take over the camp. According to intelligence sources, Hezbullah and the Pasderan were recruiting Fatah troops, offering them $500 a month for their allegiance. He warned Arafat that unless something was done, Hezbullah would son be able to replace Fatah as the main military force in the camp.

Arafat was caught in a quandary. He has been closely cooperating with Iran and Hezbullah for about two years. He initiated the alliance with Teheran, hoping that Hezbullah reinforcements to the Palestinians could re-ignite the intifada, and that Hezbullah tactics not on the remote Lebanese border but in the heart of Israel would get it to agree to an unconditional withdrawal from the entire West Bank and Gaza.

Despite this dilemma, he realized that he could not afford to lose Ein Hilweh, and that if he let the Iranians and their Lebanese Shiite proxies take over his stronghold without a fight, he would be inviting a repeat performance in Palestine itself. He, better than anyone, knows the extent of Hezbullah’s cells in the West bank and Gaza, he invited them in and set them up.

In addition Arafat is aware of Iran’s cooperation with al Qaeda. He realized that if Iran succeeded in capturing Ein Hilweh, it would become a military base jointly operated by Iran-Hezbullah and al Qaeda. This was a development he was not willing to tolerate, as it could be the last straw, causing the Americans to give Sharon the green light to take him out.

As a result, he ordered Abu Einan and Jaafar to take whatever steps necessary to throw the Iranians and Hezbullah out of the camp, even at the price of a full-scale battle and a rift with his allies. The Iranians decided to try and preempt him by taking out the Fatah military leadership at one fell swoop. They failed, with Jaafar escaping unharmed and Abu Einan suffering only superficial injuries.

Iran however has not given up on its intentions to create military bases for itself in the eastern Mediterranean. Hezbullah has already succeeded in building a 300-man force in Gaza. The base in Lebanon is needed as a logistic and supply center to maintain and increase this force, running men and supplies from Sidon to northern Sinai, to be smuggled into Gaza.

Hezbullah, with a green light from Iran, has already allowed 10-15 al Qaeda operatives infiltrate Gaza. Israeli intelligence has reportedly been aware of this development, but has kept it under wraps. Given this, and other signs of cooperation between Iran and al Qaeda, it seems not unlikely that Ein Hilweh, if taken over by Hezbullah, would be at the disposal of al Qaeda as well. For the Iranians it would have been a win-win situation, enabling them to cooperate with al Qaeda while making the Palestinians the prime suspects if anything went wrong, as Ein Hilweh was supposed to have been taken over covertly. On the surface it would look to remain under Arafat’s control.

A few days before the aborted take over of Ein Hilweh, unidentified Palestinians attempted to assassinate Brig. Gen. Tarek Abu Rajab, deputy head of PA intelligence. The operation failed, he was moderately wounded, but survived. His boss, PA Intelligence Chief Amin al Hindi contacted Israel to allow Rajab pot be treated in Ashkelon’s Barzilai hospital. The reason was that Al Hindi believes the assassins were Hezbullah agents, and that the attempted assassination was part of the Ein Hilweh plot, designed to compromise Arafat’s intelligence apparatus. Believing that they would try again, and unsure as to whom he can trust in Gaza, he preferred to se his deputy hospitalized in Israel, out of harms way. Arafat agreed to al Hindi’s request to have his deputy hospitalized safely in Israel.

The recent acts of insubordination against Arafat should be seen in this light. Dahlan and his supporters are primarily concerned that Iran and Hezbullah might take over power after Arafat finally leaves the stage. The young Fatah Turks want to inherit Arafat. They, being more modern and sensitive to western expectations and demands will probably provide the Palestinians better government than Arafat has, but their main concern is to prevent Hezbullah being in a position to take over. They have not waited in Arafat’s shadow for over a decade to see someone else inherit the spoils of power.



Iran’s agenda

Hezbullah, it must be remembered is an Iranian proxy, and would not embark on any strategic undertaking without approval from Teheran. The most important question facing western intelligence experts and policy makers is what is Iran’s goal that justifies it risking its alliance with Arafat, not to mention a possible Israeli and western response.

Iran has two major strategic goals. One is to buy time until it becomes a nuclear power, which it believes will buy it the same immunity from US attack that a similar status has brought Pyongyang. The second is to prevent the US from permanently entrenching itself across the Shat el Arab river in Iraq, and seeing Iraq fall into less than friendly hands.

Recently it has seen setbacks on both fronts. Al Sadr’s revolt, which it instigated and supported, has flopped, at least for now. At the same time it has seen Europe unwilling to continue appeasing it over the nuclear issue.

As Maariv wrote in a previous analysis a few weeks ago, the hardline Iranian leadership seemed unwilling to back down, and would continue its confrontational policy, for both strategic and domestic political reasons. There have been reports of new crackdowns by the clergy on immodest dress, which can only fuel dissent by disaffected urban youth chafing under the regime’s harsh decrees.

A base on the Lebanese coast under the protection of Beirut’s Syrian overlords would enable Teheran to project power southwards towards Israel, northwards towards Turkey and westwards towards Europe. Teheran hopes this would significantly increase its standing and prestige in the predominantly Sunni Arab world by succeeding in pressuring Israel into accepting a humiliating and unfavorable settlement, something the Arab world has singularly failed to achieve.

Such a base would also enable Iran to initiate terror attacks against France and other European countries, to intimidate them into not joining the US in targeting Iran’s nuclear facilities, either via sanctions or military action. It could also serve a base to mount attacks on the vital Turkish oil port of Ceyhan, the planned major terminus of future pipelines designed to lessen the West’s dependence on Middle East oil by piping oil from the newly discovered Caspian Sea oilfield.

[Semsem]

With such a strategy in mind, Iran has, according to intelligence sources, increased its cooperation with al Qaeda. As previously mentioned, its Hezbullah proxy has already allowed a small force of al Qaeda operatives to set up base in Gaza, and perhaps in the West bank as well.

It was these developments that have prompted the renewed demands on Syria to withdraw from Lebanon. Once the Syrian military leaves Lebanon, Beirut can begin reasserting its sovereignty, bringing Hezbullah to heel. Without Hezbullah, Iran loses its Lebanese base, hence by challenging Syria the US is issuing a new challenge to Iran, after having called its bluff by going after al Sadr’s ragtag Mehdi army.

Iran realizes it is dangerously close to a showdown, either with Israel or the US, perhaps both. It hopes to deter Israel from attacking either its nuclear or its Syrian ally. As it knows it is no military match for Israel, it hopes to deter Israel by creating a supposed balance of terror, based on the long range (up to 40 kilometers) upgraded Katyusha rockets it has supplied Hezbullah via Syria, stationed in southern Lebanon. These rockets pose a threat to the densely populated Haifa bay area, and this is supposed to deter Israel from taking any major action against Hezbullah or its Iranian and Syrian patrons.

The Israeli media, by not infrequently referring to this “balance of terror”, as if it was a fact, has helped promote the Iranian perception that Israel will do anything to avoid civilian casualties.

There is no balance of terror. Syria and Iran are no military match for Israel. The Iran-Syria-Hezbullah axis can cause anywhere from a few dozen to perhaps 100 Israeli casualties. This is not a pleasing prospect, but hardly merits the term “balance of terror”, considering that Israel can launch and sustain an indefinite air bombardment against Syria, reducing its cities and infrastructure to rubble. Iran would be in no position to help out militarily. Its military is, for the most part, based on state of the art late 80s and early 90s technology. Its air force is totally outclassed by the IAF, and is incapable of defending Iranian cities against an air attack, much less providing any assistance to Syria or Hezbullah in face of any major Israeli attack.

[Hisardut]

can we nuke iran already?

[rhodescholar]

While i advocate an attack against iran yesterday, its not against the cities/iranian general population in any way, shape or form. Many are young and friendly to the west, and i would not want to turn them against the west.

Its the govt that must be surgically removed, and right soon.

[golani]

I agree.It is suprising that US seem unable to eliminate "supreme leader" ali khamenei

[Gabriel]

I agree.It is suprising that US seem unable to eliminate "supreme leader" ali khamenei

It's not so much the US is unable to, in so much it's what is the point? I really don't think this would better our relationship with the ME nor would it help our national or international security.

[Mediocrates]

Hmm that's a toughie. You can't really uninvent something although you can disassemble a country to delay the development of dangerous things. It really speaks to the point though, of the very thing the people who would exterminate all the Jews like to point to. "International Law". If in fact treaties and agreements are fundamentally useless and can be ignored then we can safely ignore them. We enter into things like the CTBT, NPT and other accords because it makes sense to do so - - or it doesn't in which case they're just window dressing for whichever Crazy State wants to ignore them. It seems really that the entire notion of treaties themselves has shifted from a real thing with real consequences and founded on some common interest into merely another tool or Realpolitk. Now countries threaten to ignore treaties if a whole host of other unrelated demands aren't met.

For example the DPRK uses nuclear technology to attempt to extract a basket of other strategic gains from the other 5 members of their multilateral talks. Food, technology transfer, less political isolation, etc. The fact that they get hard currency from illegally selling this technology is part of the leverage applied to having it at all. That's why they bothered to develop it, in part. The other part clearly is that they are flat out paranoid and nonrational.

So in Iran's case, what strategic goals do they see themselves gaining by threatening to build up their nuclear arsenal? It doesn't seem to be as simple as they say, just another defensive arms race. The Iranians aren't that simplistic. Because the real benefit to a regional power in acquiring nuclear weapons is much more complex than that, isn't it? It has to do with being able to threaten regional neighbors with other overt actions they may be afraid to respond to because they have nuclear weapons. It may have to do with building economic ties to the Russians on the cheap while at the same time looking for a fat payday from the west to not develop nuclear arms. It may have to do with trying to impoverish Israel by committing to an arms race. Or it could have to do with destabilizing Syria and Iraq by emboldening terrorists there by promising them access to nuclear weapons. Certainly the case of Pakistan and India being nuclear powers has something to do with it. Or it could be a dozen other things.

Morever we want to try this like an anomaly, a blip which it is not. The world really is changing and developing countries are attempting to develop nuclear and other weapons. In the next decade you may see Indonesia, South Korea, Japan, Nigeria, Egypt develop or attempt to develop nuclear weapons. For some of those countries all they lack is the political will to proceed. How we deal with this will define how we deal with them down the road.

[shimshon@shimsh]

Iran's nuclear policy enjoys a national political consensus: Both the
conservatives and the reform-seekers agree that Iran is entitled to
develop nuclear technology for peaceful purposes, and that the Iranian
nuclear program is for peaceful purposes only. Moreover, Iran maintains
that it has fully complied with its international obligations regarding
nuclear activities.

Yet reports by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) have
stated that Iran has failed to comply with IAEA inspectors in the field, and
that it has not fully reported on its acquisition of advanced P2
centrifuges or on its uranium enrichment activities. Moreover, the IAEA
condemned I! ran in June 2004 for its "attempts to hide information concerning
its nuclear project." Failure to report to the IAEA is considered a
violation, albeit technical, of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT)
to which Iran has been a party since 1970.

On September 18, 2004, the IAEA Board of Governors issued a resolution
calling on Iran to "immediately suspend all enrichment-related
activities" in its nuclear program and setting November 25, 2004 as the date
for a full review of Iran's nuclear dossier.

The resolution in its final form was a joint initiative by France,
Germany, and Britain, with whom Iran had negotiated in the past two years
with the aim of resolving disputes regarding its nuclear program. The
Board of Governors resolution is a compromise - in language and in
demands on Iran - among various elements: the U.S. demand that Iran's nuclear
dossier be transferred to the U.N. Security Council; the European
des! ire to settle the dispute via dialogue with Iran; and the pressure by the
non-aligned countries supporting Iran's claim that it is entitled to
obtain advanced nuclear technology.

At the same time, Europe's positions, as manifested by the original
draft resolution it submitted, had drawn closer to the position of the
U.S. The original draft resolution had included an ultimatum to Iran to
immediately halt uranium enrichment for its nuclear program, and if it
did not, its nuclear dossier would be transferred to the U.N. Security
Council in November. The final resolution, however, did not include this
ultimatum.

In its response to the resolution, Iran called the IAEA demand to stop
uranium enrichment activity "unacceptable," stating that it is entitled
to carry out such activity as an NPT member state. Supreme National
Security Council Secretary Hassan Rohani, in charge of Iran's nuclear
affairs, said that Iran had never co! mmitted to halting its
uranium-enrichment activities under an IAEA resolution and had done so voluntarily and
temporarily in a show of good faith, as a confidence-building measure.
He said, "Any resolution which seeks to bind us to suspension [of
uranium enrichment] is unacceptable and we will not accept such an
obligation."

However, on another occasion Rohani restated Iran's position: "We will
go ahead with confidence-building and will endeavor to build up our
[nuclear] technical capability to restore our national rights in the
context of the international conventions. This is our diplomacy: to proceed
[in] both directions simultaneously." He further said that Iran does
not need foreign assistance to produce nuclear fuel for the power plants,
and has enough expertise to do so on its own."

In his statement to IRNA, Rohani also said that Iran was "sensitive" to
the section of the resolution concerning uranium enrichment b! ecause, he
said, this is a right respected by the NPT, and added that "We don't
have a program to extend the suspension yet."

He further stressed Iran's perception of Europe's possible role in
Iran's plans, saying that Washington was "totally against" Iran's fuel
production while the European states agree with [Iranian] fuel producing
"at specified degrees."

Stating that Iran "takes pride" in its continuous talks with Europe on
its nuclear issue, Rohani emphasized that Iran could have reached
proper accord with E.U. had it not been for U.S. pressure on Europe, and
hinted that Iran-E.U. talks had not yet been concluded, and added that
there is a possibility of resolving the dispute with the IAEA through
diplomatic means.

In order to continue its nuclear program, Iran is proceeding on two
parallel tracks: a political-diplomatic track with the E.U., and a
belligerent track. Both tracks serve a single strategic goal - obtaining
advanced nuclear technology that also enables the development of nuclear
weapons.

In its political-diplomatic track with the E.U., Iran sees Europe as a
means of obtaining nuclear technology and as a key to achieving
legitimization for its nuclear program.

The belligerent track aims at creating a balance of fear with the West
by threatening to harm it, and with Israel by threatening to wipe it
off the face of the earth.

[Mediocrates]

I remember reading that - where's it from?

[shimshon@shimsh]

I remember reading that - where's it from?

Sorry I didn't mention,

it's from the The Freeman Center The Freeman Center

the original story is from the Jerusalem post