Middle Eastern Dominoes - Charles Krauthammer

On Friday night's Fox News All Stars, Charles Krauthammer discussed the possibility of revolution spreading from Egypt to elsewhere in the Arab Muslim world.

Well Iran, of course, is the prize. If that regime were to fall, it would have the most important effect in that region because its satellites Hezbollah, Hamas, Syria, and its agents around the Arab world would be weakened. In the same way that when the Soviet Union collapsed, communism around the world essentially disappeared.

The problem is that we’re not in 2009 and people have experienced that incredible repression. There are levels of repression: Mubarak repress[ed] his people, but he’s nowhere in the league of the mullahs. Just today Iranian state media reported a statement by one of the top officials of the Revolutionary Guard Corps, who said of the demonstrators “The conspirators are nothing but corpses.”

They shoot, they kill, they imprison, and they rape. Last year 66 people were hanged. So those brave young people who went out into the street in 2009, who got to the cusp of a revolution and were essentially defeated, remember that it’s really hard to get a second wave of revolution after that kind of repression and when you know how deeply evil and cruel is the regime. …

Jordan has some stability. It has a tradition of a king. It’s a benign dictatorship under a monarchy. They have — the monarchy, the Hashemites — have the support of the Bedouins, who are a big ethnic element in the population, the army is largely Bedouin. So King Hussein and his son have had success in holding off really dangerous revolutions [such as in] 1970, the Palestinian [uprising] of Black September.

I think the one area where there might be a domino effect is Bahrain. It’s small, it’s rich, and it’s heavily Shiite. Iran has had a lot of influence there. It has a Sunni leadership, [but] a majority Shiite [population]. It’s in turmoil. The Saudis support the leadership, and Iran has actually claimed it as its territory — so it could be a real flash point.

I wish I could share his optimism that a Democratic Iran would drop support for Syria, Hamas and Hezbullah. But we can dream, can't we?

Labels: Arab democracy, Charles Krauthammer, dominoes

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 5:36 PM

Hezbollah Hates Israelis....and Palestinians too

Nasrullah and Mershaal
Mudar Zahran points out the hypocrisy of Hezbullah leader Hassan Nasrallah, who champions the 'Palestinian' cause - but only when it hurts Israel.

WHILE MANY, including some Israelis, seem to believe that Nasrallah loves the Palestinians, and would fight for their cause, the facts on the ground reflect a totally different reality. Hizbullah represents the Shi’ites in Lebanon, who describe themselves as an extension of the global Shi’ite body, with strong emotional and ideological ties to Iran. The Shi’ites in Lebanon have always felt threatened by the Palestinians, who are strictly Sunnis, and whose presence in Lebanon is viewed as adding demographic heavy weight to Lebanese Sunnis. While Lebanese Shi’ite figures never mention this fact, they have been vigorously working against it in practice; they even took up arms against the Palestinians during the Lebanese civil war. In fact, Lebanese Shi’ite were responsible for some of the most notorious atrocities against the Palestinians, with welldocumented massacres and the siege of the Palestinian refugee camps. Ironically, when they ended these in 1987, Shi’ite leader Nabih Berri told the press that this was “a gift for the Intifada.”

Hundreds of the war criminals that were involved in those massacres are now affiliated with Hizbullah, some in senior positions.

The group has been ruthless in its efforts to marginalize and control the Sunni Palestinian population in Lebanon; its leaders insisted on confining 400,000 Palestinians to the refugee camps as a condition for ending the civil war in 1989.

Before his latest press conference, Nasrallah was promoting that his faction would “punish” Israel if it obstructed a Lebanese aid flotilla headed for Gaza. This comes as one of an endless series of media stunts in which Nasrallah portrays himself and Hizbullah as the defenders of the Palestinian cause.

While Nasrallah claims he wants to see food items and medications delivered to Gaza, Palestinians in Lebanon are literally locked up inside their camps every evening. Banned from working legally, Palestinians in Lebanon have to depend on international aid and donations, which Lebanon monitors and restricts. This has resulted in intolerable living conditions. The post- Syrian Lebanese governments exhibited a tendency to improve the living conditions for the Palestinians on its soil; nonetheless, Hizbullah has been most fierce in fighting that trend. Waving the flag of the Palestinian cause, and staunchly supporting the “right of return to Palestine,” Hizbullah has been obstructing every attempt to improve the livelihood of Palestinians in Lebanon.

Furthermore, it has been igniting and financing unrest between Palestinian factions, as Hamas is not shy in showcasing its alliance with both Hizbullah and Iran.

Today, while Nasrallah and Hizbullah are considered iconic symbols of the fight against Israel and the defenders of the Palestinian cause, Palestinians in Lebanon are dying young, uneducated and poor, all in the name of preventing them from being naturalized in Lebanon in order to “keep their love for Palestine.”

This tactic for persecuting the Palestinians is not unique to Hizbullah; it has been played by many Arab countries and in fact by some of the countries claiming to be most friendly to the Palestinians.

I wonder how many people outside of Israel are even aware of this. Not enough I'm afraid.

posted by Carl in Jerusalem

Misplaced Hypocrisy in Iran Bombing

By Nasser Karimi And Lee Keath, Terror News
TEHRAN, Iran – A Sunni insurgent group said it carried out a double suicide bombing against a Shiite mosque in southeast Iran to avenge the execution of its leader, as Iranian authorities Friday said the death toll rose to 27 people, including members of the elite Revolutionary Guard.

The insurgent group, Jundallah, has repeatedly succeeded in carrying out deadly strikes on the Guard, the country's most powerful military force — including an October suicide bombing that killed more than 40 people. The new attack was a sign that the group is still able to carry out devastating bombings even after Iran hanged its leader Abdulmalik Rigi and his brother earlier this year.

(Alan Note: Although Obama knew very well that the Mullah regime had tortured and murdered the first brother, head of the Baluchi Jondollah resistance movement, he pressured Pakistan to remove the second Rigi from a hospital bed in Peshawar and seliver him by private jet to the Mullahs in Iran, who tortured the heck out of him and recently hanged him - or as some reports claim, his already torture-dead body).

Shiite worshipers were attending ceremonies marking the birthday of the Prophet Muhammad's grandson, Hussein, when the first blast went off at the entrance of the mosque in the provincial capital Zahedan. The male bomber was disguised as a woman, local lawmaker Hossein Ali Shahriari told the ISNA news agency.

Inside the mosque, a cleric was reading from the Quran in front of lines of faithful sitting cross-legged on the floor when the building suddenly shook from the blast and screams were heard from outside, according to footage taken at the time and aired on Iranian state TV.

As people rushed to help, the second explosion detonated 20 minutes later, causing the majority of the deaths and injuries, ISNA reported. The technique is often used by Sunni militants in Iraq to maximize casualties.

Members of the Guard were among the worshippers, particularly because the ceremonies coincided with Iran's official Revolutionary Guard Day. The deputy interior minister, Ali Abdollahi, told the Fars news agency Thursday that several Guard members were among the dead.

Health Minister Marzieh Vahid Dastagerdi told ISNA on Friday that the toll stood at 27 dead but could still rise, with another 270 injured, including 11 in serious condition.

Iran accuses the United States and Britain of supporting Jundallah in a plot to weaken Tehran clerical leadership, a claim both countries deny. On Friday, officials blamed them for the latest attack.

Gen. Hossein Salami, deputy head of the Revolutionary Guard, told worshipers at the main weekly prayers in Tehran that the victims "were martyred by hands of mercenaries of the U.S. and U.K."

He was echoed by influential lawmaker Alaeddin Boroujerdi who said "America should be answerable for the terrorist incident in Zahedan."

President Obama condemned the attacks as OUTRAGEOUS, saying in a statement that the deaths of innocent civilians in their place of worship is an "intolerable offense" and that those responsible for the blasts must be held accountable.

(Alan Note: No such outrage against the targeted Mullahs for slaughtering thousands of dissenters in the streets and arresting and torturing/raping tens of thousands more throughout the Obama Administration period.

Was it because it was his Moslem namesake "Hussein" day and an affront to Obama?)

In New York, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon strongly condemned the suicide bombings saying "this senseless act of terrorism at a place of worship makes it all the more reprehensible," U.N. associate spokesman Farhan Haq told reporters at U.N. headquarters.

Jundallah has been waging an insurgency for years in the remote Sistan-Baluchistan province, a lawless area where smuggling and banditry are rife. The groups says it is fighting for the rights of the mainly Sunni ethnic Baluchi minority, which it says suffers discrimination at the hands of Iran's Shiite's leadership. Iran has accused the group of links to al-Qaida, but experts say no evidence of such a link has been found.

Iran executed Jundallah's leader in June in Zahedan, a month after hanging his brother Abdulhamid Rigi, who had been captured in Pakistan in 2008 and extradited to Iran. The group named a new leader, al-Hajj Mohammed Dhahir Baluch.

In a statement posted on its Web site, Jundallah claimed responsibility for Thursday night's blast, saying they were to avenge Abdulmalik Rigi's death. It showed pictures of two suicide bombers wearing explosive vests, identified as Mohammad and Mujahid Rigi, apparently members of the leader's clan, though the site did not specify their relationship to him.

The group said its "sons of the faith ... carried out tonight a heroic unprecedented operation at the heart of an assembly of the Guard at Zahedan," claiming to have killed more than 100.

Jundallah has repeatedly targeted the Revolutionary Guards. In its deadliest attack, a suicide bomber hit a meeting between Guard commanders and Shiite and Sunni tribal leaders in the border town of Pishin on Oct. 18, killing 42 people, including 15 Guard members.

The group struck another mosque in Zahedan in May 2009, killing 25 people. In February 2007, a Jundallah car bomb blew up a bus carrying Revolutionary Guards in Zahedan, killing 11.

(Alan Note: 27 dead in a mosque are an outrage to fervent Islamist Obama but thousands (same race and country) but opponents of his buddy regime in Iran is a "ho-hum" yawn and not worth making as big a fuss about.

AND OBAMA'S ADMINISTRATION OFFICIALLY LABELED THOSE STRIVING FOR FREEDOM AGAINST THE MULLAHS AS TERRORISTS!!!!! (admitting this "error" in court today.

America is starting to wake up! Hurry! Hurry!

Posted by Alan Peters

Moqtada Feared in Baghdad and in Washington

Tim Collins, FirstPost.co.uk

Moqtada is potentially a force who could reconcile Sunni, Kurd and Shia.

But he certainly exudes messianic charisma and is undoubtedly a focus for the anger as well as the hope of his people. Patrick Cockburn, in his new book Moqtada al-Sadr and the Fall of Iraq, describes him as 'riding a tiger', and I believe he has got it spot on. But among the 'tiger jockeys' we have seen in the last half-century, there have been few as naturally talented as Moqtada.

I have spent a total of nearly a year in Iraq since the invasion as variously soldier, writer and advisor and can relate wholly to the account laid out in this book. The disastrous misjudgements that characterised the Bremer era have had, and will continue to have, long-standing and miserable effects.

Meantime, from the chaos of this benighted country have emerged a number of key leaders from the constituent communities of Iraq.

From the Kurds has come Jalal Talabani, who is perhaps the most effective and

respected politician in the land at present; from the Sunni emerged Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the Jordanian-born psychopath and sectarian killer who, because of the barbarous force of the assaults he unleashed on the Shia, in turn brought misery to the Sunnis; and there is Moqtada, the canny heir of an influential family who has come to dominate to a great extent the Shia of Iraq - or at least the downtrodden amongst them. While Talabani is undoubtedly a force for good and al-Zarqawi a force for evil, Moqtada is an enigma. Were one to listen to the UK and US government line, then he is also very much a villain. But Patrick Cockburn's careful inspection reveals a much more complex character. Among the Sunnis of Iraq and among his Shia rivals, it is common to dismiss Moqtada as a 'zatut' - Iraqi slang for idiot child of the family, a fool who lacks the depth and intellect of his famous father and older brothers. Which is exactly wrong. Moqtada is in fact a shrewd leader, manipulator and politician with the cunning of Coalition Authority and the Iraqi Government sit; the rest of the country is of course the 'Red Zone' - is to what extent Moqtada is the dupe or puppet of Iran. On this, Cockburn's book is invaluable: it reveals one of the great fallacies of reactionary Middle Eastern political conspiracy theories and is worth reading it for this reason alone. Moqtada is in fact the leader of a section of the Iraqi people who were at the bottom of the pile for generations. Now they find themselves at the top of the heap, blinking in the light, and with no idea on earth what to do with the power handed to them by events and by the advent of democracy - the latter the biggest irony of all for the US neo-cons. Of course there is Iranian influence - how could there not be? The only Shia nation on Earth is Iran. (Shia are a minority in Islam - only nine per cent - and form a tiny proportion of Arab Muslims.) But, as Cockburn makes clear, other Iraqi Shia groups have embraced Iranian influence, and enjoyed far more backing from Iran than Moqtada's Sadrists - and, because of that, they are mistrusted by ordinary Shia. Instead of appreciating this, the Bremer regime rejected Moqtada and repressed his newspaper and broadcasts; inevitably, it was the Iranians who stepped into the void and provided the funding for Moqtada's media to flourish once more. The Iranians also made every effort with weapons supply and training to hook Moqtada and his supporters into reliance on them and loyalty to their 'brand'. I take the view that Moqtada al-Sadr, like Gerry Adams in Ireland, is someone we need to talk to and to understand. To fail to do so could have historic consequences. For here is the great conundrum; who and what is Moqtada al-Sadr? Is he more powerful in the shadows, or in parliament? Is he more influential alive, or dead? Is he someone we should seek to deal with, or destroy? Is he as feared in Tehran as in Washington and Baghdad?

Muqtada: An Enigma to the West

Muqtada Feared in Baghdad and in Washington

Tim Collins, FirstPost.co.uk

Moqtada is potentially a force who could reconcile Sunni, Kurd and Shia.

But he certainly exudes messianic charisma and is undoubtedly a focus for the anger as well as the hope of his people. Patrick Cockburn, in his new book Moqtada al-Sadr and the Fall of Iraq, describes him as 'riding a tiger', and I believe he has got it spot on. But among the 'tiger jockeys' we have seen in the last half-century, there have been few as naturally talented as Moqtada.

I have spent a total of nearly a year in Iraq since the invasion as variously soldier, writer and advisor and can relate wholly to the account laid out in this book. The disastrous misjudgements that characterised the Bremer era have had, and will continue to have, long-standing and miserable effects.

Meantime, from the chaos of this benighted country have emerged a number of key leaders from the constituent communities of Iraq.

From the Kurds has come Jalal Talabani, who is perhaps the most effective and

respected politician in the land at present; from the Sunni emerged Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the Jordanian-born psychopath and sectarian killer who, because of the barbarous force of the assaults he unleashed on the Shia, in turn brought misery to the Sunnis; and there is Moqtada, the canny heir of an influential family who has come to dominate to a great extent the Shia of Iraq - or at least the downtrodden amongst them. While Talabani is undoubtedly a force for good and al-Zarqawi a force for evil, Moqtada is an enigma. Were one to listen to the UK and US government line, then he is also very much a villain. But Patrick Cockburn's careful inspection reveals a much more complex character. Among the Sunnis of Iraq and among his Shia rivals, it is common to dismiss Moqtada as a 'zatut' - Iraqi slang for idiot child of the family, a fool who lacks the depth and intellect of his famous father and older brothers. Which is exactly wrong. Moqtada is in fact a shrewd leader, manipulator and politician with the cunning of Coalition Authority and the Iraqi Government sit; the rest of the country is of course the 'Red Zone' - is to what extent Moqtada is the dupe or puppet of Iran. On this, Cockburn's book is invaluable: it reveals one of the great fallacies of reactionary Middle Eastern political conspiracy theories and is worth reading it for this reason alone. Moqtada is in fact the leader of a section of the Iraqi people who were at the bottom of the pile for generations. Now they find themselves at the top of the heap, blinking in the light, and with no idea on earth what to do with the power handed to them by events and by the advent of democracy - the latter the biggest irony of all for the US neo-cons. Of course there is Iranian influence - how could there not be? The only Shia nation on Earth is Iran. (Shia are a minority in Islam - only nine per cent - and form a tiny proportion of Arab Muslims.) But, as Cockburn makes clear, other Iraqi Shia groups have embraced Iranian influence, and enjoyed far more backing from Iran than Moqtada's Sadrists - and, because of that, they are mistrusted by ordinary Shia. Instead of appreciating this, the Bremer regime rejected Moqtada and repressed his newspaper and broadcasts; inevitably, it was the Iranians who stepped into the void and provided the funding for Moqtada's media to flourish once more. The Iranians also made every effort with weapons supply and training to hook Moqtada and his supporters into reliance on them and loyalty to their 'brand'. I take the view that Moqtada al-Sadr, like Gerry Adams in Ireland, is someone we need to talk to and to understand. To fail to do so could have historic consequences. For here is the great conundrum; who and what is Moqtada al-Sadr? Is he more powerful in the shadows, or in parliament? Is he more influential alive, or dead? Is he someone we should seek to deal with, or destroy? Is he as feared in Tehran as in Washington and Baghdad?