A tectonic shift has occurred in the Middle East, highlighting both a threat and a historic opportunity. The threat, newly revealed in its extent and cunning, is Iranian subversion. The opportunity is the chance to make progress on some of the region's fundamental problems now that, for the first time in a century, Arabs and Jews alike fully appreciate the menace in Iran's hegemonic ambitions to dominate the Muslim world. They share with the West
the conviction that Iran must not be allowed to develop nuclear weapons.
Iran is no longer just an existential threat to Israel. It threatens the regimes in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and the Persian Gulf emirates and has infiltrated other Islamic states. Shiite Tehran has transcended sectarian and ideological differences to create an aggressive coalition. It includes various Sunni movements, such as Hamas and other far-left groups, all operational proxies for Iran's efforts to destabilize the Middle East and promote Iranian interests and terrorist bases.
The Iranian operation is multifaceted. Preachers in thousands of mosques have long disseminated the Khomeinist revolutionary propaganda, but the reach is now deeper. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard controls thousands of websites and blogs. Front companies, including banks, employ thousands of locals in each targeted country. Cleverly, the Iranians finance charities, social and medical services, courses in information technology, scholarships, and cultural centers offering language classes and Islamic theology, all with the same underlying purpose. They support publishing houses and more than a hundred newspapers and
magazines and control satellite television and radio networks in various languages.
Then there are the political satellites: Hezbollah in Lebanon, against which Israel fought a war in 2006, and Hamas, the instigator of the recent Gaza war. They are funded, trained, and armed by Iran to conduct terrorist attacks against Israel and to sabotage any dialogue between Israel and the Palestinian Authority. Even now, Iran has an outpost in Gaza, creating the potential for Iranian incitements on both Israel's southern border and Egypt's northern border, an area where there is a security vacuum.
The Egyptians have now furiously blown the whistle on the subversion against their government. They have exposed a Shiite terrorist group headed by a Hezbollah activist. Dozens of people were arrested, including some from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard, Tehran's principal vehicle for exporting revolution. The cell planned attacks on Suez Canal installations and Egyptian tourist sites in the hope of destabilizing the regime, which Iran
considers vulnerable because of the age of President Hosni Mubarak and the possibility of a shaky political environment when he passes away.
Astonishingly, Hassan Nasrallah, Hezbollah's leader, publicly attacked the Egyptians and issued an exhortation to the Egyptian Army to overthrow the Mubarak regime. The Egyptian retort, published in the state-controlled newspaper al-Gomhouria, was blistering: "We do not allow, Oh Monkey Sheikh, to mock our judiciary, for you area bandit and veteran criminal who killed your countrymen, but we will not allow you to threaten the security and safety of Egypt . . . and if you threaten its sovereignty, you will burn!" President Mubarak spoke out forcefully, and the Egyptian foreign minister, Ahmed Aboul Gheit, linked together the Iranian threat to Egypt, Israel, and the West in the same breath.
In addition to creating Hezbollah cells--there are probably more--Iran helps Hamas smuggle weapons into the Gaza Strip via Sudan and the Sinai. This has awakened the Egyptians to the risk to their security from the iron triangle of Iran, Hezbollah, and Hamas. Other Arab countries are similarly aroused. Tehran hopes to see its allies sweep to power in Bahrain. The small but prosperous nation is "part of Iran," in the words of Ali Akbar Nateq-Nouri, a senior aide to Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. In Morocco, security uncovered a network of pro-Iranian militants plotting violent operations; Morocco severed diplomatic relations. In Jordan, the State Security Court has sent three people to prison on charges of spying for Hezbollah after they "monitored positions, possessed weapons, and gathered things and information that must be kept secret."
Iranian strategists consider Jordan a colonial creation that will disappear when they establish a single state covering the whole of Palestine; two thirds of Jordan's population is Palestinian. The Jordanians fear that one of the consequences of the U.S. military pullout from Iraq will be Iranian penetration into Iraq that will project directly into Jordan. Iranian-controlled groups have been in Kuwait, too.
But Iran sees the largest target of opportunity as Lebanon. It aims to destroy Lebanon's historic balance as an Arab country with an affinity for the West. Tehran sees an opportunity to tip that balance between the pro-Western orientation advocated by Christians and the Druze and the pro-Nasserist, anti-Western orientation favored by some of the Muslims, the most rapidly growing part of the population. Iran is infusing massive amounts to back a coalition led by Hezbollah and including former Gen. Michel Aoun, a Christian, in June's general election. Tehran's goal is to transform Lebanon and shift it to the pro-Iran column as a Shiite-dominated country under Islamic law. Should Hezbollah and its supporters win a significant majority, it would constitute a milestone in that quest. Hezbollah, in short, seeks a new election law that would establish an Islamic state run by Hezbollah.
In the new Hezbollah platform, there is no reference to its militia and its weapons, nor is there any expression of willingness to dismantle its military capability and integrate it into the Lebanese armed forces. Rather, the group wishes to retain its power in order to change Lebanon's political system and at the same time increase the military threat on Israel's northern border.
A Shiite axis of evil controlled by Iran is not a remote prospect. A year ago, when the Lebanese government tried to dismantle Hezbollah's independent communications infrastructure, Hezbollah effected a brutal takeover of Beirut.
Clearly, what Hezbollah is doing is not in the interest of Lebanon or the region. The Arab states are understandably opposed to Hezbollah's takeover of Lebanon and, equally, to Hamas's designs to take over the Palestinian Authority in next year's election on the West Bank and Gaza. Should Iran succeed in both elections, Israel would have Hamas on the south, Hezbollah on the north, and Hamas on the West.
These are the forces that have provided the seeds for a delicate new alliance based on shared national interests among the United States, the Sunni Arab countries, and Israel--an alliance that can now change the entire political path to secure the stability of the region.
The Arab countries, headed by Egypt, realize this battle with Iran requires cooperation-- including, perhaps, with Israel. This hasn't happened since Israel yielded Sinai after the Yom Kippur War. Israel possesses not only a deterrent military component against a nuclear Iran, should that come to pass in the face of Western disunity, but also an intelligence component for effective defense. So, for the first time, Israel, Egypt, and other Arab countries are on the same side of the fence against a common enemy that poses a strategic threat.
This shifts priorities from the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to the fate of the entire region as a hostage to Iran.
As it has long been said in the Middle East, the enemy of my enemy is my friend.
This article only makes sense when you make this substitution.
Which of these makes sense based on objective reality?
"The threat, newly revealed in its extent and cunning, is Iranian subversion." Not really.
or
"The threat, newly revealed in its extent and cunning, is Israeli subversion. " This is a given.
Mortimer just made a typo.
"This shifts priorities from the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to the fate of the entire region as a hostage to Iran."
This sentence says it all! He actually admits that the priority must shift from Israel-Palestine to "the fate of the entire region as a hostage to Iran". What more proof do we need that the intention is to stall the peace process, while everyone gets busy focusing on Iran, spoken in his own words???
This is the same strategy a grifter would use. He'd distract your attention while someone else picks your pocket! In this case, the intent is to distract the world’s attention while Israel steals more land from Palestinians!
2nd intention:
"As it has long been said in the Middle East, the enemy of my enemy is my friend."
What is he really saying here? Answer: DIVIDE AND CONQUER!
This is the man who with his Main Stream Media mogul friends helped disseminate the fear and lies that led to the war in Iraq...today he's doing the same with Iran!
How could any Muslim country honestly believe that Israel wants their friendship??? The only things that Israel lusts after is territory and power.
To recap: The agenda of Israel spoken by its favorite mouthpiece here is: To distract the world from demanding Israel deliver on the two-state solution and to divide the Middle East so it can continue picking off one country after another Israel deems a threat to its power and influence in the region and the criteria for who that enemy is will mutate as Israel’s supremacy grows.
Just as the U.S. has become the world’s superpower; Israel’s ambition is to control the Middle East.
Iran is too coward and perhaps too smart to fight Israel head to head, so they dump money and arms on these groups to fight its proxy wars. Iran is getting greedy though and the Ayatollah's regime is now trying to manipulate internal politics inside many Arab countries.
Israel has had 60 years to make peace!!! Israel has been stealing more and more land for 40 years and during some of that time Iran was busy fending off an attack from Iraq! Israel in the meantime was busy building their illegal nuclear weapons program!
Israel goaded Bush into Iraq because they didn't trust Saddam and were paranoid about his quest for nuclear weapons and he had provided Arafat with financial assistance to rebuild the PLO in the 1980's.
So you see, this is just history repeating itself....and you're part of the drumbeat propaganda.
Ehhh.... Don't look at my settlements expanding hand. No. Look at my scary IIIRRRAAAANNNNNN Hand!!!!!
(twenty terrorism filled, US calamity filled, settlement expanding years later)
Voila!!
Millions more violent, racist, settlers in the occupied territories, NO possibility of a 2 state solution, and endless wars on terror for the US.
It's sad, Mort, that you have allowed your noble faith and ethnicity to become intertwined with what almost the entire world regards as one of the most sickening and egregious crimes of our era.
This guy Mort is a Zionist propagandis and member of AIPAC. Are you also?
Muslims and Arabs need to remain vigilant and aware...Israel is not your friend...Israel would rather you waste your resources fighting each other and spending your tears and grief on the misery the prospect of such an objective will bring. Israel wants weak Arab neighbors, so that it can be the only power in the neighborhood. Israel lusts for power like it lusts for land.
Muslims need to move away from that which separates them and unite under common aspirations and disregard the fear-mongering and doomsday blather coming out of Israel. Muslims need to help each other prosper and look to bettering the lot of countries and people who are not blessed with oil revenues, and demand a two-state solution and sovereignty for the Palestinians.
Muslim countries need to turn a deaf ear to Israel, and look to the benefits of diplomacy and trade with Iran and a better future for all Muslims.
Don't play Israel's game; don't fall into the trap that Israel is setting for ALL Muslims.
we have bright people in the Arab world who can Never reach High positions in government , they are often jailed , killed , kept in house confinmet , pushed to emigrate and leave . they become too dangerous , we have idiots who have no principles at the top , who only take orders like robots , and Do not think of our needs at ALL . they are good at Boring speeches (which i no longer listen to ) but we know how evil they are . they conspire against us , against our wishes to progress and to better future .
who is listenting to us ? those dictators do not think LONG term , think of us citizens , and of the infrastructure , or spend on scientific research . they Only Spend OUR millions and billions or arms to keep America , britain , russia and france happy ready to help them in dire times . and they only care about their own thrones and power , and they are ready to cooperate with satan and not just Israel to keep that throne and power . i want them GOne TOday but we need more organisation and more education i guess to keep the populations aware . im a sunni Muslim and I have no problem with Shia muslims , they are my brothers and sisters but saudi arabia is telling us shias are not Muslim enough and should be called Unbelievers , (latest fatwa from the saudi cleric )
I just think you'd find a lot of encouragement by reading German literature from the 30s. There were a lot of people who thought just like you
magazines and control satellite television and radio networks in various languages." WOW THIS IS STANGELY FAMILIAR RIGHT AUTHOR.
" Front companies, including banks, employ thousands of locals in each targeted country. Cleverly, the Iranians finance charities, social and medical services, courses in information technology, scholarships, and cultural centers offering language classes and Islamic theology, all with the same underlying purpose. "
... with a straight face ... is the ultimate of ironies, and caps it with ...
"They support publishing houses and more than a hundred newspapers and
magazines and control satellite television and radio networks in various languages."
Has gotta be almost the Epitome of Chutzpah.
Oh beware those crazy clever multifaceted Iranians!