We do not regard this uprising/ insurrection to be a Zionist one solely on account of Israeli and Syrian opposition figures’ open love for one another. Nor is it solely on account of the Zionist state’s official support for this opposition and their shared interests in toppling the Assad government and destroying the Syrian Arab Republic.. What really makes this a Zionist uprising is the fact that in just two years it has achieved the same strategic objectives that Israel sought hard, yet failed to affect in over 60 years of its existence. And it has succeeded in achieving Israel’s goals almost exclusively with sectarianism, which has effectively become the new Israel in our midst. No Israeli invasion, attack, occupation, annexation, settlement construction, humiliating peace, or hasbara [Israeli PR] campaign, was ever able to force resistance movements like HAMAS to change their priorities and abandon their erstwhile allies; or to persuade the Arab people that the Assad government, Iran and Hizbullah are their primary enemies as opposed to Israel; or to reduce anti-imperialism and anti-Zionism to the politically incorrect “old school” politics of a bygone era; or to elevate the statuses of once despised Arab monarchs to regional liberators; or to render Shi’ism as the cancerous cell in the region rather than the Zionist entity. An uprising which not only collaborates with Israel but serves its strategic interests can only be a Zionist uprising. And the worst part is, that we have reached a point where such labeling is no longer taken as an insult or seen an accusation.
Am surprised AFP still quote me considering how regularly I trash them on this blog:
“Hezbollah has already declared that it is operational and active in Qusayr” in central Syria, Hezbollah expert Amal Saad-Ghorayeb told AFP.
“The Iranians have admitted in the past that they have advisers there and yesterday we heard them say they were ready to train the Syrians… the involvement of these actors has become more open,” she said.
“But I also think that it has increased.”
The intervention raises the prospect of a dangerous “regionalisation” of the conflict, the analysts warned.
“I don’t think Hezbollah’s going to respond to this,” Saad-Ghorayeb said.
What’s problematic is how Syria’s going to respond,” she said, adding that Damascus was unlikely to respond “conventionally” but would feel forced to produce some reaction to avoid emboldening Israel.
“I think what’s required now is for them (Syria) to find a way to respond in an unconventional way that wouldn’t drag the region into a war.”
This video proves beyond any reasonable doubt, that Ahmadinejad did in fact hug Chavez’s grieving mother. But as media close to the Iranian president has noted, it is evident from the video that he was clasping his hands in the manner he customarily does when greeting women, in order to avoid shaking their hands. You can see him clasping his hands as he walks towards Chavez’s mother and then giving in as she put her hands over his and leans towards his cheek. With all due respect to the religious sensitivities of some, but it is ridiculous that Iran’s conservative establishment is not capitalizing on their president’s humanity and progressiveness, given that the now viral image has given a tremendous PR boost to Iran in Latin America and beyond.
An op-ed today in al-Akhbar referred to Israel as “the enemy” in Arabic. Although use of this term to describe Israel was once very common in Arab popular parlance and in local media, its use in this context has significantly decreased since the Syrian uprising. Once a term reserved almost exclusively to Israel, the concept of the enemy from without has been fast replaced by the enemy from within in both pro-government and opposition circles. While government supporters can hardly be faulted for depicting the Zionist-normalizing, NATO-loving FSA as an “enemy” force, especially given its proxy status and military links with Syria’s strategic enemies, as well as its intent to destroy Syria as a state, it is both morally inexcusable and intellectually indefensible for Syrians and Arabs who profess enmity towards Israel, to use this term to describe the Assad government or Hizbullah or Iran, all of whom have paid a high price for confronting the Israeli enemy both politically and militarily.
The danger of such labeling can hardly be overstated in this case; the link between power and language has been well documented by the likes of Michel Foucault and Edward Said. As these thinkers have noted, language creates not only knowledge, but reality itself. The resulting discourse, which becomes internalized by its subjects shapes their assumptions, values and cultural habits. In short, it changes and re-fashions their political identity and beliefs.
To be more accurate, this discursive onslaught began in 2005 when the Lebanese became divided over whether Syria or Israel was their real enemy, with some March 14 politicians referring to the Zionist entity as “our neighbor”. But irrespective of this semantic divide and March 14’s collaboration with Israel during the July war as Wikileaks documents later revealed, not once did Hizbullah refer to the opposing camp as “the enemy”,” and settled on terms like “ our opponents/rivals” and “the other camp”. Compare this to the Syrian opposition camp today, whose leading “intellectuals” and activists in the Arab world have no qualms about speaking of the “Shia enemy” or the “Iranian enemy”, or cheering on the FSA who issue empty threats to attack Hizbullah and assassinate Seyyid Hassan Nasrallah.
By redefining the concept of the “enemy”, both the Syrian uprising and to a lesser extent, its US- engineered counterpart in Lebanon, have succeeded in reversing decades of Arab political socialization, whereby those who prioritize resistance to Israel and the US are mocked and dismissed as old-school anti-imperialists, or more disparagingly by Third Wayers like Bassam Haddad, as “Fumigating Anti-Imperialists”.
The Arab Spring may not be a revolution in the economic or political sense of the term, but it has achieved a semantic revolution which, if left unchecked by counter-hegemonic forces, will lead to the full intellectual and political colonization of the Arab mind and the Arab identity.
That’s right, two-thirds of the Iranian people are willing to brave western sanctions and lend support to their government’s pursuit of its nuclear program, as reported by the Washington Post here. Moreover, a more detailed analysis of the findings on the Gallup website reveals that although 85% believe the sanctions have hurt Iranians generally while 83% say they have been hurt personally by them, they still want Iran to pursue nuclear power. RESPECT.
Findings like these only underline how detached from reality the US’ and Europe’s Realist-driven foreign policy is. The reality is that some nations are not motivated solely by economic interests nor do they cow in the face of military threats. Imperialism has helped forge a nationalist, resistant and justice-seeking political identity and culture among the peoples it oppresses as a matter of foreign policy. And where this political identity is weakened, as in religiously diverse Syria, it is only on account of Empire’s divide-and-rule tactics to sow sectarian strife. Excerpts from the WaPo article:
But, judging from a new Gallup poll, the sanctions do not seem to be successful at two major, secondary goals: turning Iranian public opinion against the nuclear program and against national leaders for behaving in a way that has invited sanctions. Last year, The Washington Post’s Karen DeYoung and Scott Wilson reported that the Obama administration sees public discontent as an intended effect of the sanctions. But an overwhelming majority of Iranians told Gallup that Iran should continue its nuclear program, even when the question was specifically phrased to remind them that economic sanctions are a direct result of that program.
Gallup asked, “Given the scale of the sanctions against Iran, do you think Iran should continue to develop its nuclear power capabilities, or not?” Almost two-thirds of respondents, 63 percent, said yes. Only 17 percent said no; 19 percent said they didn’t know or refused to answer.
The poll also found that Iranians are almost five times as likely to blame the United States for sanctions as they are to blame their own government. Even fewer blame Europe or the United Nations, though both are instrumental in the crippling economic sanctions. Pollsters asked, “Which of the following groups do you hold most responsible for sanctions against Iran?” Out of the seven choices, the most popular by far was the United States, with 47 percent. Only 10 percent blamed the Iranian government; 9 percent said Israel; 7 percent each named “Western European countries” and the United Nations. Three percent said “someone else,” zero said “no one,” and 17 percent declined to answer.
Sanctions do not, based on this poll, seem to be rallying Iranians against their leaders or the nuclear program, but rather reinforcing popular antagonism toward the United States. To the extent that Iranian leaders are worried about popular support, this poll suggests that nuclear development and defiant foreign policy will continue to be winners.
When AFP and SOHR are now referring to a regime-led “guerrilla war” , you know that it has become increasingly hard to depict the war in Syria as a brutal regime fighting its own people. This is even more so the case considering all the resistance and revolutionary connotations the term “guerrilla warfare” carries and the fact that the article below refers to “civilian” “men and women” fighters “from all sects”.
If Iran has indeed been training this secular, nationalist guerrilla force, then we can be even more certain that Assad’s war is one against foreign oppressors and their local proxies—a defining feature of all resistance movements which Iran has trained and supported. Excerpts from the article:
“The (regular) army is not trained to fight a guerrilla war, so the regime has resorted to creating the National Defence Army,” said Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman. Most of the new fighters are members or supporters of the ruling Baath party, said Abdel Rahman. “They include men and women, and members of all the sects.”The new force is not connected to the pro-regime shabiha militia… Members of the paramilitary force, like the popular committees before, will focus on fighting in their own neighbourhoods.“The paramilitary force includes an elite fighting force trained by Iran,” Abdel Rahman told AFP.
It has become increasingly apparent that the war on Syria has not merely succeeded in sowing sectarian discord among the Arab public at large, but has even infected the reasoning of once progressive, secular, Arab intellectuals.
Take founder of Electronic Intifada Ali Abunimah as an example. Last week, Ali tried to sanitize the FSA of its sectarian crimes by blaming anti-Alawite hate speech on Twitter on “pro-Assad trolls”. This week, Ali has gone one step further in his defense of rabidly anti-Shia, sectarian takfiris by condemning all those who disseminated a fatwa [mis]attributed to Shia-bashing, Saudi Wahhabi cleric Muhammad al-Arifi who later denied ever issuing it.
The fatwa in question permitted Syrian rebels to engage in temporary marriages with Syrian women over 14 for the sole purpose of sexual gratification—a religious edict which is easily believable considering Wahhabi misogyny and Arifi’s record of morally repugnant social and political positions which Ali himself notes in his piece. For example, in one such instance, Arifi brands Shia as “treasonous villains”.
Viewed against this background and given that the fake tweet uses an identical Twitter handle as Arifi’s original account and an identical profile pic, reporting the fatwa can hardly be portrayed as an unforgivable sin at a time when mainstream media has done nothing but manufacture entire news reports and narratives about Syria, with an even flimsiergrounding in reality.
Yet, despite Ali’s admission that Arifi “has openly engaged in sectarian incitement against Shia Muslims”, Ali seems intent on whitewashing the takfiri cleric by devoting an entire article and numerous tweets to dissociating the nefarious figure from the fake tweet—as though it were significantly worse than his other odious rulings and statements.
More disturbing still, is the Islamophobia accusation Ali levels against all those who circulated the offensive tweet. Ali suggests that Iran is in cahoots with Israel in spreading Islamophobia when he links his EI piece on the subject to the following tweet:
“Zionists, Islamophobes, Hindu nationalists, US progressives and Iran come together to spread Islamophobic trash.”
Ali makes a similar allegation in his piece : “Progressive news organization AlterNet has fallen for and disseminated a story, pushed by Zionist, Islamophobic and Iranian outlets, claiming that a prominent Saudi cleric issued a religious edict authorizing sex-deprived fighters in Syria to rape women there.”
Aside from the absurdity of lumping Iran together with Israel in ANY campaign, Ali’s branding of a nation which identifies itself as the Islamic Republic of Iran as Islamophobic, is equally, if not more, absurd. In so doing, Ali seems to be adopting Saudi media discourse which uniformly attempts to depict Iran as harbouring an anti-Sunni agenda, as well as a Wahhabi discourse that seeks to de-Islamicize Iran as a heterodox version of Islam . This attempt is further revealed by Ali’s assertion that Iranian tv outlets, namely Press Tv, reported that Arifi’s fatwa legalized rape, as indicated in the above excerpt. When distinguishing media which misinterpreted the fake tweet as a license to gang rape from those that didn’t (Ali informs readers that “the term “gang rape” does not appear in the New TV report”), he neglects to list Press Tv as an outlet which did not use these terms in its report. In fact, if one follows the Press Tv link to the fatwa story which Ali himself provides, all that can be found is a faithful translation of the fatwa and non-sensationalist headline “Militants can marry Syrian women: Wahhabi cleric in Saudi Arabia.”
I wonder what Ali’s next campaign will be, perhaps to justify Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi’s exhortion to: “fight all those working with the regime, whether they are combatants or civilians or religious scholars or the ignorant”?
No matter how ardently Ali will struggle in future to appease his pro-opposition fans with his takfiri-washing, the rest of us know full well the difference between Islamophobia and Salafi Takfiri-phobia. While the former targets Sunnis and Shias alike and does not distinguish resistance actors like Iran, Hizbullah, Islamic Jihad, and al-Qassam Brigades, from Salafis, Syrian jihadis and Wahhabis, the latter exclusively targets mainstream Sunnis, Shia and Christians; in other words, the overwhelming majority of Arabs and Muslims. Ali’s efforts would be better spent defending our people rather than those who seek to divide and destroy our region and who surely will not countenance secular progressives like himself.
A friend on Facebook just asked me how tolerant Iran was of the Syrian MB given Iran’s 6 point plan solution. I answered this: The Iranians have to accept the Syrian Brotherhood just as they did in Egypt. Iran’s biggest threat today comes from the sectarian scourge. As I keep repeating, sectarianism is the new Israel for the Resistance axis. When we consider the amount of popular support the MB enjoys—as much we may dislike this fact—and the fact that the other option are the Salafis and Salafi Takfiris, Iran has to build bridges with the less intolerant and violent of the two. For all its “Islamic awakening”” rhetoric with regard to the Arab uprisings, Iran is of course much more secure with the type of secularism represented by Assad than the Sunni Islamism represented by these increasingly sectarian mainstream trends. But if Iran hopes to neutralize some of these sectarian tensions, it has to embrace the inevitable ascent of Islamism in the region, just as the Americans and NATO countries have. Islamic unity is not merely desirable on the doctrinal or ideological levels, it has now become a strategic necessity to thwart Empire’s divide-and-rule tactics. Israel was an easier enemy to defeat than sectarianism.
The concurrence of two important Syria-related developments today—Farouk al-Sharaa’s interview with Al-Akhbar and Iran’s 6 point proposal to resolve the Syrian crisis—does not appear to be a mere coincidence. The considerable overlap between the solutions envisaged by both the Islamic Republic and Sharaa—neither of which would have been put on the table had the Assad leadership rejected either one outright—indicate a growing realization within the Resistance Axis and Syrian government circles, that there is no going back to the status quo ante. Yes, Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi did say on Sunday that “Iran will never allow any Western plots to oust Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to succeed” but this doesn’t contradict Iran’s attempts to find a political solution to the conflict, nor does it signal any back peddling on its part as AP boldly claims in this report which curiously cites an “Iranian-born political analyst based in Israel” to corroborate the reporter’s fanciful analysis. Rejecting the forcible ouster of Assad while calling for a peaceful resolution to the conflict by means of an internal national dialogue, are not mutually exclusive objectives but part and parcel of a realistic yet principled position on Syria. In fact, the only parties who have been repeatedly calling for an intra Syrian dialogue for well over a year now, are Iran, Hizbullah, Russia and China. Not a single Western or Arab capital aligned with the opposition has done the same.
While many in the Syrian government believe that the foreign-backed insurrection/proxy war can be won decisively on the battlefield, Syria’s allies like Iran and Hizbullah, as well as officials like Sharaa, do not see the military option as sufficient. This view is not only evinced by Iran’s recent proposal but by Hizbullah’s repeated calls for a dialogue between the government and the opposition whose popular representation has never been denied by the movement (Nasrallah never uses the term “majority” of course, but he does refer to a “portion” or “segment” of the population who support the opposition).
This view or understanding is also evident in Nasrallah’s recent appraisal of the conflict: “the Americans are in no hurry to end the [violence] in Syria” as their aim is to weaken and destroy Syria. In other words, by playing into the US’ divide and rule strategy, Syrians from both sides are digging their own graves both literally and metaphorically. Rather than unleash Israel on Syria as it did on Hizbullah in 2006, the US and Israel have now subcontracted the task of destroying Syria to the Syrian rebels using sectarian war rather than foreign invasion as their preferred instrument of destruction. Indeed, sectarianism has become the new Israel as a matter of US policy.
As such, the Syrian government and its allies are faced with two options: fighting an ultimately un-winnable war where the most the regime can hope to achieve is control over a small sliver of a dismembered Syria in a regional climate of all out sectarian warfare (the inevitable spillover effect of the Syrian war) or, a restructuring of the political system (forming a transitional government, followed by parliamentary elections, a constituent assembly to draft a new constitution and presidential elections as per the Iranian proposal) and a forced partnership with its enemies. In the most favourable scenario for the Resistance Axis, the Baath party and government loyalists would be heavily represented in the new parliament, the constitution would protect the rights of religious minorities and the government would preserve Syria’s foreign policy constants. But perhaps most importantly, the Syrian Arab Army would remain intact and its military ethos unchanged—note Sharaa’s emphasis on this point and Nasrallah’s repeated warnings to preserve the “only remaining strong Arab army” . Ideally, Assad would be re-elected to office but this is no longer a certainty considering rapidly escalating sectarian sentiment. In other words, the most favourable compromise would be one characterized by major reforms in the political system without sacrificing the integrity of the state as happened in Iraq and Libya.
Undoubtedly, the resulting political configuration would be a very unhappy and shaky marriage between an Assadist Syria and a Salafi-cum-Brotherhood-cum western liberal Syria.The closest analogy that comes to mind, is Hizbullah’s tenuous coexistence with March 14 who, like its counterparts in Syria, have conspired with the US, Arab states and Israel to disarm and/or destroy the resistance movement, and who could easily have continued to wage a civil war against it to this very day had Hizbullah not easily defeated its militias in 2008. Just as Hizbullah was forced into this partnership for the sake of Sunni-Shi’ite relations, national unity and a modicum of sovereignty, the Syrian government will have no choice but to do the same.
Of course, all of the above is moot given that the opposition and its foreign backers have already rejected the Iranian proposal as well as others like it, such as Kofi Annan’s 6 point plan. This rejection will only serve to bolster the position of proponents of an exclusively military solution. While Iran, Hizbullah and many in the Syrian government will continue to view significant military advances as an exigent need for “cleansing” as much territory as possible, such battlefield successes are increasingly being viewed as ways of strengthening the government’s bargaining position in an internal dialogue, and Iran and Russia’s negotiating position in talks for a broader regional agreement with the US and its Arab allies. The Dublin and Geneva talks may well be a step in that direction, though there is no guarantee that any breakthrough is in the offing.
While I worried for a couple of days about use of the chemical weapons red herring as a pretext for a US/NATO invasion, my fears dissipated today because of two factors that had escaped my mind or I hadn’t given attention to:
First is the very high probability of Russian and Iranian (and very likely Hizbullah along Lebanon’s border with occupied Palestine) direct military intervention in the event of US-NATO invasion of Syria. This has surely been one of the main obstacles thus far to a US led invasion. Like people, the behaviour of states, is guided by two main considerations: physical security and ontological security; that is, security of their identity. When a conflict threatens both, it becomes all the more existential. Make no mistake about it: If the US and/or NATO invade Syria this will not merely be construed as a threat to Iran’s and Russia’s strategic interests in Syria and the region, but as an existential battle. An attack on Syria will be construed as an attack on Iran and Hizbullah, and a grave threat to Russia’s security. The origins of both the Islamic Republic of Iran and Hizbullah lie in their resistance to imperialism and Israel and as such, their raison d’être would be called into question if they took a back seat and allowed the Empire to destroy Syria, empower Israel and control the region in one fell swoop.
Neither Russia nor Iran can countenance a US-led world order, with the Arab world entirely under its hegemony, or the idea that the West can pursue regime-change at will. Iran would be severely weakened by an invasion of Syria and would be seen as low-hanging fruit ripe for invasion and overthrow.
Russia would view an attack on Syria as potentially destabilizing for its own security due to the threat from Islamists in Chechnya and the Northern Caucasus who would be emboldened by an Islamist or jihadi take-over of Syria. It would also invite western meddling in Russia as it would for Iran, and is therefore an issue of national sovereignty for both.
It’s interesting to note here, that neither Russia nor Iran are hiding their involvement in Syria; while Iran has admitted to the presence of “advisors” in Syria, the Russians periodically leak then deny various stories implicating them in military involvement in Syria. While this is clearly psychological warfare, it is the kind that is grounded in reality.
Second, is the nature of the threats to invade. There seems to be deliberate indecision on the issue as revealed by NBC’s reports this week: “On Monday, US officials said the Syrian regime has ordered its Chemical Weapons Corps to “be prepared” which was interpreted to mean get all the precursors and pieces together to at least begin preparations for weaponization.”’ But then the same article reports that ” a senior defense official told NBC News on Tuesday” that “There is no evidence yet that the Syrian military has actually begun the process of mixing precursor chemicals to produce deadly Sarin nerve gas.”
And then on WednesdayNBC reported that: “As recently as Tuesday, officials had said there was as yet no evidence that the process of mixing the “precursor” chemicals had begun. But Wednesday, they said their worst fears had been confirmed: The nerve agents were locked and loaded inside the bombs.” In short, on Monday US officials accused the Syrian government of preparing the Sarin, then on Tuesday officials said no they weren’t and then on Wednesday they claimed they were pouring the chemicals into bombs. Coupled with news of talks on Syria between Clinton and Lavrov in Belfast today, such flip-flopping may well signal bargaining maneuvers. Viewed in this context, threats of impending invasion may well be a convenient ruse to raise the stakes for Russia and Iran so as to improve the US’ bargaining position in what could be the beginning of a lengthy grand bargain process.
In an unusually guarded tone Clinton reportedly said that while ” the U.S. believes any transition to a “democratic, unified” Syria “cannot possibly include Assad,” the U.S. intends to hold “every party to the same standard” of human rights and democratic values. “This is not just a one-sided dialogue” against the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, she said.
The State Department’s plan to designate the al-Nusra Front as a Foreign Terrorist Organization must be viewed against this backdrop. The insurrection in Syria may well be “constructive chaos” but it is chaos nonetheless. Attacks by Al-Qaeda-affiliated and jihadi groups have only increased in intensity and scope. Their readiness to turn their suicide bombs on western and US targets in a “liberated” Syria is surely a reality that at least some of US officials are increasingly wary of. Add to that the threat of a regional or even, an international, war breaking out in the event of an invasion, and the chemical weapons-invasion threat begins to sound increasingly hollow. When you are bargaining from a position of relative weakness or compromised strength, saber-rattling is not mere psych-ops but an effective policy tool.
The somewhat misleading title of this piece— “United by a common threat: Israel, Egypt and Hamas all fear Iran and its Islamic Jihad proxy in Gaza”—from the Times of Israel belies a very interesting analysis about Hamas’ conflicting tendencies and identities :
“The rise of Islamist regimes, such as the one in Egypt, has translated into a greater shared hostility for Israel on the one hand, but an increase in the importance of religion and ethnicity in the region alongside a dwindling emphasis on national interests [important to note here that even Israeli writers acknowledge that unity over Israel served our national interests], as seen in Iraq, Lebanon and especially Syria.
“Once you take Damascus out of the Iran-Syria-Hamas axis, there is no more axis.”
In this Hamas is trapped between its two clashing identities. On the one hand, according to an Israel Radio interview with Kadima MK and former deputy director of the Shin Bet Israel Hasson, Hamas views itself, after shirking the rule of the Palestinian Authority in Gaza, as the bellwether of the Arab Spring — the first Arab entity to shake off corrupt, semi-secular control for a devout, Islamist government in the mold of Turkey and Egypt. In other words, a legitimate mainstream Sunni regime. On the other hand, according to Livne, Hamas’s credibility within Gaza is also very much linked to its ability to retain supremacy as the chief agent of “resistance” to Israel.
Livne described the two major players in the region as Egypt and Iran, both vying for supremacy in the Middle East. “In the end, the war for control of the region is between them,” he said. And Hamas – linked by ideology and religion to the Muslim Brotherhood of Egypt – “does not want to be the marionette of Iran.”
No amount of GCC-sponsored sectarian agitation will blind the Palestinian people to their true allies or make them re-order their priorities. Awesome <3
“Gazans offered very public thanks to Iran on Tuesday for helping them in this month’s fight against Israel, when Iranian-made missiles were fired out of the Palestinian enclave towards Jerusalem and Tel Aviv.
“Thank you Iran”, said large billboards on three major road junctions in the Gaza Strip - the first time there has been such public acknowledgement of Iran’s role in the arming of Islamic terrorists in the tiny territory.
The message was written in Arabic, English, Hebrew and Farsi. The posters also depicted the Iranian Fajr 5 rockets that were used for the first time to target Israel’s two largest population centers.
The billboards were not signed, but a senior official with the Islamic Jihad, Khader Habib, said it was only natural to show gratitude for Iran’s role in the conflict.
“Iranian rockets struck at Tel Aviv. They reached out to Jerusalem. Therefore it was our duty to thank those who helped our people,” he told Reuters.”
“The diagram was leaked by officials of a country critical of Iran’s atomic program to bolster their arguments that Iran’s nuclear program must be halted before it produces a weapon. They provided the diagram only on condition that they and their country were not named.”
Hmmm, wonder which country that could be.
And then this gem:
“A senior diplomat who is considered neutral on the issue confirmed that the graph obtained by the AP was indeed one of those cited by the IAEA in that report. He spoke only on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the issue.”
Right, because the concept of a “neutral” diplomat is hardly an oxymoron. The “international community” is just filled with neutral diplomats weighing in on policy.
In sum this huge story that is now all over mainstream media, is essentially based on a slightly fancier version of Netanyahu’s cartoon bomb with technical terms in Farsi thrown in, coupled with an anonymous nation and a diplomat who refuse to be named. I am sure AP would have leaked such a diagram had it been submitted by anti-imperialist nations and diplomats who insisted on their anonymity with the aim of exposing Israel’s nuclear capacity. Right.
A MUST READ by Ibrahim Alamine on how the US and Israel want to transform Hamas into a Sunni weapon against the Resistance Axis by reducing the latter to a “Shiite Front”. Highlights from this very illuminating piece: “There is also impatience in the US and Israel to push things further – to get the resistance in Palestine to break off its relationship with Iran and, by extension, Syria and Hezbollah. The aim would be to employ Hamas’ popular legitimacy and record of struggle in the confrontation with the opposing camp, seeing as it is the involvement of the Iran-Syria-Hezbollah axis in resisting US and Israeli occupation that gives it sway in the wider Arab and Islamic worlds.
The harsh truth is that there are growing indications that such prospects need to be taken seriously. We need to take into account that Arab attitudes to the Palestinian cause and resistance are changing. It must be noted by the pro-resistance camp, for example, that not one Arab capital witnessed a serious demonstration in solidarity with the Gaza Strip. There was also the accompanying spiteful row between supporters of the two camps, with the Iran-Syria-Hezbollah axis seeking a public expression of gratitude from the Palestinian resistance, and Hamas leaders deliberately avoiding such mention. This all points to an impasse. Anyone who believed the battle with Israel would unite everyone is mistaken…”
Armed resistance by non-state actors representing the Muqawama in Lebanon and Palestine is undoubtedly the most noble and heroic forms of resistance. But we should never allow discursive and political imperialism to blind us to the resistance practiced by state actors like Iran and Syria. Although neither state is directly engaged in armed resistance against Israel (given that it would be suicidal for weaker conventional forces like Syria’s to do so) they have been arming and funding the Muqawama since its inception in Lebanon and Palestine. And for this they have paid dearly in blood and economic hardship.
If Iran abandoned Palestine and Hizbullah today, its nuclear program would be recognized and all sanctions lifted. Neither the US nor Israel would be threatening it with invasion. If Syria had abandoned the Muqawama when Colin Powell presented Washington’s list of demands in 2003, there would be no war resulting from a foreign backed insurrection against Syria today; the Assad “regime” would have ensured its survival.
The ultimate measure of Resistance is sacrifice and both Iran and Syria have sacrificed their country’s stability and security for the cause of resistance. Resistance movements in Palestine and Lebanon would have been quashed years ago were it not for the arms and sacrifices of Iran and Syria.
