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TEHRAN - After several months of faint rumblings, a US-led, Middle East-wide alliance of conservative Sunni and secular Muslim states marshaled against Iran is starting to take shape, to the deepening discomfort of the Iranian theocracy. Leading countries in this alliance are Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan.(wow iam surprised)
Gary Sick, a US foreign-policy analyst who served on the National Security Council under US presidents Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan, pointed out the rationale behind the alliance: "By removing the Taliban [from Afghanistan], Iran's greatest threat to the east, and then removing the government of Saddam Hussein, its deadly enemy to the west, and finally installing an Iran-friendly Shi'ite government in Baghdad for the first time in history, the US virtually assured that Iran - essentially without raising a finger - would emerge as a power center rivaled only by Israel."
The new Middle East cold war is being waged on such diverse battlefields as Baghdad, Beirut and Gaza between the proxies of Tehran and Riyadh. In Lebanon, the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) is taking covert action against Hezbollah as part of a plan by President George W Bush to help the Lebanese government prevent the spread of Iranian influence. Perhaps in reaction to that, Hezbollah loyalists took to the streets of Beirut on Tuesday and engaged in fighting that led to the deaths of three people.
"The more the United States engages in openly provocative challenges to Iran - belligerent rhetoric, fleet movements to the [Persian] Gulf, arrests of Iranian representatives in Iraq, quasi-covert support to anti-Iranian surrogates in Lebanon and Palestine, etc, the more deeply invested Bush and [Israeli Prime Minister Ehud] Olmert become on a political level and therefore the more likely it is that this strategy will develop its own momentum and become a self-generated reality," said Ray Close, a former CIA station chief in Saudi Arabia.
According to a secret report leaked to the British Daily Telegraph this month, Bush recently authorized the CIA to prop up Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora's beleaguered government, and fund anti-Hezbollah groups and pay activists to support the government. The secrecy of the reporrt indicates that US involvement in these activities is officially deniable.
This week, the anti-Iranian alliance of Sunni-majority states stretched east to embrace Pakistan as that country's leader journeyed to the Egyptian beach resort of Sharm al-Sheikh for consultations with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. President General Pervez Musharraf was coming from Riyadh, where he vowed to deepen defense and strategic ties with the Wahhabi kingdom. His trip, according to the Saudi-owned, Arabic-language news site Elaph, was intended to "expand the Sunni alliance that includes Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Turkey to include Pakistan as well in order to face the growing Iranian influence in the region".
Commented Dr Mustapha al-Labbad, an expert in Iranian affairs and editor-in-chief of a magazine called Sharq-Namah, "Those sensitivities have justifications in light of Iran benefiting from the current regional tensions and from playing on divisions, as is happening in Iraq and Lebanon."
Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad has unwittingly speeded up the formation of the Sunni axis by making a series of reckless statements antagonizing Israel and the West.
Increasingly outspoken about what he calls the "Zionist regime" and the West's inability to confront Iran, Ahmadinejad's incendiary statements were first received humorously by ordinary Iranians, who joked that their president was in the pay of the CIA before suddenly growing fearful at the beginning of this year as United Nations Security Council Resolution 1737 was passed imposing sanctions over Iran's nuclear program. It is now apparent that Washington is seriously entertaining thoughts of striking their country.
"When we saw [former Revolutionary Guard chief Mohsen] Rezaie openly say on Sedaosima [Iran's state television monopoly, Sound and Vision] that the Americans will try to strike and that he's willing to become a martyr, we were shocked," said Sahand, an Iranian filmmaker in his early 20s. "It was the first time that it was being stated on national television."
Ahmadinejad's rhetoric has also split the country, with an alliance of realists emerging to criticize the president and point out that his actions are leading the country to the brink of war. In recent days, there has been speculation that Supreme Leader Ali al-Khamenei is refusing to see the president, as a signal of his disquiet at Iran's growing isolation.
"The US and the Zionist regime have a conspiracy to stir up conflict between Shi'ite and Sunni Muslims in order to plunder the wealth of regional nations," said Ahmadinejad during a recent meeting with Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Muallem.
With Washington dragging the region into an endgame, countries are engaged in a flurry of diplomacy. Qatari Foreign Minister
Sheikh Hamad bin Jabr al-Thani was in Tehran this week to call for a diplomatic solution. "We should realize that the stability of the region is very important and instead of using force, a solution should be found through talks," he said.
Last week, Iran asked Saudi Arabia to help ease tensions through a letter delivered by Iranian chief nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani to Saudi King Abdullah from Khamenei and Ahmadinejad. Accordingto an unnamed Saudi official, Iran would like key regional US ally Saudi Arabia to "help bring opinions together".
But US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice passed through Riyadh in confrontational form as she concluded a tour of US allies in the region. She shot down Saudi attempts to intercede between the two antagonists by announcing that "there is no need for mediation" between Iran and the United States and demanded that "Iran needs to respond to the requirements of the international community" as a whole.
"She [Rice] is a smart, attractive and articulate woman who exudes confidence and integrity and is sent out by her bosses to lie, frighten, twist the truth and exaggerate," said Charles W Naas, a retired American career diplomat who was posted in Tehran shortly before the US Embassy and dozens of diplomats were seized by a group of revolutionary students in 1979 and held for 444 days.
With tensions mounting as the US adds to its forces in the Persian Gulf, the Iranian military is responding with a three-day military exercise testing its Zalzal and Fajr-5 missiles in the desert southeast of Tehran. Last week, Russia completed delivery of 29 advanced TOR-M1 surface-to-air missile defense systems to Iran. They can strike airplanes, helicopters and incoming cruise missiles and have been deployed around Iran's nuclear facilities in central Iran, according to European diplomatic sources in Tehran.
"If the [US] administration does anything military with respect to Iran in the context of its effort to assist its rather forlorn surge [in Iraq], it would likely take the form of pinpricks - say, a quick jab at some target just over the border, hot pursuit for a few kilometers into Iran - but nothing like the contingency plans for massive, wide-ranging air strikes related to the ongoing nuclear impasse," said Wayne White, a veteran State Department intelligence analyst.
A US task force led by the aircraft carrier John C Stennis is on its way to the Gulf, where it will join another carrier. Analysts point out that the two carriers would have a combined capacity to launch around-the-clock bombing raids. The Pentagon is reportedly considering hitting 24 targets to degrade Iran's nuclear capability and potential for striking back, in case diplomacy fails to resolve the crisis surrounding the Iranian nuclear program.
"An air campaign against Iran of this magnitude would almost certainly include efforts to knock out potential Iranian retaliatory capabilities in the Gulf, such as Iran's array of coastal anti-ship missiles," said White. "Perhaps one new point of emphasis was how difficult such a confrontation could be to end once initiated."
With tension mounting, the Iranian military shot down a US pilotless spy plane last week, according to Seyed Nezam Mola Hoveyzeh, an Iranian lawmaker. The parliamentarian gave no exact date of the incident and no further details, but added that "the United States sends such spy-drones to the region every now and then".
A source familiar with the security situation on Iran's borders added that the downing of pilotless US spy-planes is common, but neither side is willing to publicize it. The Pentagon carries out overflights to prompt the Iranians to turn on their radars and expose their positions to electronic tracking.
"Most actions require extensive lead time, usually for unglamorous activity like logistics," said James Spencer, a Middle East expert specializing in defense and security issues. "Contingency plans usually therefore take the form of identifying a vague concept of operations, and consequently troop numbers, logistic requirements, timelines etc. When the politicians suddenly have their brilliant idea, the file can be opened and the flesh put on the prepared bones with more thoroughness than haste."
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/IA26Ak02.html
Gary Sick, a US foreign-policy analyst who served on the National Security Council under US presidents Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan, pointed out the rationale behind the alliance: "By removing the Taliban [from Afghanistan], Iran's greatest threat to the east, and then removing the government of Saddam Hussein, its deadly enemy to the west, and finally installing an Iran-friendly Shi'ite government in Baghdad for the first time in history, the US virtually assured that Iran - essentially without raising a finger - would emerge as a power center rivaled only by Israel."
The new Middle East cold war is being waged on such diverse battlefields as Baghdad, Beirut and Gaza between the proxies of Tehran and Riyadh. In Lebanon, the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) is taking covert action against Hezbollah as part of a plan by President George W Bush to help the Lebanese government prevent the spread of Iranian influence. Perhaps in reaction to that, Hezbollah loyalists took to the streets of Beirut on Tuesday and engaged in fighting that led to the deaths of three people.
"The more the United States engages in openly provocative challenges to Iran - belligerent rhetoric, fleet movements to the [Persian] Gulf, arrests of Iranian representatives in Iraq, quasi-covert support to anti-Iranian surrogates in Lebanon and Palestine, etc, the more deeply invested Bush and [Israeli Prime Minister Ehud] Olmert become on a political level and therefore the more likely it is that this strategy will develop its own momentum and become a self-generated reality," said Ray Close, a former CIA station chief in Saudi Arabia.
According to a secret report leaked to the British Daily Telegraph this month, Bush recently authorized the CIA to prop up Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora's beleaguered government, and fund anti-Hezbollah groups and pay activists to support the government. The secrecy of the reporrt indicates that US involvement in these activities is officially deniable.
This week, the anti-Iranian alliance of Sunni-majority states stretched east to embrace Pakistan as that country's leader journeyed to the Egyptian beach resort of Sharm al-Sheikh for consultations with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. President General Pervez Musharraf was coming from Riyadh, where he vowed to deepen defense and strategic ties with the Wahhabi kingdom. His trip, according to the Saudi-owned, Arabic-language news site Elaph, was intended to "expand the Sunni alliance that includes Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Turkey to include Pakistan as well in order to face the growing Iranian influence in the region".
Commented Dr Mustapha al-Labbad, an expert in Iranian affairs and editor-in-chief of a magazine called Sharq-Namah, "Those sensitivities have justifications in light of Iran benefiting from the current regional tensions and from playing on divisions, as is happening in Iraq and Lebanon."
Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad has unwittingly speeded up the formation of the Sunni axis by making a series of reckless statements antagonizing Israel and the West.
Increasingly outspoken about what he calls the "Zionist regime" and the West's inability to confront Iran, Ahmadinejad's incendiary statements were first received humorously by ordinary Iranians, who joked that their president was in the pay of the CIA before suddenly growing fearful at the beginning of this year as United Nations Security Council Resolution 1737 was passed imposing sanctions over Iran's nuclear program. It is now apparent that Washington is seriously entertaining thoughts of striking their country.
"When we saw [former Revolutionary Guard chief Mohsen] Rezaie openly say on Sedaosima [Iran's state television monopoly, Sound and Vision] that the Americans will try to strike and that he's willing to become a martyr, we were shocked," said Sahand, an Iranian filmmaker in his early 20s. "It was the first time that it was being stated on national television."
Ahmadinejad's rhetoric has also split the country, with an alliance of realists emerging to criticize the president and point out that his actions are leading the country to the brink of war. In recent days, there has been speculation that Supreme Leader Ali al-Khamenei is refusing to see the president, as a signal of his disquiet at Iran's growing isolation.
"The US and the Zionist regime have a conspiracy to stir up conflict between Shi'ite and Sunni Muslims in order to plunder the wealth of regional nations," said Ahmadinejad during a recent meeting with Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Muallem.
With Washington dragging the region into an endgame, countries are engaged in a flurry of diplomacy. Qatari Foreign Minister
Sheikh Hamad bin Jabr al-Thani was in Tehran this week to call for a diplomatic solution. "We should realize that the stability of the region is very important and instead of using force, a solution should be found through talks," he said.
Last week, Iran asked Saudi Arabia to help ease tensions through a letter delivered by Iranian chief nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani to Saudi King Abdullah from Khamenei and Ahmadinejad. Accordingto an unnamed Saudi official, Iran would like key regional US ally Saudi Arabia to "help bring opinions together".
But US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice passed through Riyadh in confrontational form as she concluded a tour of US allies in the region. She shot down Saudi attempts to intercede between the two antagonists by announcing that "there is no need for mediation" between Iran and the United States and demanded that "Iran needs to respond to the requirements of the international community" as a whole.
"She [Rice] is a smart, attractive and articulate woman who exudes confidence and integrity and is sent out by her bosses to lie, frighten, twist the truth and exaggerate," said Charles W Naas, a retired American career diplomat who was posted in Tehran shortly before the US Embassy and dozens of diplomats were seized by a group of revolutionary students in 1979 and held for 444 days.
With tensions mounting as the US adds to its forces in the Persian Gulf, the Iranian military is responding with a three-day military exercise testing its Zalzal and Fajr-5 missiles in the desert southeast of Tehran. Last week, Russia completed delivery of 29 advanced TOR-M1 surface-to-air missile defense systems to Iran. They can strike airplanes, helicopters and incoming cruise missiles and have been deployed around Iran's nuclear facilities in central Iran, according to European diplomatic sources in Tehran.
"If the [US] administration does anything military with respect to Iran in the context of its effort to assist its rather forlorn surge [in Iraq], it would likely take the form of pinpricks - say, a quick jab at some target just over the border, hot pursuit for a few kilometers into Iran - but nothing like the contingency plans for massive, wide-ranging air strikes related to the ongoing nuclear impasse," said Wayne White, a veteran State Department intelligence analyst.
A US task force led by the aircraft carrier John C Stennis is on its way to the Gulf, where it will join another carrier. Analysts point out that the two carriers would have a combined capacity to launch around-the-clock bombing raids. The Pentagon is reportedly considering hitting 24 targets to degrade Iran's nuclear capability and potential for striking back, in case diplomacy fails to resolve the crisis surrounding the Iranian nuclear program.
"An air campaign against Iran of this magnitude would almost certainly include efforts to knock out potential Iranian retaliatory capabilities in the Gulf, such as Iran's array of coastal anti-ship missiles," said White. "Perhaps one new point of emphasis was how difficult such a confrontation could be to end once initiated."
With tension mounting, the Iranian military shot down a US pilotless spy plane last week, according to Seyed Nezam Mola Hoveyzeh, an Iranian lawmaker. The parliamentarian gave no exact date of the incident and no further details, but added that "the United States sends such spy-drones to the region every now and then".
A source familiar with the security situation on Iran's borders added that the downing of pilotless US spy-planes is common, but neither side is willing to publicize it. The Pentagon carries out overflights to prompt the Iranians to turn on their radars and expose their positions to electronic tracking.
"Most actions require extensive lead time, usually for unglamorous activity like logistics," said James Spencer, a Middle East expert specializing in defense and security issues. "Contingency plans usually therefore take the form of identifying a vague concept of operations, and consequently troop numbers, logistic requirements, timelines etc. When the politicians suddenly have their brilliant idea, the file can be opened and the flesh put on the prepared bones with more thoroughness than haste."
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/IA26Ak02.html
