MESS Report / The smell of smoke in the air all comes back to Iran
Tensions are rising in various parts of the Middle East, and recent incidents are feeding off each other.
By Amos Harel and Avi Issacharoff Tags: Israel news Iran Hezbollah LebanonThe report Wednesday of a failed assassination attempt on Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad fell on fertile media ground: One day after the deadly incident on the Israel-Lebanon border and two days after rockets hit Eilat and Aqaba, it seemed as if there weren't a drama-free moment anywhere in the region.
A few hours later, Iran issued a denial: It wasn't an assassin's grenade, but a firecracker set off by one of the president's fans. The international media quickly lost interest. And at the minute, nothing seems to directly link these three incidents.
But there is a connection: Tensions are rising in various parts of the Middle East, and each incident feeds off the others. For weeks, there has been a smell of smoke in the air: the new sanctions on Iran, the smuggling of advanced weaponry from Syria and Iran to Hezbollah, the probe into former Lebanese premier Rafik Hariri's murder. None of this necessarily means impending war, but emotions are running high.
|
IDF soldiers resting near the Lebanon border on Wednesday August 4, 2010. |
|
| Photo by: Reuters |
The assassination report apparently came from an Iranian website of dubious credibility. But then, Iran's government isn't known for its credibility either.
Something else was also reported from Iran yesterday: that it has acquired four sophisticated S-300 anti-aircraft missiles - or perhaps four batteries. The Russian-made missiles were reportedly obtained via Belarus.
Russia has been negotiating an S-300 sale with Iran for years, but its leadership is divided over whether to go through with the deal.
The missiles would hamper an aerial strike on Iran's nuclear facilities - which is why Washington and Jerusalem have been pressing Moscow not to deliver them. Western intelligence agencies suspect the Russians have already let the Iranians train on the missiles. Still, without any proof, Wednesday's report sounds dubious.
The Lebanese front was quiet Wednesday. Israel was encouraged by UNIFIL's confirmation that its soldiers indeed never entered Lebanon while clearing brush on Tuesday - the action that sparked the Lebanese attack. The Lebanese Army, unhappy with the blow it suffered, also seems to be showing restraint, so the incident is unlikely to spark a wider conflict. But the diversion of attention from the Hariri murder probe to tension on the border benefited Hezbollah, which may well try to repeat the exercise.
As for the Eilat-Aqaba attack, both Israel and Egypt yesterday accused Hamas of carrying out the attack. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu even went as far as to send out a taped message to all three television stations in which he threatened to respond. In Egypt, the assumption that Hamas was to blame means more trouble. Cairo will find it even more difficult to broker a Fatah-Hamas reconciliation deal against the backdrop of one of the sides using Egyptian soil as a base for launching terror attacks.
And here is where it all ties back into Iran: The Egyptians, like the Jordanians (who were hit hardest in Monday's attack ), are very worried by Iran's growing penetration of the region, and especially its increasingly close ties with the Hamas leadership in Gaza. If Iran is really sweating over the new sanctions or worried over American officials' recent statements about the possibility of attacking it, the effects will be felt in our region, too.
Why Facebook Connect?
Comment on Haaretz.com articles with your Facebook login, and share your thoughts on your own wall.
- Latest
- Most Viewed
- Most Rated
- Open all
What! There are 30,000 to 40,000 Jews living in Iran. Something doesn't make sense. Could it be the Zionist goal is behind all this? Iran knows they wouldn't last the day out in a war with Israel. What's the ratio of nuclear weapons, 0 to 100 or better? Now I can understand America wanting war. FDR used war to get America out of the depression. Worked then, why not now? Besides, the Military Industrial Complex needs "customers". They "must" sell their wares, $700,000,000,000's being produced just this year. What does it take to get the people to wake up? They're the cannon fodder while politicians play their games.
Give this article four and one-half out of a possible five Bull Shovels. Harel and Issacharoff are really slinging the MESS right now. May it fall on fields which need fertilizing rather than feeble minds.
.. guess who?
At the moment, Iran has two paths for growth in a time it has the most amount of oil income and most numbers of young educated human laboar. The first plan was starting cooperation with US and exploition its millitary and economical facilities in those cooperations. In this way US could decrease its millitary expens in the Middle East and Iran would expand its power in the region. However the new concervatives, the Jewish lobby and to some degree Iranian Greens did not let Obama to make it hapopens. Had it happened, Israel security would also improve , although its diplomatic power might decrease . Because Iran had to take care of US allies and interest as it does about Russia and China. When the first option was blocked by sanctions, the second option for getting power would be making riots and war, keeping oil price high by this tension ( weakening US and EU and strengthening Iran income) and weakening the moderate politicians of region by their proxies. Unfortunately now the second scenario is going to happen unless westerns and Israelies push for peace before there is no way to come back. As far as I read Iranian top officials' speach, the warlords, have no stress of war and actually are somehow willing it happens .In fact, it is more realistic for them than ever. Actually US and Israeli's threat pushed it very fast to this point. Iran did not beleive that wetserns calculate so bad. They knew they had unignorable cards like access to oil supplies and so many proxies, but they did not know it would not perceived so by westrens and Israelis. The worst part is that after the fuel swap was rejected, even now Antiwar people beleive that as Iraq war happened after saddam concession, more concession would not necessariely results in more saftey. The more we cry the least is heard by Iranian and American officials. We smell war and death too. In fact, both of groups sepculate they may get some strategic success in this war, but the only thing sure is its causality and destruction power for all groups. No party is completly defeatable but all would be weakened.
Firing and explusion games are very common among Iranian youths even among girls and it refers to zoroastarian rituals back to 3000 years ago. I just invite to see Iran in a "cheharshanbeh sori " festival, a Zoroastarian fire rituals still practiced widely by all Iranians. I remember my last 5 yaers of presence in Tehran, I even did not dare to go out those days as there was so many explusions for pleasures and many of them became to serious incidents such as killing or disabilities. There is a famous historical event saying 2000 years ago, Iranian burnt their summer presidency palace ( called Madayen) with fire games! When I was younger, my brothers and I were making those explussives and explosing them for fun, though we were known to be the most polite and calm children of the area and did not following anything evil! However, sometimes we were putting more explussive than needed inside and made dangerous explusions. So I fully beleived it was for fun.
VIPS put out an interesting statement http://www.consortiumnews.com/2010/080310c.html anticipating an Israeli attack and saying "regime change, not Iranian nuclear weapons, is Israel’s primary concern". Israel's right-wing zealots need to be put out to pasture and replaced by educated thinkers.
Wow What a thin and predictable, if not fantastical, piece of journalistic work. You two writers (it takes 2 people to write THIS ?) have all the analytical skills of a pot of yoghurt. Do you get paid for this ?
It is no secret that Israel is threatening to strike Iran on daily/Weekly basis. Israel is doing all it can to conjure support to destablise the Iranian regime. As a self-respecting nation, they should act too, but Israel had a free ride with its neighbors too much for too long to the point were it expect its enemies to roll up and die. This is not the case with Iran and Hezbollah, 2006 is a good lesson. Finally, the blood trail in the middle east lead to Israel. Sea, Air and land. Want example, have you got two years to spare ?
The proof of this my dear "journalists" can be found on youtube itself. See if you can find the latest military march from Irans army day. You can see the S-300 being paraded around. Such research can be done by a 15 year old doing a project on journalism.
. Huge Iranian energy plant explosion coincides with bid on Ahmadinejad's life. A massive explosion killed at least five workers at the giant Pardis petrochemicals complex in southern Iran Wednesday, August 4, at around 12:30 - just about the time an explosive device was hurled at Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as his heavily secured armored convoy drove through the northern Iranian city of Hamadan. This is reported by DEBKAfile's Iranian sources. Ahmadinejad was unhurt although some of his bodyguards and bystanders were certainly injured. He made straight for Hamadan's central stadium and began delivering a speech that was broadcast live by state television. Assaluyeh, the site of the Pardis complex, is situated at the opposite end of Iran, on its southern Persian Gulf coast not far from the Bushehr nuclear reactor. Iranian officials admit that large sections of the complex were destroyed but attributed the blast to a ruptured gas pipe. DEBKAfile's intelligence sources report that the plant was hit by five explosive devices. It was new, personally inaugurated on July 28 by President Ahmadinejad, who described it as a miracle of Iranian hi-tech?
You mean that website that creates its own twilight zone. Constantly launching all kinds of speculations that are never really supported by any tangible evidence. Filled with stories and conspiracies, mostly based on uncontrollable sources and rumors. All meant to convey the message Israel is permanently engaged in a heroic struggle to survive in the Middle Eastern jungle. This image may appeal to men who confuse the real world with a computer game, but that is no substitute for sober analysis based on real facts and expertise.
iranian opponents of ahmadinejad do no attack infrastructure.
One of our problems with Iranian government is that there are so much investment and technological growth in millitary area but few in civilian areas. We have so many poor and what creates welfare for them is not millitary adventure but civilian technological growth. So at the same time that I know Iran has s-300 and can copy s-300 if it has access to a single one, I say it would not create a better Iran for its people . However the security in Iran is very stable. The only time there was a real unstablity, was post election riots which were repressed. It is very unlikely that the reported incident was a serious attempt. Else they should have made a compaign against US and Israel using this opportunity .Then fire games are twined with Iranian fun culture as it is a Zoroastarian religious ritual.
Those ancient S-300P systems with their antiquated SA-10a missiles are nothing like the S-300PMU systems that Russia was to have sold Iran. The Ayatollahs have purchased something useful only for propaganda.
You can make more trying to stop a new Israel adventure after others like iron cast who put our leaders in Goldstone report no less than war criminal.Stop demonizing Iran and show to Israeli brainwashed people the truth.Say sincerely who is Bibi and who is Ahmadinejad,who is a demagogue and who is rational,who is a real danger for Israel.How Yosi Sarid wrote recently:"I am scared more by Netanyahu (Bibi and Benzion) than Ahmadinejad.
Death to Oppression!
They will do anything to forestall the possibility of peace in the ME.
Palestinians under occupation since the Shah of Iran, Palestinians been talking to Israel (begging more like) since 1988. What did Israel do in return, gold fish tank Gaza , big preson West Bank and lots and lots of dead people ! Peace is done when the occupation is long gone. YOU CANNOT FORESTALL PEACE, IF THERE IS NO OCCUPATION. STOP DREAMING AND WAKEUP TO THE INJUSTICE, END THE OCCUPATION
And whom has Iran invaded in the last century?
And yet, when Iran says all roads lead to the US or Israel, people dismiss that as nonsense. The truth is, its more like a bunch of spider's webs all interwoven.