|
Weekly Commentary
Shameless
Empowering of Tyranny and Terror
“We cannot sit back and allow this blood-thirsty band of
terrorists [ruling in Iran] to grow into a monster too big for
anyone to handle,” said former New York Senator Alphonse D’Amato
in 1995.
Thanks to the masterminds of the disgraced policy of
“constructive engagement” in European Union, and their
trans-Atlantic allies in Washington, that could soon be the
case.
Having mastered the art of protracted nuclear diplomacy through
endless negotiations, Tehran could be only months away from the
nuclear point of no return. The Europeans are not denying Iran
that is running an extensive and robust nuclear weapons program.
To deal with this threat, however, they insist on appeasing the
mullahs out of their rogue behavior.
The EU has offered so many “carrots” to the mullahs, some
Iranians say sarcastically, that it is now trying to import some
from the United States because its own supermarkets have ran
out.
In a recent commentary entitled “Axis of Weakness”, Jeffrey
Gedmin, Director of the Aspen Institute in Berlin, wrote, “A
German friend of mine once explained to me, with some
embarrassment, how the policy [of constructive engagement]
works: Europe is nice to the mullahs, and when this fails, well,
Europe tries to be a little nicer.”
While Iran’s nuclear menace has been getting most of the
headlines, the mullahs’ campaign of destabilization in Iraq
continues to grow. Quoting senior Kurdish officials in Iraq, the
Boston Globe wrote last Sunday that Iran was working “to train,
raise funds, and plan terrorist operations in Iraq, infiltrating
operatives across a porous, rocky, high-altitude border.”
It added, “Kurdish officials point to what they say is tangible
footprints of Iran's collaboration with terror and insurgent
groups responsible for attacks inside Iraq. Iran, the officials
say, continues to aid groups like Ansar al-Islam and Abu Musab
al-Zarqawi's group, now named Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia.”
Last week, Iraqi President Ghazi al-Yawar accused Tehran of
orchestrating attacks in his country. "Iran is playing a
negative role in Iraq. It is behind the assassination of more
than 18 Iraqi intelligence officers. It is also playing a
negative role in southern Iraq," he said. Last summer, his
defense minister called Iran his country's "first enemy," and
said Tehran's policies had "added fuel to the fire."
Forcing the US-led coalition out of Iraq as a prelude to
establishing itself as the preeminent power broker there
constitutes a primary component of Iran’ strategy of expanding
its dominance to the whole region. Foreign Minister Kamal
Kharrazi told reporters recently that his regime was in fact
playing a “positive role” in Iraq.
Positive? Of course not for the Iraqi people and the rule of law
in Iraq, but for Tehran’s sinister designs in that country.
Despite being behind all these seditious activities, Iran has
been invited to attend a high profile international summit in
Egypt in late November, where the U.S. and other G-8 states are
expected to discuss cooperation on Iraq’s “security” and
stability.
What business does Iran, a terror-sponsoring regime and a major
cause of Iraq’s insecurity, have in a meeting for ensuring
security there? Did anyone not forget to invite Abu-Musab al-Zarqawi
to attend?
Victor Davis Hanson, a military historian and a senior fellow at
the Hoover Institution, recently wrote in the Wall Street
Journal, “the 20th century should have taught the citizens of
liberal democracies the catastrophic consequences of placating
tyrants.”
He contended that the root cause of September 11 tragedy was the
precedence left by the 1979 U.S. embassy takeover in Iran. “Roll
the tape backward from the USS Cole in 2000, through the bombing
of the U.S. embassies in East Africa in 1998 and the Khobar
Towers in 1996, the first World Trade Center bombing in 1993…,
until we arrive at the Iranian hostage-taking of November 1979,”
Hanson wrote.
The September 11 catastrophe was for the most part a product of
“placating tyrants” and appeasing terrorist regimes, above all
Tehran.
There is an abundance of tough, but ineffective, talk about
Iran. Washington needs to put together an overall policy to
facilitate the replacement of the current regime by the Iranian
people. Short of a military invasion, everything else should be
on the table, from throwing our diplomatic and political
resources behind the Iranian people democracy movement to
supporting the anti-fundamentalist Iranian opposition.
(USADI)
Return to Top
The Boston Globe
November 7, 2004
Along border,
Kurds say, Iran gives boost to uprising
TUWELLA, Iraq -- A dirt track winds from this Kurdish border
outpost to the top of a jagged mountain ridge separating Iran
from Iraq's northern Kurdish enclave.
For years, and with the blessing
of Iranian officials, Islamist terrorist groups have smuggled
weapons and money into Iraq on this road, many Kurdish
intelligence and security officials said. When US special forces
and Kurdish peshmerga fighters attacked Ansar al-Islam, an Al
Qaeda affiliate, in March 2003, hundreds of its members fled to
Iran, the officials said, and have regrouped in several towns
just over this border.
There, they continue to train, raise funds, and plan terrorist
operations in Iraq, infiltrating operatives across a porous,
rocky, high-altitude border that has long been a haven for
smugglers and that, in practical terms, is impossible to police,
the Kurdish officials say.
Iraqi and US officials have grumbled for more than a year about
what they perceive as Iranian interference in Iraq. Iran has
repeatedly and forcefully denied any such interference. But here
in the mountains of Kurdistan, the Kurdish officials point to
what they say are tangible footprints of Iran's collaboration
with terror and insurgent groups responsible for attacks inside
Iraq.
According to a half-dozen officials in the Patriotic Union of
Kurdistan, known as the PUK, which controls the southern half of
the Kurdistan region of Iraq, and commanders in the peshmerga,
the force that provides security in the region, Iran has
extended its network of agents inside Iraq. Iran, the officials
say, continues to aid groups like Ansar al-Islam and Abu Musab
al-Zarqawi's group, now named Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia.
Even though Iran is a Shi'ite theocracy, these officials said,
it helps Sunni insurgent groups because it wants to prevent a
strong unified government from taking shape in Iraq. "They go
back and forth after running missions here," said Anwar Haji
Othman, head of security in the area around Halabja, including a
long stretch of the Iranian border.…
Iran's foreign minister, Kamal Kharrazi, said at the time: "From
the outset, Iran has tried to help Iraq overcome its problems."
But Othman, the Kurdish regional security chief, said that
despite impressive internal security forces, Iran has not
stopped terror groups from living and training just across the
border in a group of Iranian Kurdish cities.
According to information gleaned from questioning of the
arrested Ansar members, Othman said, former Ansar fighters are
now based in the Iranian border towns of Marivan (home to about
60 Kurdish Islamists), Sanandaj, Dezli (where about 30 Iranian
villagers have joined the Islamist cause) and Orumiyeh (the base
for up to 300 Islamists, including Gulf Arabs, Afghans and
Kurds). They have a training camp in Dolanau, just a few
kilometers from the Iraqi border. Three other leading officials
have confirmed this…
Mohammed Mohammed Saeed, a peshmerga commander and the top PUK
official in the region around Halabja, said that Iran regularly
sends intelligence agents into Kurdistan to monitor the Kurdish
peshmerga and the movements of Americans.
Iran used to have offices in Suleimaniya and Halabja until US
special forces landed in the region in March 2003. But, Saeed
said, the Iranians have retained their spy network inside Iraq,
and are now using it to watch American forces and to help
insurgents.
"The Iranians are worried," he said. "They don't want a
pro-American government in Iraq. The Iranians want neighboring
countries to be full of anarchy, violence, and chaos."…
Return to Top
Arab Times
November 11, 2004
Syrian, Iranian
dresses ablaze
IF POLITICS is about managing and serving the interests of one's
country, surely the Iranian and Syrian regimes lack this knack.
Viewed from this perspective there is no real politics in these
two countries. Or maybe their brand of politics belongs to the
bygone era as it is based on the instinct of protecting and
ensuring the existence of oneself. The policy of these two
regimes is to ignore the policies of others unless they are
enemies. These regimes need such illusory animosity to prove
they are effective and needed. Such illusions are based on
slogans, which try to fuel the emotions of people against an
enemy who doesn't exist...
This was obvious when the Syrian Foreign Minister Farouk Al-Sharaa
went to Tehran to discuss what they can do about the "Angry
Ghost" operation which is sweeping through Falluja. Damascus and
Tehran have condemned the military operations of the coalition
forces in Falluja. This makes us wonder why these two countries
are against the operations to flush out terrorists. Why are they
crying foul while other countries in the region such as Kuwait,
Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Jordan are maintaining a studied
silence? Can we ask why Syria and Iran are raising such
objections at this point in time?
The only answer to these questions is the fact that the real
fight in Fallujah is between Syrian and Iranian intelligence
agents on the one hand and Iraqi and coalition forces on the
other. The Syrian and Iranian regimes are trying to mislead
their people on a war they can't win. But they surely can raise
all sorts of objections from the side. These regimes adopted the
policy of killing innocent people to ensure their survival. The
dress of Iran and Syria are in flames because of the fire they
set in Iraq and Lebanon…
Return to Top
|
