Hizb'Allah taking serious casualties..

Payback: Jihad Attiya, logistical coordinator for Hizbullah's southern branch, who planned kidnapping of 3 Israeli soldiers six years ago, killed in IAF targeted strike. IDF holds names of at least 200 Hizbullah terrorists, including senior members, killed since beginning of conflict Hanan Greenberg Ynet.com Army officials have begun revealing the names of Hizbullah operatives killed since the beginning of the recent conflict. The most interesting Hizbullah casualty is Jihad Attiya, the logistical coordinator of Hizbullah’s southern branch and among the chief organizers of the October 2000 kidnapping of three IDF soldiers – Adi Avitan, Benyamin Avraham and Omar Souad. Attiya was killed in a targeted air strike.In the hands of the IDF are the names of at least 200 Hizbullah operatives killed since the outbreak of fighting in the north, including a number of senior Hizbullah members, such as Nur Shalhoub, who was responsible for transporting arms from Syria to Lebanon. Additionally, the terror group’s central sector operations officer was killed last week during an IDF ground offensive in south Lebanon.Despite the heavy blow dealt to Hizbullah, IDF officials assessed that the group’s leadership system was still functioning and Hizbullah forces in the field were continuing to take directives from the upper ranks of command. As well, Iran continued to aid Hizbullah through its presence in Lebanon, a presence which includes forces of the Revolutionary Guard Corps. Army sources believed the Iranians were involved in the missile attack on the Israeli navy gunship at the start of the fighting, which killed four Israeli soldiers, as the more sophisticated missile may have proved difficult for Hizbullah operatives to operate without guidance. It is in Tehran’s interest that Hizbullah keep hold on its military and political power in Lebanon, as they hope to make use of it in the future when the issue of Iran’s nuclear armament comes to the fore and Iran will need a militia on hand that can pose a significant threat to Israel. Israel is assiduously tracking public addresses by Hizbullah chief Hassan Nasrallah, and its central assessment is that the group hopes for a ceasefire as soon as possible, and will do anything to achieve such a position. Nasrallah is apparently anxious over an expansion of IDF ground operations as well as over intra-Lebanese legitimization of the fighting and criticism of his group. The question of ‘How will the conflict end?’ depends on the type of force that deploys to south Lebanon. If it is a force like UNIFIL, which lacks both authority and might, Nasrallah will view this as a positive achievement. On the other hand, the deployment of a multinational force with true policing and enforcement powers could constitute a defeat for Nasrallah. In any case, with the fashioning of a new reality on the Israeli-Lebanese border, cleared of any traces of Hizbullah, it would be difficult for the group to carry out another kidnapping or sniper attack. With that, Hizbullah would still be capable of firing rockets at Israeli territory. Contrary to the high number of casualties reported in the Lebanese village of Qana Sunday as a result of an IAF strike (up to 50), the Lebanese government and the Red Cross hold differing figures which show that 27 people were killed.

Syrian stockpile

Syria's Chemical Missiles NUCLEAR, BIOLOGICAL AND CHEMICAL WEAPONS July 30, 2006: Syria may not have nuclear weapons, but it has created a force of ballistic missiles equipped with chemical (nerve and mustard gas) warheads. Syria is believed to have about 1200 ballistic missiles. About 85 percent of them are SCUDs, and most of these are improved designs from North Korea and Iran. The main improvement is a larger fuel tank, giving these missiles a range of about 700 kilometers. This allows them to reach anywhere in Israel. About 15 percent of their missiles are more modern (solid fuel) Russian SS-21s. But these only have a range of 70 kilometers. Thus the Syrians have about 600 missiles with a range of 700 kilometers, another 400 with a range of 300-400 kilometers, and about 200 with a range of 70 kilometers. All these missiles carry a half ton warhead. And some of these warheads carry nerve gas or mustard gas. There are about 70 mobile launchers for the SCUDs, and about as many for the smaller SS-21s. The SCUD launchers, and support vehicles, are hidden in fifteen or more tunnel complexes. A major disadvantage of the SCUDs is that they take over an hour to fuel and get ready for firing. Some of the liquid fuel is poisonous, and the crews have to be careful while handling it. While there are some underground SCUD launching facilities, these are probably known to the Israelis, and likely to be bombed early in any conflict. That's why the 70 mobile launchers are so important. These will be much sought after by Israeli aircraft, UAVs and satellites. Israel also has an anti-missile system (Arrow) that can knock down a few SCUDs at a time. If the Israelis can destroy most of the mobile launchers, and underground launch sites, that might be enough to avoid getting hit with chemical warheads.These ballistic missiles are really the only reliable weapon Syria has. Poverty, and the end of Cold War era handouts from Russia, has led the 220,000 man Syrian army to decline in quality. The Syrian air force has sunk even deeper. The Syrian forces were never all that great to begin with. But now, all they can do is threaten Israel with chemical warheads carried on ballistic missiles. The United States has threatened to reply with nukes if anyone uses chemical weapons against U.S. troops or civilians. It's unclear if Israel would respond the same way. The Israeli armed forces could roll over the Syrian army and capture all of Syria in short order. The threat of Israeli war crimes trials against Syrian leaders (who survived the Israeli offensive), might be the ultimate deterrent. NBC

Confronting the Islamofascist enemy...

What fate for Islamofascism? By Austin Bay, Washington Times July 28, 2006 Hezbollah and other Islamo-fascist terrorists concluded long ago that "if it bleeds it leads" doesn't simply apply to the sensation-hungry media. Islamo-fascist mass murderers maintain public bloodletting (their enemy's and their own) is a victory in itself. We know "big bloodletting" means big headlines. But for Hezbollah's philosophers, mass bloodletting serves another purpose: It is demonstrates terrorist commitment and moral will. Islamo-fascist "death cult" terrorists are convinced their forceful willpower (when combined with actions demonstrating millenarian certitude) ultimately guarantees defeat of liberal Western couch potatoes and sheep. The Islamo-fascists aren't the first international mass murder movement to deserve the moniker of "death cult." In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, transnational anarchists touted "politics of the bomb" and "propaganda by deed." The anarchists spilled blood -- over a seven-year period (1894-1901) they killed a French president, a Spanish prime minister, an Italian king and a U.S. president (William McKinley). However, they failed to ignite a global revolution they claimed would produce an earthly paradise of justice once the ancien regimes disappeared in flames. The anarchists believed their own propaganda, and by doing so misjudged the enormous strengths of liberal capitalist democracies. They totally underestimated the United States. Unfortunately, the anarchists' agitprop techniques inform contemporary terrorists, and the dregs of its half-baked philosophies continue to deform a few lost corners of human culture. A romantic notion of anarchist violence energizes much of the radical-chic rhetoric emanating from American college campuses, providing pseudo-intellectual tropes for anti-Americanism and "anti-globalization." These are the rear-guard actions of a dead-end ideology posing as the avant-garde. We will all be better off when Islamo-fascism follows anarchism's path. Pray for the day when the proponents of Hezbollahism and bin Ladenism are mere academic crackpots. But defeating Islamo-fascism means men and women who love their own liberty enough to defend it (wherever they live on this often tortured planet of ours) must once again display more spine than the killers. Defeating death cults entails persevering despite loss of life and heinous outrage. At the moment, the world's most critical demonstration of the will to persevere and destroy terrorism is Israel's confrontation with Hezbollah in northern Israel and southern Lebanon. During the 1990s, Hezbollah (with Iranian and Syrian support) fought a grinding guerrilla war against Israel's occupation of south Lebanon. Under international pressure to withdraw as a prelude to a peace deal, Israel pulled out. Hezbollah touted Israel's withdrawal as a loss of Israeli will to fight. But Hezbollah's Iranian masters never thought the U.S. would be in both Afghanistan and Iraq. The Iraqi election of January 2005 ignited Lebanon's "Beirut Spring" pro-democracy rallies. Those rallies shook even the most willful tyrants in Tehran and Syria. The appeal of liberal democracy brought couch potatoes and sheep into the streets -- indicating they weren't couch potatoes. That is why I know this Israel-Hezbollah war is no accident. Tyrants and terrorists must dash the hopes of couch potatoes and sheep. The will of the tyrants and terrorists cannot be successfully mocked and challenged or it's over for them. And, oh yes, Iran's holy quest for a nuclear weapon cannot be thwarted, either. But tyrants and terrorists' willpower and warfare are being challenged. Over the last two weeks, criticism of Israel from the usual amen corners has been conspicuously circumspect. It appears U.S.-led diplomatic efforts designed to give Israel the time to defeat Hezbollah are working. Let's hope Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice can buy Israel a couple of months. Israel indicates it intends to destroy, bunker by bunker, Iran's investment in Hezbollah. The Israelis are killing Hezbollah's fighters -- and letting the sensation-hungry media document their deaths. Hezbollah can proclaim a victory-in-death, but like the claims of its global anarchist antecedents, the bloody tout will be desperately hollow. Austin Bay is a nationally syndicated columnist

Al Qaeda: 1,287th Declaration of War...

www.ynetnews.com July 27, 2006 Al-Qaeda: Join fighting in Lebanon Al-Jazeera broadcasts speech by group 2nd-in-command Al-Zawahri: 'War with Israel does not depend on ceasefires. It is Jihad for sake of God and will last until religion prevails from Spain to Iraq. Al-Qaeda's No. 2 leader on Thursday warned that the terrorist group would not stand idly by while "these (Israeli) shells burn our brothers" in Lebanon and Gaza. In a taped message broadcast by al-Jazeera television, Ayman al-Zawahri, second in command to Osama bin Laden, said al-Qaeda now saw "all the world as a battlefield open in front of us." The Egyptian-born physician said the Hizbullah and Palestinian fighting against Israel would not be ended with "ceasefires or agreements." Al-Zawahri: Muslims everywhere must rise up (Photo: AP) "The war with Israel does not depend on ceasefires ..It is a Jihad for the sake of God and will last until (our) religion prevails from Spain to Iraq," Al-Zawahri said. "We will attack everywhere." Spain was controlled by Arab Muslims until they were driven from the country at the turn of the 16th century. A picture of the burning World Trade Center was on the wall behind him along with photos of two other militants. One appeared to be a bearded Mohammed Atta, the Egyptian ringleader of the Sept. 11 attacks. The other was Mohammed Atef, also known as Abu Hafs al-Masri, a former top lieutenant of bin Laden who was killed in a US airstrike in Afghanistan in November 2001. Al-Qaeda broadcasts are thought to contain coded messages to members. Three of images on the screen - that of al-Zawahri and the pictures of al-Masri and what was believed to be Atta - were Egyptian. The Arab satellite broadcaster did not transmit the entire tape, using instead selected quotes interspersed with commentary from an anchor. "The shells and rockets ripping apart Muslim bodies in Gaza and Lebanon are not only Israeli (weapons), but are supplied by all the countries of the crusader coalition. Therefore, every participant in the crime will pay the price," Al-Zawahri said. Al-Zawahri said Muslims everywhere must rise up to attack "crusaders and Zionists... and support jihad everywhere...until American troops are chased from Afghanistan and Iraq, paralyzed and impotent...having paid the price for aggression against Muslims and support for Israel."

The battle against Hizbullah..

Welcome to all readers of National Review, and thanks to my friend Bill Crawford at All Things Conservative! July 26, 2006 Uri Dan, New York Post-- JERUSALEM - Israel claimed victory in Hezbollah's southern "capital" yesterday after a battle in Lebanon that uncovered Iranian-made weapons and electronic equipment and left 150 guerrillas dead. Israeli forces found "war rooms" equipped with Iranian surveillance and eavesdropping gear in Bint Jbail, the main Hezbollah stronghold just inside the border. "The town is completely controlled by us," an Israeli colonel said. Caches of weapons were also found in Bint Jbail, Israeli officials said. Mahmoud Komati, deputy chief of Hezbollah's political arm, refused to acknowledge the group was firing Iranian-made missiles into Israel. "We don't deny nor confirm. We believe where the weapons come from is irrelevant," he said, adding that Hezbollah has weapons made in France, Russia, China and the United States. "Some of our fighters carry M16s. So you think we buy them from America?" he asked. The death toll from the two-week war continued to mount, including six Lebanese killed by a bomb in Nebatiyeh and a 15-year-old Arab girl killed by a Hezbollah rocket in northern Israel. At least three U.N. observers were also killed, with one other feared dead. They were from Austria, Canada, China and Finland, U.N. and Lebanese officials said. U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan called on Israel to investigate the "apparently deliberate" deadly attack against the world body's observation post. Israeli U.N. Ambassador Dan Gillerman expressed "deep regret" for what happened, but called Annan's accusations "premature and erroneous." Gillerman said he was "shocked and deeply distressed by the hasty statement of the secretary-general insinuating that Israel has deliberately targeted the U.N. post." A spokesman for the Israeli Foreign Ministry said the incident would be investigated. Among the yesterday's developments: * A senior Hezbollah official said the group was surprised at the fierce Israeli reaction to the guerrillas' kidnapping of two soldiers. "The truth is - let me say this clearly - we didn't even expect [this] response . . . that [Israel] would exploit this operation for this big war against us," said Komati, the Hezbollah spokesman. * Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said the offensive could ignite a wider Mideast war - and Syria was on its highest state of alert in 15 years. * Israeli Defense Minister Amir Peretz said his forces will control only a "security strip" in southern Lebanon and hold it until an international force can replace them. Peretz said anyone who enters the strip could be fired upon. The strip is expected to range from two to six miles deep, north of the border. * Other military officials said they did not plan to push deeper into Lebanon. "The intention is to deal with the Hezbollah infrastructure that is within reach," Col. Hemi Livni, who commands troops in the western sector of southern Lebanon, told Israel Army Radio. "That means in southern Lebanon, not going beyond that." * Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was told during her visit to Israel on Monday that a peacekeeping force "like in Bosnia" was needed, sources said. Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah took aim at Rice's peace proposals when he said in a televised speech that his terror group would not accept any "humiliating" conditions for a cease-fire. He also said the war was entering a "new period" and threatened to fire missiles deeper into Israel. * New fighting erupted yesterday near the town of Marun a-Ras, which Israel thought had been conquered on Sunday. Abu Jaafar, commander of Hezbollah's central sector on the border, and four gunmen were killed and several soldiers from an Israeli tank unit were wounded, officials said. Israel is now poised to knock out Hezbollah launching sites near the coastal city of Tyre, from which 12 Syrian-made rockets were fired at Haifa yesterday. At least 66 Israelis were reported wounded from the attacks yesterday. A 76-year-old Israeli suffered a fatal heart attack as he hurried to an air-raid shelter in Haifa. At least 418 people in Lebanon and 42 in Israel have been killed since the fighting began on July 12, when Hezbollah raided an Israeli patrol south of the border.

The battle against Hizbullah..

Welcome to all readers of National Review, and thanks to my friend Bill Crawford at All Things Conservative! July 26, 2006 Uri Dan, New York Post-- JERUSALEM - Israel claimed victory in Hezbollah's southern "capital" yesterday after a battle in Lebanon that uncovered Iranian-made weapons and electronic equipment and left 150 guerrillas dead. Israeli forces found "war rooms" equipped with Iranian surveillance and eavesdropping gear in Bint Jbail, the main Hezbollah stronghold just inside the border. "The town is completely controlled by us," an Israeli colonel said. Caches of weapons were also found in Bint Jbail, Israeli officials said. Mahmoud Komati, deputy chief of Hezbollah's political arm, refused to acknowledge the group was firing Iranian-made missiles into Israel. "We don't deny nor confirm. We believe where the weapons come from is irrelevant," he said, adding that Hezbollah has weapons made in France, Russia, China and the United States. "Some of our fighters carry M16s. So you think we buy them from America?" he asked. The death toll from the two-week war continued to mount, including six Lebanese killed by a bomb in Nebatiyeh and a 15-year-old Arab girl killed by a Hezbollah rocket in northern Israel. At least three U.N. observers were also killed, with one other feared dead. They were from Austria, Canada, China and Finland, U.N. and Lebanese officials said. U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan called on Israel to investigate the "apparently deliberate" deadly attack against the world body's observation post. Israeli U.N. Ambassador Dan Gillerman expressed "deep regret" for what happened, but called Annan's accusations "premature and erroneous." Gillerman said he was "shocked and deeply distressed by the hasty statement of the secretary-general insinuating that Israel has deliberately targeted the U.N. post." A spokesman for the Israeli Foreign Ministry said the incident would be investigated. Among the yesterday's developments: * A senior Hezbollah official said the group was surprised at the fierce Israeli reaction to the guerrillas' kidnapping of two soldiers. "The truth is - let me say this clearly - we didn't even expect [this] response . . . that [Israel] would exploit this operation for this big war against us," said Komati, the Hezbollah spokesman. * Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said the offensive could ignite a wider Mideast war - and Syria was on its highest state of alert in 15 years. * Israeli Defense Minister Amir Peretz said his forces will control only a "security strip" in southern Lebanon and hold it until an international force can replace them. Peretz said anyone who enters the strip could be fired upon. The strip is expected to range from two to six miles deep, north of the border. * Other military officials said they did not plan to push deeper into Lebanon. "The intention is to deal with the Hezbollah infrastructure that is within reach," Col. Hemi Livni, who commands troops in the western sector of southern Lebanon, told Israel Army Radio. "That means in southern Lebanon, not going beyond that." * Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was told during her visit to Israel on Monday that a peacekeeping force "like in Bosnia" was needed, sources said. Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah took aim at Rice's peace proposals when he said in a televised speech that his terror group would not accept any "humiliating" conditions for a cease-fire. He also said the war was entering a "new period" and threatened to fire missiles deeper into Israel. * New fighting erupted yesterday near the town of Marun a-Ras, which Israel thought had been conquered on Sunday. Abu Jaafar, commander of Hezbollah's central sector on the border, and four gunmen were killed and several soldiers from an Israeli tank unit were wounded, officials said. Israel is now poised to knock out Hezbollah launching sites near the coastal city of Tyre, from which 12 Syrian-made rockets were fired at Haifa yesterday. At least 66 Israelis were reported wounded from the attacks yesterday. A 76-year-old Israeli suffered a fatal heart attack as he hurried to an air-raid shelter in Haifa. At least 418 people in Lebanon and 42 in Israel have been killed since the fighting began on July 12, when Hezbollah raided an Israeli patrol south of the border.

Voting for Suicide

By David Gelernter The Weekly Standard | July 25, 2006 For years I have watched the Palestinians do absurdly self-destructive things, and have never understood them until now. But watching the Bush administration stoutly defend Israel this week against the background of an American Jewish population that vocally (often sneeringly) dislikes him and his administration, and consistently votes by massive majorities for his Democratic opponents, I start to understand the Palestinians just a little. American Jews are not Palestinians and have not sunk to the level of supporting terrorist murderers. But their behavior is a lesson in self-destructive nihilism that could teach even the Palestinians a thing or two. U.S. Jews remain fervent supporters of an American left that is increasingly unable or unwilling to say why Israel must exist. Of course American Jews, like all Americans, define their interests in terms of many issues and not just one. But there is a reason why so many used to put Israel's safety near the top of their lists: Israel has been caught in a life-or-death struggle since birth; American support is critical to her survival. True: Jewish support for President Bush moved upward in the 2004 election relative to the 2000 figures. It moved all the way up to 25 percent. During the five presidential elections of the 1970s and '80s, American Jews averaged 35 percent support for the Republican candidate, so 25 percent for Bush in '04 was not exactly a landslide move to the GOP. But even this pint-sized move seems to have petered out earlier this year. Jack Abramoff does not make an attractive spokesman for Jewish Republicans. The fall of Tom DeLay silenced one of the best friends Israel ever had in American politics, and one of the most effective symbols of Republican support for Israel. So the pattern of the '90s is likely to continue: American Jews move left as the left moves away from Israel.Merely look at American universities and their disastrous left-wing tilt (many are close to capsizing), and check out recent studies that document a startling deterioration in knowledge of and sympathy for Israel on U.S. college campuses, and you will learn plenty about the American left and its increasingly anti-Israel tendencies. When you vote for a presidential candidate, you are voting to award jobs to a few of his supporters, and influence to vast numbers of them. Most Democratic politicians speak up for Israel. But grassroots Demo crats are increasingly dangerous to the Jewish state (not to mention the American state). Still, American Jews vote for (and bankroll!) Democrats. And each time they repeat this performance, the risk is greater. Will they risk it again in 2008? Will the Arabs force Israel into yet another round of catastrophic, self-destructive bloodletting after this round is over? In both cases, probably yes. American Jews (especially the intellectual leadership) have a tragic history of acting against their own professed interests. In the years before Pearl Harbor, U.S. intellectuals on the whole (especially New York intellectuals) vehemently opposed American entry alongside Britain into the war against Nazi Germany. Of course many New York intellectuals were not Jews, and many American Jews didn't care for New York intellectuals. But journals like Partisan Review helped shape the cultural climate--and were fiercely antiwar until Pearl Harbor--and were shaped, themselves, by Jewish intellectuals. Leading Jewish intellectuals signed a Partisan Review statement explaining that "Our entry into the war, under the slogan of 'Stop Hitler!' would actually result in the immediate introduction of totalitarianism over here. . . . The American masses can best help [the German people] by fighting at home to keep their own liberties." Before Pearl Harbor, many prominent (non-intellectual) U.S. Jews failed to support war against Hitler because they were scared--understandably if unforgivably. Anti-Semitism was still real in this country, Jewish influence in America was brand new, and Jews did not want to be blamed for involving their country in another world war. Which makes the case of Partisan Review and other intellectual organs so fascinating. In some respects, left-wing Jewish intellectuals were admirably fearless. Most were Marxists and didn't give a damn what the country thought of them. Nonetheless: The Partisan Review crowd did not speak up for war against Hitler. Just the opposite. Read that ancient Partisan Review statement and the truth hits home. The problem with the American Jewish left, from 1940 through 2006, is not malevolence but naiveté--naiveté so great, it is the next best thing to stupidity. Naiveté is an occupational hazard among all intellectuals. But American Jews at large respect their intellectuals as much as any group does, and more than most--and way too much for common sense.The Palestinian Arabs who cheer terrorists on do so out of hate, which is far stronger than intelligent self-interest (or any other emotion). American Jews used to act out of very different motives; used to vote left out of idealism. But that is starting to change. As the left-wing agenda dries up, nothing remains to feed on (if you are used to getting your nourishment left of center) but the bitter weeds of hate. And thus the tragic, pathetic surge of hatred for George Bush on the left, including among left-wing Jews. As I heard someone say last week, "I think Bush is doing great on Israel. Naturally, I still hate his guts." For those who continue to insist on voting Democratic, the future is written in a recent column by Richard Cohen--who explains that the "greatest mistake Israel could make at the moment is to forget that Israel itself is a mistake." Who advises Israel to "hunker down," while "waiting (and hoping) that history will get distracted and move on to something else." It is hard to understand why Israel is a mistake if Switzerland isn't--or the United States, or any other nation or (for that matter) human being. Cohen himself is occupying space right now that someone else could be using, and maybe wants to. The earth's surface did not expand to make room for him. Births have outstripped deaths on this planet for many generations. But we are not in the habit of demanding that human beings justify their existence or be mowed down, and the idea is equally bad in the case of nations.Life is valuable in itself--human life or the life of nations; one of the main differences being that it is so much harder to create a nation. That the Israelis have done so--have created in fact a free nation and a hugely productive one that treats all its citizens humanely and is a world center of science, medicine, scholarship, and argument (all flavors)--is one of the stunning facts of modern history.And, of course, the origins of no two nations more resemble each other than Israel's and America's, both created by Europeans clutching Bibles, searching for freedom, prepared to fight for a room of their own. Both populated by human beings, a species not noted for perfection. Yet both strongholds of democracy, freedom, and tolerance nonetheless. Anyone who has decided that Israel is a mistake is likely to come around to the same view of the United States. But let's consider Cohen's offensive question anyway. Imagine how Jews might have fared in the Middle East over the last half century with no Jewish state to protect them. Would they have done as well as the Syrians, Egyptians, Libyans? Or would they all be dead, along with countless other victims of mass-murdering Arab tyrants? Or should the Middle East have been "restricted," like tony New York clubs in the 1930s--no Jews allowed? And Europe doesn't like Jews any better than the Middle East does; should Europe be restricted too? And what about America? But Jews no longer have to ask such questions. Cohen may not be so sure that Jews have the same rights as other nations, but thanks to Israel's existence the question is closed and his view no longer matters. One thing is certain: Palestinians and left-wing American Jews would understand each other beautifully if they ever got together for a conference on refusing to face reality.

The March of Militant Islam

www.michaelyon.com: "The cauldron of the Israeli conflict is flaring, scalding the surrounding desert. The hands stoking the fire underneath belong to militant Islam. Jihad has different meanings, but the only meaning that concerns us today is “Holy War.” In the words of esteemed Pakistani writer, Ahmed Rashid: These new Islamic fundamentalists are not interested in transforming a corrupt society into a just one, nor do they care about providing jobs, education, or social benefits to their followers or creating harmony between the various ethnic groups that inhabit many Muslim countries. The new jihadi groups have no economic manifesto, no plan for better governance and the building of political institutions, and no blue-print for creating democratic participation in the decision-making process of the future Islamic states. They depend on a single charismatic leader, an amir, rather than a more democratically constituted organization or party for governance. They believe that the character, piety, and purity of their leader rather than his political abilities, education, or experience will enable him to lead the new society. Thus has emerged the phenomenon of the cults of Mullah Muhammad Omar of the Taliban, Osama bin Laden of Al Qaeda, and Juma Namangani of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan.[Ahmed Rashid in JIHAD, The Rise of Militant Islam in Central Asia.]Although Israel is the center of world attention today, she is only one of many targets for militant Islam. A quick trip around the world to inventory a trail of strife and death shows that Israel is only a face in the targeted-crowd. Last week, about 200 people were killed and 700 wounded by simultaneous terrorist bombings in Mumbai. India is the most unlikely democracy in the world, with its amalgam of Hindus, Muslims, Christians, Buddhists, Sikhs and others. During each of my long excursions there, I was amazed at how the peace holds together. But it does, mostly, and India, despite many obstacles, continues to develop its place in the global new world. Yet our Indian friends have long suffered at the hands of militant Islam, demonstrating this week again the often overlooked fact that nobody suffers worse at the hands of militant Muslims than other Muslims. India is overwhelmingly Hindu, though about 150 million Muslims live there, which equals nearly the entire population of Pakistan. Most of these Indian Muslims are peaceful, yet clusters of militants in Pakistan, Kashmir and India keep picking, picking, picking. The subcontinent is one of the most dangerous places on Earth for festering wounds because India and Pakistan both possess nuclear weapons. We don’t have to worry about India, but only a weak thread keeps those weapons out of dangerous hands in Pakistan. One thing is certain: Jews in Israel are not to blame for the murderous rage of militant Muslims in India, and India is at this hour blaming Pakistan. The Russians regularly bleed at the hands of Islamic militants. Terrorists invaded a school in Beslan, holding more than a thousand students, teachers and staff hostage. When the shooting and explosions ended, more than 350 were dead and more than 700 wounded; most of the victims were children. The terrorists may have been addicted to heroin or morphine; the Russians say drugs were found in their blood. That many terrorists are heavy drug users, particularly as they approach the date with their own planned death, is not widely known, but our troops in Iraq have found drug use to be part of the fact pattern of homicide bomb attacks. Whether any narcotic substance was used to grease the slope to slaughtering children, the Jews in Israel had no connection to these attacks. Even China has a cluster of militant Muslims who have left bomb craters for footprints. The Euro-rhetoric that claims our foreign policy is to blame for the rise in terrorism cannot account for the problems in China. Thailand, in the southern region, finds peaceful Buddhists suffering from the bombs of militant Islam. The Jews in Israel cannot be blamed for the bombing in Bali, Indonesia that killed about 200 tourists, including my friend Beata Pawlak, in one attack. Over in the Philippines: much trouble, more bombs, and corpses and crime scenes smeared with the bloody rhetoric of militant Islam. The Jews in Israel or our support for them did not cause any of this. Bold leap to Canada, one of the most peaceful and tolerant nations, but hardly a second home for the world Jews; attacks were narrowly averted recently. Down to New York, which might qualify for that homeland claim, buildings collapse. Pennsylvania, people crater into the earth. Washington D.C., hijacked bodies slam into the Pentagon. Bin Laden has been on the record saying he murders because infidels occupy holy land. Al-Qaeda mentions Israel as an afterthought, when reaction to their attacks in the world seems for a brief moment almost unified and resolved. But television cameras captured the footage of militant Palestinian Muslims cheering the news of the attacks and chanting victoriously in the streets. Across the Atlantic, our friends in Europe are frequent victims. In the south: BOOM! Madrid, another metro hit, like in India. London: BOOM! Metro and bus attacks: similar to India, similar to Israel, similar to France. Germany and France have been hit again and again. Paris may not have been burning but most of France recently cowered in the face of the flames of militant Muslim youth. Danish people, who pride themselves on tolerance, were burned out of embassy because a cartoonist depicted Mohammed in ways intended to be comical, if cynical. The results were bloody. American flags were burned over Danish cartoons, and many people could not help mentioning “foreign policy” and Israel to excuse barbaric behavior, though the cause of the riots and deaths was militant reaction to a cartoon from Europe. In peaceful Holland, a Dutch filmmaker dared raise a questioning hand, with the following result: On the morning of Nov. 2 in a busy street in east Amsterdam, a 26-year-old Dutch Moroccan named Mohammed Bouyeri pulled out a gun and shot controversial filmmaker Theo van Gogh, who was riding a bike to his office. Van Gogh hit the ground and stumbled across the street to a nearby building. He didn’t make it. As the Moroccan strode toward him, van Gogh shouted, “We can still talk about it! Don’t do it! Don’t do it.” But the Moroccan didn’t stop. He shot him again, slit van Gogh’s throat and stuck a letter to his chest with a knife. He was slaughtered like an animal, witnesses said. “Cut like a tire,” said one. Van Gogh, the Dutch master’s great-grand-nephew, was 47 years old. [Salon.com—The silencing of Theo van Gogh] Unfortunately, Mr. van Gogh did not grasp the nature of this philosophy: “We can still talk about it! Don’t do it! Don’t do it.” Only bad math would attribute US foreign policy toward Israel into van Gogh’s murder. East, over to Iran, is an insane President who states that the Holocaust never occurred. He would like to make a Holocaust today by destroying Israel, and his scientists and engineers are working on the nuclear bombs to do it. At the current rate, this is scheduled to be the first national-suicide attack, where an entire nation straps a nuclear weapon(s) onto its body and then slams into Israel. If this day comes to pass, countries like Syria and Iran will suddenly cease to exist. Consider now the question of Israel. Islamic terrorists often cite US support for Israel as the cause of their anger. They are lying. They don’t care about the Palestinians. The Palestinians are pawns and excuses. Saddam Hussein “cared” about Palestinians, and he focused his charity by giving bonuses to the families of homicide bombers. His sponsorship of terrorism welled up from ancient land disputes between Arabs and Jews. But he used Palestinian pawns to attack Jews in a desperate ploy to curry favor with Hamas leaders, lest they begin to concern themselves with all their Shia brethren piled into mass graves in the Iraq desert. Attacking Israel while crying crocodile tears for Palestinians has been an effective drill for tapping into wells of anti-Semitism, for polarizing the United Nations, NATO and the EU, which then become embroiled in impassable stalemates that render these organizations inert. This lesson was not lost on Saddam’s closest neighbor and worst enemy: Iran. When Israel defends itself, the world denounces it and cries the same crocodile tears for the Palestinians. The phrase “Never again” has special meaning to a people who have been repeated targets for genocide. But the fact is, like the Iraqi Kurds who have seized on their new peace and run fast with it, if people stop shooting at Israelis, they will stop shooting back. This current situation looks like an endless cycle of attack and reciprocation, but the Israelis will stop if the other sides will stop. But Hezbollah, Hamas and others will not stop. These recent attacks and kidnappings were unprovoked. By Israel, that is. The only common thread to all the violence described in this dispatch is militant Islam. Not Islam. Militant Islam. Militant Muslims around the globe are waging war against anything different, be it the Buddhists’ carvings destroyed by the Taliban in Afghanistan, the Hindus burned alive on trains in India, or Sunni against Shia in Iraq. This is not about Islam; this is not rooted in even a most fundamentalist reading of the Quran. The pattern is clear, says Dr. Wafa Sultan [video]: The clash we are witnessing around the world is not a clash of religions, or a clash of civilizations. It is a clash between two opposites, between two eras. It is a clash between a mentality that belongs to the Middle Ages and another mentality that belongs to the 21st century. It is a clash between civilization and backwardness, between the civilized and the primitive, between barbarity and rationality. It is a clash between freedom and oppression, between democracy and dictatorship. It is a clash between human rights, on the one hand, and the violation of these rights, on other hand. It is a clash between those who treat women like beasts, and those who treat them like human beings. What we see today is not a clash of civilizations. Civilizations do not clash, but compete.

Israel massing forces along Lebanonese border...

BEIRUT, Lebanon (AP) - Israel called up reserve troops Friday and warned civilians to flee Hezbollah-controlled southern Lebanon, as it prepared for a likely ground invasion to set up a deep buffer zone. Hezbollah militants fired at least 11 rockets at Israel's port city of Haifa, wounding three people. Israeli warplanes pounded Lebanon's main road link to Syria, collapsing part of Lebanon's longest bridge. A U.N.-run observation post near the border was hit, but no one was hurt.Ships lined up at Beirut's port as a massive evacuation effort to pull out Americans and other foreigners picked up speed. U.S. officials said more than 8,000 of the roughly 25,000 Americans who live or work in Lebanon will be evacuated by the weekend.After 10 days of the heaviest bombardment of Lebanon in 24 years, Israel appears to have decided that a large-scale incursion across the border is the only way to push Hezbollah back. But mounting civilian casualties and the displacement of hundreds of thousands of Lebanese could limit the time Israel has to achieve its goals, as international tolerance for the bloodshed and destruction runs out. An Israeli military radio station warned residents of 12 border villages in southern Lebanon to leave before 2 p.m. Friday. It was the latest in a series of recent warnings from the Al-Mashriq station, which has said Israeli forces would "act immediately" to halt Hezbollah rocket fire.At least 335 people have been killed in Lebanon in the Israeli campaign, according to Lebanese security officials. Thirty-four Israelis also have been killed, including 19 soldiers. The United States - which has resisted calls for it to press its ally to halt the fighting - was sending Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to Israel on Tuesday or Wednesday after stopping over in Arab nations, Israeli officials said. They spoke on condition of anonymity because the schedule was not yet confirmed. "We are all very concerned about the situation in the Middle East, and want to find a way forward that will contribute to a stable and democratic and peaceful Middle East," Rice said Friday as she met a three-member U.N. team.The mission would be the first U.S. diplomatic effort on the ground since the Israeli onslaught against Lebanon began.Israeli warplanes also pounded Lebanon's main road link to Syria with missiles. Three buses that had just dropped off passengers in Syria were set afire, but the drivers escaped, police said.Two Apache attack helicopters collided in northern Israel near the Lebanon border, killing one air force officer and injuring three others, two seriously, Israeli officials said. Israel's air force began an investigation.French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy, meanwhile, said his country was sending urgent aid to Lebanon by air and sea and he called for safe passage.His comments came a day after U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan warned of a humanitarian crisis in Lebanon and called for an immediate cease-fire, even as he admitted "serious obstacles" stand in the way of even easing the violence. "We are setting up a humanitarian air and sea port," Douste-Blazy said in Beirut. "At the same time, we demand the establishment of humanitarian corridors." Top Israeli officials met Thursday night to decide how big a force to send in, according to senior military officials. They said Israel won't stop its offensive until Hezbollah is forced behind the Litani River, 20 miles north of the border - creating a new buffer zone in a region that saw 18 years of Israeli presence since 1982.Israel has stepped up its small forays over the border in recent days, seeking Hezbollah positions, rocket stores and bunkers. Each time it has faced tough resistance.Israeli warplanes also fired four missiles that partially collapsed a 1.6-mile suspension bridge linking two steep mountain peaks, part of the Beirut-Damascus highway in central Lebanon. The bridge has been hit several times since the fighting began.Renewed attacks struck the ancient city of Baalbek, a major Hezbollah stronghold, and security officials said two people were killed and 19 wounded. They also attacked Hezbollah strongholds in south Beirut and elsewhere overnight. Al-Jazeera reported one person had been killed in south Beirut and another wounded; the report could not immediately be confirmed. Air raid sirens wailed in Haifa, Israel's third-largest city, and at least 11 rockets struck in two barrages. Three people were wounded, with 16 suffering from shock.More rockets were fired elsewhere into northern Israel, the army said, with strikes reported in Rosh Pina, Safed and in several communities near the Sea of Galilee.Hezbollah has fired hundreds of rockets from the Lebanese border since fighting began, forcing hundreds of thousands of Israelis to take cover in underground shelters. Eight people in Haifa were killed July 16.A U.N. official, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the situation, said an artillery shell fired by the Israeli military made "a direct hit on the U.N. position overlooking Zarit.An Israeli military spokesman said the position was hit by rockets fired by Hezbollah guerrillas at northern Israel. The differing accounts could not immediately be reconciled.During an Israeli offensive against Lebanon in 1996, artillery blasted a U.N. base at Qana in southern Lebanon, killing more than 100 civilians who had taken refuge with the peacekeepers. The U.N. mission, which has nearly 2,000 military personnel and more than 300 civilians, is to patrol the border line, known as the Blue Line, drawn by the U.N. after Israel withdrew troops from south Lebanon in 2000, ending an 18-year occupation.Hezbollah said three of its fighters had been killed in the latest fighting with Israeli troops, bringing to six the number of guerrillas killed since Israel launched the massive military campaign against Lebanon after the militant Shiite Muslim group captured two of its soldiers on July 12.Annan denounced Israel for "excessive use of force" and Hezbollah for holding "an entire nation hostage" with its rocket attacks and capturing the Israeli soldiers.Neither side showed any sign of backing down.The Israeli army issued a call-up of reserves. The exact number of troops was not disclosed, but a military official, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the information, said it would be several thousand.Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah shrugged off concerns of a stepped-up Israeli onslaught, saying the captive soldiers held by his guerrillas would be freed only as part of a prisoner exchange brokered through indirect negotiations. He spoke in an interview taped Thursday with Al-Jazeera to show he had survived an airstrike in south Beirut that Israel said targeted a Hezbollah leadership bunker. The guerrillas said the strike only hit a mosque under construction and no one was hurt.Lebanese, meanwhile, streamed north into Beirut and other regions, crowding into schools, relatives' homes or hotels. Taxi drivers in the south were charging up to $400 per person for rides to Beirut - more than 40 times the usual price. In remote villages of the south, cut off by strikes, residents made their way out over the mountains by foot.The price of food, medical supplies and gasoline rose as much as 500 percent in parts of Lebanon as the bombardment cut supply routes. The World Food Program said estimates of basic food supplies ranged from one to three months. The U.N. estimated that a half-million people have been displaced, with 130,000 fleeing to Syria and 45,000 believed to be in need of assistance. More than 400,000 people - perhaps as many as a half-million - are believed to live south of the Litani, according to Timur Goskel, the former top U.N. adviser in the south. The river has twice been the border line for Israeli buffer zones. In 1978, Israel invaded up to the Litani to drive back Palestinian guerrillas, withdrawing from most of the south months later.Israel invaded Lebanon again in a much bigger operation in 1982 when its forces seized parts of Beirut. It eventually carved out a buffer zone that stopped at the Litani. That zone was reduced gradually but the Israeli presence lasted for 18 years until 2000, when it withdrew its troops completely.

Iran is ready for War against the West....

www.memri.org Iranian Leader Ali Khamenei on Iranian TV, July 16: Hizbullah Will Not Be Disarmed On July 16, 2006, Iranian leader Ali Khamenei gave a speech, aired on Iranian TV. The following are excerpts. Khamenei: "The Zionists would like Lebanon to be meat between their teeth, so they could do to it whatever they want, whenever they want. "Today, the strong arm of the Lebanese resistance and the Lebanese Hizbullah has prevented this nightmare of the Zionists from coming true. This is why the American president says Hizbullah must be disarmed. Yes, of course this is what you want. Of course this is what the Zionists want. But this will not happen. "The Lebanese people value Hizbullah and the resistance, because they know it is this strong arm that has prevented the Zionists from doing whatever they want, whenever they want, to Lebanon." Man in crowd: "Hizbullah is victorious. Israel is doomed." Crowd: "Hizbullah is victorious. Israel is doomed…" Khamenei: "Well, this is what I am saying too." Kayhan Editor: The Annihilation of the Zionist Regime is Not Only a Religious and National Duty, but a Universal Human Duty; The Whole World Must Be Made Unsafe for the Zionists, [Including] Their Political and Commercial Centers. This Does Not Require the Governments' Approval. Hossein Shariatmadari, editor of the conservative Iranian daily Kayhan, affiliated with Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, called today (July 17, 2006) in his editorial to "wipe Israel off the map." He said: "There are many signs and portents indicating that 'the fateful day' is coming near. It is possible that this day... has already begun... "The Muslim peoples and many other peoples think that, in global geopolitics, there is no such thing as the state of Israel, and that the [entity] which presently bears this name is a usurping and rootless state that has imposed its parasitic presence over the region and over Palestine with the support of the arrogant powers. [This entity] invents a new crime every day. It causes men, women, and innocent children to bleed to death, or else deports them from their homeland and turns them into refugees. In light of this 'problem,' which is perfectly obvious, the annihilation of the Zionist regime is not only a religious and national duty, but also a universal human duty, from which no Muslim or free human being can be exempt. "Comprehensive support for Hamas and Hizbullah, political, logistically, militarily, and through sending combatant forces to this front are the minimal price that the Islamic countries must pay in order to maintain their own security and independence... "The city of Haifa lies 35 kilometers [sic] from the Lebanese border, and the distance [from the Lebanese border] to Nazareth is about 50 kilometers. Tomorrow will come the turn of Herzliya, Natanya, and Tel Aviv... The Muslim peoples must not allow this conflict to remain within the boundaries of the region. The Zionists are dispersed in many places around the world, and it is not so difficult to locate and get [our] hands on them. The entire world can and must be made unsafe for the Zionists, [including] their political and commercial centers. This does not require the governments' approval... The fateful day may have begun, and fierce revenge on the barbaric Zionists is underway, Allah willing." [3] Jomhouri-e Eslami: The Islamic Republic of Iran is the Center of the Muslim World; The Leadership of the Islamic Revolution has a Key Role in Leading the Islamic Nation. The conservative daily Jomhour-e Eslami, affiliated with the Islamic seminaries of Qom, reiterated in a July 17 editorial that "the conspiracy of bringing down the Twin Towers in New York with one plane, which was totally dubious, was a pretext for occupying Afghanistan and Iraq, and for [providing] unqualified support to the Zionist regime in its crimes against Palestine. "Since then, the American government has worked to place many restrictions on the Muslims in America and Europe, to place even tighter constraints on the Muslim countries which depend upon it, to change each and every one of them... to impose on the Muslims the political, ideological, and social order that is convenient [for America], and to exert pressure on the independent Muslim states - so that no obstacle will stand in its way, and it will be able to grasp the entire Islamic world in its claws... "America's collaboration with the Zionists in murdering the Palestinian people, destroying Lebanon, and [hurling] baseless accusations against Iran [regarding] nuclear activity - which is now coming to a head - is a new phase in America's crusade against the Muslims. This is exactly the point at which the leadership of the Islamic nation must play a role. "The Islamic Republic of Iran is now the central [pillar] of the Islamic world, and the leadership of the Islamic Revolution has a key role in leading the Islamic nation. This unity with the leadership of the Islamic Revolution is now the national duty of Iran and of all the Muslim peoples. Only mutual ties of this sort can guide the Islamic nation, [enabling it to] pass this difficult [phase] and to defeat the Crusader and Zionist enemies, which together have declared war on Islam and on the Muslims." [4] Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Reza Asefi: "Iran Expects Russia and China to Defend Iran's Inalienable Nuclear Rights" In response to the claim that Iran has ordered the Hizbullah attack on Israel in order to draw attention away from the G8 talks on its nuclear issue, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Reza Asefi said: "This is obviously a baseless accusation intended to rescue the Zionist regime from the quagmire [in which it has sunk]." He denied that Iran supplied arms to Hizbullah, saying: "Hizbullah has these capabilities on its own..." [5] In his weekly press conference Asefi declared: "Iran expects Russia and China to defend Iran's inalienable nuclear rights... To support Iran's rights is to support the international organizations and treaties, [such as] the Non-Proliferation Treaty... [It is] not only support for Iran." [6]

From Israel with Love..

I think Sheikh Nasrallah made a serious miscalculation...

Iran's First Strike

The mullahs reply to Condi Rice's nuclear olive branch. Tuesday, July 18, 2006 12:01 a.m. EDT Wall Street Journal Editorial The war between Hezbollah and Israel is a tragedy for its victims, but it could also be a clarifying moment if the world draws the proper lessons. To wit, this is a preview of what the Middle East will look like if Iran succeeds in going nuclear. The threat of a nuclear Iran isn't primarily that the mullahs might actually use such a weapon if they got one. The more immediate threat is that Iran would use the weapon as a shield to pursue its hegemonic ambitions throughout the Middle East, promoting terrorist attacks on its enemies and intimidating anyone with the nerve to fight back. The Hamas-Hezbollah double assault on Israel is a portent of things to come unless the world gets serious about Iran's radicalism. Keep in mind that Hezbollah is not the indigenous Lebanese "resistance" organization it claims to be, but is a military creature of Tehran. Iran has used its strategic alliance with Syria to arm the group, primarily via shipments through Damascus airport. The Palestinian terrorist-political group Hamas likewise maintains close ties to both Iran and Syria. And a week ago Monday this axis of evil swung into action. First Hamas political chief Khaled Meshal held a news conference in Damascus--where he lives--to boast about the kidnapping of an Israeli soldier near Gaza. The next day Iran's top nuclear negotiator rebuffed a European-American incentive package to negotiate over its nuclear program and flew to Damascus. And the next day, another more brazen cross-border attack on Israel came from the north, when Hezbollah killed eight Israeli soldiers and captured two. The Hezbollah operation would never have been attempted without the agreement, and probably the active encouragement, of Tehran. The attack managed to hijack the agenda of the G-8 leaders meeting in St. Petersburg, from focusing on Iran's nuclear threat to coping with the mayhem stirred up by Iran's proxies. The attack also sent a message that if the U.S., or Israel, or the U.N. attempt to block Iran's program, the mullahs can strike back with a vengeance. In short, while many elites in America and Europe have spent the past year fretting that President Bush might strike Iran, the Iranians have struck first. But don't take our word for it. Lebanese Druze leader Walid Jumblatt recently told al-Arabiya television that "What is happening in Lebanon is part of the struggle between Syria and Iran on the one side and Israel on the other." And: "Iran is saying to the U.S.: '[If] you want to fight in the Gulf or hit our nuclear facilities, we will hurt you in your home, in Israel.' " This also helps explain why even some Arab governments in the region, notably Egypt and Saudi Arabia, have publicly criticized the Hezbollah attacks. They don't want Iran to dominate the Middle East either.The question going forward is whether the Bush Administration will acknowledge this Lebanon conflict as the strategic threat it is and fight back accordingly. That means at a minimum allowing our ally in the region, Israel, the time and diplomatic support to deal Iran's Hezbollah proxies a heavy blow. Israel has already cut off supply lines from Syria by land and air. And now it is working systematically to destroy the military force that Hezbollah has accumulated, especially its missiles, which now include radars that can hit a warship and perhaps have the range to reach Tel Aviv. In other words, Israel is attempting to do what the world has been unable to accomplish: enforce U.N. Resolution 1559, which calls for the disarming of all Lebanese militias and Beirut's control of its own borders. It's a shame to see Lebanon's first semi-independent government in decades caught up in this new round of violence. But Hezbollah's continued military might, backed by Iranian arms and Syrian intelligence, is the main threat to Lebanese independence. In disarming Hezbollah, Israel would be doing Lebanese patriots a favor. In this regard, one bad idea is the international call for an immediate "cease-fire" to be monitored by a multinational peacekeeping force. U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan has made this suggestion, as has British Prime Minister Tony Blair. This didn't work out too well the last time, in the early 1980s, when 241 Americans and 58 French soldiers were killed in Beirut by truck bombs almost surely sent by Hezbollah. Any international force would be a terror target once again, and at this stage any cease-fire imposed from the outside would merely hand Hezbollah a victory. The terror group will have struck first at Israel, only to have the world stop Israel from protecting itself. Hezbollah would slowly rearm and regroup, and a year or two from now could do it all over again. Hezbollah would remain not only a threat to Israel, but a cancer on the Lebanese political process, holding an illegitimate veto in the threat of violence. Mr. Blair of all people should understand this, having watched Sinn Fein operate as the political arm of the IRA in Northern Ireland. The better and necessary response is to let Israel's counterattacks continue until Hezbollah's military power is substantially degraded. As for the G-8 and the U.N., they can be constructive by moving swiftly to impose sanctions on Iran for rejecting the generous offer to negotiate directly with the U.S. It's clear now that Tehran perceived that offer, which was promoted by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Undersecretary Nicholas Burns, as a show of weakness. Iran is testing the world right now. And if there is to be any hope at all of a diplomatic solution to its nuclear program, the mullahs have to see that their military option won't be tolerated.

Analysis of the SAAR 5 Corvette strike..

Initial assessment of C-802 missile engagment against IDF Saar 5 AAW vessel. FR Exclusive | July 15, 2006 | Jeff Head On July 14th the IDF's best anti-air defense vessel was mission killed by a strike from shore off the Beruit, Lebannon coast. It appears that the vessel was hit by a guided missile, launched either by Iranian trained Hezbollah, or by Iranian Guards themselves operating out of Lebannon. The missile was apparently a Chinese-made C-802 which is a sub sonic surface to surface anti-shipping missile. The Iranians have purchased a lot of these from China, and is working with N. Korea to improve the design. The missile is capable of a sea-skimming approach, and reportedly outfitted to engage in a high electronic counterm measrue (ECM) environment. On July 14th, it proved, to the advantage of Hezbollah, Iran, China, and N. Korea, that it was capable of doing so in certain engagement envelopes against some of the best western technology available. The Saar 5 is thought to be the best AAW, Corvette-sized class in the world, rivaling the firepower and capabilities of many nations much larger guided missile destroyers. With two 32 cell Barak anti-missile launchers, and with a 20mm Phalanx CIWS, and outfitted with high tech ECM instrumentation, high tech radars, guidance, fire control, and data link capabilities, it was specifcally designed to protect itself and other vessels against just this type of attack. It was there on July 14th to protect the IDF gunboats that were bombarding the Lebannon shore. It was there to protect them and itself precisely form this type of attack. So why did it fail and get mission killed itself with an attack of two missiles, one of which targeted an Egyptian merchant vessel and the other the IDF ship? Here's my initial, thought-out assessment: The IDF had their high value AAW, Saar 5, vessel there to protect its gun boats which were shelling the Lebannon shore. Those gun boat's main batteries have a short range which means the Saar 5 had to be close in to shore to protect them. That allowed it to be targeted in an evironment which minimized it's own defenses and maximized the C-802 capability. They were too close to respond effectively or in enough time. At ten miles (16 km) off-shore, they had perhaps sixty seconds total to defend themselves, but really only the time between detection and impact. Since the C-802 comes in low, and since it would be hard to detect by airborne AWACS, if they were even watching over this part of the battlefield and if they were data linked to the Saar 5, the threat came upon them quickly and they probably had only their own radar event horizon to respond in. This means they had maybe seconds. Either they were not adequately prepared (which is hard to imagine for the IDF), or they were simply too close and did not have enough time. In this environment, the Israelis needs longer ranged shore bombarment capability to avoid putting it's modern, sophisticated AAW vessels at such risk, and to give them more time to resspond to a modern SSM threat. All nations with naval power, the ability to defend it, and the desire to defeat5 it, will study this engagement to the max. My onw opinion is that with mnore time, and in an environment where the Saar 5 systems were maximized, or at least tilted more in their favor, the chances of a successful intercept would have gone up exponentially. But that environemtn was not the environemnt the Saar 5 found itself in on July 14th, 2006. As to the threat to USN vessels. It is the same threat, in confied waters like the Straits of Hormuz, that the USN will have to be prepared to defend against...or perahps in the Western Pacific one day. In order to do so, data linking, longer range, AWACS, opther vessels, will all give the more advanced AEGIS system more time to react. My guess is the USN will conduct heavy air attack suppression of the coastal areas in order to negate as many launchers as possible before attempting to force such waters. If, like the IDF, this luxury is not available or is constrained by political or other necessities, then the threat will be proportionally higher.

Hizbullah: Iran's Tool

By Patrick Goodenough CNSNews.com International Editor (CNSNews.com) - The Iranian-created and funded organization at the center of the unfolding conflict between Israel and Lebanon is considered one of the most dangerous terrorist organizations in the world, responsible for the deaths of more Americans than any other group apart from al-Qaeda. Since its establishment in the early 1980s, the Hizballah has carried out a proxy war on behalf of Iran and Syria against Israel, focusing on South Lebanon but also targeting Israeli and Jewish institutions in Europe, Latin America and Asia. The Shi'ite group's involvement in terror attacks against Americans has been deadly too. The group brought the Islamist strategy of suicide bombing to the world's attention in 1983, when it killed more than 350 people, including 241 U.S. servicemen and 58 French troops, in a series of attacks in Beirut. It has also long been associated with kidnapping of Western hostages in Lebanon, including a U.S. Marine Corps colonel and a CIA station chief, both subsequently killed by their captors. Five Israeli soldiers who were captured or disappeared in or near Lebanon between 1982 and 1997 remain missing in action, with suspected involvement of Hizballah or allied groups. Hizballah was also responsible for another hostage situation targeting Americans - the June 1985 hijacking of a TWA airliner during an Athens-Rome flight. The terrorists diverted the plane to Lebanon with its 153 passengers and crew, and murdered U.S. Navy diver Robert Stethem, dumping his body onto the Beirut runway. Hizballah claims as its greatest success forcing Israel's decision in 2000 to withdraw its troops from a narrow buffer zone it had maintained in southern Lebanon for 18 years. Since the Israeli departure, the group has focused more attention on political activities while continuing attacks against Israel and refusing to disarm, despite a U.N. Security Council resolution requirement that it do. The Lebanese government has been powerless or unwilling to enforce the resolution.In elections last year Hizballah won 14 seats in Lebanon's 128-member parliament. Along with its Shi'ite ally Amal, which won 15 seats, it's regarded by many Lebanese as the legitimate representative of the country's largest religious community. The U.S. declared Hizballah a terrorist group long before 9/11, while Canada did in 2002 and Britain and Australia have both banned the Hizballah "External Security Organization." As in the case with Hamas in Gaza, Hizballah and its backers have been fighting a propaganda campaign aimed at drawing a distinction between its military and political "wings." The drive has been particularly successful in Europe, where many countries have refused to place Hizballah in its entirety on an E.U. terror list, arguing that the organization conducts political and social welfare activities too. The Netherlands government was a notable exception, saying in a 2004 intelligence assessment that its investigation found the group's political and terrorist functions to be controlled by a single co-ordinating council. "The Netherlands has changed its policy and no longer makes a distinction between the political and terrorist Hizballah branches," it said. Other attacks researchers have attributed to Hizballah include a series of bombings in Paris in 1986, which killed 13; an unsuccessful attempt to carry out attacks in Cyprus in 1988; a plot, foiled by Spanish police, to carry out attacks against Jewish targets in Europe in 1989; an unsuccessful attempt to detonate a car bomb outside a Jewish community building in Romania in 1992; the bombing of a small passenger plane carrying 18 passengers in Panama in 1994; and a planned 1996 attack, also foiled by police, on an Israeli institution in Paris.Former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage in 2002 called Hizballah a member of the international terrorist "A-team." One of the FBI's most wanted men is Imad Fayez Mugniyah, the head of Hizballah's security apparatus since its inception. He has been linked to the 1983 Beirut bombings, the kidnapping and torture of hostages, the death of Stethem in the TWA hijacking, the bombings of the Israeli Embassy and a Jewish community center in Argentina in the early 1990s, at the cost of 114 lives, and the 1996 bombing of the Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia, which killed 19 U.S. servicemen. A number of reports over the years have dealt with Mugniyah's intimate links with Iran, and especially with its Revolutionary Guard, whose former senior members - including President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad - now dominate Iran's government. Last January, American Enterprise Institute scholar Michael Ledeen reported that Mugniyah was believed to be among Hizballah figures present at a meeting in Damascus with Ahmadinejad and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.Western security specialists regarded that meeting as a reaffirmation of a longstanding Iran-Syria-Hizballah terrorist alliance. The Israeli government said Thursday the fingerprints of Iran and Syria were all over this week's events in Lebanon and northern Israel, triggered when Hizballah crossed into Israeli territory, killed eight Israeli soldiers and abducted two others. Iran and Syria are also backers of the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas, whose kidnapping of an Israeli soldier last month sparked the continuing crisis in Gaza. A number of political analysts have attributed the widening conflict to Iran's concerns about the growing international pressure on its nuclear programs. Ledeen does not believe Iran is driven by worry over a nuclear showdown, however. "A U.N. debate serves Iran's interest," he wrote in the National Review Online Thursday. "It deflects attention from our growing awareness of Iran's centrality in Iraq, and the urgency of going after the regimes in Tehran and Damascus. That is where Iran's doom lies, not in the endless charade about the nukes." Ledeen argued that Iran was the "common prime mover" behind the war now running from Gaza to Israel, through Lebanon and to Iraq via Syria. "Iran has been at war with us all along, because that's what the world's leading terror state does. The scariest thing about this moment is that the Iranians have convinced themselves that they are winning, and we are powerless to reverse the tide."

War on Iran has Begun..

War on Iran Has Begun BY DAVID TWERSKY New York Sun July 13, 2006 URL: http://www.nysun.com/article/35990 TEL AVIV, Israel — The war with Iran has begun. Just last Friday, Iranian President Ahmadinejad warned that Israel's return to Gaza could lead to an "explosion" in the Islamic world that would target Israel and its supporters in the West. "They should not let things reach a point where an explosion occurs in the Islamic world," he said. "If an explosion occurs, then it won't be limited to geographical boundaries. It will also burn all those who created [Israel] over the past 60 years," he said, implicitly referring to America and other Western nations who support Israel. Years from now, the kidnapping of Corporal Gilad Shalit will be regarded like the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand. Against the backdrop of Kassam rocket fire on Israelis living within range of the Gaza Strip, it was the fate of Corporal Shalit that triggered the Israeli return to Gaza, which in turn brought the Hezbollah forces into the game. Israel is fighting two Iranian proxies on two fronts. It may, or may not, open a third front against a third Iranian proxy, Syria. It is from the Syrian capital that Khaled Meshaal, the exiled leader of Hamas, has been laying down Palestinian Arab negotiating conditions. Why listen to Mr. Meshaal? Because the Hamas troops are loyal to him, rather than to their erstwhile leader, Prime Minister Ismail Haniyah, let alone the increasingly (as if that were possible) hapless Palestinian Arab leader, Mahmoud Abbas. As one senior Palestinian Arab close to Mr. Abbas told me Mr. Meshaal believes that any resolution of this crisis, and of the wider crisis brought on by the surprising Hamas election win last January and the ensuing isolation of the Palestinian Authority from its European and American funding sources, must await the outcome of the discussions between Iran and the West over its nuclear enrichment program. Perhaps a grand bargain is in the works, in which Tehran will forgo its nuclear weapons ambitions in exchange for Washington's recognition of its emergence as the new regional power. Every day, Iran grows more powerful; any deal should reflect Iran's growing importance. For example: forcing Israel to bargain for prisoner swaps, cutting the Israeli military advantage down to size, and scuttling both the possibility of unilateral disengagement in the West Bank (the preferred Israeli option) and renewed negotiations with weakened Palestinian Arab moderates (the option preferred by the Europeans). Even more loyal to Tehran is the Hezbollah leader, Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, whose forces yesterday kidnapped two more Israeli soldiers, opening up the second front. Sheik Nasrallah is warning Israelis that they must not think Lebanon is unprotected as it was in 1981 and 1982 when Israeli forces came pouring across the border to silence Palestinian Arab guns. Sheik Nasrallah's men are the recipients of tens of thousands of rockets — longer range and presumably more deadly than their roughly engineered younger Kassam cousins — that put central Israel in their range. Each one of these players — Hamas inside Gaza and in Damascus, Hezbollah in Lebanon, and the Assad dictatorship in Syria — are chess pieces on the Iranian board. The pawn moves, drawing in the Israeli bishop; the Lebanese rook challenges; the Syrian queen is in reserve. Just listen: A few weeks ago, the Swedish government announced that it would label Golan Heights wine as a product from "Israeli Occupied Syria." The Swedes were oblivious to the little dance played out around a request by the United Nations that Syria demarcate its view of the 1967 border. Turtle Bay was aiming to push Syria to claim the Sheeba farms, a small tract held by Israel and claimed by Hezbollah for Lebanon. The United Nations recognizes Sheeba Farms as belonging to Syria; should Israel and Syria ever negotiate a peace treaty, it is clear the Security Council would expect Sheeba Farms to be returned to Syrian control.The United Nations wanted Syria to assert its claim, in order to deny Hezbollah its basic raison d'etre — "liberating" all Lebanese soil from "the Israeli occupation forces." Passed in 2004, Security Council resolution 1559 requires the dismantling of all Lebanese militias and their replacement by a Lebanese state army. Thus far, this has been as successful as the requirement by the Quartet (America, the European Union, Russia, and the United Nations) that all independent Palestinian Arab terrorist groups and militias be disarmed. Guess what? The Syrians refused. Just turned the United Nations down flat. Apparently Sweden is more passionate about asserting Syrian territorial rights than Syria itself. The reason is simple: Iran does not want to deny Hezbollah the justification for maintaining its armed presence in southern Lebanon, along northern Israel, and Syria does Iran's bidding. Ephraim Sneh, a former general and Labor Party leader who is the Israeli longest drawing attention to the approaching conflict with Iran, is saying that the current moment reminds him of the Spanish Civil War. The broader global forces are aligned; local actors are committed. It is a bloody test, a macabre dress rehearsal, for what lies over the horizon.

Indian train bombings murder more than 200 people..

Who's Behind the India Bombings? Suspicion falls on Islamic terrorists — but not al-Qaeda — in the country's worst terrorist attack in more than a decade By ALEX PERRY/NEW DELHI Time Magazine Even as the dead are still being counted in India's worst terrorist attack in more than a decade, suspicion has already fallen on Islamic terrorists — though not al-Qaeda. India is home to a Muslim insurgency in Kashmir, and earlier in the day militants killed eight people and injured 30 in five separate bomb attacks in the capital, Srinagar. And while no one said those same insurgents carried out Tuesday's rush-hour train attacks in Bombay — which police said killed at least 130 people and injured 260 — security sources told TIME they suspected a shadowy alliance of the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) working with indigenous Indian Muslims from the banned Student Islamic Movemement of India (SIMI). SIMI detonated a total of nine bombs in Bombay during the course of 2003, killing close to 80 people and injuring hundreds more. The same loose grouping of Islamic radicals are also suspected of being behind a series of attacks in India in the last year that included three blasts in New Delhi last October that killed 60 and three more in the holy Hindu city of Varanasi in March this year, which killed 20, as well as smaller attacks in Bangalore and Hyderabad. Ajay Sahni of the Institute for Conflict Management in New Delhi said it was unlikely that there had been any trigger for the attacks. Rather this was an "ongoing war" against Hindu-majority India by South Asian Muslims. "It is a continuous process of preparing for attacks and carrying them out," he said. "When these people are able to bring something to fruition, they do it. The act itself is the objective. It says: 'We're here. And this is what we are going to do to you.'" In a paper published Monday, Institute research fellow Bibhu Prasad Routray warned that SIMI had been stepping up its operations in Bombay and the surrounding state of Maharashtra. He described several "SIMI strongholds" in the state, adding that the "seizure of 30 kilograms of RDX, 17 AK-47s and 50 hand grenades from Aurangabad and Malegaon [two Maharashtran towns] between May 9 and 12 and subsequent arrests of 11 LeT terrorists pointed to linkages between SIMI and the LeT." India is home to the second largest Muslim population in the world, around 150 million people. But in a nation of more than a billion people, Muslims are often a disadvantaged minority. In the eyes of many Hindus, no Muslim can ever truly belong in India. The origins of this antagonism are centuries old. In essence, hardline Hindus regard as a national humiliation the Islamic influence that pervades India's history, starting with the Mughal Renaissance in the 16th century, continuing with the birth of Islamic fundamentalism in Asia in northern India in the 1860s (the same creed followed by the Taliban) and enduring even today in India's national symbol, the Mughal mausoleum of the Taj Mahal. This distrust of Islam has only increased since independence in 1947: modern India was founded in the Muslim-Hindu bloodletting of Partition from Pakistan, in which a million people died, and since then three wars against Islamic neighbor Pakistan have killed millions more. Today, much of this tension stems from India's rule over Muslim-dominated Kashmir in the face of strident Pakistani opposition. The war on terror and the 1998-2004 rule of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on a Hindu nationalist agenda — which also stoked a Hindu pogrom in Gujarat in 2002 in which 2,000 Muslims died — has lent further legitimacy to India's lurking anti-Muslim prejudice. In 2003, just before twin bomb blasts in August that killed more than 50, TIME spoke to "Umar," a SIMI operative, or Ansar ("guide"), who said his men were carrying out the attacks. The 44-year-old said: "This country doesn't work for Muslims any more. You can't get a proper education, you can't get a job. You're not even safe." He said he and his men had no intention of ever ending their murderous campaign. "We will continue," he told TIME. "There is no limits on our actions... Even to kill children is good — you stop the generation there, at the beginning." The numbers in Tuesday's attacks are likely to rise. All the bombs were detonated between 6 p.m. and 7 p.m. on the Western line, which runs from Bombay's central station, Churchgate, through which a million commuters pass every day. Typically, a Bombay train carries around 4,500 people — three times its official capacity — and at rush hour, each carriage would have been stuffed, with passengers hanging onto doors and sitting on roofs. For terrorists looking to maximize carnage, it was an all too tempting target.

Russia takes out Chechen terrorist leader...

By STEVEN LEE MYERS New York Times MOSCOW, July 10 — Shamil Basayev, the Chechen rebel who organized the deadliest terrorist attacks against Russia, was killed in an explosion early Monday, in what the director of the country’s security service described as a special operation that began by tracking shipments of weapons and explosives from abroad. President Vladimir V. Putin declared the death of the country’s most wanted man — who had a price of more than $10 million on his head — in Ingushetia, a region on Chechnya’s western border, a “just retaliation” for the bloodshed Mr. Basayev had caused.The director of the Federal Security Service, Nikolai P. Patrushev, said the operation disrupted plans for a terrorist attack in southern Russia intended to coincide with a meeting of the Group of 8 leaders, including President Bush, which begins Saturday in St. Petersburg. Mr. Basayev, 41, waged war against Russia for more than a decade. He claimed responsibility for attacks that killed hundreds, many of them civilian hostages. They included the seizure of a hospital in Budyonnovsk, in southern Russia, in 1995, a theater in Moscow in 2002 and, most notoriously, a school in Beslan in 2004, where 331 people died, more than half of them schoolchildren.He was a cunning military commander, an erratic political leader and, ultimately, a self-professed terrorist and the symbol of a seemingly endless insurgency in Chechnya and neighboring territories in the Northern Caucasus. The death of Mr. Basayev may not end the simmering conflict in Chechnya, which since 1994 has left tens of thousands of people dead, strained the Russian military and exposed Russia to accusations of gross abuses of human rights. But it is unquestionably an enormous political and psychological victory for Mr. Putin and for a country that has endured, and at times despaired of, a deadly wave of terrorist attacks.“This is just retaliation against the bandits for the sake of our children in Beslan, in Budyonnovsk and for all the terrorist attacks they undertook in Moscow and other regions of Russia,” Mr. Putin, appearing stern, even somber, said in televised remarks during a meeting with Mr. Patrushev. Officials did not produce evidence of Mr. Basayev’s death, but a Web site that often carries statements by him, www.kavkazcenter.com, announced his death on Monday evening, declaring him a martyr to the cause of Chechnya’s independence. The statement, which like previous ones could not be verified, said that he died in an accident, not during an operation by Russian forces. Mr. Patrushev and other officials said that Mr. Basayev was killed shortly after midnight on Monday when an enormous explosion destroyed a truck stopped on the outskirts of Ekazhevo a village in Ingushetia, a mountainous region.Mr. Basayev was standing nearby, accompanied by other fighters who were traveling in three automobiles, a spokesman for the regional branch of the Federal Security Service, Yuri Muravyov, said in a telephone interview. He said the convoy of vehicles had stopped for an undetermined amount of time. He said the truck evidently carried a large amount of weapons or explosives, which led officials to believe that Mr. Basayev’s group was about to carry out an attack somewhere in the region.Initial reports early Monday had described the blast as a mishap, perhaps caused by mishandling of explosives. But a police officer in Ekazhevo said in a telephone interview that by the time the local police and prosecutors arrived to investigate, agents of the Federal Security Service had already cordoned off the area. That suggested that they had at least been closely tracking Mr. Basayev’s group, and that his death was not accidental.“It was all sealed,” said the officer, Aslan Khashtyrev, who described the sound of the explosion as “like an earthquake.” He added, “We were even told not to register this case in our log book.” At least three others identified as fighters also died in the explosion, Mr. Muravyov said. While Russian news agencies reported that as many as 12 died, Mr. Muravyov explained that the force of the explosion, which was followed by smaller explosions and then several fires, made it difficult to count the victims, let alone identify them. “We cannot give the exact number of dead terrorists,” he said, adding that the operation continued late Monday. Officials said Mr. Basayev’s body, blown apart by the force of the explosion, was identified by his most prominent features: his short-cropped hair and bushy beard and a prosthesis below his knee, which he has used since he was badly wounded in February 2000 as he retreated from Chechnya’s capital, Grozny.Mr. Patrushev did not elaborate on the investigation that led his agents to Mr. Basayev, who had evaded capture for years, even as he moved in and out of Chechnya and its neighboring regions, reportedly with the help of corrupt officials. Nor did he identify the countries where, he said, Mr. Basayev’s fighters acquired the weapons and explosives. Russian officials have previously accused Azerbaijan and Georgia, which border Russia, and even countries farther away of providing financial and material support for the Chechen fighters.It was also not clear what caused the blast that killed him and the others. Channel One, an official state television network, reported Monday night that a missile had struck the truck, though the official Russian Information Agency discounted that, saying that the truck exploded when Russian forces attacked the convoy.Mr. Muravyov, the security service spokesman in Ingushetia, declined to discuss the question, citing the secrecy of special operations. “We cannot say anything about it,” he said. The village where Mr. Basayev died is near Nazran, the principal city of Ingushetia, and less than 14 miles from Beslan, in North Ossetia, the site of the school siege that did more than any of the previous attacks to turn many against Mr. Basayev. Even some of the movement’s fighters were reportedly dismayed by the attack on the school and the singling out of hundreds of women and children. The fact that Mr. Basayev and a group of heavily armed fighters were able to travel outside of Chechnya, and so close to a major city like Nazran, underscored the volatility of the Northern Caucasus, where the war in Chechnya and a rise in Islamic extremism have sowed violence across the region.But his killing was the latest in a series of successes against Chechnya’s separatists, who have appeared increasingly disorganized, if still potentially deadly. In June, a police commander in Chechnya told a television station there that Mr. Basayev and another rebel, Doku Umarov, who is now the proclaimed leader of the movement, had settled in a gorge in Ingushetia not far from where Mr. Basayev died Monday. “The oxygen has been cut off for them in the territory of Chechnya,” the commander, Arbi Zakriyev, told the station. The notoriety of Mr. Basayev was such that across the political spectrum in Russia there was no expression of remorse for his death. His last known public utterance was a taunting statement expressing “great thankfulness” to the militants who killed five Russian diplomats in Iraq in June, including one who was shown as he was beheaded in a grisly video that provoked outrage here.Ramzan A. Kadyrov, Chechnya’s prime minister, expressed only the regret that he had not killed Mr. Basayev himself. Mr. Kadyrov’s father, Akhmad, the former president of Chechnya, died in May 2004 in a bombing at a Grozny stadium, an attack that Mr. Basayev claimed as his own. “Basayev died like a jackal,” Mr. Kadyrov, whose power and loyalty to Moscow have made him the region’s leader, though a controversial one, said at a news conference in Grozny. “On the run, not even in his motherland.” In Washington on Monday, Russia experts said the killing could serve as a reminder of the ties that still bind Mr. Putin and Mr. Bush as they prepare to meet for one-on-one talks later this week in St. Petersburg.Stephen J. Hadley, the national security adviser, said during a press briefing on Monday that counterterrorism is one of those areas of agreement. “The president has not felt constrained about talking to President Putin about democracy or any other issues where we don’t see eye-to-eye because of the cooperation we have with him on other issues,” he said. Andrew E. Kramer and Nikolai Khalip contributed reporting from Moscow for this article, and Jim Rutenberg from Washington.

Tying it all together in the Middle East..

Cry havoc, and let slip the puppies of war By Spengler- Asia Times Dogs of war incline toward caution, which after all is how they grew up to be dogs. More worrisome are puppies, who do not know what danger is. Gavrilo Princeps, the Serbian gunman who shot Archduke Franz Ferdinand dead in June 1914, was a puppy. So are the Hamas kidnappers, who at this writing still hold Israeli Army Corporal Gilad Shalit, and the Mehdi Army shooters who reportedly disposed of several dozen Sunni civilians in Baghdad on the weekend. The North Koreans, by contrast, are just nasty old dogs who long ago got loose from their leash. Wars start because no one wants to disown his dog. If your dog bites a neighbor, your neighbor well might come after you with a shotgun. Nicholas II of Russia, I observed recently, did not want war in 1914 and until the end of July insisted that no war would break out. [1] But the Serbian puppies supported by his secret service dragged him into it willy-nilly. The past week's events in the Middle East have a disturbing feel of July 1914 about them. Hamas, for that matter, cannot disown the hotheads who provoked the Gaza crisis by kidnapping the Israeli corporal, or the rocketeers who incited the Israeli attack on northern Gaza by targeting Israeli towns, any more than Iran can disown the butchers of the Mehdi Army, a Shi'ite militia loyal to the anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. It is not clear either whether Saudi Arabia can disown Hamas, nor the Somali Islamists who seized the country from the warlords last month. Saudi cash smuggled in through Gaza has kept the Hamas regime afloat in the face of a boycott by Western powers, and the US State Department complains that Saudi Arabia is funding the Somali Union of Islamic Courts. [2] The old dogs in Tehran and Riyadh can do nothing to satisfy the deeply felt and long-frustrated aspirations of their pups in the Gaza strip or Baghdad's Sadr City, no more than Nicholas II could requite the nationalist hopes of Serbia without going to war with Austria and Germany. In fact, nothing can dampen the Palestinians' existential outrage against the misery of their circumstances, or fulfill the ambitions of Iraq's Shi'ites without the reduction of the Sunni population. That leaves Tehran in a dilemma. Iran's power rests on its ability to threaten destabilization, especially in Iraq, and it is counting on this to keep the Bush administration at bay. Even the greatest military autocrat, though, is constrained by the character of his army, and the standing of the region's little powers depends on the outcome of the puppy fights now in progress. The logical result is continued escalation until America and Iran stand off in earnest. Saudi Arabia, by the same token, cannot abandon its Sunni brethren in Iraq by acquiescing to an Iranian power play, which in the long run threatens the kingdom's own security. Dallas Morning News editor Rod Dreher spoke to Saudi Minister of State Abdullah Zainal Alireza on June 28, who stated "that the US cannot allow Iran to get the bomb". Dreher asked him, "What if it happens anyway?" The Saudi minister, Dreher reported, "repeated, firmly, that it must not be allowed to happen. Period. The end." [3] This declaration to a prominent US journalist should be assigned high significance. As I observed earlier this year, "Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have the most to lose from a nuclear-equipped Iran. No one can predict when the Saudi kingdom might become unstable, but whenever it does, Iran will stand ready to support its Shi'ite co-religionists, who make up a majority in the kingdom's oil-producing east." [4] It should be no surprise that Western governments are watching the events in Gaza slack-jawed and confused. Not only the dogs, but the dogs' owners, have plunged into the melee. The divisions inside Hamas make matters more complicated still. Hamas' military wing in Gaza takes orders from the Syrian-based Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal, "because he distributes the funds received from Iran and the Gulf States", as the Guardian of London reported July 4. The region's governments blame each other for failing to persuade Meshaal to free the Israeli corporal. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who has the most to lose, blames Syria for ignoring Egyptian requests to arrange the soldier's release. But the Palestinian negotiator Nabil Shaath told the Saudi daily Al-Watan on July 9 that both Egypt and Saudi Arabia were blocking Western efforts to convince Iran and Syria to use their good offices to free Shalit. Iran's President Mahmud Ahmadinejad and his Revolutionary Guard supporters are the puppies of the Iranian revolution. Western diplomacy presumes that the old dogs, specifically Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and former president Ayatollah Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, will kennel their curs before the US takes military action of some kind. But that is harder to do than some Western analysts suppose, for Iran's influence over Shi'ite militias in Iraq represents the Islamic Republic's most important source of leverage over the United States. The Bush administration needs to show progress toward stability in Iraq in the advent of the November Congressional elections, when control of both Houses of the American legislature will be in play. On July 8, US and Iraqi government forces in Baghdad staged their first attack in many months on the Mehdi Army, Tehran's most important asset in Iraq. On July 9, Mehdi Army fighters reportedly entered a Sunni neighborhood in Baghdad and killed 42 Sunni Arabs. The United States will not submit to Iranian blackmail, as the June 8 offensive in Sadr City made clear, and Iranian-supported Shi'ites will not submit to the American whip, as the next day's massacres of Sunnis make just as clear. Tehran cannot be seen to abandon its Iraqi assets the moment American soldiers begin shooting at them. The likely Iranian response will include more bloodletting in Iraq, as well as the use of Iranian influence to stoke the fire in Gaza. As I wrote on June 27 Prisoner's dilemma in Tehran: Tehran finds itself in a variant of the "prisoner's dilemma". If it accepts the US proposal to suspend uranium enrichment while negotiating with Washington - assuming that this can be verified to Washington's satisfaction - time will be on the side of the Americans. As the Iraqi situation unravels, Iran's leverage over Washington will erode and Iran will have lost crucial time in creating a nuclear-weapons capability. Iran's only logical response is the one that Ahmadinejad already has offered: neither accept nor reject the proposal, but play for time. Washington cannot accept this proposal. It will indicate its impatience to Tehran through various gestures, for example by inciting Iran's national minorities or dissidents. But the effect of such action will be to reinforce Tehran's conviction that it has nothing to gain by accepting US terms. In the midst of the present escalation, I cannot see Iran abandoning uranium enrichment, and I cannot imagine Washington responding with anything but extreme severity.

The Americas: Leftist tide may be ebbing

By MARK STEVENSON, Associated Press Writer Thu Jul 6, 7:09 PM ET MEXICO CITY - Conservative Felipe Calderon's apparent victory could signal that the leftist tide sweeping Latin America has reached its high-water mark, as voters frightened by the radicalism of Venezuela's Hugo Chavez seek refuge in more mainstream ideas across the region. That trend has emerged with Mexico's presidential vote count Thursday, the setback dealt to Bolivian President Evo Morales in a referendum Sunday, Peruvian moderate Alan Garcia's victory over Chavez ally Ollanta Humala last month and the landslide re-election of Colombian conservative Alvaro Uribe in May. Intolerance, confrontation, messianic attitudes and stridency — once staples of Latin America's left — are proving less attractive than leaders who can provide stability and strengthen historically weak institutions, like the separation of powers, independent central banks and judiciaries. Manuel Camacho Solis, an adviser to leftist Mexican candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, said a month before the election that avoiding class polarization was the key to the campaign. Indeed, the campaign became polarized, and Lopez Obrador lost. "More than 50 percent of Mexicans are center, or conservative, so you can't hope to have a very pure leftist government in Mexico," Camacho Solis said. "What society wants is a progressive government, a broad alliance. It doesn't want a class-division thing." The "leftist tide" idea likely oversimplifies by tossing Indian-rights movements, radicals and moderates into the same boat. The right hasn't exactly gained a mandate, and most of the region's leftist presidents haven't abandoned the market-oriented policies that have improved their economies, even as they assert political independence from Washington. Lopez Obrador arguably did better than any truly leftist candidate has ever done in Mexico, an essentially conservative country. But he also lost the large lead he had early in the race, and may have scared voters with pledges to change an economic model that has brought stability and low inflation, if not much job creation or wage increases."Attacking some of the programs, including some of the economic strategy, was a mistake," said Ana Maria Salazar, a former U.S. defense official and Mexican political analyst. "At least part of the middle class and the lower-middle class for the first time in many decades have access to loans to buy things. ... People felt there was some benefit to them." The right also hasn't regained the kind of power it enjoyed in the early 1990s, when government after Latin American government imposed austere budgets, dropped restrictive tariffs and embarked on wholesale privatizations. Such policies enriched the elites and slowly expanded the middle classes but did little to alleviate poverty in the region, and widespread frustration with the Washington prescription swept a wave of left-leaning governments into power. But most have been more like European social democracies than the 1960s "red tide" of communist guerrilla movements. "There is no such thing as a red tide today," Lopez Obrador adviser Porfirio Munoz Ledo said last week. "The social tide exists because the (conservative) model didn't work."The specter of Chavez's quasi-socialist and confrontational rhetoric scared voters toward the middle in both Peru and Mexico. Calderon's campaign surged only after he bought television attack ads suggesting Lopez Obrador was a Chavez in the making.The comparison is "facile and inaccurate," said George Grayson, a Mexico expert at Virginia's College of William & Mary. And Lopez Obrador, for his part, said his proposals were as moderate as the New Deal programs former President Franklin D. Roosevelt promoted to bring his nation out of the 1930s Depression.And his pro-business rival, Felipe Calderon, pledged Thursday to "work toward a Mexico without terrible inequalities" — an acknowledgment of Latin America's fundamental challenge.That message hasn't been lost on any of the region's leaders, be they mainstream leftists like socialist Michelle Bachelet in Chile, Nestor Kirchner in Argentina and Luiz Ignacio Lula da Silva in Brazil or more radical ones like the Washington-bashing Chavez and his ally Morales. Class fears have been a big factor in Bolivia, where Morales' party failed to get enough votes Sunday to push through the constitutional reforms it wants to improve the lives of that nation's poor Indian majority. That says a lot about how much Latin America has changed since the days of Che Guevara. But if the moderate left, or the right, doesn't improve people's everyday life, Latin Americans could tire of both — and of democracy. "People are dissatisfied, and the danger is very great," said Munoz Ledo, "because people have their doubts about whether democracy can improve their lot."