In the meantime, what to do about Iran is still on the burner.  That is the reason for the three articles (last one tomorrow) that I am posting in an effort to gain more insight into what is actually happening there.   I believe that Iran with nuclear weapons is the single most dangerous phenomenon that the world faces.  As you can see from this article, there are those in Israel that believe America is willing to offer them up as appeasement and deferral of war with Iran.  I sincerely hope they are wrong!

Article from Blogocritics
Written by Ruvy in Jerusalem

On 6 September, I cited a DEBKAfiles report of a naval buildup off south Lebanon, DEBKAfile analyzed the buildup as part of a joint American - NATO - Israeli plan to attack Iran, and possibly Syria. I read the same piece and offered a different analysis entirely.

Israel lifted her blockades on 8 and 9 September, a fact widely reported in the mainstream media. This AP rip and read that appeared in the Argus and elsewhere on 7 September, states that Israel had said it would not end the blockade until a beefed up U.N. force in southern Lebanon could prevent arms shipments to Hezbollah.

The beefed up U.N. force mentioned in the article was presumably the naval force that DEBKAfiles mentioned on 4 September along with UNIFIL troops that were taking positions near and around the Litani River.

Debka Changes Its Dance Steps

On 9 September, DEBKAfiles reported how this beefed up naval force was operating in reality with respect to the rearming of HizbAllah by Iran via Syria.

In its initial paragraphs, it talked about how Iran had sent arms to Beirut airport and how a misunderstanding of sorts took place where the (Lebanese) Saniora regime did not follow the agreement reached between Kofi Annan and the Israeli government. According to the deal that had been struck between Israel and the UN, the Lebanese government was to allow international inspection of cargo coming into Beirut International Airport. Instead, the Lebanese prime minister immediately barred the airport to UN inspections. The five German air monitors agreed on were only allowed to establish a checkpoint for controlling arms smuggling at a distance of one kilometer from the international airport. DEBKAfile reports they are helpless to intervene because the trucks carrying forbidden cargo are using alternative routes to bypass their checkpoints.

The report further details that the promised Italian, French, and Greek naval presence, on the strength of which Israel lifted its air blockade, has been pushed by the Lebanese government out to sea and restricted to a 12-km radius from the coast. Thus European warships can keep an eye on big freighters approaching Lebanese ports but cannot keep track of the small vessels reaching Lebanon ports from the northern Syrian ports of Tartus (the Biblical Tarshish) and Latakia.

That is where Iranian cargo vessels have been unloading large quantities of arms for HizbAllah outside the European fleet's limits in the last two weeks. Furthermore, Friday, as soon as Israel was persuaded to lift its sea blockade, three Lebanese and Syrian ships crammed with arms for HizbAllah departed the northern Lebanese port of Tripoli and after a short voyage hugging the Lebanese coast put into the southern Lebanese port of Sidon, where willing HizbAllah hands unloaded their cargo.

On land, the Lebanese-Syrian border is wide open. Three or four arms truck convoys cross into Lebanon every day.

This naval force was pushed out to sea by the Lebanese government? With what; feathers? That is like saying that the naval forces of the Principality of Lichtenstein (a land-locked country about the size of Manhattan) forced the American Sixth Fleet to evacuate the Adriatic Sea. Sure… Pigs will come rocketing over nearby hedges soon. Watch it! That big sow almost hit you!

So much for the analysis of the cut-rate, "you-have-an-uncle-in-the-business" former Mossad analysts.

The naval force is not there to help control HizbAllah at all. It is not there to stop Iran from extending its power to the Mediterranean. The naval force voluntarily moved out beyond 12 kilometers.  I assert that this fleet is there to protect HizbAllah and assist with the Iranian rearming of its cat's paw on the Mediterranean.

The explanation is complicated, but essential to understand.  First, you need to look back into European history about seventy years or so. Having done this, you then need to check back to an April analysis in the Telegraph by Amir Taheri of the motives of the Ahmadinejad regime, review the strengths and weaknesses of Ahmadinejad, as well as check out where former leaders of Iran have been traveling recently, and who they have been talking to, and what they have been saying.

Opening the Curtain

At DEBKAfiles, right near the report on arms shipments, cited above, is another report on Ehud Olmert reviving the "Road Map" he had discarded a few days earlier, apparently without the permission of his overlords in Washington. This article is called, "Olmert's belated discovery of a serious breach with Washington prompted him to disinter the Middle East roadmap." Faced with withering criticism from American state department officials detailed in the DEBKAfile article, he now talks about setting up a meeting with the chairman of the "Palestinian" Authority "without conditions" according to the Hebrew edition of Yediot Ahronot last Sunday. In a press release, the Israel's deputy prime minister, Shimon Peres, talked about possibly withdrawing from northern Samaria.

So kicking Jews out of Judea and Samaria IS back on the government's agenda, after all.

Olmert will need help with this, if he even survives the budget fights, criminal investigations, and investigations for military incompetence that he faces in the wake of losing this round with HizbAllah. It is not a sure thing that he will. A far more intelligent puppet leader is Shimon Peres. But let's hold that thought for just a bit. First, we need to take that trip down memory lane.

Deferring War For a Price

Back in 1938, Germany, France, and England agreed to defer fighting a war. The price of the deferral? Czechoslovakia was put on the chopping block. Some will say that the prime minister of Great Britain honestly believed that he had bought "peace in our time" and it may be true, but the French premier, Hitler, and the generals in all the armies knew otherwise.

In 1939, the Soviet Union and Germany agreed to defer fighting a war. The price of the deferral? Poland went on the chopping block, split between the Soviet Union and Germany. In the latter case, there were no delusions on either side. Stalin was as determined to rule the world as Hitler, and the aides who shook hands and signed on the dotted line both knew this as well.

And Iran's Connection?

Taheri's analysis in the Telegraph essentially says that Ahmadinejad is a messianic leader who is alleged to have met the Mahdi, the Shia version of the messiah, and his strategy is primarily designed to delay an American strike on Iran until Iran is capable of answering it if not in kind (remember, America has thousands, if not tens of thousands of missiles), then with something that will seem in kind. This is not altogether different with from the deferral strategy pursued by the various powers in Europe in the late 1930's. In essence Ahmadinejad has to shuck and jive to defer a war.

Ahmadinejad's Strengths and Weaknesses

Bear in mind that Ahmadinejad has a regime based on three legs; 1) pushing of the Shia messianic vision, 2)spending (or appearing to spend) money on the poor, and 3) the support of the mullahs. This does not mean that his path is strewn with roses or that he can tiptoe through the tulips to overthrow American dominance in the Middle East.

In this article, I examined some of these issues.

Daniel Dana's web-site deals with the very real internal opposition the Iranian regime and would be empire faces. The opposition he highlights at his web-site is from students and those allied with students. It should be borne in mind that the students in Iran are often rich or the children of the rich, and they are the children of the secular financial elites who keep the mullahs going. An article in the Washington Times that is no longer available at its web-site examines the real financial problems that the Iranian regime faces. One man, a Mr. Ghaninejad, was one of 13 experts in economics who warned, in two petitions to the government just before Mr. Ahmadinejad was elected, that his populist, short-term policies would spell disaster for Iran in the long term.

"Now he's throwing money at complex problems and just doesn't care about the long term. He thinks he should help the poor today and leave everything else to the Hidden Imam, the newspaper editor said, referring to a character whom Shiites believe will one day emerge to bring justice to the world," said Mr. Ghaninejad.   

The article went to say that in the opinion of many, the mullahs, who also listen to the members of the financial elite, even if they do not necessarily like them, will give Ahmadinejad a year or so to pursue his policies before pulling the rug out from under him.
So, in building his empire, Ahmadinejad must face the fact that one of the legs his regime is relying on is rather shaky; the support of the mullahs with ties to financial leaders in the country.

Now we get to the real questions raised by that trip down memory lane a few paragraphs ago. How is Ahmadinejad pursuing this strategy of deferring a war? And once we see this, then the question arises, what is
on the chopping block as the price of deferral?

Iranians Abroad

The Boston Globe reports on former Iranian President Khatami's visit to Harvard, where he told a packed auditorium that,  "'Today we are faced with an astounding situation that seriously threatens both the East and the West,' he warned a packed and mostly welcoming audience. 'One should not engage in violence in the name of any religion, just as one should not and ought not turn the world into one's military camp in the name of democracy.'"

This article is entitled, "Khatami urges U.S., Iran, to use restraint." And what is the restraint all about?  In this case, forcing Iran to abandon its ambitions to establish a nuclear "force de frappé" in the Middle East. Put simply, Khatami is trying to get the U.S. to ease off Iran so that it can get more powerful.

What was really interesting is what Khatami said at the National Cathedral on 7 September. according to CNN, Khatami said that he "absolutely" does not believe that Jews are different from other humans, but some Christians and Jews consider themselves superior to others and commit crimes in the name of religion, much like Muslim extremists.

The phrasing here is very interesting because it was not in the text of the speech released to the Episcopal Church of America, his hosts at the National Cathedral in Washington.

Jews are human. In other words, Khatami granted this status graciously upon us at this speech, much the way a Nazi would. Nazis believed that Jews were human too, just for the record. They called us a "Gegenrasse", a race set against mankind, arguing that there could not be two chosen races at once, a Jewish one and an Aryan one. Do note that the name Iran was adopted by the Empire of Persia to affirm its relationship with the Aryan race. When you listen to Ahmadinejad talk about how there was no murder of millions of Jews in Europe, and how we should be done in and gotten rid of like yesterday's trash, it tells me that the association with Aryan still has a large amount of resonance in Farsi society. Notice also that Khatami did not say Israelis were human, he said Jews.

That also tells me who is on the chopping block of Iran's plan to defer war with the United States. We Jews are.

Not just us, though; all of Lebanon that is not Shia as well. And just to be clear, when Khatami said "Jews were human," he was referring to all of us - the butcher in New Jersey who said he sold kosher meat when it wasn't, along with the little pathetic fellow who does the crooked real estate deals here, Olmert, as well as people like me.

All of us. Has there indeed been a deal made to defer fighting between America and Iran, with us here on the chopping block as the price of the deferral?

Grampus