By Alan CarubaBit by bit the news is getting out. First it was a news report of Israelis, Egyptians, and Saudis getting together to discuss their mutual interests and concern. In other words, Iran!
Now The Times (UK) is reporting that “The head of Mossad, Israel’s overseas intelligence service, has assured Benjamin Netanyahu, its prime minister, that Saudi Arabia would turn a blind eye to Israeli jets flying over the kingdom during any future raid on Iran’s nuclear sites.”
This was followed by news of an ABC News interview with Vice President Biden who said, “Look, Israel can determine for itself—it’s a sovereign nation—what’s in their interest and what they decide to do relative to Iran and anyone else, whether we agree or not.”
Translation: We hope they will bomb the heck out of Iran’s nuclear facilities because we do not have the guts to do it ourselves. The President then said Biden had misspoken and that no “green light” had been given. Apparently, it’s okay to “meddle” in Israel’s internal affairs, but not Iran’s.
The least likely partners in the Middle East are Israel and the Saudis, but both have a common enemy and the Saudis have always been shrewd in their judgment as to whom to back in a fight. They also prefer having others do their fighting for them. Unless you haven’t checked lately, Saudi Arabia shares a very long border with Iraq and is just across the Persian Gulf from Iran, along with Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates.
So now the Saudis are in league with the Israelis, just like they coordinate with the oil-importing United States of America. Why not? We’re too stupid to tap our own extensive national oil reserves, so they are perfectly happy to sell us theirs.
Iran is a direct competitor to the Saudis and cannot be expected to play nice at OPEC meetings. The good news for the Saudis is that the Iranians have so mismanaged their oil industry that they don’t even have a refinery to make their own gasoline. Their equipment is getting old and their income from oil is surely dwindling as a result. It doesn’t help them that the price per barrel is falling of late.
But they sure do know how to make some great long-and-short range missiles and have been hell-bent on acquiring nuclear weapon capability for some twenty years or more. While they have poured billions into that little project, they have ignored their own population which has high unemployment and a host of other problems, not the least of which is a shaky hold on power.
A serious international boycott of the current Iranian regime would bring it to its knees. The protests in the streets may have been crushed, but the spirit of protest has not. Iranians are angry with their Supreme Leader and the rest of the stooges in their allegedly elected government.
I have no doubt whatever that the Israelis will choose the day and hour to attack the Iranian nuclear facilities. It’s no great secret where they are, but I bet the Mossad has blueprints!
It is ironic that Iran has managed to do what sixty years of Arab warfare on Israel has not. It has brought two antagonists to the table to discuss an even greater common enemy.
Excellent article Mr. Caruba.
ReplyDeleteIt is funny how "politics makes for strange bedfellows".
I guess expediency might be the operative word.
Thank you.
ReplyDeleteAny attack on Iran's nuke facilities will also effect its oil industry, disrupting things a bit and driving up the cost-per-barrel of oil on the world market. The Saudis are most certainly aware of this, too.
Yes, the hypocrisy coming out of the entire Middle East will be worse than ever.
ReplyDeleteThey are all praying that Israel will do for them what they will not do for themselves.
These are Muslims who kill other Muslims for the sheer sport of it.
"These are Muslims who kill other Muslims for the sheer sport of it."
ReplyDeleteYep, any excuse will do.
"Sept. 29 fatal firefight near British Embassy -
Gun battle 'normal accident'," says it all. (2nd article down)
And, this must be one of their gun safety classes?
Don’t treat a friend as enemy only for one mistake and don’t try to befriend the real enemy.
ReplyDeleteThese are Khamenei’s words which have been turned to the headline in the Keyhan News Paper today (the official Ayatollahs news-paper in Iran).
Looking closely at Khameni’s speech now, very much you can see the depth of fear in his mind about an immanent/ real attack by the West.
In fact this is the first time ever the Ayatollahs have really felt the heat and they are genuinely worried about the real and clear danger towards their existence.
Watching how disparately Khameni is trying to unite the regime’s internal fractions now is very informative and projects the actual wellbeing of the entire regime.
At the same time, seeing how skillfully Khameni is trying to trick the West into assumptions that “this is only an internal family matter and he is trying to threaten the West with people-regime unification should the West attacks the regime”.
Khamenei would have never showed so much of pubic presents, addressing the people directly, IF he wasn’t really worried. This is the most vulnerable moment for the regime and they wish no-one else could really see that.
In reality at the first sign of any attack by the West, there will be no unity want-so-ever. The world has seen clearly how people genuinely hate this Islamic regime. The regime doesn’t have the people and this is tested now.
This will leave the actual regime’s body on its own to defend itself against any potential attacks. For sure the actual Iranian Army, Navy and Air-force capabilities are not completely supporter of the regime at all. This is the only reason that the Ayatollahs had to create their own Army, Navy and Air-force capabilities within their Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps and creating the Basij paramilitary force too. In a fear that someday the actual Iranian Army, Navy and Air-force may completely refuse to follow the Ayatollahs orders, or even the worst they actual turn right against the regime.
At the first sign of any attack on the regime, the moderate fractions within the regime leading by Hashemi Rafsanjani; either runs away from Iran on a double or they directly turn against their own regime in support of the attacker in addition to expressing huge remorse and ask for forgiveness.
Having the people and the reformists taking no parts in defending the regime now, then it will leave the regime only with the Islamic Revolutionary Guards and the Basij. Now this is true, these two forces will try to defend the regime, yet only up to a certain point.
And that point is, when they realize that their own commanders like Mohsen Rezaei and the rest, all are running away with big suitcase filled with US dollars and when their own families also turn against them. This will happened within the first 2 moths of any attack if not sooner.
This is a great fearful moment for the Ayatollahs!
Aghra_2000@hotmail.com
A case of the enemy of my enemy is my friend!
ReplyDeleteMIXED SIGNALS
ReplyDeleteLooks like psyops to me.
Aghrab, thank you for your interesting and, I think, accurate analysis of the situation in Iran.
ReplyDelete