The End of the Saudi Nuclear Horn (Daniel 7)

Saudi rulers will perish: Khamenei
ANI | Tehran [Iran] May 28, 2017 03:10 PM IST
On the occasion of the beginning of the holy fasting month of Ramadan, Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei said that “Saudi rulers are going to perish”.
He further added that the Saudi rulers “are too harsh on Muslims, yet kind to the disbelievers. They are giving special handouts to the US. To whom does all this wealth belong? This is the Saudi people’s wealth, which they give away to disbelievers and their people’s enemies.”
“Among the Muslim world, a group of worthless, inept and villainous people are ruling over a community of the Muslim nation, namely the Saudi government. The fools actually think they can gain the friendship of Islam’s enemies by providing them with money and assistance. There is no friendship there; as they say themselves, they are ‘milking them’ like cattle. They oppress their own people in this manner, and oppress the people of Yemen and Bahrain in other ways. But they are going to perish.”IRNA news agency quoted Iran’s supreme leader as saying.
After re-elected for a second term, Iran’s reformist president, Hassan Rouhani asserted that unity and consensus is the solution against the terrorism.
The era of interfering in other countries’ affairs, waging wars and funding terrorism is over and fighting terrorism is the only way ahead, he added.
Iran’s leader also reminded his audience on the experience of the Iranian nation’s victory over the eight-year imposed war; adding that the Iranian nation triumphed during the eight-year war as the ‘underdog.’
Referring to the afflictions of the Islamic world and disputes imposed on the Muslim states, Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif called on leaders of the Islamic world to undertake further responsibility regarding unity of the Islamic nations.

US Plans Nuclear Offensive Against Russia And Korea

U.S. Defense Department proposing plan to deter nuclear Russia, North Korea

By Elizabeth Shim    |   Sept. 27, 2016 at 9:44 AM

A B-52H Stratofortress taxis down the runway during Prairie Vigilance 16-1 at Minot Air Force Base, N.D., on September 16. As one leg of U.S. Strategic Command’s nuclear triad, Air Force Global Strike Command’s B-52s at Minot AFB, play an integral role in nation's strategic deterrence. Photo by Airman 1st Class J.T. Armstrong/U.S. Air Force

WASHINGTON, Sept. 27 (UPI) -- The U.S. Department of Defense is proposing a $348 billion plan to upgrade a nuclear arsenal that includes bombers, missiles and subs.

According to Defense Secretary Ashton Carter, who was meeting with airmen at Minot Air Force Base, N.D., on Monday, the plan would deter against Russia's "nuclear saber-rattling and building of new nuclear weapons systems," in addition to North Korea's nuclear provocations, The Los Angeles Times reported.

"In today's security environment – one that's dramatically different from the last generation, and certainly the generation before that – we face a nuclear landscape that continues to pose challenges, and that continues to evolve...in some ways less predictably than during the Cold War," Carter said.

The defense secretary also said that the Pentagon is "beginning the process of correcting decades of underinvestment in nuclear deterrence," referring to problems that have beset the country's nuclear force.

Minot in particular was singled out as a "special case" for attention after widespread drug abuse and test cheating led to the firing of dozens of launch officers.

Minot retains B-52 bombers and nuclear-tipped Minuteman III missiles.

During his visit, Carter said the purpose of nuclear preparedness was to stand ready to deter the enemy who intends to use nuclear weapons against the United States and its allies, South Korean news agency Yonhap reported.

North Korea has become increasingly belligerent in the past few months, conducting two nuclear tests in 2016 and dozens of missile test launches.

The provocations have increased concerns internationally, but North Korea's Foreign Minister Ri Yong Ho defended the tests and also said Pyongyang has no plans to be compliant with United Nations Security Council sanctions resolutions, Japanese news network NHK reported on Tuesday.

Ri allegedly said he "does not even care" after the U.N. Security Council requested North Korea, as well as the United States, to ratify the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, which was formed 20 years ago.

There Are 15,000 And It Only Takes One

There Are 15,000 Nuclear Weapons Still Posing an Intolerable Threat to Humanity

By Mayor Frank Cownie

We members of Mayors for Peace, an international organization of cities dedicated to eliminating nuclear weapons, are keenly aware that these devices were designed to wipe cities off the map. As the mayor of Des Moines, I can expect that my city is an unlikely target, but the same cannot be said for many of my counterparts. Cities around the world are utterly unprepared to respond to a catastrophe of that scale. Prevention is the only cure. Yet the presidential candidates have said little about how they would address the existential threat posed by nuclear weapons.

Motivated by growing concern about rising international tensions and a disquieting presidential campaign, the United States Conference of Mayors (USCM), at its recent annual meeting in Indianapolis, unanimously adopted a strong resolution put forward by members of Mayors for Peace, warning that “the nuclear-armed countries are edging ever closer to direct military confrontation in conflict zones around the world,” and calling on the next president of the United States “to pursue new diplomatic initiatives to lower tensions with Russia and China and to dramatically reduce U.S. and Russian nuclear stockpiles.”

The USCM is the nonpartisan association of American cities with populations over 30,000, and resolutions adopted at its annual meetings become official policy. The USCM has annually adopted resolutions introduced by Mayors for Peace since 2006. This resolution was cosponsored by 22 of my counterparts, including New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio and Washington, DC, Mayor Muriel Bowser. (See below for full list of sponsors.)

Cautioning that “more than 15,000 nuclear weapons, most orders of magnitude more powerful than the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs, 94% held by the United States and Russia, continue to pose an intolerable threat to cities and humanity,” and that “the largest NATO war games in decades, involving 14,000 U.S. troops, and activation of U.S. missile defenses in Eastern Europe are fueling growing tensions between nuclear-armed giants,” the USCM resolution “calls on the next President of the United States, in good faith, to participate in or initiate…multilateral negotiations for the elimination of nuclear weapons as required by the 1970 Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.”

The resolution commends President Obama for visiting Hiroshima and concluding negotiations with Iran, but notes that “the Obama Administration has laid the groundwork for the United States to spend one trillion dollars over the next three decades to maintain and modernize its nuclear bombs and warheads, production facilities, delivery systems, and command and control,” and that “federal funds are desperately needed in our communities to build affordable housing, create jobs with livable wages, improve public transit, and develop sustainable energy sources.”

The USCM resolution “calls on the next President and Congress of the United States to reduce nuclear weapons spending to the minimum necessary to assure the safety and security of the existing weapons as they await disablement and dismantlement, and to redirect those funds to address the urgent needs of cities and rebuild our nation’s crumbling infrastructure.”

The USCM resolution also commends Mayor Denise Simmons and the City Council of Cambridge, Massachusetts, “for demonstrating bold leadership at the municipal level by unanimously deciding on April 2, 2016, to divest their one-billion-dollar city pension fund from all companies involved in production of nuclear weapons systems and in entities investing in such companies.”

Mayors for Peace, founded in 1982 and led by the Mayors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, aims through its 2020 Vision Campaign to achieve the global elimination of nuclear weapons by 2020. Mayors for Peace membership is growing rapidly; as of June 1, the organization includes 7,063 cities in 161 countries and regions including 207 US members, representing in total some one billion people—one-seventh of the world’s population.

Addressing the USCM International Affairs Committee on June 25, Yasuyoshi Komizo, Secretary-General of Mayors for Peace, explained:

One common challenge we face is that many countries continue to maintain that their national security depends on nuclear deterrence. Yet nuclear deterrence is based on mutual distrust and attempts to maintain peace through the threat of indiscriminate mass killings. Such a system cannot be sustainable. We must also note that nuclear weapons cannot offer any effective solutions to the global security challenges of the 21st century. They also consume budgetary and technological resources needed for economic development, including the welfare of the world’s cities.
Mayors are primarily responsible for public safety. When it comes to nuclear weapons, the next president should listen to America’s mayors and let us help set sensible priorities with the aspiration that our collaboration puts the hopes, dreams and possibilities of future generations ahead of war. Let peace be the stage for our future!

The USCM resolution was sponsored by: T. M. Franklin Cownie, mayor of Des Moines, Iowa; Nan Whaley, mayor of Dayton, Ohio; Joy Cooper, mayor of Hallandale Beach, Florida; John Dickert, mayor of Racine, Wisconsin; Roy Buol, mayor of Dubuque, Iowa; Mark Stodola, mayor of Little Rock, Arkansas; Marcus Muhammad, mayor of Benton Harbor, Michigan; Alex Morse, mayor of Holyoke, Massachusetts; Kitty Piercy, mayor of Eugene, Oregon; Chris Koos, mayor of Normal, Illinois; Laurel Lunt Prussing, mayor of Urbana, Illinois; Salvatore J. Panto, Jr., mayor of Easton, Pennsylvania; Geraldine Muoio, mayor of West Palm Beach, Florida; Frank Ortis, mayor of Pembroke Pines, Florida; Ardell F. Brede, mayor of Rochester, Minnesota; Muriel Bowser, mayor of the District of Columbia; Christopher L. Cabaldon, mayor of West Sacramento, California; Miguel A. Pulido, mayor of Santa Ana, California; Charlie Hales, mayor of Portland, Oregon; Patrick L. Wojahn, mayor of College Park, Maryland; Paul Soglin, mayor of Madison, Wisconsin; Denny Doyle, mayor of Beaverton, Oregon; and Bill de Blasio, mayor of New York City, New York.

The Eminent Risk of Nuclear Confrontation (Daniel 7)

 
U.S. can’t ignore rising nuclear danger

Nickolas Roth is a research associate at the Project on Managing the Atom in the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard Kennedy School. Follow him on Twitter: @Nickolas_Roth. The opinions expressed in this commentary are his.

(CNN)Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump are once again trading barbs over who has the right disposition to be president — including who is best suited to have a “finger on the button.”
It is, of course, not unusual for candidates to critique each other’s qualifications. But there is a good reason why assessing the candidates’ judgment and temperament is particularly important: The president of the United States has complete authority over more than 1,000 nuclear weapons ready to launch.

The reality is that miscalculation or miscommunication with another country could result in catastrophe. This is true at any time, but whoever is elected in November will assume office during a period when the risk of nuclear confrontation between the United States and Russia may be higher than it has been in decades.

Both NATO and Russia have significantly bolstered their military presence and activities in Eastern Europe, increasing the likelihood of a direct conflict between the two sides. Indeed, every military exercise and every near miss between a Russian jet and a U.S. warship is potentially a crisis in the making.

Nuclear codes: A president’s awesome power

The United States and Russia have a long history of negotiated arms control agreements designed to manage nuclear weapons risks. But they also continue to pose an existential threat to one another. Each country targets the other with hundreds of nuclear weapons that can be fired minutes after the order is made and, during a crisis, both sides have strong incentives to be the first to launch a nuclear strike.

Further compounding the danger is the fact that Russia lacks effective early-warning systems to help identify whether a nuclear attack is actually occurring. If this sounds like a Stanley Kubrick fantasy, it isn’t. In 1995, Russian radars indicated a Norwegian weather rocket might be a nuclear missile heading for Russia, and staff prepared Russian President Boris Yeltsin’s nuclear command briefcase for possible retaliation (which fortunately did not occur)

If this had happened during a major crisis, there is no telling what could have happened. The probability of a substantial false alarm coming in the midst of a major crisis may be low, but the potential consequences are the destruction of most of human civilization, so action to reduce even low probabilities is justified.

Given such risks, the next president will need to find a balance between assertively protecting U.S. interests against Russian encroachments and exercising restraint so as to avoid potentially nuclear crises and itchy Russian trigger fingers. Getting the balance wrong could mean stumbling into unintended nuclear confrontation. This is a dauntingly difficult task, and will require new thinking.
Further compounding the danger is the fact that Russia lacks effective early-warning systems to help identify whether a nuclear attack is actually occurring. If this sounds like a Stanley Kubrick fantasy, it isn’t. In 1995, Russian radars indicated a Norwegian weather rocket might be a nuclear missile heading for Russia, and staff prepared Russian President Boris Yeltsin’s nuclear command briefcase for possible retaliation (which fortunately did not occur).

If this had happened during a major crisis, there is no telling what could have happened. The probability of a substantial false alarm coming in the midst of a major crisis may be low, but the potential consequences are the destruction of most of human civilization, so action to reduce even low probabilities is justified.

Given such risks, the next president will need to find a balance between assertively protecting U.S. interests against Russian encroachments and exercising restraint so as to avoid potentially nuclear crises and itchy Russian trigger fingers. Getting the balance wrong could mean stumbling into unintended nuclear confrontation. This is a dauntingly difficult task, and will require new thinking.
For the past 20 years, despite the end of the Cold War, the United States has maintained high-risk nuclear weapons policies in part because U.S.-Russian relations were relatively good and a nuclear crisis seemed implausible. This dynamic has now changed — there is significantly less margin of error for provocative nuclear policies today than at any time since the end of the Cold War.
With that in mind, policies that emphasize predictability, transparency and restraint are now needed to reduce the risk that a miscalculation or accident will lead to the use of nuclear weapons.

In practice, that means the United States and Russia should continue to observe and strengthen existing arms control agreements. But further steps are needed, as well. U.S and Russian nuclear weapons should be removed from “hair trigger” alert status, which currently allows both countries to launch a nuclear attack on short notice.

The decision to kill potentially millions in a nuclear strike requires careful thought, as much information as possible, and more than a few short minutes. This step should be taken in tandem with reciprocal pledges that neither side will be the first to use nuclear weapons against the other.
Don’t blink over North Korea

In addition, the United States and Russia should begin serious discussions of how each can defend itself from tiny missile forces from countries like Iran and North Korea without giving the other a motive to build up its own offensive forces to maintain its deterrent, or creating new incentives for striking first in a crisis.

In 2002, the United States withdrew from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty arguing it was no longer needed, in part, because the Cold War was over. It is now time to find a way to restore the stability that the treaty provided.
 
In the coming months, U.S. presidential candidates must articulate a comprehensive plan for nuclear risk reduction. Not only should this include ideas for decreasing the likelihood of nuclear conflict between the United States and Russia, but the candidates must also demonstrate that they have the judgment and thoughtfulness that will make disputes with Russia less dangerous when they inevitably arise.

Americans and Russians made it through the Cold War because of rational leadership, restraint, policies that increased predictability and transparency and a lot of luck. The next president will need to rely on all of these in order to avert a nuclear disaster with Russia. Sober judgment will be essential. That’s a fact that voters should keep in mind in November.

America Prepares For War With Russia (Daniel 7)

US Preparing for “Hybrid War” with Russia

Positioning US-NATO Forces on Russia’s Doorstep


By Stephen Lendman
Global Research, September 26, 2015
Region: Europe, Russia and FSU, USA
Theme: US NATO War Agenda

America is a warrior state, waging direct and/or proxy wars at home and abroad throughout its entire history – today on a global scale, with an arsenal of weapons of unimaginable destructive power able to end life on earth, and lunatics in charge perhaps planning to use them.

In September 2010, Stop NATO editor Rick Rozoff said the Pentagon is using the Baltic states as “training grounds for Afghan and future wars.”

After NATO expanded from 16 – 28 members from 1999 – 2009 by adding all former Warsaw Pact countries, including former Soviet republics Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, Washington used their territory for military bases, troop and weapons deployments, regional “air patrols and the initial stages of a continent-wide anti-ballistic missile system beyond” NATO plans for an Active Layered Theatre Ballistic Missile Defence Programme.

Positioning US and other NATO forces near Russia’s border violated the 1991 (ratified) Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE), limiting “several categories of conventional military equipment in Europe,” Rozoff explained.

New NATO members Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland were “transformed into training grounds for the Pentagon’s and NATO’s wars abroad” – including potential confrontation with Russia, regular large-scale military exercises conducted for this purpose, literally readying for possible WW III.
Large numbers of US-led NATO troop deployments and provocative military exercises close to Russia’s borders should scare everyone. Last spring, US-installed NATO Secretary-General Jens Stolenberg said dealing with Russia requires “a strong collective alliance” – code language for preparing for military confrontation?

He, US officials and other Western ones consistently lie about nonexistent “Russian aggression” in Ukraine, as well as deploying troops and warplanes in Syria.

Moscow threatens no one. It’s the continent’s leading peacemaker. Washington threatens world peace, security and stability. Its permanent war agenda risks the unthinkable – possible nuclear armageddon.
On September 25, Sputnik News and RT International both discussed German newspaper Deutsche Wirtschafts Nachrichten’s (DWN) report about Washington preparing for possible hybrid war with Russia in the Baltics region – focusing on irregular troop deployments, destabilization, provocative rallies and cyber attacks.

Former US Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Michele Flournoy was quoted, saying “Russia’s (nonexistent) invasion of Eastern Ukraine urged the US to dust off its emergency plans. They were pretty outdated.”

Washington’s coup followed by orchestrated Kiev aggression on Donbass is used as a pretext to blame Moscow for their crimes – the Big Lie repeated ad nauseam by Western officials and media scoundrels, knowingly and willfully turning truth on its head as part of a longstanding plan to marginalize, weaken, contain, isolate, destabilize and weaken Russia, America’s key rival along with China.

DWN said hyping a “Russian threat” is used to justify deploying large numbers of heavily armed US troops in Eastern Europe, hold large-scale provocative war games near its borders and get NATO nations to increase military spending.

German ZDF television reported US plans to position powerful B61 thermonuclear bombs at the Luftwaffe’s Buchel Air Base. It’s Germany’s only military base with US nuclear weapons already – 20 since 2007.

Putin spokesman Dmitry Peskov responded, calling Washington’s intention a “violation of the strategic balance in Europe…And without a doubt, it would demand that Russia take necessary countermeasures to restore the strategic balance and parity.”

An unnamed Russian “military-diplomatic” source said Moscow may respond by deploying Iskander-M tactical missiles in Kaliningrad, its Eastern European enclave bordering Lithuania and Poland.

“The issue is being studied,” the source said. “A final decision will be made after a detailed analysis of the potential threats.”

In 2010, Bundestag opposition members called for removing US nuclear weapons from German territory entirely. At the time, Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said “(t)he time is right for a new beginning on nuclear disarmament.” Polls show strong anti-nuclear public sentiment.
Former German Defense Ministry Parliamentary State Secretary Willy Wimmer told ZDF television Washington’s plan to deploy B61s to Buchel gives it “new attack options against Russia.” It’s “a conscious (anti-Russian) provocation…”

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told ZDF “(t)he comprehensive analysis of the situation points to the threat posed by the increasing military capability of NATO and its endowment with global functions, which it performs in violation of the international law, as well as the encroachment of the military infrastructure of NATO members on the borders of the Russian Federation.”

America positioning nuclear weapons on European territory breaches NPT’s letter and spirit – prohibiting the transfer of nuclear weapons to non-nuclear states.

Washington’s claim about them being under US control doesn’t wash. Most important is their potential use, the risk of nuclear war, the top priority for world leaders to avoid at all costs.
Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.

His new book as editor and contributor is titled “Flashpoint in Ukraine: US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III.”

Listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network.

It airs three times weekly: live on Sundays at 1PM Central time plus two prerecorded archived programs.

he Terror Of The Iranian Horn (Dan 8)

 
Iran Terrorism Highlighted by U.S. as Nuclear Deadline Looms

by Indira Lakshmanan
June 19, 2015 — 8:28 AM PDT Updated on June 19, 2015 — 10:50 AM PDT

With a June 30 deadline looming for an agreement to curb Iran’s nuclear program, the U.S. State Department said the Islamic Republic’s terrorist activities continue “undiminished,” a finding sure to inflame opponents of any deal with the regime in Tehran.

Asked if Iran can be trusted to abide by a nuclear deal while it continues terrorist activities that destabilize the Middle East, a senior State Department official on Friday said that the nuclear negotiations are important to curb Iran’s actions.

If Iran agrees to nuclear curbs in exchange for relief from economic sanctions, the U.S. won’t lift sanctions on any Iranians cited for terrorism, Ambassador Tina Kaidanow, the State Department’s counterterrorism coordinator, said at a press conference.

The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, notorious for its involvement in terrorist activities and its control of major sectors of Iran’s economy, will remain under U.S. sanctions, Kaidanow said.

Asked if entities controlled by the IRGC, including the state-run National Iranian Oil Company, would be taken off the sanctions list, Kaidanow said, “It is not being contemplated.” She added: “We aren’t going to remove any of the sanctions related to terrorism.

U.S. and European Union oil sanctions imposed in mid-2012 have reduced Iran’s primary source of revenue, trimming its exports to about 1.1 million barrels a day from 2.5 million barrels a day and denying Iran billions of dollars, according to the U.S. government. In addition to congressional sanctions penalizing any country that doesn’t reduce its imports of Iranian crude, the U.S. listed NIOC as an entity of the IRGC.

Oil Sanctions
 
It’s unclear if buyers of Iranian oil could still face penalties if oil sanctions are suspended but Iran’s state-owned oil company remains on the U.S. sanctions list,

The U.S. has designated Iran a state sponsor of terrorism every year since 1984, citing a litany of efforts to destabilize the Middle East and aid foreign terrorist groups. In its annual report on worldwide terrorism released Friday, the department said Iran continues to support militant groups in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Gaza, and also continues “subtle efforts at growing influence” in Africa, Asia and Latin America.

Iran used the elite arm of its Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the Quds Force, “to implement foreign policy goals, provide cover for intelligence operations, and create instability in the Middle East,” according to the 2014 report. The unit is Iran’s “primary mechanism for cultivating and supporting terrorists abroad.”

The State Department cited media reports that Quds Force soldiers have taken part in combat operations supporting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, an Iranian ally, in his bloody four-year campaign to put down a domestic uprising.

Shia Militias

In response to the advance of Islamic State terrorists into neighboring Iraq, Iran has increased training and funding to Iraqi Shia militias, the U.S. said. While critics of President Barack Obama have expressed fears that the U.S. military — which is aiding the Iraqi government — would coordinate with Iran in the common fight against the Islamic State, the administration denies doing so.
The State Department said Friday that the Iranian-backed militias fighting Islamic State have worsened sectarian tensions in Iraq and are guilty of human rights abuses against Sunni civilians.

Iran is unwilling to bring senior al-Qaeda members it detains to justice, and refuses to publicly identify those in its custody, the State Department said. Previously, Iran had allowed al-Qaeda facilitators to move funds and fighters through Iran to South Asia and Syria, the report said.

Supporting Hezbollah

The report also accuses Iran of supplying weapons, financing and training to Lebanese Hezbollah, which the U.S., the European Union and Israel consider a terrorist group, and seeking to arm Palestinian militants in Gaza, citing Israeli seizures of rockets, mortar and ammunition hidden in crates of cement labeled “made in Iran”.

Despite numerous United Nations Security Council resolutions demanding that Iran suspend illicit nuclear activities, the Islamic Republic’s atomic program remains in “noncompliance,” the State Department said.

At the same time, the report concludes that Iran has complied with its commitments under an interim agreement to curb its nuclear activities that took effect in January 2014. Iran says its atomic program is for civilian energy and medical research.

Iranian Horn Helps Itself To Iraqi Horn (Dan 8:3)

 

What is Iran’s game plan in Iraq?

By Kasra Naji
BBC Persian

In the Iraqi city of Najaf, the streets are plastered with posters commemorating the anniversary of the death of Ayatollah Khomeini, the founder of Iran’s revolution.

At a public funeral for fighters from a local militia, a portrait of Iran’s current leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, is carried high.

In Iraq today, there are reminders everywhere of how Iran’s influence has grown since Tehran moved in to join the fight against so-called Islamic State (IS).

The seizure of Iraq’s second city, Mosul, by IS fighters one year ago was as much of a shock to Iran’s Shia leaders as it was to many Iraqis.

The prospect that a friendly neighbour and ally, ruled by fellow Shia politicians, could be replaced by an extremist Sunni regime prompted Tehran into swift action.

For Iran, Iraq was also home to Shia Islam’s holiest shrines and a land bridge to another key Arab ally, Syria.

Within days, Iran’s shadowy revolutionary guard commander, Qasem Soleimani, had arrived in Baghdad to help defend the capital.

He embarked on quiet rounds of talks to encourage pro-Iranian Shia clerics to put aside their differences and resurrect the militias they had been forced to disband.

Gen Soleimani hoped with arms and support from Iran, they would take the lead in keeping Iraq together.

He was inadvertently helped in his quest by a fatwa from Iraq’s highest-ranking Shia cleric, Ayatollah Ali Sistani.

The ayatollah called on all able-bodied young men to take up arms to defend Iraq.

The fatwa gave legitimacy and impetus to the drive to recruit men for the militias.

In Baghdad and throughout the south, tens of thousands rushed to volunteer

Gen Soleimani ensured that small arms and funds were swiftly delivered to the militias.

Iran also sent weapons to the Iraqi army and to the Kurds fighting a desperate battle against IS in the north

Officials in both the Kurdish capital, Irbil, and Baghdad are open about how instrumental these rapid weapons supplies were to fighting power and morale.

They point out that the US at this time was still vacillating and even attaching conditions to its own weapons supply plans.

Iran also encouraged the Iraqi government to lend army officers and hardware to the militias.
Soon Iraqi army tanks were rolling north from Baghdad, driven by militiamen waving green Shia flags and pictures of Iran’s Ayatollah Khamenei.

Iran also deployed revolutionary guard officers, veterans of the 1980s Iran-Iraq war, to train and advise the militias.

Political crisis

Having bolstered Iraq’s military capacities, Iran now turned to the political crisis brewing in Baghdad.

In August, Iran finally backed plans to replace Prime Minister Nouri al-Maleki

He resigned, opening the way for a new government more representative of Sunnis and Kurds – something the US, many Iraqis and even Ayatollah Sistani had been pushing for.

Shia holy sites in Iraq:

Imam Ali Mosque, Najaf: Contains the tomb of the first Shia imam
Imam Husayn Shrine, Karbala: Contains the tomb of Hussein ibn Ali, son of Imam Ali and third Shia imam, who was killed at the Battle of Karbala in AD648
Al Abbas Mosque, Karbala: Contains the tomb of Al-Abbas ibn Ali, Hussein’s half-brother, who also died at the Battle of Karbala
Great Mosque of Kufa: The place where Imam Ali was attacked and killed while at prayer
Awlad Muslim Mosque, Musayyib: Tomb of the sons of the warrior Muslim ibn Aqeel
null

Meanwhile, the US and its allies had formed a coalition to carry out air strikes against IS.

Although Iran was not included, it was another check on IS’s room for manoeuvre.

The US strategy relied on local ground forces – the Kurds and the Iraqi army – but not the Shia militias. US military leaders said they did not want coalition aircraft to become “the air force for the revolutionary guard”.

But in due course that’s in effect what happened.

On a few occasions, Iranian fighter jets reportedly flew over Iraq to support the militias when US and coalition aircraft would not get involved.

With each month, Iran sponsored and bankrolled more clerics and pro-Iranian figures to establish their own militias, furthering Iranian influence on the ground.

These well-equipped militias have launched a big PR campaign across Iraq, with billboards, posters and social-media accounts showcasing their military power, their martyrs and the Iranian leader

Widespread influence

One year on, there are now dozens of pro-Iran Shia militia groups spreading Iran’s brand of militancy and leading the fight against IS.

Many have now been placed under an umbrella organisation – the Popular Mobilisation, under the nominal control of Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi.

The force commander, Hadi Al-Ameri, says three things helped keep Iraq together:

Ayatollah Sistani’s fatwa
people’s response to it
Iran’s rush to help

The militias have succeeded in driving IS back in the north and in the east, and now the government has called on them to lead the fight to retake Iraq’s third largest city, Ramadi, which fell to IS in May.

The Americans, frustrated by the ineffectiveness of the Iraqi army, seem to have now accepted the leading role of the militias, as long as they remain under government command.

Meanwhile in the south, Shia militias have helped spread Iran’s influence even in the holy cities of Karbala and Najaf – until last year the sphere of influence of moderate Ayatollah Sistani.

Unlike Iran’s Ayatollah Khamenei, Ayatollah Sistani does not believe in a role for the clergy in government

But dozens of charitable organisations set up by Iran and linked to the militias seem to be challenging his authority by publicly backing Ayatollah Khamenei.

Some observers in Najaf now think the Iranians are waiting for the 85-year-old Ayatollah Sistani to die before moving in fully to claim the religious guardianship of the holy cities.

But there are signs Iran is becoming increasingly mired in a conflict it can ill afford to fight.

Iran is now arming and funding an army of close to 100,000 militiamen

It is a burden for a country struggling under international sanctions.

Iran is receiving an increasing number of body bags, as military advisers and officers die on the
battlefield. Dozens are thought to have been killed already.

But Revolutionary guard commanders keep telling Iranians if they don’t take the fight to Iraq or Syria, the war will come to Iran.

Iran’s Terrorism And Hegemony (Dan 8:3)

 

How Far Do Iran’s Tentacles of Terror Reach?

WEDNESDAY, 10 JUNE 2015 05:40 BY: ELLIOTT FRIEDLAND

Iran is the worlds leading state sponsor of terrorism. But how far do its tentacles really reach?

The Islamic Republic of Iran operates a global network of terrorism, as far away from Iran as South America and the U.S.

It has carried out attacks worldwide on American and Jewish targets. The current defense minister orchestrated the 1983 bombing of the U.S. Marine barracks in Lebanon which killed 241 American troops.

Iran’s Lebanese proxy Hezbollah was also behind the 2012 Burgas bus bombing in Bulgaria which killed five Israelis and a Bulgarian bus driver, according to an inquiry led by the Bulgarian government.

In May 2013, a 500-page report by an Argentine state prosecutor named Alberto Nisman said Iran has an “intelligence and terrorist network” in Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay, Chile, Colombia, Guyana, Trinidad, Tobago and Suriname and elsewhere.

He had been investigating a terrorist bombing of a Jewish community center in 1984 that killed 84 people. Iran and Hezbollah are believed to be behind the attack.

Nisman was found shot in the head in his apartment in January 2015, hours before he was due to present evidence that the President of Argentina was complicit in covering up Iran’s involvement in the attack.

So far police have been unable to determine if his death was murder or suicide. Many suspect that it was an organized assassination.

Iran has been on the State Department’s list of State Sponsors of Terrorism since 1984 and has consistently ranked as the largest state sponsor of terrorism in the world.

It supports a plethora of groups of different ideologies and sizes, trying to position itself as a pan-Islamic regional power. Iran has varied support for different groups over the years, depending on which best align with their strategic interests.

Among them are:

Al-Qaeda (International: Salafist/Wahabi) Since the early 1990s Iran has allowed members to operate freely in Iran and traffick fighters and materials through Iranian territory.

Hezbollah (Lebanon: Shiite-Khomeinist) – founded by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps and used as a proxy force against Israel and more recently, to shore up the ailing Assad regime in Syria.

Hamas (Gaza: Muslim Brotherhood) – Iran sends tens of millions of dollars as well as missiles and other armaments as part of its proxy-war against Israel.

The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) (West Bank: Secular-Left-wing) – Provided financial and logistical support as part of an effort to strengthen all “Palestinian resistance groups” opposed to Israel.

Palestinian Islamic Jihad – (Gaza: Muslim Brotherhood splinter group) – Funded and trained the group since its foundation in 1981, but recently cut them off as the group failed to condemn the Arab League’s invasion of Yemen, where Iran is backing the Shiite Houthi rebels.

Iran also funds networks of Shiite militias in Iraq. Initially created to fight against the Americans during the Iraqi insurgency, some of the more powerful groups include Jaish al-Mahdi (Army of the Messiah or Mahdi Army) and its splinter group Asaib Ahl al-Haq (The League of the Righteous), Khitaeb Hezbollah and the Badr Organization.

They carried out attacks against the American forces in Iraq and now fight the Islamic State. They have also massacred Sunni civilians and have been accused of war crimes by rights groups.

An Amnesty International report entitled ‘Absolute Impunity’ details the atrocities perpetrated Iran’s Shiite militias in Iraq.

In some cases, Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) directly perpetrates acts of terrorism. Congress has even considered legislation requiring the State Department to label the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) as a Foreign Terrorist Organization.

The IRGC is currently on the Treasury Department’s list of Specially Designated Nationals involved in terrorism. It was added in 2007.

Its support of global terrorism is part of the Islamic Republic’s commitment to jihad, which is enshrined in the constitution. The preamble includes a commitment to “the establishment of a universal holy government and the downfall of all others.”

Unless this commitment changes neither will Iranian support of terror.

(Clarion Project)

The Final Nuclear Battle: The Sunni Shia Divide (Dan 7)

 
Nukes Along the Sunni-Shia Divide

June 1, 2015
By Dr. Terry Simmons
Contributor, In Homeland Security

When the Saudi Royal House snubbed President Obama with their low profile attendance at the GCC conference recently, there was a de facto quid pro quo in play based on an old axiomatic formula in Middle East politics. The Sunni-Shia Divide is the lowest common denominator in the Islamic World and is still not well understood by the West, especially by the United States. International relations are spinning around a new formulaic that promises to involve the historically dominant United States.

The pseudo super-power states, China, The Russian Federation, India and the remaining BRIC countries such as Brazil, are consistently transmitting a political message to America. The quid pro quo is this: We will trade you cooperation for an effective re-alignment of post WW2 and post Cold War geopolitical architectures and security arrangements for a global political system based on multi-polarity and reduction of American hegemony both militarily and financial institutionalism. Ending a sustained period of global dominance by the United States is the coordinated goal.

The new reality manifests itself in current alignments between Washington-Riyadh and Washington-Iran. Ostensibly centered over the emerging American-Iranian nuclear agreement, the Realpolitik type struggle is a traditional one. Who is the dominant force in the pan-Islamic world? Is it a Sunni force or a Shiite force? It is a classic ideologically based contest for hearts and minds reminiscent of the ideologically centered Cold War struggle between Christian-based democracy and Godless communism? It too is a zero-sum game.

Saudi Arabia (KSM) is capable of procuring advanced nuclear weaponry from Pakistan on short notice for quick delivery from the Kingdom. Months of rumors regarding such transfers have now been confirmed by recent Saudi authoritative and attributable announcements in the international press. What was once conjectural has now become state-sponsored policy through declaratory state policy. The decision-tree rationale offered is that the Kingdom must protect itself from the inevitable impending nuclear breakout by Iran on the heels of an ill advised course of action by the Obama White House. As Pakistan has a long history of political indebtedness to the Saudi Royal House, weapons of mass destruction are a guaranteed reciprocal-strategically significant commodity owed to KSM from the massive nuclear repository in Islamabad.

This emerging political reality changes the perennial power arrangements of the region and the entire Middle East. With a nuclear armed Israel backed by the world’s most advanced nuclear regime, the United States, and Iran backed by the world’s second most advanced nuclear power, The Russian Federation, a dangerous new world based on the threat of WMD usage by previously conventional power users, has emerged in a rapidly alarming fashion along an ancient fault line of a divisive religious-based endemic struggle-the frozen culture wars between Sunnis and Shiites throughout the Islamic world..

What is perhaps more striking is the evolving re-alignment of operational partnerships. Even if undeclared, for the sake of keeping domestic audiences at bay, Tel Aviv and Riyadh are finding common cause in their evolving security parameters. Sunnis and Jews are traditionally antithetical in security symbiosis but consider this: Washington declares the unbreakable historical bond between Tel Aviv and Washington in American declaratory policy but Obama’s perceived apparent tilt toward Tehran has caused a major security shift never deemed remotely possible before the tectonic plates of geopolitics based on a new field of possibilities shifted under the Obama Doctrine of “talking to our enemies.” What is perhaps more remarkable in view of the revolutionary direction of these dramatic shifts is that the ideologues on all sides appear largely muted. No cries of “apostates” have rung out.

These facts are current realities on the ground as we speak and portend a dangerous combination of factors creating massive instabilities in the world’s most volatile zones. When overshadowed by the majors, the United States, the Russian Federation and the potentially the PRC with their new littoral imperialism in the South China Sea and Russian revanchism in re-securing their Near Abroad in the FSU through a newly emboldened militarism,

SUMMARY OBSERVATIONS:

In the waning days of the Obama government, prospective presidential successors from both American political parties are faced with stark choices both at home and in American foreign policy abroad. Will Hillary Clinton practice “smart power’ and formulate a more practical, less ideologically based, approach to international relations? Will Jeb Bush return American military and strategic nuclear posture to the traditionally robust defense-first legacy of superior American firepower? Will either abandon the soft power demilitarization of American foreign policy of the Obama Doctrine that has spurred the global rush to deconstruct traditional American hegemony and fill the power extant power vacuum that has created massive instability throughout the world?

The Sunni-Shia Divide is historical and apparently irreversible. Its recalcitrance is arguably what makes it inevitable and ultimately dangerous, accelerated and magnified by WMD. As Putin attempts to redraw the map of Europe and Eurasia, the map of the countries surrounding the Arabian Peninsula will be affected in a similar manner if the current political dynamics are allowed to manifest themselves. The problematic momentum of the dangerous new polemics in the region may already be irreversible. The overriding security concern is those potential changes do not usher in uncontrolled calamity through miscalculation and force proximity of the world’s most destructive strategic forces.

Iranian horn extends its tentacles (Daniel 8:3)

  
Iran will protect Palestinians, other ‘oppressed’ people in Middle East, Khamenei says

MIDDLE EAST By REUTERS \ 05/16/2015 14:37

Iran will help oppressed people in the region, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on Saturday, days after Gulf Arab leaders met US President Barack Obama and expressed concern about Iranian expansionism.

Khamenei also denounced Saudi Arabia for its role leading a coalition of Sunni-ruled Arab states against Yemen’s Houthi rebels, comparing it to the pagans who ruled the Arabian Peninsula before the advent of Islam in the seventh century.

His speech to a meeting of Iranian leaders and diplomats from the Muslim world, reported by the state news agency IRNA, brought the issues of political and religious legitimacy squarely into the struggle between the two regional powers.

“Yemen, Bahrain and Palestine are oppressed, and we protect oppressed people as much as we can,” IRNA quoted him as saying.

“Those people who bring suffering to Yemeni families during sacred months are even worse than the ancient pagans of Mecca,” he said at the event for the holiday of Lailat al-Miraj, when Islam says the Prophet Mohammad visited heaven and met Jesus, Abraham, Moses and other prophets.

Gulf Arab leaders met with Obama on Thursday to express their concern that Iran is trying to expand its influence in the region aggressively, parallel to nuclear negotiations under way with world powers.

The US backs the Saudi-led Sunni coalition waging the military campaign against the Shi’ite Houthi rebels. Riyadh has accused Tehran of arming the Houthis.

By mentioning Bahrain, Khamenei’s comments will also raise suspicions that Iran plays a role in the small island nation whose Sunni royal family is accused by rights groups of repressing dissent among the majority Shi’ite population.

Iran denies playing a role in either country, but has consistently criticized the campaign in Yemen and Saudi Arabia’s influence in Bahrain, where it sent armed forces to help put down popular protests in 2011.

GULF SHIPPING

The standoff has raised concerns for shipping in the Gulf, a transit route for millions of barrels of oil per day. In the past month, Iranian forces have twice tried to seize commercial ships to settle legal disputes.

“Security in the Persian Gulf is in the interests of everyone… If it is insecure, it will be insecure for all,” Khamenei said, indicating Iran’s apparent willingness to cause disruption if attacked.

Tensions have also reached the Gulf of Aden, another crucial choke point for oil shipments, after Iran on Monday dispatched a cargo ship towards Yemen under military escort.

Forces from the Saudi-led coalition have imposed inspections on all vessels entering Yemeni waters, raising the potential for a standoff with the Iranian flotilla which is due to arrive in the coming days.

The Iranian Horn “Helps” The Iraqi Horn (Dan 8:3)

Iranian Hegemony

Ali Khamenei vows full assistance to Iraq

14 May 2015 – 10:41am

 

Tehran intends to provide all the necessary support to Baghdad for the growth and strengthening of Iraq, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said during a meeting with Iraqi President Fuad Masum.

“There is an extremely dangerous situation in Palestine and Syria. There is a war in Yemen, North Africa. In this context, the stabilization of the situation in Iraq will have a positive impact on the situation in the Middle East,” he said.

 

The Supreme Leader of Iran also described the current state of relations between Iran and Iraq as “unprecedented” and called for closer relations between the two neighbors. “Iraq among Arab and Muslim countries has important and unique advantages,” he said.

 

“Given its status, Iraq can surely influence the regional issues and it should make use of its capacities more than before,” he stressed.

 

In response, Fuad Masum assured that “the Iraqi government and people will never forget the important friendly steps and the assistance that was provided by Iran in the fight against Islamic State.”

“There is an extremely dangerous situation in Palestine and Syria. There is a war in Yemen, North Africa. In this context, the stabilization of the situation in Iraq will have a positive impact on the situation in the Middle East,” he said.

The Supreme Leader of Iran also described the current state of relations between Iran and Iraq as “unprecedented” and called for closer relations between the two neighbors. “Iraq among Arab and Muslim countries has important and unique advantages,” he said.

“Given its status, Iraq can surely influence the regional issues and it should make use of its capacities more than before,” he stressed.

In response, Fuad Masum assured that “the Iraqi government and people will never forget the important friendly steps and the assistance that was provided by Iran in the fight against Islamic State.”

This Probably Won’t Help The Iran Deal (Dan 8)

 US Navy to accompany US-flagged ships in Persian Gulf after Iran seizes vessel

Published April 30, 2015
FoxNews.com

U.S. Navy ships will begin to accompany U.S. flagged commercial ships as they travel the Strait of Hormuz, a defense official confirmed to Fox News, on the heels of Iran seizing a cargo ship.

The Obama administration is closely monitoring Iran’s takeover of the ship, as it involved a Marshall Islands-flagged vessel. The Marshall Islands and the U.S. have a longstanding security agreement, and officials said Thursday the two nations are in contact.

But, in a clear response to that incident, a defense official said the U.S. Navy will now accompany all U.S.-flagged ships going through the area. The move is the latest development in a high-stakes chess match in the region, with the Iran nuclear talks continuing to play out in the background.

The Navy makes a distinction between accompanying ships and escorting them. Officials told the AP the Navy won’t technically escort these ships but will let them know in advance that they will monitor the situation as they transit the narrow Strait from the Persian Gulf toward the Arabian Sea.

The Navy already has dispatched a guided-missile destroyer, the USS Farragut, to the region. Pentagon spokesman Col. Steve Warren said Wednesday the destroyer is “keeping an eye on things,” and in close enough proximity to the seized ship that they “will be able to respond if a response is required.”

When pressed on what kind of incident aboard the ship would elicit a U.S. Navy response, he was vague, saying: “These [U.S. military] assets give commanders options.” He said he didn’t know “what the possibilities are,” and the U.S. government is “in discussions with the Marshall Islands on the way ahead.”

Earlier this week Iranian naval vessels reportedly fired warning shots near the Marshall Islands-flagged cargo ship and detained it and its crew. Iranian officials say the Maersk shipping line owes it money.

Maersk Line, the Danish shipper that chartered the cargo vessel, acknowledged in a written statement that the reason for stopping the ship could be related to a 2005 cargo case.

Maersk Line spokesman Michael Storgaard said the company learned Thursday that an Iranian appeals court had ruled Maersk must pay $3.6 million for a 10-container cargo delivered a decade ago on behalf of an Iranian company in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. However, the cargo never was collected, according to Storgaard, adding it eventually was disposed of by local authorities.

“As we do not have the details of the ruling, we are not able to comment hereon, nor at this point speculate on our options,” Maersk Line said of the latest ruling.

“Our paramount concern remains the safety of the crew and the safe release of the vessel. We will continue to do everything we can to resolve this matter with the relevant Iranian authorities.”

Storgaard told The Associated Press that the ship and crew aren’t theirs. MV Maersk Tigris, operated by Rickmers Ship Management in Singapore, was boarded on Tuesday.

Cors Radings, a spokesman for Rickmers, told Fox News that as of Thursday, there has been no change in the status of the ship and her crew, and that the company has not spoken with the crew in the past 24 hours.

The Marshall Islands — officially known as the Republic of the Marshall Islands, and a former U.S. trust — enjoy “associate state” status with the United States, meaning the U.S. agrees to defend the islands, and provide economic subsidies and access to federally funded social services. The U.S. initially gained military control of the Marshall Islands from Japan in 1944.

According to the State Department, “The security compact between the United States and the Republic of the Marshall Islands gives the U.S. authority and responsibility for security and defense matters that relate to the Marshall Islands, including matters related to vessels flying the Marshallese flag.”

Fox News’ Lucas Tomlinson and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Iranian Horn Forces Issue In Gulf (Daniel 8:3)

U.S. says Iranian forces fire on and board cargo ship in Gulf

DUBAI/WASHINGTON | By Noah Browning and David Alexander

 

(Reuters) – Iranian forces boarded a Marshall Islands-flagged cargo ship in the Gulf on Tuesday after patrol boats fired warning shots across its bow and ordered it deeper into Iranian waters, the Pentagon said.

U.S. planes and a destroyer were monitoring the situation after the vessel, the MV Maersk Tigris, made a distress call in the Strait of Hormuz, one of the world’s most important oil shipping channels.

Iran’s Tasnim news agency quoted an unidentified source who sought to play down the incident, saying it was a civil matter with no military or political dimension. But the Pentagon described it as an apparent provocation.

The incident came as the United States and five other global powers aim to secure a final nuclear deal with Iran by the end of June.

Under the accord Tehran, which denies seeking to build nuclear weapons, would win sanctions relief in return for slashing the number of its uranium enrichment centrifuges and accepting intrusive international inspections.

Saudi-owned Al Arabiya television earlier said an Iranian force fired on and seized a U.S. cargo ship with 34 U.S. sailors on board, and directed it to the Iranian port of Bandar Abbas. But the Pentagon spokesman said there were no U.S. citizens on board the ship.

The company managing the vessel told a Danish news channel there were 24 crew members, mostly from eastern Europe and Asia.

Reuters tracking data showed the Maersk Tigris, a 65,000-tonne container ship, off the Iranian coast between the islands of Qeshm and Hormuz. It had been listed as sailing from the Saudi port of Jeddah, bound for the United Arab Emirates port of Jebel Ali.

The Iranian Terrorist Horn (Daniel 8:3)

Iran is the center for export of terrorism and fundamentalism to region

Iran and Its Neighbours

24 April 2015

Mr. Mohammad Mohaddessin, chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the National Council of Resistance of Iran, said during an online question and answer session on April 17, 2015 that the involvement of the Iranian regime in Yemen, that the meddling of the Iranian regime in Iraq, Syria and Yemen, as well as its nuclear projects brought nothing for the Iranian people except poverty, unemployment, and inflation and that all the people want it to stop.

Reporting on the question and answer session, the Kuwaiti Al-Seyassah newspaper wrote: “The world and especially our region is faced with the major disaster of Islamic fundamentalism with its epicenter in Tehran under the mullahs’ rule. The clerical regime has extended its interventions in recent years to Baghdad, Damascus and more recently Sanaa, the Yemeni capital, but this interference is not limited only to these countries.”

Responding to questions from Al-Seyassah about whether the operation “Decisive Storm” was a Saudi effort to prevent a nuclear deal with Iran, Mr. Mohammad Mohaddessin said: “We disagree with this opinion and believe it diverts the issue from its proper path because the importance of the Yemen occupation is more than the nuclear negotiations.”

“There is no doubt that Saudis and other coalition countries would welcome a nuclear deal that blocks Iran’s path to acquire a nuclear bomb.” He believes that “the US government and the P5+1” are not taking the necessary path to prevent the regime from acquiring a nuclear bomb, but the goal of the “Decisive Storm” operation is the liberation of Yemen from the regime’s mercenaries.

Mr. Mohaddessin emphasized: Operation “Decisive Storm”, created a lot of forces for the legitimate government in Yemen and further undermined the regime.

He explained: “We can prevent the Iranian regime’s expansionism, and it must be forced to retreat and it should be expelled from Syria and Iraq. Because the Iranian regime is fragile and unstable … Qods Force is not a powerful army. This force has spread itself in the region only because of wrong foreign policies, in particular of the US.”

Al-Seyassah quoted Mr. Mohaddessin as stressing that “if the Iranian regime is confronted with a firm policy, and if the international community and the countries of the region stand firm against the aggression of this regime, the regime will necessarily withdraw to within its borders and then quickly will be overthrown by the Iranian people and resistance”.

In another important revelation, the Iranian opposition revealed that the Iranian regime had moved hundreds of Lebanese Hezbollah forces to Yemen before the “Decisive Storm” operation.

Al Jazeera TV on April 18 reported this revelation and said: Sources of Iranian opposition disclosed to Arabic language daily Al-Sharq-al-Awsat that the Iranian regime has replaced Hezbollah forces with Afghan mercenaries for war in Syria and Iraq, and the Iranian Revolutionary Guards has formed a new force named Fatemeh Brigade in Mashhad commanded by IRGC Brigadier General Mousavi.
On the other hand, the clerical regime’s Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, in a gathering of his military commanders, expressed fear from the operation “Decisive Storm” in Yemen and the dangers of developments in the region for the existence of his regime. He said: “Today these tearful events in Yemen are taking place. Americans support the oppressor. Westerners support the oppressor. ….. The lug must always be heard by the authorities of the armed forces. Maintaining national security, border security, public safety, lives of the people, is the responsibility of the authorities who are active in this field.”

Khamenei also expressed concern over the nuclear deal standoff and US officials’ statements about a military option should the nuclear deal fails, and emphasized the need for psychological preparedness of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards.

Seeing the atrocities and crimes committed by the Islamic fundamentalist ideology, the question arises that what is the solution?

Many dignitaries who spoke in a recent international conference in Berlin on the occasion of International Women’s Day responding to this question said: The main solution is a tolerant and democratic Islam, the antithesis to religious fundamentalism, with the leadership of Maryam Rajavi.
In the conference in which Mrs. Maryam Rajavi, keynote speaker and the Iranian opposition leader, called the heads of states in the Berlin Conference to establish and develop a strong front against Islamic fundamentalism and terrorism and barbarism in the name of Islam.

Rajavi said the crime of the appeasing governments of the West is that not only they do not seriously confront fundamentalism, but also they follow the path of compromise with its state sponsor, the Iranian regime, and they collaborate in the suppression of the fundamentalism alternative.

The crises of the region are rooted in the clerical regime and for which no solution but firmness and eviction of this regime and its overthrow exists.

Maryam Rajavi pointed out that the Iranian Resistance, which was the first whistleblower of the Iranian regime’s nuclear projects to obtain a nuclear bomb, has been repeatedly warning for the past 12 years that the Iranian regime’s meddling in Iraq and other countries of the region is a hundred times more dangerous than its nuclear program. And the appeasement policy has encouraged the Iranian regime in its aggressive policy.

Babylon Empowering The Iranian Horn (Daniel 8)

Shiite Brothers

America’s other Iraq calamity: How our failed war has empowered Iran 

PETER VAN BUREN, TOMDISPATCH.COM

The U.S. is running around in circles in the Middle East, patching together coalitions here, acquiring strange bedfellows there, and in location after location trying to figure out who the enemy of its enemy actually is. The result is just what you’d expect: chaos further undermining whatever’s left of the nations whose frailty birthed the jihadism America is trying to squash.

And in a classic tale of unintended consequences, just about every time Washington has committed another blunder in the Middle East, Iran has stepped in to take advantage. Consider that country the rising power in the region and credit American clumsiness for the new Iranian ascendancy.

Today’s News — and Some History

The U.S. recently concluded air strikes in support of the Iraqi militias that Iran favors as they took back the city of Tikrit from the Islamic State (IS). At the same time, Washington began supplying intelligence and aerial refuelingon demand for a Saudi bombing campaign against the militias Iran favors in Yemen. Iran continues to advise and assist Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, whom Washington would still like to depose and, as part of its Syrian strategy, continues to supply and direct Hezbollah in Lebanon, a group the U.S. considers a terror outfit.

Meanwhile, the U.S. has successfully negotiated the outlines of an agreement with Iran in which progress on severely constricting its nuclear program would be traded for an eventual lifting of sanctions and the granting of diplomatic recognition. This is sure to further bolster Tehran’s status as a regional power, while weakening long-time American allies Israel, Saudi Arabia, and the Gulf States.

 A clever pundit could undoubtedly paint all of the above as a realpolitik ballet on Washington’s part, but the truth seems so much simpler and more painful. Since the invasion of Iraq in 2003, U.S. policy in the region has combined confusion on an immense scale with awkward bursts of ill-coordinated and exceedingly short-term acts of expediency. The country that has most benefited is Iran. No place illustrates this better than Iraq.

Iraq Redux (Yet Again)

On April 9, 2003, just over 12 years ago, U.S. troops pulled down a statue of Saddam Hussein in Baghdad’s Firdos Square, symbolically marking what George W. Bush hoped was the beginning of a campaign to remake the Middle East in America’s image by bringing not just Iraq but Syria and Iran to heel. And there can be no question that the invasion of Iraq did indeed set events in motion that are still remaking the region in ways once unimaginable.

In the wake of the Iraq invasion and occupation, the Arab Spring blossomed and failed. (The recent Obama administration decision to resume arms exports to the military government of Abdel Fattah al-Sisi in Egypt could be considered its coup de grâce.) Today, fighting ripples through Libya, Syria, Yemen, the Maghreb, the Horn of Africa, and other parts of the Greater Middle East. Terrorists attack in once relatively peaceful places like Tunisia. There is now a de facto independent Kurdistan — last a reality in the sixteenth century — that includes the city of Kirkuk. Previously stable countries have become roiling failed states and home to terrorist groups that didn’t even exist when the U.S. military rolled across the Iraqi border in 2003.

And, of course, 12 years later in Iraq itself the fighting roars on. Who now remembers President Obama declaring victory in 2011 and praising American troops for coming home with their “heads held high”? He seemed then to be washing his hands forever of the pile of sticky brown sand that was Bush’s Iraq. Trillions had been spent, untold lives lost or ruined, but as with Vietnam decades earlier, the U.S. was to move on and not look back. So much for the dream of a successful Pax Americana in the Middle East, but at least it was all over.

You know what happened next. Unlike in Vietnam, Washington did go back, quickly turning a humanitarian gesture in August 2014 to save the Yazidi people from destruction at the hands of the Islamic State into a full-scale bombing campaign in Syria and Iraq. A coalition of 62 nations was formed. (Where are they all now while the U.S. conducts 85% of all air strikes against IS?)  The tap on a massive arms flow was turned on. The architect of the 2007 “surge” in Iraq and a leaker of top secret documents, retired general and former CIA Director David Petraeus, was brought back in for advice. Twenty-four-seven bombing became the order of the day and several thousand U.S. military advisors returned to familiar bases to retrain some part of an American-created army that had only recently collapsed and abandonedfour key northern cities to Islamic State militants. Iraq War 3.0 was officially underway and many pundits – including me – predicted a steady escalation with the usual quagmire to follow.

Such a result can hardly be ruled out yet, but at the moment it’s as if Barack Obama had stepped to the edge of the Iraqi abyss, peered over, and then shrugged his shoulders. Both his administration and the U.S. military appear content for the moment neither to pull back nor press harder.

The American people seem to feel much the same way. Except in the Republican Congress (and even there in less shrill form than usual), there are few calls for… well, anything. The ongoing air strikes remain “surgical” in domestic politics, if not in Iraq and Syria. Hardly noticed and little reported on here, they have had next to no effect on Americans. Yet they remain sufficient to assure the right wing that the American military is still the best tool to solve problems abroad, while encouraging liberals who want to show that they can be as tough as anyone going into 2016.

At first glance, the American version of Iraq War 3.0 has the feel of the Libyan air intervention – the same lack of concern, that is, for the long game. But Iraq 2015 is no Libya 2011, because this time while America sits back, Iran rises.

Iran Ascendant

The Middle East was ripe for change. Prior to the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the last major transformational event in the area was the fall of that classic American stooge, the Shah of Iran, in 1979. Otherwise, many of the thug regimes in power since the 1960s, the height of the Cold War, had stayed in place, and so had most of the borders set even earlier, in the aftermath of World War I.

Iran should send America a fruit basket to thank it for setting the stage so perfectly for its ascent. As a start, in 2003 the United States eliminated Iran’s major border threats: Iraq’s Saddam Hussein to the west and the Taliban in Afghanistan to the east. (The Taliban are back of course, but diligently focused on America’s puppet Afghan government.) The long slog of Washington’s wars in both those countries dulled even the reliably bloodthirsty American public’s taste for yet more of the same, and cooled off Bush-era plans in Tel Aviv and Washington for air strikes against Iran’s nuclear facilities. (After all, if even Vice President Dick Cheney couldn’t pull the trigger on Iran before leaving office in 2008, who in 2015 America is going to do so?)

Better yet for the Iranians, when Saddam was hanged in 2006, they not only lost an enemy who had invaded their country in 1980, launching a bitter war against them that didn’t end for eight years, but gained an ally in the new Iraq. As U.S. influence withered away with the failure of the March 2010 Iraqi elections to produce a broadly representative government, Iran stepped in to broker a thoroughly partisan settlement leading to a sectarian Shia government in Baghdad bent on ensuring that the country’s minority Sunni population would remain out of power forever. The Obama administration seemed nearly oblivious to Iran’s gains in Iraq in 2010 — and seems so again in 2015.

Iran in Iraq 

In Tikrit, Iranian-led Shia forces recently drove the Islamic State from the city. In charge was Qassem Suleimani, the leader of the Qods Force (a unit of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards), who had previously led the brutally effective efforts of Iranian special forces against U.S. soldiers in Iraq War 2.0. He returned to that country and assembled his own coalition of Shia militias to take Tikrit. All of them have long benefited from Iranian support, as has the increasingly Shia-dominated Iraqi army.

In addition, the Iranians seem to have brought in their own tanks and possibly even ground troops for the assault on the city. They also moved advanced rocket systems into Iraq, the same weapons Hamas has used against Israel in recent conflicts.

Only one thing was lacking: air power. After much hemming and hawing, when it looked like the assault on Tikrit had been blunted by well-dug-in Islamic State fighters in a heavily booby-trapped city, the Obama administration agreed to provide it.

On the U.S. side, the air of desperation around the decision to launch air strikes on Tikrit was palpable. You could feel it, for instance, in this statement by a Pentagon spokesperson almost pleading for the Iraqi government to favor Washington over Tehran: “I think it’s important that the Iraqis understand that what would be most helpful to them is a reliable partner in this fight against IS. Reliable, professional, advanced military capabilities are something that very clearly and very squarely reside with the coalition.”

Imagine if you had told an American soldier — or general — leaving Iraq in 2011 that, just a few years later in the country where he or she had watched friends die, the U.S. would be serving as Iran’s close air support.  Imagine if you had told him that Washington would be helping some of the same Shia militias who planted IEDs to kill Americans go after Sunnis — and essentially begging for the chance to do so. Who would’ve thunk it?

The Limits of Air Power 101

The White House no doubt imagined that U.S. bombs would be seen as the decisive factor in Tikrit and that the sectarian government in Baghdad would naturally come to… What? Like us better than the Iranians?

Bizarre as such a “strategy” might seem on the face of it, it has proven even stranger in practice. The biggest problem with air power is that, while it’s good at breaking things, it isn’t decisive. It cannot determine who moves into the governor’s mansion after the dust settles. Only ground forces can do that, so a victory over the Islamic State in Tikrit, no matter what role air strikes played, can only further empower those Iranian-backed Shia militias. You don’t have to be a military expert to know that this is the nature of air power, which makes it all the more surprising that American strategists seem so blind to it.

As for liking Washington better for its helping hand, there are few signs of that. Baghdad officials have largely been silent on America’s contribution, praising only the “air coverage of the Iraqi air force and the international coalition.” Shia militia forces on the ground have been angered by and scornful of the United States for — as they see it – interfering in their efforts to take Tikrit on their own.

The victory in that city will only increase the government’s reliance on the militias, whom Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi now refers to as “popular volunteers,” rather than the still-limited number of soldiers the Americans have so far been capable of training. (The Pentagon might, by the way, want to see if Iran can pass along any training tips, as their militias, unlike the American-backed Iraqi army, seem to be doing just fine.) That also means that the government will have no choice but to tolerate the Shia militiaatrocities and acts of ethnic cleansing that have already taken place in Sunni Tikrit and will surely follow in any other Sunni areas similarly “liberated.” Claims coming out of Washington that the U.S. will be carefully monitoring the acts of Iraqi forces ring increasingly hollow.

What Tikrit has, in fact, done is solidify Iran’s influence over Prime Minister al-Abadi, currently little more than the acting mayor of Baghdad, whoclaimed the victory in Tikrit as a way to increase his own prestige. The win also allows his Shia-run government to seize control of the ruins of that previously Sunni enclave. And no one should miss the obvious symbolism that lies in the fact that the first major city retaken from the Islamic State in a Sunni area is also the birthplace of Saddam Hussein.

The best the Obama administration can do is watch helplessly as Tehran and Baghdad take their bows. A template has been created for a future in which other Sunni areas, including the country’s second largest city, Mosul, and Sunni cities in Anbar Province will be similarly retaken, perhaps with the help of American air power but almost certainly with little credit to Washington.

Iran in Syria, Lebanon, and Yemen

Tehran is now playing a similarly important role in other places where U.S. policy stumbles have left voids, particularly in Syria, Lebanon, and Yemen.

In Syria, Iranian forces, including the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, the Qods Force, and their intelligence services, advise and assist Bashar al-Assad’s military. They also support Hezbollah elements from Lebanon fighting on Assad’s side. At best, Washington is again playing second fiddle, using its air power against the Islamic State and training “moderate” Syrian fighters, the first of whom refused to even show up for their initial battle.

In Yemen, a U.S.-supported regime, backed by Special Forces advisers and a full-scale drone targeted assassination campaign, recently crumbled. The American Embassy was evacuated in February, the last of those advisers in March. The takeover of the capital, Sana’a, and later significant parts of the rest of the country by the Houthis, a rebel Shiite minority group, represents, in the words of one Foreign Policy writer, “a huge victory for Iran… the Houthis’ decision to tie their fate to Tehran’s regional machinations risks tearing Yemen apart and throwing the country into chaos.”

The panicked Saudis promptly intervened and were quickly backed by the Obama administration’s insertion of the United States in yet another conflict by executive order. Relentless Saudi air strikes (perhaps using some of the$640 million worth of cluster bombs the U.S. sold them last year) aresupported by yet another coalition, this time of Sudan, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, and other Sunni powers in the region. The threat of an invasion, possibly using Egyptian troops, looms.  The Iranians have moved ships into the area in response to a Saudi naval blockade of Yemen.

No matter what happens, Iran will be strengthened. Either it will find itself in a client relationship with a Houthi movement that has advanced to the Saudi border or, should they be driven back, a chaotic state in Yemen with an ever-strengthening al-Qaeda offshoot. Either outcome would undoubtedly discombobulate the Saudis (and the Americans) and so sit well with Iran.

To make things even livelier in a fragmenting region, Sunni rebels infiltrating from neighboring Pakistan recently killed eight Iranian border guards. This probably represented a retaliatory attack in response to an earlier skirmish in which Iranian Revolutionary Guards killed three suspected Pakistani Sunni militants. Once started, fires do tend to spread.