The Second Round of Retaliation Between Israel and Iran Has Just Begun

Joe Biden is caught in a trap caused by his own weakness

APRIL 19, 2024

PHILIP GIRALDI

Given the lying and fact twisting that have routinely been part and parcel of accounts of what is occurring in the Middle East, the past several weeks have nevertheless been shocking in terms of how an abysmally low standard of truth can be reduced even farther. Looking at developments objectively, one comes up with a series of facts. First of all, Israel was not at war with either Syria or Iran during the first weeks in April. Iran had never attacked Israel prior to that point and Syria last fought Israel in 1973, over fifty years ago. Israel, however, has regularly been assassinating Iranian officials and scientists and it has been frequently been bombing Syria since 2017, increasing the pace to weekly and sometimes even daily attacks over the past six months paralleling the Gaza fighting. A particularly devastating attack took place on March 29^th when the Israeli military launched massive strikes against a weapons storage depot in Syria’s northern province of Aleppo which killed at least 40 people, most of them Syrian soldiers. The air strikes produced a series of explosions that also killed six Lebanese Hezbollah fighters.

But three days later on April 1^st a very damaging and unprovoked attack was directed against the Iranian Embassy’s Consulate General, which was located in an upscale neighborhood in Damascus, Syria’s capital. The building was completely destroyed by missiles fired from F-35 fighter planes that had crossed over the Syrian border from Israel, killing Iranian diplomats as well as Brigadier General Mohammad Reza Zahedi and Zahedi’s deputy, General Haji Rahimi, and also Brigadier General Hossein Amirollah, the chief of general staff for the al-Quds force in Syria and Lebanon. Syria subsequently confirmed that a total of 13 people were killed in the attack, including six Syrians and a Lebanese Hezbollah militiaman. Both Iran and Hezbollah vowed revenge.

Attacking a diplomatic mission is considered a major war crime according to the Vienna Convention, but there was no condemnation of the incident coming from the US and the usual suspects in Western Europe. Instead of doing what was right by pressuring Israel to stop attacking its neighbors and thereby possibly preventing a major war in the Middle East, President Joe Biden repeated his pledge that the United States would regard as “ironclad” its commitment to guarantee Israel’s security if Iran were to strike back. This guaranteed to Israel that any action taken by it would be supported by Washington. The Biden Administration also predictably voted against a Russian and Chinese drafted UN Security Council resolution to condemn the Israeli attack on the Iranian Consulate, which was a clear violation of international law and an act of war committed by Israel. The US reportedly cast its veto vote “no” after “Diplomats said the US told council colleagues that many of the facts of what happened on Monday in Damascus remained unclear.” What was actually unclear was the fog that generally surrounds the Biden foreign policy and national security team since it was pretty transparent who was the aggressor in terms of means, motive and outcome.

When Iran did retaliate on April 13^th, it carried out a carefully calibrated moderate strike against military targets intended to do damage but not cause a large number of casualties. It reportedly hit several airbases from which the Israeli fighter bombers had begun their attack on Damascus as well as an Israeli Air Force intelligence center in the formerly Syrian Golan Heights. No one was killed in spite of the 300 estimated drones and missiles that were launched, most being intercepted by Israel and its allies. But the attack nevertheless sent a message from Tehran that next time it could be much worse, both immediate in timing and “considerably more severe” than its response on Saturday night had been. Iran also claims that it attempted to prevent an escalation by warning the US about their plans, which would be passed on to Israel, that a “controlled” retaliation was coming. The Pentagon denied that it had been told anything, which may mean that Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin was asleep at his desk once again.

Not content with the outcome, Israel inevitably struck back on Friday, hitting a major airbase near Isfahan, and, to make sure no one was missed, targets in both Iraq and Syria. Iranian military sources advise however that the loud explosions heard by local residents were Iranian air defenses shooting at some flying objects, presumably drones. Per the New York Times and other accommodating media, the strike was a warning that Israel could penetrate Iranian airspace and not intended to do serious damage. The Pentagon was apparently informed shortly before the Israeli action. Iran’s counter-counter retaliation is now pending, but it is clear that Netanyahu will not be deterred by electoral considerations in the United States to stay his hand in his own counter-counter response.

And how does the United States fit into the story? The White House response to the Iranian attack on Israeli territory was inevitably completely unlike the previous uncritical response to Israel’s Consulate General attack, namely condemnation of Iran and the repetition of the usual tripe about “Israel has a right to defend itself” and the sanctity of the “ironclad” defense arrangement. Biden also attempted to cover himself against political blowback due to his licking Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s shoes in the upcoming November election by making it known that he had spoken with and advised Netanyahu, recommending not carrying out a reprisal of the reprisal, which Washington would be unable to support as it could/would lead to major escalation. Netanyahu, not fearing Biden’s displeasure, blew the advice off and he and his war cabinet made clear that they were working on a response as well as setting a timetable for invading Rafah in south Gaza, which Biden had also recommended against.

The White House completed its groveling to Netanyahu by vetoing a UN Security Council resolution on April 18^th that would have advocated full UN membership status for the state of Palestine, demonstrating that kicking the Palestinians is always a good way to maintain Israeli favor! The vote was 12 (including France, Japan and South Korea) in favor, two abstentions (the shameless United Kingdom and, surprisingly, Switzerland) and an American veto. The US insisted that elevation of Palestine’s diplomatic status can only be obtained after negotiations between the Palestinian Authority and Israel. US Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield absurdly raised another objection: “Right now, the Palestinians don’t have control over a significant portion of what is supposed to be their state. It’s being controlled by a terrorist organization.” She was referring to Hamas but the comment actually more correctly is applicable to Israel. In any event, a leaked White House memo had previously revealed that Biden opposes full UN membership and statehood for the Palestinians without Israel’s approval, which, of course, will not be forthcoming.

So we have Israel as the aggressor against two countries that were not declared enemies and had not attacked the Jewish state in any way in many, many years. But when Israel attacked them, committing a major war crime Joe Biden and company preferred to sit on their hands and mumble, saving their vituperation for when Iran staged a deliberately mild counter-attack as a warning. That is called hypocrisy, to turn things on their head to provide the answer that one wants to see and it applies equally to Biden accusing the Russians of “illegal occupation” in Ukraine while Israel’s theft of Syria’s Golan Heights and ongoing seizure of the West Bank goes unchallenged by Washington. And the pushback against Iran is unlikely to diminish very soon as the Jewish controlled US Congress also has the bit between its teeth to demonstrate how much it loves Israel. Congressman Steve Scalise, GOP House Majority Leader, has announced that “In light of Iran’s unjustified attack on Israel, the House will move from its previously announced legislative schedule next week to instead consider legislation that supports our ally Israel and holds Iran and its terrorist proxies accountable. The House of Representatives stands strongly with Israel, and there must be consequences for this unprovoked attack.” Over at the Senate Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas is advocating punishing Iran by beating on its possible friends in the US, physically attacking folks who are demonstrating in support of the Palestinians. Cotton said that the “pro-Hamas criminals” should be confronted by angry citizens who “take matters into [their] own hands” and confront the offenders, endorsing the use of force against peaceful demonstrators.

But there is also the back story behind why Israel likely attacked the Iranians in Syria in the first place. I and a number of other observers immediately after the Israeli attack assumed that the Jewish state had staged a deliberate over-the-top provocation to draw Washington into its wars. Just as in the case of the October 7^th Gaza attack by Hamas, which Israel had full knowledge of and let happen, Netanyahu sought to create a situation in which it would goad Iran into being forced to retaliate to force an “ironclad” Biden to protect its “ally” by taking on Iran directly.

Why did Israel do it beyond the obvious desire to destroy Iran just like it is destroying the Palestinians? It was done because Israel has likely become aware that it is viewed as the world’s greatest pariah state due to its genocide in Gaza, to include the recent horrific killing of hundreds of Palestinians in the Al-Shifa hospital in Gaza as well as the targeted assassination of seven employees of a charity that was bringing in food to those starving due to Israel’s blocking the entry of relief supplies. And also because Israel is actually not winning its war against Hamas, it needed to shift the narrative to something different. That would be using its time-honored technique of making itself once again the “victim” in confronting a powerful new enemy, Iran, which would make the problem of bad public relations with the world over Gaza be in part mitigated.

A shift in the story would also presumably bring with it the expected help from the United States and its European allies to do the hard work in killing Iranians. And the trick seems to have worked, predictably. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak of Britain has been recently facing demands to cut off arms shipments to Israel because of the devastating death toll in Gaza, but on the following Monday, he was able to salute the British warplanes that had shot down some Iranian drones sent by Iran to attack Israel. It was a telling example of how Israel has been able to scramble the equation in the Middle East. Faced with a intensively publicized barrage of Iranian missiles, Britain, the United States, France and others rushed to help the Israelis who had in fact started the conflict. The United States is also currently planning on increasing the pressure on Iran through a series of tough new sanctions being prepared by Treasury Secretary Janice Yellen, saying “Treasury will not hesitate to work with our allies to use our sanctions authority to continue disrupting the Iranian regime’s malign and destabilizing activity.” Yellen notably did nothing when Israel committed a major war crime in its attack on the Iranian Consulate General in Damascus, nor has she supported sanctions over the Israeli Gaza genocide. She is, of course, Jewish. More aid for the Jewish state is also still waiting for a congressional vote to approve the $14 billion currently in the pipeline, with Washington Report claiming that this year’s total US aid to Netanyahu will likely exceed $25 billion “in direct costs related to its fervent support for Israel.”

Right now, the dilemma for the US government will be that it must pull out all the stops in supporting Israel or face inter alia retaliation by the Israel Lobby working through its donors and media resources to defeat Biden in November. And there hovers in the peripheries of one’s mind the worse grim possibility that Israel, if rebuffed by its “allies,” will use its secret nuclear arsenal to blow up the Middle East and presumably a large chunk of adjacent areas in Europe and Asia as well. There are stories already circulating suggesting that the Israeli nuclear reactor at Dimona might have been an Iranian target and that Israel is right now preparing to take out Iranian nuclear research sites. Netanyahu is calling the shots while a befuddled White House looks on. Israel has baited a trap and Joe Biden has stepped right into it.

Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is inform@cnionline.org.

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‘Israel’ has nuclear weapons, admits former PM Barak

4 Apr 2023

Source: Agencies

By Al Mayadeen English 

Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak admits that “Israel” possesses nuclear weapons despite “Tel Aviv” claiming otherwise.

This Sept. 29, 1971, spy satellite photograph later declassified by the US government shows what now is known as the Shimon Peres Negev Nuclear Research Center near Dimona, occupied Palestine (AP)

Former Israeli occupation Prime Minister Ehud Barak admits that the occupation possesses nuclear weapons through a tweet he made on Tuesday.

“[…] political parties in the West are deeply concerned about the possibility that, if the coup in Israel succeeds, a messianic dictatorship will be established in the heart of the Middle East with nuclear weapons in its possession,” Barak said on Twitter.

Various statements have previously come from Israeli officials condemning the occupation as having or aiming to acquire an arsenal of nuclear weapons, such as former Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion, who addressed Jewish scientists leaving Germany and called on them to put their minds to nuclear research and “do everything possible to provide the desired Jewish state with nuclear weapons.”

Furthermore, former Israeli Prime Minister and President Shimon Peres addressed the Knesset in 1966, saying: “I see no reason why Israel sought to reassure [Egyptian President Gamal] Abdel Nasser through this platform and allow him to know what we are and are not doing. I know that the Arabs have their doubts about our nuclear ambitions, and I know that this is a means of deterrence. Why would we mitigate these concerns? Why would we work on clarifying that?”

Over the years, the Israeli occupation has adhered to a policy of ambiguity when it comes to its nuclear sector, but the most prominent thing that was leaked was a team of reporters from The Sunday Times saying in the early 90s that Mordechai Vanunu, the technician who was sentenced to 18 years in prison in “Israel”, confirmed through photographs and government documents that the occupation had between 100 and 200 nuclear warheads with a variety of destructive capabilities.

Moreover, the Israeli Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper in 1977 quoted French General Georges Bouet as saying during an interview with the French Europe 1 radio that the occupation possessed at the time the means required to produce two atomic bombs a year, revealing that it also had 13 atomic bombs, as well as the means to get them to their targets.

Yedioth Ahronoth reported in 1978 that a New York radio station broadcast a classified documented report on September 4, 1974, prepared by the CIA, which stated: “We believe that Israel has indeed manufactured nuclear weapons.”

Maariv also confirmed the report on March 2, 1978, citing a high-ranking CIA official, that then-US President Lyndon Johnson was informed that the Israeli occupation had nuclear weapons, and the head of state ordered that the whole thing remains under covers.

The Israeli occupation challenged the UN Security Council Resolution 487 of June 1981, which required “Tel Aviv” to urgently submit all of its nuclear facilities to the safeguards of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

The IAEA on September 18, 2009, issued a resolution calling on the occupation to sign the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, as well as open its facilities to international inspection, though the occupation did not express any interest in the matter.

Again the UN General Assembly invited the occupation to become a treaty member in December 2009 following UNGA Resolution “Establishment of a Nuclear Weapon Free Zone in the Region of the Middle East”. Though 167 countries voted in favor of the resolution, the Israeli occupation refused to acquiesce in it. Furthermore, “Tel Aviv” skipped the 2010 nuclear summit in Washington.

On an almost daily basis, Israeli occupation officials attack the Iranian nuclear program despite its pacifist nature. Meanwhile, reports indicate that the occupation has nuclear weapons, which was confirmed today by “Israel’s” former premier.

The First Committee of the UN General Assembly ruled in October 2022 in an initial 152-5 decision that “Israel” must destroy all its nuclear weapons and submit its nuclear facilities to the control of the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Four countries – Canada, Micronesia, Palau, and the United States – as well as the Israeli entity, opposed Friday’s resolution on the “risk of nuclear proliferation in the Middle East.” Another 24 countries abstained, including European Union members.

A proposal for a Middle East nuclear-free zone was also accepted by the First Committee with 170 votes, including Iran. “Israel” was the only entity to object to the text. The United States, Cameron, Comoros, and Tanzania were the only four nations to abstain.

According to the report, the NPT is only as meaningful as the level of compliance, according to Israeli Deputy Ambassador to the UN Michal Maayan, and it is not a solution to the “specific security challenges” of the Middle East region.

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From Mersad to Hassan: Hezbollah’s Drones Over Palestine and the Mediterranean

July 5, 2022

By Hussein Khazem

The launch of Hezbollah’s Air Force project in the late 1980s was accompanied by a high degree of secrecy and security. The work flowed quietly. The key objectives were defined and focused on:

1. Airspace breaches
2.  Reconnaissance
3.  Defense and response

The resistance offered an explanation and vision for each of these tasks.

Airspace violations reciprocated: It is sufficient for the resistance to breach “Israeli” airspace whenever it wants. It chooses the time, place, area, and the number of aircraft it deploys.

Reconnaissance: The resistance surveys bases, airports, settlements, and infrastructure in the north of occupied Palestine and in the Palestinian depth in order to defend Lebanon.

Defense and response: From the beginning, Mirsad-1 was not used for military action but rather to confront violations because the resistance wants to defend the sovereignty of Lebanon. However, when Lebanon falls victim to aggression, it will use all available means without any hesitation.

The appearance of drones in chronological order

November 7, 2004: Indeed, your Lord is in observation [Mirsad].

It had not yet been five years since the liberation of southern Lebanon when the Islamic Resistance decided to surprise the enemy by responding to its air violations. This coincided with an uptick in activity by the resistance in the Shebaa Farms.

An Islamic Resistance statement from 2004 reads: “Starting this morning, Sunday, November 7, 2004, the Mersad-1 drones will fly over the airspace of occupied Palestine whenever the resistance wants as part of a legitimate confrontation against Zionist violations and attacks on Lebanese sovereignty.”

April 2005: Tourism in the skies of Palestine

In accordance with the stated objectives of the Islamic Resistance in terms of reconnaissance work and responding to “Israeli” violations, Mersad-1 completed its second flight in less than a year. The flight lasted about 18 minutes without the unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) being detected by advanced “Israeli” technology. The UAV returned safely to Lebanese territory.

July-August 2006: {And He sent against them birds in flocks.}

“Israel” used intense firepower during its 2006 aggression against Lebanon and seized control of the country’s airspace. But this did not prevent the Islamic Resistance from experimenting with the deployment of combat drones to carry out military missions inside occupied Palestine.

The UAV sported the emblem of Hezbollah and the Islamic Resistance’s Air Force. They were painted in military colors, giving them a combat character. “Israel” eventually succeeded in bringing them down inside occupied Palestine, and dozens of its soldiers and officers circled the wreckage. This was one of the surprises of the Sincere Promise.

October 2012: A new mission by Hussein Ayoub

Everything was calm that day, until the enemy announced that it had been dealt a blow when a drone appeared near the Dimona area before it was shot down by an “Israeli” squadron.

Hezbollah Secretary General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah declared that the Iranian aircraft was assembled by the Lebanese Ayoub assembly force belonging to the Islamic Resistance’s Air Force. The drone breached “Israel’s” security infrastructure and crossed hundreds of kilometers from Lebanon to Dimona.

Ayoub is the only heir of Hussain Anis Ayoub (Rabi), the martyr whose family was told by Sayyed Nasrallah that his remains could not be found. It was later revealed by Hezbollah’s announcement through the Al-Ahed News website that Ayoub was one of the great martyrs of the Islamic Resistance.

February 2022: Hassan Lakkis returns to Palestine

Coinciding with the week of the Islamic Resistance and as it renewed its decision to deter, confront, and develop its activities, the Hassan drone flew into the “Israeli” depth by nearly 70 km.

“Israeli” defense systems were unable to detect or monitor it for 40 minutes. The Islamic Resistance announced a new achievement associated with the name of its martyr, Commander Hajj Hassan Lakkis, the first adventurer in the skies of the resistance.

Less than a year later, in compliance with the decision of the Islamic Resistance, as a deterrent to the occupation and its theft of Lebanon’s oil resources, and in the name of the two martyrs and engineers Jamil Skaf and Mahdi Yaghi, the Islamic Resistance deployed three drones on a mission on the 40th anniversary of the group’s founding. The objective was achieved despite the drones being shot down. This is the latest chapter in the stories of the Air Force but not the end.

France’s ‘robust’ ties with “Israel” keep Georges Abdallah in prison

April 25 2022

Source: Agencies + Al Mayadeen Net

By Ahmad Karakira 

The French government claims it respects human rights and condemns the Israeli annexation of Palestinian territories, yet it shakes hands with “Israel”, turning a blind eye to all its crimes.

France’s ‘robust’ ties with “Israel” keep Georges Abdallah in prison

Incumbent President Emmanuel Macron is elected President for a second term, winning 58% of the voter turnout.

Macron and his far-right opponent Marine Le Pen had led the polls during the first round of the French presidential elections with a slight lead for Macron, who won 28.1-29.7%, around 5% more than Le Pen’s 23.3-24.7%.

The other candidates, Jean-Luc Melenchon, Eric Zemmour, Valerie Pecresse, and Yannick Jadot received 20.1%, 7.2%, 5%, and 4.4%, respectively.

The President has garnered support from several opponents, mainly left candidate Jean-Luc Melenchon, who came in third place and called on his supporters and the French public to pivot away from the extremist.

“We know who we will never vote for… Not a single vote must go to Mrs. Le Pen,” Melenchon said at his party headquarters in Paris, though he did not explicitly ask his supporters to back the incumbent President.

Another boost for the President also came from his other opponents. Communist Party candidate Fabien Roussel, Socialist Anne Hidalgo, Yannick Jadot of the Greens, and right-wing Republican candidate Valerie Pecresse said they would vote for him to prevent the far-right leader from coming to power.

Only fellow far-right candidate Eric Zemmour urged his supporters to vote for Marine Le Pen on April 24.

“I don’t make a mistake over who my opponents are. I call on my voters to vote for Marine Le Pen,” Zemmour told supporters following his elimination from the electoral race.

In parallel to the presidential election battle between Macron and Le Pen, the main question remains: What will the results hold for Palestine in light of the strong French-Israeli relations?

“Robust” relationship with “Israel”

France was one of the very first countries to establish diplomatic ties with the Israeli occupation on May 11, 1949.

The French Foreign Ministry brags on its website that Paris has established a “robust” relationship with “Israel”, “marked by constant commitment to its existence and security” and contribution to its military power.

Along with “Israel” and Britain, France attacked Egypt in October 1956 in what was called the Tripartite Aggression against Egypt after then-President Gamal Abdel Nasser nationalized the Suez Canal.

But following the Six-Day War on Egypt in 1967, which saw “Israel” occupying the West Bank, Gaza Strip, the Sinai Peninsula, and the Golan Heights, France adopted the United Nations Resolution 242 that calls on “Israel” to withdraw “from territories occupied.”

Ever since, France’s official policy is a combination of supporting the Israeli occupation’s so-called “right to exist and right to security,” supporting the two-state solution, and allegedly condemning “Israel’s” unlawful and illegal policy of settlement-building in occupied Palestinian territories.

The French Ministry of Foreign considers that “the annexation of Palestinian territories, whatever the scope, would be a violation of international law, and particularly the prohibition of acquisition of territories by force.”

According to the Ministry, the annexation of Palestinian territories “would aggravate tensions and seriously compromise the two-state solution, and would be contrary to the interests of both Israelis and Palestinians, as well as Europeans and the wider the international community.”

It also claimed that annexation “could not go unanswered or be without consequence for the EU’s relations with Israel.”

Despite France’s claims of respecting international law, during the May 2021 Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip, French Interior Minister, Gerald Darminin, announced a ban on protests in solidarity with Palestine.

The Paris police also issued a decree deeming such demonstrations illegal, claiming that they could lead to “risky elements aimed at provoking violent confrontations with the police.” 

In addition, French President Emmanuel Macron stressed during a phone call on May 14 with then-Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu his “unwavering attachment” to “Israel’s” security and condemned the Palestinian Resistance.

Economic collaboration

According to the French Ministry of Foreign, “The bilateral relationship between France and Israel is also supported by the presence in Israel of a large French community (150,000 people), while France is home to Europe’s largest Jewish community.”

France is “Israel’s” 12th largest supplier and 10th largest customer.

In 2017, approximately 100 French companies established themselves in “Israel”, creating 5,530 jobs and generating an estimated €534 million in revenue.

According to Bank of France data, the stock of French foreign direct investment (FDI) in “Israel” reached €2.9 billion at the end of 2017, representing a 6% annual increase since 2012.

Scientific & technical cooperation

France is “Israel’s” fifth-largest scientific and technological research partner. Academic collaboration, including the joint laboratory of INSERM Nice and the Technion-“Israel” Institute of Technology in Haifa, and the exchange of young researchers underpin this collaboration.

The French-Israeli High Council for Research and Scientific and Technological Cooperation has ensured this cooperation since 2003.

Secret military agreements

A research article called France and the Israeli occupation: talking the talk, but not walking the walk? revealed that “in the 1950s, France was the main supplier of military equipment to Israel through a number of secret deals that included aircraft, tanks, and ammunition.”

“It also played a crucial role in Israel’s acquisition of nuclear capabilities through the provision of know-how, material and technology,” the article added.

“In a secret agreement signed in 1956, France committed to helping Israel build a nuclear reactor and to providing uranium,” the research article mentioned.

In the same context, US military historian Warner Farr had highlighted that “cooperation was so close that Israel worked with France on the pre-production design of early Mirage jet aircraft, designed to be capable of delivering nuclear bombs.”

Farr revealed that “French experts secretly built the Israel reactor underground at Dimona, in the Negev (Naqab) desert… Hundreds of French engineers and technicians filled Beersheba (Beer Al-Sabe), the biggest town in the Negev (Naqab).”  

Longest-serving political prisoner in Europe

When mentioning the strong ties linking France with the Israeli occupation, we can’t but shed light on the just cause of Georges Ibrahim Abdallah, former leader of the Marxist-Leninist Lebanese Armed Revolutionary Factions (LARF). Abdallah is accused of establishing the LARF.

Georges Abdallah at the heart of the French presidential elections

The LARF fought to stop the Israeli invasion of Lebanon and targeted several senior US and Israeli figures involved in the war. All the LARF members were released except for Abdallah.

The Factions have also claimed responsibility for the operations in response to the Israeli occupation of Palestine.

Abdallah has been imprisoned in southwestern France since 1984, despite completing the minimum term of his sentence in 1999.

He was sentenced to life in prison in 1987 for his alleged involvement in the 1982 killing of US military attaché Charles Ray and Israeli diplomat Yakov Barsimentov in Paris, as well as in an assassination attempt on Robert O. Homme, a US consul in Strasbourg. 

The revolutionary never responded to the list of accusations and considered that the French judicial system is “despicably” taking the resistance action out of context.

It had been possible to release Abdallah in 1999, but French authorities denied his nine parole requests.

In November 2003, the entity that grants parole in the city of Pau – where Abdallah is detained – gave the green light to one of Abdallah’s release requests. 

Why hasn’t he been released yet?

However, then-French Minister of Justice Dominique Perben appealed the decision, describing the case as “extremely serious”, which kept Abdallah in prison, and his file was transferred to another court.

Abdallah’s May 2009 request for release on parole was rejected by a Paris appeals court that claimed the prisoner was “a resolute and pitiless militant” who might resume his “combat” again in Lebanon, citing a 2008 French law.

A Paris judge approved Abdallah’s release on Thursday, January 10, 2013, and set the date of his extradition to Beirut on Monday, January 14.

However, the decision was delayed due to a government appeal. White House Spokesperson Victoria Nuland at the time, had declared that the US – “Israel’s” biggest ally – was still discussing with the French government how to stop the decision.

A Wikileaks document about former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton‘s leaked emails revealed that between January 10-14, she sent an email to former French Minister of Foreign Laurent Fabius, saying that “although the French Government has no legal authority to overturn the Court of Appeal’s January 10 decision, we hope French officials might find another basis to challenge the decision’s legality.”

In other words, the US ordered the French government to stomp over its legal system and over the principle of separation of powers.

Hillary Clinton’s email to French Minister of Foreign Laurent Fabius regarding Georges Abdallah

Abdallah’s lawyer, Jean-Louis Chalanset, told French media that the Lebanese authorities have repeatedly said they were ready to receive Georges Abdallah in Lebanon, where he is perceived as a political prisoner.

Chalanset said a decision to release the defendant would be political before being judicial. He believes that keeping him incarcerated is a “lack of courage” and “subservience” from Paris.

Over the years, leftist MPs and human rights organizations such as the Human Rights League (LDH) and even the French intelligence chief called for Abdallah’s release.

Melenchon supports Georges Abdallah

In relation to the French presidential election, leftist leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon has expressed, on many occasions, his solidarity with Georges Abdallah’s cause.

According to the Collective for the Liberation of Georges Ibrahim Abdallah, Mélenchon’s party – La France Insoumise (LFI) – regularly participates in the protests demanding the immediate release of the Lebanese revolutionary.

Watch | Protesters rally in Paris, #France to demand the release of Georges Abdallah, the longest-held political prisoner in #Europe, who has been imprisoned for 38 years. #FreeGeorgesAbdallah pic.twitter.com/FnDDUBHT8f

— Al Mayadeen English (@MayadeenEnglish) January 27, 2022

In parallel, Mélenchon’s campaign had said he is ready to back sanctions against the Israeli occupation over its illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank and its imposed blockade on the Gaza Strip.

The leftist leader had pledged to cancel the so-called “Circulaire Alliot-Marie” French Ministry of Justice memorandum instructing prosecutors to crack down on BDS movement activists. On the other hand, French President Emmanuel Macron stressed in 2017 that “the French state condemns BDS and all boycotts.”

“I must be clear that this will continue if I am elected president,” he added during an interview with Beur FM radio.

How does Abdallah spend his time in detention?

In detention, Abdallah spends his time as a revolutionary political prisoner reading books and newspapers in five languages, writing political statements and analyses about imperialism, capitalism and colonialism, as well as replying to solidarity letters from across the world.

The Lebanese revolutionary exchanges letters with Palestinian prisoners and initiates hunger strikes in support of other prisoners, the latest of which was on April 16 in demand of the release of Sibel Balac and Gokhan Yildirim from Turkish prisons.

• Georges Abdallah’s letter announcing a hunger strike in support of Sibel Balac and Gokhan Yildirim in Turkish prisons

His latest views

In France, Abdallah considers that popular revolts and movements of the popular masses like the Yellow Vests are partially challenging capitalism.

According to Tom Martin of the Palestinian Prisoners’ Solidarity Network, Samidoun, Abdallah sees with a good eye the unwavering resistance of the Palestinian people and the Lebanese people in the face of imperialism and Zionism. Nevertheless, he thinks that resistance organizations must intensify their actions and aim for a radical, clear anti-Zionism and anti-imperialist program.

In his only statement in regard to the war in Ukraine, Abdallah underlined the hypocrisy of the imperialist camp, notably by turning a blind eye to the presence of neo-Nazi Ukrainian battalions, while criminalizing pro-Palestinian movements.

He believes that the Ukrainian people are victims and that the solution to this crisis would only depend on their efforts that should be away from all imperialist forces.

An Israeli attack on Iran: True threat or hollow rhetoric?

The Israelis have neither the capabilities nor the resources to strike multiple Iranian nuclear sites, but the threats to do so keep mounting

February 07 2022

By Mohammad Salami

In the past few months, Israeli officials have conspicuously ratcheted up their threats to attack Iran’s nuclear energy sites, and have even launched provocative Israeli air force training exercises intended to simulate strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities.

In response to Israel’s escalatory language and behavior, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), in late December, held its annual military drills dubbed ‘Great Prophet 17.’

Major General Hossein Salami, commander-in-chief of the IRGC, said the military exercises intended to send a “very clear message” and a “serious, real warning” to Tel Aviv.

“We will cut off their hands if they make a wrong move,” he said, in a strongly-worded warning. “The difference between actual operations and military exercises is just a change in the angles of launching missiles.”

IRGC warnings aside, there are plenty of reasons to suggest that Israel’s threats are little more than empty rhetoric for foreign and domestic consumption. In short, Tel Aviv may not in fact have either the resources to attack Iran or the capacity to absorb Tehran’s guaranteed retaliatory measures.

The many constraints on Israel

Israel’s primary constraint in launching these attacks is due to the multiplicity and dispersion of Iran’s nuclear facilities.

Unlike the Israeli air force’s operational destruction of Iraq’s nuclear sites in 1981 (Operation Opera) and its 2007 strike on an alleged nuclear facility in Syria (Operation Outside the Box), where it was only tasked with striking a single point – Baghdad and Deir Ezzor, respectively – it will face a vastly different landscape in Iran.

Iran has four types of nuclear facilities, including research reactors, uranium mines, military, and nuclear sites. In total, there are more than 10 known nuclear facilities that are scattered from north to south of the country.

For example, there is a ground distance of about 1,800 kilometers (1,118 miles) from the Gachin uranium mine in the city of Bandar Abbas in southern Iran to the Bonab research reactor in the country’s northwest. Attacking such a large number of nuclear facilities from a great distance would require extreme coordination and sophisticated operations to ensure that all facilities are hit at the same time.

In addition, Iran has invested heavily in developing its counter-air defense in recent decades, which currently covers more than 3,600 points and is able to localize its surface-to-air missiles.

The noteworthy point here is that Iran claims self-sufficiency in the construction of its missiles, whereby it can produce and proliferate its missiles without interruption, despite international sanctions. The Bavar-373 missile – a homegrown version of Russia’s S-300 system – is one of these.

Reportedly, the Bavar-373 can simultaneously engage up to six targets with twelve missiles at a distance of up to 155 miles (250 kms). Multiple missiles are likely to be fired at an individual target to increase the probability of a kill.

With this powerful and unified defense arsenal, the possibility of Iran hunting down and destroying Israeli warplanes is high.

A further constraint for Israel is that some of Iran’s nuclear facilities are underground. Nuclear sites, such as the Fordow Fuel Enrichment Plant, where uranium is enriched to above 20 percent, are built at a depth of 80 meters (260 feet) inside a mountain. Israel does not have the special bombers that can destroy facilities deep underground.

While the US does possess the massive bunker-busting ordnances needed to strike such facilities – the 13,600-kilogram (30,000-pound) GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrator (MOP) – Washington has so far refused to provide them to Tel Aviv.

Selling the incredibly heavy MOPs to Israel would be pointless, at any rate, as the Israeli Air Force has neither the aircraft capable of delivering them nor the airfield infrastructure needed to support those planes.

Furthermore, the sale of some types of MOPs has been banned under the New START treaty, also known as the ‘Measures for the Further Reduction and Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms,’ between the US and Russia.

Confronting Iran and its allies

Unlike Israeli airstrikes on Syria and Iraq, which went unanswered, Tel Aviv is well aware that Iran’s response would be severe and decisive. Iran’s indigenous military capabilities far outpace its neighbors, and over the past four decades, it has developed iron-clad relationships with allies in Iraq, Syria, Palestine, Lebanon, and Yemen, who have voiced willingness to defend an Iran under attack by a mutual adversary.

In April 2021, a Syrian missile was able to pass through Israel’s Iron Dome Anti-Rocket System, exploding near the country’s secretive Dimona nuclear reactor. This event could be repeated by allies such as Hezbollah, Hamas, and pro-Iranian groups in Syria and Iraq in the case of an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities.

To strike Iran, Israelis will have to cross the airspace of the ‘unfriendly’ countries of Syria and Iraq. Even the Arab states of the Arabian Peninsula are unlikely to permit Israeli warplanes using their territory to attack Iran due to fear of retaliatory Iranian attacks.

The memory of the well-targeted Yemeni missile strikes on the Aramco oil facility in September 2019 – incorrectly attributed to Iran rather than Yemen – drummed home to Gulf states that cause for Iranian retaliatory strikes should be avoided at all costs.

Russia may also oppose the attack as, in the event of an Israeli attack on Iran, the activities of Iranian proxies inside Syria could trigger a renewed crisis in the country’s military-political balance.

Russian President Vladimir Putin, who has spent millions of dollars stabilizing the situation in Syria, does not wish to see Syria upended again. And given Russia’s clout in the UN Security Council, Israel would be reluctant to confront Moscow.

Facing the international community

The US and Europe are currently in Vienna negotiating with Iran to revive the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) nuclear deal, which the previous US administration abandoned. US President Joe Biden is keen on quickly reaching a “good nuclear deal” with Iran, in part, to peel Tehran away from its strategic allies in Moscow and Beijing – Washington’s two main global adversaries.

If Israel attacks Iran, Tehran may withdraw from the negotiations, and in retaliation, is likely to raise its 60 percent enrichment level to above 90 percent (suitable for building a nuclear bomb). Biden needs a peaceful West Asia so that he can exit the region’s various quagmires with ease and “pivot to the East” to restrain China and surround Russia, his two most urgent strategic priorities.

According to Foreign Policy, US opposition to attacks on Iran’s nuclear plants has been longstanding, as emphasized in the autobiography of Israel’s former defense minister Ehud Barak, My Country, My Life.

“I want to tell both of you now, as president, we are totally against any action by you to mount an attack on the [Iranian] nuclear plants,” then-US President George W. Bush told Barak and then-premier Ehud Olmert in 2008. “I repeat in order to avoid any misunderstanding, we expect you not to do it. And we’re not going to do it, either, as long as I am president. I wanted it to be clear.”

The Biden administration’s current approach is to return Iran’s nuclear program to the 2015 nuclear deal without war or the use of force.

In an October 2021 article, Dennis Ross, former US President Barack Obama’s special assistant and senior director for the central region at the National Security Council wrote:

“Although they reject the Iranian justification of actions that move Iran toward a nuclear weapon, Biden administration officials told the Israelis, as I learned recently in Israel, that there was ‘good pressure on Iran and bad pressure’ – citing the example of sabotage at Natanz and Karaj as bad pressure because the Iranians seized on it to enrich to near weapons-grade.”

Dennis Ross comments show that, at that stage, the Americans were not seeking to attack or even sabotage Iran’s nuclear facilities, and were intent on preventing the Israelis from attacking Iran.

It is becoming clear that Israeli threats on Iran’s nuclear capabilities are mainly for domestic consumption – and possibly also to keep Israel relevant amidst the fast-moving geopolitical shifts unfolding in West Asia.

Israel’s current Prime Minister Naftali Bennett is currently facing relentless criticism from former PM Benjamin Netanyahu and his political rivals, as well as internal shortages in the country following the pandemic crisis. Attacking a foreign country – or Gaza – is an Israeli staple in diverting public opinion from domestic problems.

Talk of Israeli airstrikes on Iran constitute little more than hollow rhetoric, despite repeated verbal threats from Israeli officials. At this moment, Israel has neither the power nor the means to attack Iran, nor can it act unilaterally against US policy.

The views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of The Cradle.

Great Prophet 17 exercise simulated targeting Israeli Dimona facility

DEC 25 2021

Source: Agencies + Al Mayadeen

By Al Mayadeen Net

The fourth day of the Great Prophet 17 war games included mock strikes on sensitive Israeli sites, including the Dimona nuclear facility.

Medium-range cruise missiles fired in Grand Prophet 17 exercise

Iran launched around 16 ballistic missiles Friday at the end of the five-day military drills that constituted a warning to “Israel” and included a mock strike on Israel’s nuclear facility, according to top Iranian commanders.

“Through a simulation of the Dimona atomic facilities, the Revolutionary Guards successfully practiced attacking this critical center of the Zionist regime in its missile exercise,” the Iranian Tasnim news agency reported.

IRGC Commander-in-Chief, Major General Hossein Salami, stressed, on the sidelines of the ground stage of the Great Prophet 17 joint maneuvers, on its last day, that the IRGC ground force is a “reassuring guarantee of independence, territorial integrity, and national security for the country.”

“We will cut off their hands if they make a wrong move. The distance between actual operations and military exercises is only a change in the angles of launching the missiles,” Salami said.

“Sixteen missiles aimed and annihilated the chosen target. In this exercise, part of the hundreds of Iranian missiles capable of destroying a country that dared to attack Iran were deployed,” he added.

On his part, Iran’s Armed Forces Chief of Staff Major General Mohammad Bagheri said these exercises were designed to respond to threats made in recent days by the Zionist regime.

IRGC Naval Force Commander Brigadier General Alireza Tangsiri said that cruise missiles are resistant to electronic warfare, are capable of identifying targets in difficult conditions, have high precision, and can be armed with warheads within a short period of time. They also carry modern, special radars.

The drills come after US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan met with Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, amid “Israel’s” opposition to efforts to revive the 2015 Iran nuclear deal.

Bennett has accused Iran of “nuclear blackmail” and claimed that the revenue it would gain from sanctions relief would be used to acquire weapons to harm Israelis.

Iran repeatedly stresses it only wants to develop a civil, peaceful nuclear program, but Western powers claim its stocks of enriched uranium could be used to develop a nuclear weapon.

• IRG ’Great Prophet 17’ Held To Respond to Zionists’ Rhetoric – Chief of Staff
• Iran Will Continue Serious Sanctions Removal Talks, Rejects Granting Many Concessions – FM

The Resistance’s Electronic Media: A Precision Weapon

18/06/2021

Against The Invaders

“Israel’s” battle with Hezbollah goes back many years. Throughout that time, the “Israelis” experienced the group’s methods of warfare, and perhaps thought they understood it all. But little by little, it turned out that this simply wasn’t the case. The enemy is fully aware that from the time when the first shots were fired, the resistance caught them by surprise, both in the media and on the battlefield. Everything was different in Lebanon. “Israel” never encountered these methods with previous movements.

The war media of the resistance posed a challenge to the “Israelis”. They tried to decipher its codes, but each time they were disappointed. With the launch of the resistance intelligence in 1983, shortly after the establishment of Hezbollah, the Zionists became acquainted with a new media that reported on confrontations and heroism. Then there was the radio station to broadcast the voice of the oppressed, followed by Al-Ahed newspaper and successively other media outlets. The years of fighting were abundant with pivotal stages, but the enemy never forgot one of them, which may be the most painful.

Ansariya ambush and its psychological warfare

The Ansariya operation took place in 1997. The tactics behind this operation were completely different from its predecessors. The objective, the method, and the results left deep scars on the enemy.

The “Israelis” were desperate to put a lid on this scandal, calamity, and defeat. The ambush that led to the “annihilation” of 12 officers and soldiers from the “Israeli” Shayetet unit broke generalizations about the enemy’s military oversight. At that stage, the Zionists tried to prevent the news from reaching the settlers. But the Islamic Resistance Support Association, through the Internet division that had been launched during this period, pierced the “Israeli” censorship. Through the successful use of material related to the remains of the soldiers, it was able to stir internal “Israeli” controversy and confirm the growing mistrust between the military establishment and society at large.

The Association’s success quickly appeared in the enemy’s media. In November 1998, the Haaretz newspaper reported that some families of the dead soldiers killed in Ansariya demanded the formation of an investigation committee to look into the conditions of their relatives’ burial, after some families felt that the shape of their children’s graves had changed without informing them of the circumstances of the secret burial.

But the story does not end here. Through its online division, the Support Association prepared a detailed statement addressing the families of the dead, including information and pictures that were published for the first time, along with a set of questions about the truth regarding the remains of the “Israeli” soldier, Elia Itamar, in an attempt to cement the divide between the “Israeli” army and the families of the soldiers.

The material published by the Support Association led to the sowing of doubts in the hearts of the families, who at the time expressed their lack of trust in their army. Nhatson Tabbi, the father of one of the dead officers (Raz Tabbi), said in an interview with Army Radio at the time: “I trust Hezbollah more than my government.”

Maariv and the Jerusalem Post newspapers also highlighted the magnitude of the Support Association’s online move, with both circulating statements of the families of the dead soldiers based on what was published through Hezbollah’s electronic media. The issue of the remains dominated headlines for a while until an additional committee was formed to investigate the botched operation, following the rift between the families of the soldiers and the occupation army.

Accordingly, the Ansariyah operation established Hezbollah’s media weapon as an influential tool that is monitored and feared.

The impact of the resistance’s electronic media

The subsequent years of confrontation also received media attention from the occupation. With the advancement and development of technologies, the resistance’s online networks gained momentum. Parallel to the speeches of the Secretary-General of Hezbollah, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, and the equations that it drew on the level of the struggle with the enemy, the electronic media of the Islamic Resistance stepped up its own strikes against the enemy.

In 2012, Sayyed Nasrallah, for the second time, labeled the Galilee as the inevitable setting for ground resistance operations in the event that “Israel” attacked Lebanon. At that time, the Al-Intiqad website published a map of a virtual tour of the Galilee aimed at answering the question, “Why does advancing towards the Galilee frighten the Zionists to this extent?”

Hours after the publication of the material, which included the most prominent Palestinian cities and settlements in the Galilee, the nature of the corridors there, the possible targets in the next war, and the scenarios of the confrontation, the enemy’s media was occupied analyzing the repercussions of what was mentioned in Hezbollah’s electronic media and its messages. The Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper published the map in its original form and began reading its contents: What does it mean? How is that? Is this what awaits us? It looked at every detail of it.

In 2017, the English-language Al-Ahed News website published a video clip of potential targets in the Zionist entity in the event of a future war. The material quickly reached the Zionists. The “Israeli” Walla website marveled at the accuracy of the information about the Dimona reactors, and the secret Rafael factory and other nuclear targets that were in the crosshairs in the upcoming battle between the enemy and Hezbollah.

The Times of ‘Israel’ reported at the time that the video not only lists the nine sites and shows satellite images of the sites, but also adds information such as the number of people working there, the number of buildings they are made of, and what hazardous materials are handled.

As for INEWS24, the website commented on the video, linking the post to attempts by Sayyed Nasrallah to intimidate ‘Israel’: “In the video, ‘Israeli’ nuclear sites are threatened with destruction.”

In 2019, a video titled “Where will Hezbollah enter the Galilee from”, which was published on the English-language Al-Ahed News website, piqued the interest of the enemy’s press. Several “Israeli” media outlets covered the video, most notably the Haaretz newspaper, which published an article by its writer, David Daoud. The writer concluded that the most dangerous threat from Hezbollah to “Israel” is not its missiles, but rather the fear of its deadly weapon and its information warfare.

Daoud points out that Hezbollah’s skillful use of propaganda allowed it to remain a relatively small group that wages war effectively. He also points out that its propaganda again constitutes a victory for it and a continuation of its growth, more than its missiles or combat prowess.

Today, the resistance’s electronic media has become a concern and a burden for the “Israelis”, comparable to military systems. Everything it presents is heard, read, and seen in Tel Aviv, causing the Zionists to worry and fear – feelings that will last until their defeat.

Sayyed Nasrallah Warns “Israel” against Any Mistake, Balance In Favor of Resistance Axis

8/5/2021

Zeinab Essa

Hezbollah Secretary General His Eminence Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah delivered on the last Friday of the Holy Ramadan month a speech marking Al-Quds international Day.

At the beginning of his televised speech, Sayyed Nasrallah assured that he is neither infected with Covid-19 nor suffering any of its symptoms. “I’m just suffering from bronchitis which happens to me regularly due to seasons’ change,” His Eminence clarified.

Regarding the marked event, he stressed that “The Palestinian people grants the Resistance its legitimacy, given that they did neither abandon their state nor Al-Quds.”

“What we are witnessing today in the Palestinian squares and in Sheikh al-Jarrah Neighborhood is a good proof to this,” the Resistance leader added, noting that “The most important and dangerous development that must be affirmed is Gaza’s participation on the front line as this opens great horizons to the resistance.”

He further underscored that “the ‘Israeli” entity is fully aware that the involvement of Gaza in the conflict resembles a very serious threat.”

In parallel, Sayyed Nasrallah urged the leaders of Palestinian resistance to “continue with this approach as it will change the rules of engagement [with the ‘Israeli’ enemy].”

Hailing the Palestinians’ steadfastness, he stated: “We are sure that the Palestinian people are suitable to preserve Al-Quds, its land, and rights.”

“The ‘Israelis’ thought that economic pressure and the atmosphere of desperation will affect the Palestinians, but they were shocked,” His Eminence went on to say.

Moving to the Iranian Front, Hezbollah Secretary General underlined that “All ‘Israeli’ bets regarding Iran have failed.”

“The Axis of Resistance’s solidness is very important to the region and it will reflect majorly on the Palestinian Cause and the struggle with the ‘Israeli’ enemy,” he added, noting that “Iran has greatly crossed the dangerous phase and the enemy’s bets to take Iran to war have ended. The bets of some regional countries on this have also ended.”

On the same level, Sayyed Nasrallah viewed that “Iran today is the strongest country within the Axis of Resistance and all American and ‘Israeli’ options to force Iran to give up its nuclear program have ended.”

His Eminence also recalled that “The biggest Iranian response to the Natanz attack was increasing the Uranium enrichment, which terrified ‘Israel’.”

According to the Resistance Leader, “Based on our experience with Iran in the past 40 years, Iran does not bargain at the expense of its allies; it does not negotiate on their behalf and it does not abandon them.”

Expressing Hezbollah’s support to every regional, international, or Arab dialogue, Sayyed Nasrallah stressed that “Dialogue strengthens the Axis of Resistance and weakens the enemy. We’re assured towards Iran’s [behavior].”

In addition, Sayyed Nasrallah commented on the talk about Saudi-Iranian talks by saying: “Many Arab states are in contacts with Syria, and Saudi Arabia can’t impose its conditions on Syria regarding its relations with Iran while it is itself negotiating Iran.”

“Those who should be concerned with the Iranian-Saudi talks are the Riyadh allies, not the allies of Iran,” His Eminence said.

Meanwhile, he mentioned that “Syria is on the path of recovery and the most dangerous challenge it’s facing is that of economy.”

“This challenge isn’t limited to Syria alone, but to several peoples in the region,” he stated, praising the fact that “The people of the region are determined to withstand and confront.”

In addition, Sayyed Nasrallah reiterated that “Yemen is a qualitative accumulation to the Axis of Resistance under its young and honest leadership.”

“There is a breakdown of some axes and alliances that appeared in face of the Resistance Axis,” His Eminence viewed, pointing out that “The moral balance is in favor of the Resistance’s Axis.”

Commenting on the “Israeli” scene, he explained that “The ‘Israelis’ are concerned today due to the growing capabilities of the Axis of Resistance.”

“The ‘Israeli’ entity is in trouble and its wall is cracking; there is a leadership crisis and this is a sign of collapse and weakness,” Sayyed Nasrallah went on to say, noting that “All signs of weakness and decline began to appear clearly in the enemy’s entity, while we are witnessing the renewed activity of the Palestinian people.”

In this context, Hezbollah Secretary General predicted that “The course in the enemy’s entity is heading to a civil war and there is serious concern in the enemy’s society over this reality.”

He also recalled that “The Syrian defense missile that hit Dimona worried the ‘Israelis’,” noting that “The enemy’s army is not confident of its ability to confront fire from several fronts should war erupt.”

“The ‘Israelis’ are worried due to the operations taking place in the West Bank and due to Gaza’s involvement in the developments taking place in Al-Quds.,” Sayyed Nasrallah unveiled, pointing out that “The ‘Israeli’ ground forces are worried and weak and this is why they are holding several military drills.”

On this level, Sayyed Nasrallah sent the apartheid entity a sounding warning: “Hezbollah won’t tolerate any ‘Israeli’ mistake during the major ‘Israeli’ drill that begins Sunday. We will take calm and responsible precautions.”

“The enemy must know that we will be cautious, alert and prepared,” His Eminence added, warning that “Any wrong move towards Lebanon during the drill will be an adventure by the enemy. The enemy will be mistaken should it think that we will be afraid to confront any attempt to alter the rules of engagement or any security or military action.”

He also was clear enough to tell the “Israelis”: “We will not be lenient and we will not tolerate any mistake, violation or hostile move by the enemy across the entire Lebanese territory.”

Regarding the issue of maritime border demarcation, Sayyed Nasrallah declared that “We [Hezbollah] don’t interfere in the issue of maritime borders and this is left to the Lebanese state.”

He reminded that after 2000 liberation, “Hezbollah interfered in the issue of Shebaa Farms and Kafrshouba Hills after the Lebanese state confirmed that they are Lebanese.”

Commenting on those who interpret Hezbollah’s silence over the issue as “embarrassment towards the allies,” His Eminence said: “This is not true… We, as a resistance, have not and will not interfere in the issue of the border demarcation. Let the State shoulder its historic responsibility as to the demarcation of the border and the preservation of the Lebanese people’s rights and let it consider that it is relying on real strength.”

“We have found that it is in Lebanon’s interest and in the certain interest of the resistance that we stay away from this issue,” Hezbollah’s leader added, noting that “Lebanon is not weak at all” and that “the United States and ‘Israel’ can’t impose on the Lebanese what they want.”

The forthcoming inevitable battle for Middle-East Peace

May 05, 2021

by Ghassan Kadi for the Saker Blog

The alleged stray ground-to-air Syrian missile that landed near the nuclear reactor in Dimona Israel carried many messages; both overt and covert.

And, as if the fact that this missile managed to penetrate Israel’s formidable ‘Iron Dome’ was not embarrassing enough for Israel, the official Israeli report alleged that the missile was actually Iranian-made; not Russian as initially perceived by the world.

In other words, the Israeli report is saying that its ‘Iron Dome’ has been easily penetrated by a missile that is 1) not meant to hit ground targets, 2) had already spent its fuel and maneuverability and was literally on a free fall trajectory by gravitation and not propulsion, 3) yet it penetrated the allegedly most advance air defense system in the world, and 4) above all, it was made in Iran; a nation ‘crippled by sanctions and governed by ‘fundamentalist Mullas’.

Seriously, Israel has never before admitted a defense failure that is even close to such similar proportions.

Ironically, almost simultaneously, Iran revealed photos of an American aircraft carrier taken by a drone; not to forget mentioning that Iran also revealed that it has developed kamikaze drones ready to attack any target within their range in the Gulf.

But the Dimona incident alone cannot be seen in isolation of the recent Russian ‘diplomacy’ initiatives in the Middle East. I have deliberately put the word diplomacy under inverted comas, because that Russian version of diplomacy has a side that proves its worth in both traditional diplomatic ways as well as ones that are unorthodox.

Russia has thus far been very tight-lipped about its objectives in the Middle East. My own analysis of it has landed me in hot water with Russian friends and media allies, and I accept their stand. Perhaps they do not want me to ‘spoil the hidden agenda’, but my role as an analyst is not going to stop, and their views, directives, and concerns will not make me feel guilty for expressing my analyses and predictions.

In this portrayal of recent regional political events in the Middle east, I am relying on bits of pieces of information from here and there, but the analysis of it all is based on my own understanding of what makes sense in combining all what is currently taking place. My analysis does not represent the views of any blog, news agency or government. I have expressed similar views earlier, but events keep progressing, and in every step of the way, it seems that my initial prediction about the Russian initiative in the Middle East was accurate. So here is an updated summary of it all with a bit repetition of earlier material for the benefit of first-time readers.

Ever since Russia responded to Syria’s request to offer military aid, Russia responded with accepting the request under certain conditions; conditions that stipulate a Syrian-Israeli peace settlement agreement.

But this wasn’t all. Putin’s Russia is trying to reverse what Kissinger did to Russia some forty years ago when he catapulted the USSR out of Middle East politics and conned Egypt into accepting a unilateral peace deal with Israel in the so-called Camp David Accords.

Ever since then, Russia has been deprived of a role to play in the Middle East, none at all, until Putin sent troops into Syria and thereby changing the status quo not only in the Middle East, but also heralding the end of the single global superpower status of the post USSR USA.

The post-USSR world has seen Russia suffering from huge American-based NATO encroachments in Eastern Europe, and the current impasse in Ukraine is only one aspect of it. Former Warsaw Pact nations have gone full dipole away from Russia and in cahoots with their new-found Western ‘allies’. The Stalin era might have left a bitter taste in the palate of some East European countries, but this was a long time ago, and nations like Poland and Ukraine surely must understand and know who are their historic regional and global allies. With the era of Nazism and Fascism in the dust bin of history that Europe would like to forget, even Germany and France ought to realize that today’s Russia cannot be associated with Stalin’s-USSR any more than today’s Germany and France can be associated with Hitler and Petain.

And, if Poland wants to remained mentally entrenched in the Stalin era and forget about who liberated it from Nazi occupation, it should look further back in history and remember that the partition of Poland in the 19^th Century was not only orchestrated by the Russian Czars, but also in collaboration with Prussia and Austria.

As discussed in the previous article, the current animosity of Eastern European nations towards Russia is not something that can be rationally explained and justified.

Back to the Middle East.

Only Russia can broker a peace deal in the Middle East, a deal that includes not only Syria and Israel, but also Iran, Saudi Arabia and Turkey.

The main sticking elements in any such deal are Israel and Turkey, and to a lesser extent Iran.

In the same previous article mentioned above, I predicted a win-win scenario that Russia will broker between Iran and Saudi Arabia; one that guarantees the mutual withdrawal of Iran from Syria and Saudi Arabia from Yemen. As a matter of fact, a few days ago Saudi Crown Prince MBS announced that he wants to have a good relationship with Iran. Is this a sign that this deal is closer than we think? Perhaps not, but I cannot think of any other reason.

Turkey will undoubtedly want a bite of the cherry, and I not sure how will Russia be able to diplomatically appease Erdogan without giving him too much more than what he has taken already. However, his recent stand on Ukraine has put him in deep hot water with Russia and in any future bargains, he will find that his Ukraine venture will be used against him. He has deliberately introduced a bargaining chip that can be used only against himself.

This leaves Israel; how to bring Israel to the negotiating table for a deal that is unlike all previous American-brokered deals.

All American-brokered deals have thus far been based on providing Israel with the lion’s share and the Arab party with very little; especially when it came to making deals with the Palestinian Authority. Furthermore, on top of the political and strategic gains that America delivered to Israel in all of those deals, America ensured that Israel continued to have military superiority and that Arabs would never be able to score a major military victory, even if united.

Despite the October 1973 (ie Yom Kippur War) and what followed it, all the way up to the July 2006 war with Hezbollah, and the humiliations that Israel suffered from all of those military engagements, Israel remains mentally entrenched in the euphoria of the huge Six-Day War win of June 1967 and what ensued afterwards, resulting in what can best be described as the invincible army complex.

Israel will not be prepared to sign a peace agreement with Syria while it believes that it continues to have this military superiority; the power to shape events in its favour. For Israel to change course and become more realistic, it needs either a new generation of political leaders who are more rational, or a reality check; a punishment if you wish.

This is why it is that, inasmuch as the corridors of negotiations are opening up and the tables are being prepared, so are the drums of war.

It is worthy to note here that major reconstructions have not begun in Syria yet. The underlying message here is that perhaps Syria is expecting more carnage, and that reconstruction will have to wait. Why reconstruct twice? In its current state of devastation, Syria has little to lose.

Israel, on the other hand, is in a very vulnerable situation, and the Dimona incident has exposed this gaping hole.

Syria has exercised great restraint in the face of the ongoing Israeli airstrikes. Even though an Israeli jet was downed a few years ago, by-and-large, Syria has remained non-respondent. We do not know exactly what is happening behind the scenes, but it seems that Israel is misreading Syria’s lack of response and seeing weakness, despite information from Russia that such is not the case. Israel will continue to act like the regional bully, refusing to sit at the negotiating table as an equal partner, unless it receives a significant hit.

This hit is not necessarily one that will cause much carnage in Israel such as civilian and military loss of life. Putin will not accept or allow such a level of devastation to be inflicted on Israel. After all, a significant fraction of Israel’s population is originally Russian. Putin, furthermore, is intent on convincing Israel that it is Russia, and not America, that can give Israel real peace with its Arab neighbours.

To this effect, Israel only needs to lose a few fighter-jets, ten, maybe twenty, finding itself unable to defend key military and strategic land targets in order for it to realize that the days of military superiority are gone.

The Dimona incident is a forewarning, but only if Israel wants to read in between the lines. Otherwise, there will be a war in the Middle East, a war that will be intended to be contained and limited to be a punch, a powerful punch, but not a knockout.

With this said, this is the Middle East, a very volatile region, with many volatile heads. A limited war aimed at showing who has muscle may end up spiraling out of control and into something very large. With experience of such unpredictability, Syria is presenting to Israel that a long war will bring more destruction upon Israel than it will on an already destroyed Syria.

What seems certain is that peace initiatives are on the table, but not all parties are yet convinced that they will attend such talks as equal partners before some arms are twisted and statures rattled.

رسالة.. برأس صاروخ متفجر A message .. with an explosive missile head

* Please scroll down for the ADJUSTED English Machine translation *

رسالة.. برأس صاروخ متفجر

2021/04/26

بقلم: ابراهيم الحمدان

نُشرت بواسطة نارام سرجون

لم تكن المنشٱت الإسرائيلية الثابتة بيوم من الأيام ومنذ عشرات السنين، خارج نطاق إحداثيات صواريخ تحالف تيار المقاومة إن كان في إيران او  سورية او جنوب لبنان، وتلك الأهداف الثابتة، لا تعد ولا تحصى، وكل هدف قد يكون بمثابة قنبلة نووية. 

والسؤال: لماذا لم يتم استهداف كل تلك المنشٱت من قبل سورية أو إيران ، رغم كل ما تعرضت له سورية من تدمير بشع !!!  ورغم كل الاعتداءت الإسرائيلية التي باتت شبه أسبوعية على القوات السورية والإيرانيةالمتواجدة في سورية !! ؟؟

هذا السؤال يقود بالمنطق إلى نتيجة مفادها إن تيار المقاومة ( سورية وإيران) لا يضعون الحرب العسكرية ضمن خططهم للتعامل مع العد الإسرائيلي ،لا للدفاع عن النفس ولا للهجوم وتحرير الأراضي المحتلة..على الأقل في المدى المنظور. 

تيار المقاومة يسعى إلى خلق توازن الرعب، وخلق حالة ردع للعدو الإسرائيلي… بمعنى ردع إسرائيل من الاعتداء علينا ، ومن يدقق بالبرنامج  السياسي للمقاومة يرى أن شعارات المقاومة تكتفي بشعارين ( الصمود ، والتصدي ) ولم ترفع بيوم من الأيام شعار الهجوم على إسرائيل وشن حرب تحريرية.  بينما نرى إسرائيل تقف خلف كل ما حدث من حرب على سورية و تحاول جر المنطقة ( كل المنطقة) إلى حرب، وتحرض أمريكا وأوروبا وتشكل تحالفات مع دول عربية وعلى رأسهم دول الخليج لمحاولة ضرب إيران ونشوب حرب عسكرية في المنطقة. 

من هنا علينا أن ندرك أن الصاروخ الذي سقط على بعد ثلاث كيلو مترات عن مفاعل ديمونا الإسرائيلي، بالتأكيد لم يخطيء هدفه، ولم يكن هدفه لا مفاعل ديمونا ، ولا فتح حرب عسكرية مع  إسرائيل ، بل نستطيع أن نفهم أن الصاروخ، اطلق من الدفاعات الجوية لصد هجوم من قبل الطيران الإسرائيلي، وبغض النظر إن كان أطلق خلف الطائرات الإسرائيلية، أم أطلق بشكل مباشر، فالرسالة واحدة، والهدف منه، تذكير المجتمع الاستيطاني الإسرائيلي أننا نستطيع الوصول إلى أخطر المواقع الإسرائيلية، لخلق حالة رعب وتذمر وضغط من قبل الجمهور على حكومة بنيامين نتنياهو واليمين المتطرف في كيان إسرائيل الغاصب، ليرضخ لشروط السلام، كما أنها أيضا رسالة إلى صناع القرار في أمريكا.

وهذه ليست إلا رسالة سورية  تتوافق مع العديد من الرسائل الروسية الإقتصادية والسياسية الموجهة من موسكو إلى إسرائيل وامريكا ، بأن خيوط اللعبة وادارتها مازالت بيد  روسيا، وعليكم أن تعودوا للتموضع الذي كان سائد مجيء بايدن للبيت الأبيض. هذه الرسالة الصاروخية في هذه المرحلة لن تكون الوحيدة والأخيرة بل تترافق مع رسائل اقتصادية بأن روسية قادرة على ٱفشال  الحظر الاقتصادي على سورية، وقادرة على إبطال مفعول قانون قيصر إن لم تفعله ، أيضا تستطيع فتح النار على الشمال السوري وإحراق ما تبقى من إرهابيين وتحريرها، والرسالة الأهم في هذه المرحلة هي دعم روسيا للاستحقاق الانتخابي للانتخابات الرئاسية في سورية، والرسالة واضحة المعالم حيث تقول (أن الرئيس بشار الأسد قائد للدولةوالجيش والشعب في المرحلة القادمة) . وأتوقع قريبا جدا سنجد التغيير في لهجة بايدن اتجاه كل من روسيا وإيران وسورية، وسنرى أيضا في إسرائيل تقهقر لشعبية اليمين المتطرف  وانتقادات حادة لجهة بنيامين نتنياهو، أو تغيير في لهجة الحكومة الإسرائيلية الحالية ، تحت ضغط الشارع الإسرائيلي ، أو التوجه نحو حكومة إسرائيلية تتموضع كما تريد روسيا والقبول  بإعادة هضبة الجولان، وما تبقى من مزارع شبعا، والقبول بعملية سلام بين سورية وإسرائيل، وإعادة الاتفاق  النووي الأمريكي الإيراني من طرف أمريكا، فكل هذه الملفات في سلة واحدة وكلها مرسلة من جهة واحدة متمثلة بروسيا وإيران وسورية، وبديل السلام ( الذي أعتقد كان متفق عليه بين روسيا من جهة وامريكا من جهة ثانية قبل مجيء بايدن) سيكون حرب لا يستطيع أحد إيقاف نارها التي لن تشعل إسرائيل فقط  …. ولن  تشعل الدول العربية وحدها، بل ستشتعل منطقة الشرق الأوسط برمتها، وستنشب الحرائق في تركيا وفي  إيران و العراق والأردن ودول الخليج وسورية ولبنان، ولو كانت القيادة السورية أشعلت الفتيل وأطلقت رشقة صواريخ على إسرائيل عام ٢٠١١، واستهدفت أي موقع حيوي مثل مفاعل ديمونا.. من باب.. ( على وعلى أعدائي) لتغيرت الكثير من نتائج حرب العشر سنوات على سورية ، واذكر منذ عام ٢٠١١ ونحن نكتب ونطالب بنقل المعركة إلى إسرائيل، لكن القيادة السورية لم تتخذ هذا القرار في حينها، ولا أعتقد سيتخذ هذا القرار اليوم، ولا غدا، فالمعركة مع إسرائيل في حقيقتها لم تعد معركة حربية عسكرية محسوبة النتائج ، بل هي معركة سياسية ان كان مع إيران أو مع سورية، 

وهذه المعركة السياسية تديرها روسيا بالتوافق مع  القيادة في دمشق، والقيادة في طهران، والوزن الدولي  للحليف الروسي، وحنكة ( بوتن ) ومصداقيته مع قيادات  المقاومة   تعطي روسيا الحق في الموافقه والتنسيق على أي تحرك عسكري اليوم، ومن الضرورة والمصلحة للمقاومة أن يتم التنسيق واخذ موافقة الحليف الروسي بالدرجة الأولى . 

 ولن يكون الهدف منه انتقام عسكري، وضربة بضربة ولا الهدف منه أذية الكيان الصهيوني الغاشم، بل الهدف منه تطويق إسرائيل بالنار لإجبار  الشعب الإسرائيلي وإنذاره من خطورة ما يسعى إليه  اليمين المتطرف المتمثل بنتنياهو، ، والتوجه للحل السياسي والتخلي  عن الغطرسة والاعتداءات العسكرية التي تمارسها على سورية وعلى إيران. إذا نحن حقيقة أمام  اعتداءت إسرائيلية شبه أسبوعية على سورية، وعلى القوات الإيرانية في سورية،ومحاولة إشعال النار في المنطقة من قبل إسرائيل، ورغم كل الاعتداءات الوقحة، والتي باتت غير مقبولة لم نرى رد واحد متمثل بصاروخ يقتل إسرائيلي واحد، إذا نحن أمام محاولات إسرائيلية للحل العسكري، مقابل محور المقاومة ( إيران وسورية) الذي يحاول عدم الانجرار إلى معارك حربية، رغم كل الاستفزازات  العسكرية الإسرائيلية. وصاروخ اليوم كان صاروخ أصاب هدفه ، فالهدف لم يكن مفاعل ديمونا، بل الهدف منه ( قرب) مفاعل ديمونا… وهي رسالة واضحة…….. أننا نستطيع قصف مفاعل ديمونة، ولن تحمي سماء إسرائيل لا القبة الحديدية، ولا أمريكا قادرة عن صد   صواريخ منتشرة في جنوب لبنان وفي سورية وفي إيران، فالرسالة الروسية باختصار أتت بعد مواقف بايدن من بوتن، وبعد الحركشات العسكرية في أوكرانيا، وبعد الضربات الإسرائيلية على سورية، وهذه الرسالة أرسلت من سورية وبيد الجيش العربي السوري، وستتلاحق الرسائل إلى أن يتم تموضوع إسرائيل، وبايدن كما يرسم لها بوتن.عملية السلام بين سورية وإسرائيل لن يستطيع أحد إعاقتها، لا إيران ولا سورية ولا إسرائيل ولا حتى أمريكا، لأن هذه التسوية ستعيد الجولان وما تبقى من مزارع شبعا لسورية، وسيعاد الاتفاق النووي لإيران، وتعيد التوازن الدولي لأمريكا في منطقة الشرق الأوسط، وهي فقط عائق لليمين الإسرائيلي المتطرف، من هنا، الرسالة موجهة للشعب الإسرائيلي تحديدا، وبيد الجيش العربي السوري، وترافقت مع الاستحقاق الانتخابي للرئيس بشار الأسد، وهي رسالة روسية إيرانية سورية ذات رأس متفجر .

ابراهيم الحمدان

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A message .. with an explosive missile head

26/04/2021

by: Ibrahim Al-Hamdan

by: Ibrahim Al-Hamdan

Posted by naram.serjoonn

For decades, Israeli fixed-line missiles have never been outside the coordinates of the Resistance Movement Alliance missiles, whether in Iran, Syria or southern Lebanon, and those fixed targets are innumerable, and every target could be a nuclear bomb.

The question is: Why were not all these facilities targeted by Syria or Iran, despite all the horrible destruction that Syria has suffered,  despite all the Israeli attacks, which became almost weekly on the Syrian and Iranian forces present in Syria??

This question leads logically to the conclusion that the axis of resistance (Syria and Iran) does not include the military war in their plans to deal with the Israeli count, neither for self-defense nor for the attack and liberation of the occupied lands, at least in the foreseeable future. At least in the foreseeable future.

The axis of resistance seeks to create a balance of deterrent. In other words, deterring Israel from attacking us, the slogans of resistance axis are limited to (steadfastness and confrontation) and have never been attacking Israel and waging a war of liberation.  While we see Israel standing behind all that happened in the war against Syria is inciting America and Europe, forming alliances with Arab Gulf states, to drag the region (all region) into war.

This missile is nothing but a Syrian message that Israel attacks have become unacceptable, a message consistent with many of the Russian economic and political messages addressed from Moscow to Israel and America, that the threads of the game and its management are still in the hands of Russia, and you have to return to the positioning that prevailed when Biden came to the White House. The missile message at this stage will not be the only and last, but it is accompanied by economic messages that Russia is able to thwart the economic embargo on Syria, and is able to nullify the Caesar Act if it does not do so. It can also open fire on northern Syria and burn the remaining terrorists and liberate it, and the message reflect clear Russia’s support for the electoral process for the presidential elections in Syria, as it says (that President Bashar al-Assad is the leader of the state, the army and the people in the next stage.

From here we have to realize that the missile that landed few kilometers from the Israeli Dimona reactor, certainly did not miss its target, and its goal was not either the Dimona reactor, nor the opening of a military war with Israel, but we can understand that the missile, regardless of whether it was launched behind Israeli aircraft, or launched directly, launched from air defenses to repel the Israeli attack, the message is the same, and its purpose is to balance of deterrent and remind the Israeli settlement community, as well as to decision makers In America, that we can reach the most dangerous positions, and pressure from the public against the government of Benjamin Netanyahu and the extreme right in Israel’s usurped entity, to submit to the conditions of peace.

I expect very soon we will find a change in Biden’s tone towards Russia, Iran and Syria, and a retreat of the popularity of the in Israel extreme right and sharp criticism of Benjamin Netanyahu’s side, or a change in the tone of the current Israeli government, under the pressure of the Israeli street, or the orientation towards an Israeli government that is positioned as Russia wants and accepts the return of the Golan Heights, and the rest of the Shebaa Farms, acceptance of a peace process between Syria and Israel, and the restoration of the US-Iranian nuclear agreement by America. All these files are in one basket and all are sent from one side represented by Russia, Iran and Syria, and the alternative to peace (which I believe was It was agreed upon between Russia on the one hand and America on the other before the arrival of Biden). The Arab countries will not be set on fire alone, but the entire West Asia.

And if the Syrian leadership had lit the fuse and fired a barrage of missiles at Israel in 2011, targeting any vital site such as the Dimona reactor, many of the results of the ten-year war on Syria would have changed, but the Syrian leadership did not take this decision at the time, and I do not think that this decision will be taken today or tomorrow, because the battle with Israel in its reality is no longer a military warfare with calculated results, but rather a political battle, whether it is with Iran or with Syria.

Today’s missile hit its target, the target was not the Dimona reactor, but (near) the Dimona reactor in a clear message: We can bomb the Dimona reactor, nothing will not protect Israel’s sky, neither the Iron Dome, nor America is able to repel missiles deployed in southern Lebanon, Syria and Iran.

In short, the Russian message came after Biden’s positions on Putin, after the military movements in Ukraine, and after the Israeli strikes on Syria, and this message was sent from Syria and by the Syrian Arab Army, other messages will follow until Israel completes, and Biden as Putin draws it. The peace process between Syria and Israel will not be obstructed by anyone, neither Iran, Syria, Israel, nor even America, because this settlement will return the Golan and what remains of the Shebaa Farms to Syria, and the nuclear deal is restored, and the international balance in west Asia is achieved, the message is specifically addressed to the Israeli people, and by the Syrian Arab Army, and it coincided with the election of President Bashar al-Assad. It is a Russian-Iranian-Syrian message with an explosive head.

Ibrahim Al , Hamdan

Israel’s Dimona | Trending

The news of a missile – shot from inside Syria- hitting close to Israel’s Dimona nuclear facility has made rounds on social media.

The Vienna shadowplay

April 27, 2021

None of the actors can admit that revival of JCPOA pales compared with the real issue: Iranian missile power

by Pepe Escobar and first posted at Asia Times

Few people, apart from specialists, may have heard of the JCPOA Joint Commission. That’s the group in charge of a Sisyphean task: the attempt to revive the 2015 Iran nuclear deal through a series of negotiations in Vienna.

The Iranian negotiating team was back in Vienna yesterday, led by Deputy Foreign Minister Seyed Abbas Araghchi. Shadowplay starts with the fact the Iranians negotiate with the other members of the P+1 – Russia, China, France, UK and Germany – but not directly with the US.

That’s quite something: after all, it was the Trump administration that blew up the JCPOA. There is an American delegation in Vienna, but they only talk with the Europeans.

Shadowplay goes turbo when every Viennese coffee table knows about Tehran’s red lines: either it’s back to the original JCPOA as it was agreed in Vienna in 2015 and then ratified by the UN Security Council, or nothing.

Araghchi, mild-mannered and polite, has had to go on the record once again to stress that Tehran will leave if the talks veer towards “bullying”, time wasting or even a step-by-step ballroom dance, which is time wasting under different terminology.

Neither flat out optimistic nor pessimistic, he remains, let’s say, cautiously upbeat, at least in public: “We are not disappointed and we will do our job. Our positions are very clear and firm. The sanctions must be lifted, verified and then Iran must return to its commitments.”

So, at least in the thesis, the debate is still on. Araghchi: “There are two types of U.S. sanctions against Iran. First, categorized or so-called divisional sanctions, such as oil, banking and insurance, shipping, petrochemical, building and automobile sanctions, and second, sanctions against real and legal individuals.”

“Second” is the key issue. There’s absolutely no guarantee the US Congress will lift most or at least a significant part of these sanctions.

Everyone in Washington knows it – and the American delegation knows it.

When the Foreign Ministry in Tehran, for instance, says that 60% or 70% has been agreed upon, that’s code for lifting of divisional sanctions. When it comes to “second”, Araghchi has to be evasive: “There are complex issues in this area that we are examining”.

Now compare it with the assessment of informed Iranian insiders in Washington such as nuclear policy expert Seyed Hossein Mousavian:  they’re more like pessimistic realists.

That takes into consideration the non-negotiable red lines established by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei himself. Plus non-stop pressure by Israel, Saudi Arabia and the UAE, who are all JCPOA-adverse.

But then there’s extra shadowplay. Israeli intel has already notified the security cabinet that a deal most certainly will be reached in Vienna. After all, the narrative of a successful deal is already being constructed as a foreign policy victory by the Biden-Harris administration – or, as cynics prefer, Obama-Biden 3.0.

Meanwhile, Iranian diplomacy remains on overdrive. Foreign Minister Javad Zarif is visiting Qatar and Iraq, and has already met with the Emir of Qatar, Sheikh Tamim al Thani.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, virtually at the end of his term before the June presidential elections, always goes back to the same point: no more US sanctions; Iran’s verification; then Iran will return to its “nuclear obligations”.

The Foreign Ministry has even released a quite detailed fact sheet once again stressing the need to remove “all sanctions imposed, re-imposed and re-labeled since January 20, 2017”.

The window of opportunity for a deal won’t last long. Hardliners in Tehran couldn’t care less. At least 80% of Tehran members of Parliament are now hardliners. The next President most certainly will be a hardliner. Team Rouhani’s efforts have been branded a failure since the onset of Trump’s “maximum pressure” campaign. Hardliners are already in post-JCPOA mode.

That fateful Fateh

What none of the actors in the shadowplay can admit is that the revival of the JCPOA pales compared to the real issue: the power of Iranian missiles.

In the original 2015 negotiations in Vienna – follow them in my Persian Miniatures e-book – Obama-Biden 2.0 did everything in their power to include missiles in the deal.

Every grain of sand in the Negev desert knows that Israel will go no holds barred to retain its nuclear weapon primacy in the Middle East. Via a spectacular kabuki, the fact that Israel is a nuclear power happens to remain “invisible” to most of world public opinion.

While Khamenei has issued a fatwa clearly stating that producing, stockpiling and using weapons of mass destruction – nuclear included – is haram (banned by Islam), Israel’s leadership feels free to order stunts such as the sabotage via Mossad of the (civilian) Iranian nuclear complex at Natanz.

The head of Iran’s Parliament Energy Committee, Fereydoun Abbasi Davani, even accused Washington and London of being accomplices to the sabotage of Natanz, as they arguably supplied intel to Tel Aviv.

Yet now a lone missile is literally exploding a great deal of the shadowplay.

On April 22, in the dead of night before dawn, a Syrian missile exploded only 30 km away from the ultra-sensitive Israeli nuclear reactor of Dimona. The official – and insistent – Israeli spin: this was an “errant”.

Well, not really.

Here – third video from the top – is footage of the quite significant explosion. Also significantly, Tel Aviv remained absolutely mum when it comes to offering a missile proof of ID. Was it an old Soviet 1967 SA-5? Or, rather more likely, a 2012 Iranian Fateh-110 short range surface-to-surface, manufactured in Syria as the M-600, and also possessed by Hezbollah?

A Fateh family tree can be seen in the attached chart. The inestimable Elijah Magnier has posed some very good questions about the Dimona near-hit. I complemented it with a quite enlightening discussion with physicists, with input by a military intel expert.

The Fateh-110 operates as a classic ballistic missile, until the moment the warhead starts maneuvering to evade ABM defenses. Precision is up to 10 meters, nominally 6 meters. So it hit exactly where it was supposed to hit. Israel officially confirmed that the missile was not intercepted – after a trajectory of roughly 266 km.

This opens a brand new can of worms. It implies that the performance of the much hyped and recently upgraded Iron Dome is far from stellar – and talk about an euphemism. The Fateh flew so low that Iron Dome could not identify it.

The inevitable conclusion is this was a message/warning combo. From Damascus. With a personal stamp from Bashar al-Assad, who had to clear such a sensitive missile launch. A message/warning delivered via Iranian missile technology fully available to the Axis of Resistance – proving that regional actors have serious stealth capability.

It’s crucial to remember that when Tehran dispatched a volley of deliberately older Fateh-313 versions at the US base Ayn al-Assad in Iraq, as a response to the assassination of Gen Soleimani in January 2020, the American radars went blank.

Iranian missile technology as top strategic deterrence. Now that’s the shadowplay that turns Vienna into a sideshow.

Non-Prophylactically Ironic Dome over the Occupied Palestine

April 25, 2021

By Mansoureh Tajik for the Saker Blog

Exactly at 1:20 am (Tehran time) on Thursday, April 22, 2021 a missile hit near Dimona nuclear reactor, the “secret” nuclear site in the Occupied Palestinian Territory. The Jerusalem Post headlined the event as “Syrian missile lands near Dimona nuclear reactor, interception fails.”^[1] The article went on to story the event as follows:

“It was unclear at first from where the missile was launched. Several signs indicated it having been launched from Iraq, while according to other reports, it came from the city of Daraa in southern Syria following an Israeli airstrike.”

“IDF Spokesman Brig.-Gen. Hidai Zilberman told reporters that ‘the explosion was due to the firing of an SA-5 surface-to-air missile toward Israel from Syria that exploded in the southern Negev. The firing of the missile came during Israeli airstrikes in southern Syria,’ Zilberman said, and that ‘it was an errant missile and not directed toward the Dimona nuclear reactor.’”

It was not an errant missile. It did not come from where the General said it came. It was not during Israeli airstrikes in southern Syria. The interception did not fail because there was interception. The missile was directed toward exactly where it needed to hit near Dimona nuclear reactor and it hit exactly at 1:20 am the time Sardar Soleimani, the martyred commander of Qods Force was assassinated. The hit had a message.

The missile strike (not “landing” as if it were some civilian passenger airline) on the land in the vicinity of Dimona took place 22 hours after another serious explosion that happened inside Tomer factory which develops and manufactures military equipment including missiles for Israeli Defense. About Tomer, Haaretz reported:

“The explosion occurred during a ‘routine test’ by the Tomer factory for advanced weapons, which develops rocket engines, the Ofek satellite launchers and houses various types of missiles. In response to the blast, Tomer said ‘this was a controlled test with no exceptional circumstances.’ Tomer’s factory is located in central Israel, and in proximity to residential areas. The company manufactures missiles for use by the IDF and other Israeli defense systems. They are the manufacturers behind Israel’s Arrow 4 missile interception system.”^[2]

Again, no. The explosion did not occur during a routine test and it was not a controlled test. The explosion was in fact controlled but not by any force friendly to Tomer, the Zionist entity, or IDF. That explosion, too, had a message. On Tuesday, April 20, in a public speech delivered during funeral procession held for Sardar Hejazi, the vice commander of Qods Force, Sardar Qa’ani, the current Commander of Qods Force (replacing Sardar Soleimani after his martyrdom) clearly and unambiguously declared:

“Today, in the resistance fronts from Iran, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, and Yemen, and the Children of Resistance [informal term that refers to all resistance fighters] every single day, delivers one major operation against the enemies including [US] America and Israel and they will continue this path until the global command has been achieved.”^[3]

This statement was not a threat nor a warning nor a promise by Sardar Qa’ani. It was a declaration. The news vice commander of Qods Force, who was appointed after the martyrdom of Sardar Hejazi, announced on Thursday, April 22:

“The usurper Zionist regime must know that the resistance group in every segment of the planet earth are positioned right next to you and are getting you closer to your dusk.”^[4]

In an interview conducted by Tasnim News Agency on Friday, April 23, with Hadi Qabisi, the director of Al-Ittihad Center for Development and Research, regarding recent explosions in Israel, he explained:

“The rules of engagement in the framework of the Resistance in terms of their demand and direction has changed. This now affects the change in balance in the region if the Resistance decides to go to war.”

“Mere shooting of missile from Syria to the occupied territories and reaching of that missile to Naqab region, regardless of what kind of missile whether it was air-to-air or surface-to-air or surface-to-surface, makes evident the inability of Israel defense system dubbed Iron Dome. This shows the erosion of Zionist Regime’s deterrence power while the capabilities of the Resistance Axis are increasing day by day. The consequence has a negative impact on all aspects of Zionist Regime. In addition, this military development cannot be separated from other events in the region such as Iran’s capability and power to strengthen its position in Vienna talks or an increasing tension between two global poles ([US] America and Russia) in other critical scenes such as Ukraine.”^[5]

On Sunday, April 25, 2021, Major General Muhammad Baqeri, the Head of the Islamic Republic of Iran Armed Forces, said:

“The Zionists think they could permanently target Syrian soil, create mischief in other places and in the sea without backlash. For certain, several operations in recent days and operations that are forthcoming will have a sobering effect on them and the future of the Resistance is quite bright. We will not announce anything about who exactly is doing which operation but responses from the Resistance camp to Zionists are quite significant. We will not specify the operation but Zionist regime will not be in peace.”^[6]

On April 22, 2021, a letter signed by two members of the congressmen, Ted Deutch and Michael T. McCaul, and co-signed by nearly 300 other members, urged the full funding of security assistance to Israel in the Fiscal Year 2022 appropriations bills. An excerpt from the letter reads:

“Israel continues to face direct threats from Iran and its terrorist proxies. In February, an Israeli-owned ship in the Gulf of Oman was hit by a mysterious explosion that Israel has attributed as an attack by Iran. In 2019, Hizballah launched three anti-tank missiles at an Israeli Defense Forces vehicle in Israel. Hizballah is estimated to have an arsenal of over 130,000 rockets and missiles, and is believed to be developing new precision-guided munitions to be deployed in Lebanon. American security assistance to Israel helps counter these threats, and our rock-solid security partnership serves as a deterrent against even more significant attacks on our shared interests.”

“Congress is committed to maintaining Israel’s qualitative military edge and its ability to defend itself, by itself, against persistent threats. Our aid to Israel is a vital and cost-effective expenditure which advances important U.S. national security interests in a highly challenging region.”^[7]

Regarding maintaining Israel’s “qualitative military edge”, firstly, maintenance is for that which already exists. The famed prophylactic dome is engineered to emulate eyed Swiss cheese and can protect Israel exactly as much as it has done for Saudi Arabia and US bases in Iraq and Persian Gulf oil well states with flag. Secondly, the cost of maintaining illusions in West Asia has decidedly increased exponentially for the United States of America and its most cherished regimes.

References

[1] Anna Ahronheim, Udi Shaham. “Syrian missile lands near Dimona nuclear reactor, interception fails.” The Jerusalem Post, April 22, 2021. Accessed online at: https://www.jpost.com/breaking-news/alarms-sound-in-south-of-israel-665953

[2] Yaniv Kubovich. Powerful Explosion Rocks Sensitive Israeli Missile Factory During Test. April 21, 2021. https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/powerful-explosion-rocks-sensitive-israeli-defense-factory-during-test-1.9732074

[3] Khabar Online. “Unambiguous Message of Sardar Qa’ani to Israel and [US of] America during funeral procession of Sardar Hejazi.” Farvardin 31, 1400 [April 20, 2021] @11:14 am. News Code: 506836. Accessed online at: khabaronline.ir/news/1506836

[4] Tasnim News Agency. “Sardar Fallahzadeh, Vice Commander of Quds Force: Resistance Groups are positioned right next to Zionist Regimes Bases.” Ordibehesht 2, 1400 [April 22, 2021] @ 11:02 am. Accessed online at https://tn.ai/2489397

[5] Tasnim News Agency. “Interview with Syrian Analyst: Zionist Regime’s Deterrent Capabilities are wearing out day by day.” Ordibehesht 3, 1400 [April 23, 2021] @ 21:03. Accessed online at: https://tn.ai/2490197

[6] Tasnim News Agency. “Major General Baqeri: Future Operations will bring the Zionists to their senses.” Ordibehesht 5, 1400 [April 23, 2021] @ 10:45. Accessed online at: https://tn.ai/2491070

[7] “Letter Chair DeLauro and Ranking Member Granger” addressed to Congress of the United States, Washington DC. Accessed online at: https://teddeutch.house.gov site.

Huge Explosion in Al-Quds, Israel Bombs Syria, Syria Bombs Israel, Israel Stunned

ARABI SOURI APRIL 22, 2021

A huge explosion in the occupied Palestinian capital Al-Quds (Jerusalem) took place in the afternoon, half a day later Israel bombs targets near Damascus, Syria retaliates by bombing near Israel’s Dimona nuclear reactor not from the borders with Egypt, Israel bombs again near Damascus wounding 4 Syrian Army soldiers and issues all conflicting reports, Israelis are stunned.

The massive explosion was in a company linked to the Israeli war ministry that Israeli officials claimed was a controlled explosion which neither the company nor the Israeli officials bothered to inform their public about who obviously panicked.

What could be more plausible is an Iranian retaliation avenging numerous Israel sabotaging and assassinations against the Iranian nuclear program hurting Israel where it’s trying to make some advances to catch up with the successful Iranian satellite launching project, especially that Israel is copying a ready satellite missile

The videos is also on YouTube and BitChute.

‘Mr. Security’, this is what the embattled Israeli PM Netanyahu calls himself, wants a cover-up for this incident, Israel’s own media not buying the story of a ‘controlled explosion’, imagine the other side.

At 1:38 am, Israel fired missiles from over the occupied Syrian Golan towards some targets near the Syrian capital Damascus. Syrian Army’s air defense units shot down most of the incoming missiles, 4 Syrian Army soldiers were wounded and the bombing caused material damage, a Syrian military spokesperson stated to SANA.

Syria fired a missile that crossed all Israel defenses from the north to the south and lands near the Israeli nuclear reactor in Dimona, and yes, Israel has a military nuclear program which it sentenced its own scientist who exposed it for a lengthy-term in prison but that didn’t cause the international nuclear watchdog or the UNSC to bother themselves to inspect, Israel is part of the NATO and stooges alliance dominating the UNSC.

The Syrian missile blew up in a target about 30 kilometers from the Dimona reactor, most observers see this as a message to Israel especially that Russia had already warned Israel that Syria may lose patience toward the Israeli attacks.

After that silence, Israel stunned, new rules of engagement are established.

Moscow Warns Israel on Repeated Bombing: Syria May Lose Patience

https://syrianews.cc/moscow-warns-israel-about-repeated-aggression-syria-may-lose-patience/embed/#?secret=NYPYL2KArs

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Israel Bombs Syria in Retaliation for ‘Controlled Explosion’ in Israel

 MIRI WOOD APRIL 22, 2021

Israel has again bombed the Syrian Arab Republic in the early morning, engaging in its more than 100th such war criminal attack. Four SAA soldiers were injured; infrastructural damage has not yet been reported. `Israel’s own backstory would be risible were it not for its attempt, and that of NATO, to impose the final solution on the SAR; the timing of the military attack, however, is coherent with ongoing criminal propaganda.

To have a better understanding of the babbling behind the war crime, let us again seek the assistance of our friends, the maps (author recommends using the oasis Be’er Sheva as reference point):

Massive explosion in Ramle, later reported as ‘controlled.’

At 2:28 p.m., Times of Israel reported that the explosions heard around Ramle (also transliterated “Ramla”) were controlled — though apparently nobody remembered to tell anyone. At 2:17 a.m., the same medium reported that sirens had gone off near the Dimona nuclear facility, that an errant ground-to-air missile from Golan, Syria, had somehow missed its target in Golan, Syria which is criminally occupied by Israel, and magically found its way to near the nuclear facility, where there were no reported injuries and no reported infrastructural damage, after which Israel [war criminally] ‘retaliated.’

Did Israel neglect to tell Israelis of the impending ‘controlled test’ in Ramle?

For those who may have forgotten, not only has Israel functioned as al Qaeda’s first air force against Syria, but it also has bragged about providing state of the art trauma care to ISIS terrorists in Golan, Syria, criminally occupied by Israel.

When it comes to terrorists on the occupied Golan, Israel spares no US taxpayer expense in state of art medical care

Syria News also reminds our readers that when President Biden was a mere senator, he bragged that Israel is our rabid dog of war in the region, that it deserved every penny it drains from the American taxpayer teat, and that it is so important that if it did not exist, the US would have to create it.https://www.youtube.com/embed/FYLNCcLfIkM?feature=oembed

On cue, NATO stenographers /NATO stenography-journalists immediately launched its mandatory propaganda campaign, yelping whines of non-existent self-defense, and never, ever, questioning if Israel has a right to any nuclear facility, though the shameless gaggle cheered the bombing of Osirak, supports NATO supremacists control over Iranian nuclear development, and also has been able to forego the little blue pill after Trump, May and Macron bombed Syria’s non-nuclear Barzeh Pharmaceutical and Chemical Research Institute in 2017.

Though Israel’s backstory for its most recent war criminal bombing of Syria is utterly ridiculous, far beyond Hollywood screenwriting’s suspension of disbelief, it’s timing is in NATO colonial supremacy chronological order: While the Oops! Forgot to tell you! ‘controlled’ demolition was happening in Ramle, the NATO OPCW was busy in The Hague, lying about Syria’s non-existent chemical weapons — based on al Qaeda reports to investigators too terrified of terrorists to physically investigate — and censoring Syria’s voting rights at the CWC.

The NATO klansmen who led the precedent-setting, anti-Syria thuggery at The Hague also gloated about holding a ménagerie à trois — avec beacoup de voyeurs de l’OTAN — VTC viewing, with the alleged physician who practices medicine nowhere, but meets with NATO heads of state everywhere, the viewing of the filthy Nuremberg indictable fraudumentary, The Cave, which shows kidnapped children FX’d with moulage trauma, and Mengele sadists claiming to perform surgery without anesthesia.

NATO klansmen of OPCW held VTC viewing with phony physician one day before stripping Syria of its voting rights.

Emotional war pornography is the lubricant, the blue pill, and the foreplay of NATO klansmen, the unindicted war criminal Military-Industrial-Complex con artists.

Israel — NATO’s rabid dog in the Levant — again bombed Syria, per NATO dictum, and immediately after the klan censored the SAR at The Hague.

— Miri Wood

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Israeli Enemy Fortifies Dimona Nuclear Facility for Fear of Hezbollah, Iran Precision-guided Missiles: Zionist Media

February 26, 2021

Zionist media outlets revealed on Friday that the new construction project at Dimona nuclear facility in Negev desert aims at fortifying it from the precision-guided missiles of Hezbollah and Iran, clarifying that the project includes moving the plants to underground floor to protect them from the rocketry fire.

A secretive Israeli nuclear facility at the center of the Zionist entity’s undeclared atomic weapons program is undergoing what appears to be its biggest construction project in decades, satellite photos analyzed by The Associated Press show.

A dig about the size of a soccer field and likely several stories deep now sits just meters (yards) from the aging reactor at the Shimon Peres Negev Nuclear Research Center near the city of Dimona. The facility is already home to decades-old underground laboratories that reprocess the reactor’s spent rods to obtain weapons-grade plutonium for Israel’s nuclear bomb program.

Source: Al-Manar Eglish Website

Secretive Israeli Nuclear Facility Undergoes Major Project: AP

February 25, 2021

A secretive Israeli nuclear facility at the center of the Zionist entity’s undeclared atomic weapons program is undergoing what appears to be its biggest construction project in decades, satellite photos analyzed by The Associated Press show.

A dig about the size of a soccer field and likely several stories deep now sits just meters (yards) from the aging reactor at the Shimon Peres Negev Nuclear Research Center near the city of Dimona. The facility is already home to decades-old underground laboratories that reprocess the reactor’s spent rods to obtain weapons-grade plutonium for Israel’s nuclear bomb program.

What the construction is for, however, remains unclear. The Israeli government did not respond to detailed questions from the AP about the work. Under its policy of nuclear ambiguity, ‘Israel’ neither confirms nor denies having atomic weapons. It is among countries that have never joined the Non-Proliferation Treaty, a landmark international accord meant to stop the spread of nuclear arms.

The construction comes as ‘Israel’ — under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — maintains its scathing criticism of Iran’s nuclear program, which remains under the watch of United Nations inspectors unlike its own. That has renewed calls among experts for ‘Israel’ to publicly declare details of its program.

What “the Israeli government is doing at this secret nuclear weapons plant is something for the Israeli government to come clean about,” said Daryl G. Kimball, executive director of the Washington-based Arms Control Association.

For decades, the Dimona facility’s layout has remained the same. However, last week, the International Panel on Fissile Materials at Princeton University noted it had seen “significant new construction” at the site via commercially available satellite photos, though few details could be made out.

Satellite images captured Monday by Planet Labs Inc. after a request from the AP provide the clearest view yet of the activity. Just southwest of the reactor, workers have dug a hole some 150 meters (165 yards) long and 60 meters (65 yards) wide. Tailings from the dig can be seen next to the site. A trench some 330 meters (360 yards) runs near the dig.

Some 2 kilometers (1.25 miles) west of the reactor, boxes are stacked in two rectangular holes that appear to have concrete bases. Tailings from the dig can be seen nearby. Similar concrete pads are often used to entomb nuclear waste.

Source: Al-Manar English Website

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إيران تستعدّ لعمل كبير

ناصر قنديل

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منذ عشرة أيام وعملية التفجير التي أصابت جزءاً من المنشأة النووية الإيرانية في نطنز، محور اهتمام ومتابعة في الأوساط الدبلوماسية والأمنية والإعلامية. فقد جاء التفجير في مناخ تصعيدي تشهده المنطقة مع منظومة العقوبات الأميركية المتشددة على قوى وحكومات محور المقاومة وشعوبها، ومحاولة الضغط لإيصال القيادة الإيرانية لقبول التفاوض على شروط جديدة لملفها النووي من جهة، ولدورها الإقليمي من جهة أخرى، مع رفع شعار العودة إلى ما قبل العام 2011 في سورية من قبل المبعوث الأميركي الخاص جيمس جيفري في شرحه لأهداف قانون قيصر للعقوبات على سورية، عارضاً التسليم بنصر الرئيس السوري وجيشه مقابل خروج أميركا وإيران بالتوازي من سورية.

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خرج الصحافي ايدي كوهين المعروف بعلاقته بمكتب رئيس الحكومة في كيان الاحتلال بنامين نتنياهو بتغريدة يقول فيها إن مصادر استخبارية غربية قالت إن طائرات حربية لجيش الاحتلال تولّت قصف منشأة نطنز، ثم نشرت صحيفة نيويورك تايمز تقريراً نسبت المعلومات الواردة فيه لمصادر موثوقة، لتقول إن جهاز استخبارات في الكيان يقف وراء القنبلة التي تسببت بتفجير في منشأة نطنز، ثم خرج وزير الحرب والخارجية السابق في الكيان أفيغدور ليبرمان ليتحدث عن اتهام لنتنياهو بالوقوف وراء التسريبات للتباهي، معرضاً أمن الكيان للخطر.

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تلا ذلك بأيام ظهور رئيس أركان القوات المسلحة الإيرانية الجنرال محمد باقري في دمشق موقعاً اتفاقيات تعاون عسكري أهمها ما يتصل بالدفاعات الجويّة السوريّة، وما قالت تعليقات صحف الكيان، إنها نقلة نوعية لوضع حد للغارات التي تشنها طائرات جيش الاحتلال داخل سورية وهي تستهدف بصورة خاصة مواقع إيرانية، ما يعني استعداداً لمرحلة أكثر تصعيداً في المواجهة، من جهة، ورداً شديد اللهجة على قانون قيصر، وتبشيراً استباقياً برفع الحظر عن بيع وشراء السلاح المفروض على إيران والذي ينتهي مفعوله خلال شهور مقبلة.

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أول أمس، وقع حريق كبير انتهى بتدمير البارجة الأميركية يو اس اس ريتشارد، في مرفأ سان دييغو العسكري، وسرت تكهنات باختراق سيبراني تسبب بالتلاعب بمنظومات حرارية في البارجة أدى لنشوب الحريق وتعطيل أنظمة التبريد، واتجهت الكثير من أصابع الاتهام نحو إيران، خصوصاً مع حرب سيبرانية تشهدها مواقع داخل الكيان تؤدي لتعطيل منصات مطارات ووزارات وهيئات حكومية، تظهر حجم الحضور الإيراني في هذا النوع من الحروب، في ظل الربط بينها وبين حال التصعيد الشامل الذي تشهده المنطقة.

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أمس، تحدّث الناطق بلسان الخارجية الإيرانية وقال «إنه في حال ثبت ضلوع كيان أو دولة في الحادث، فإن ردّ إيران سيكون حاسماً وهاماً وستثبت أن «زمن اضرب واهرب قد ولّى». ونفى المتحدث أن يكون لإيران علاقة بحادث البارجة الأميركية في سان دييغو، واعدا بإعلان قريب لمجلس الأمن القومي الإيراني لنتائج التحقيقات التي يجريها في حادث نطنز.

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الترقب سيد الموقف خلال الأيام القليلة المقبلة، وحبس الأنفاس سيستمرّ حتى تعلن إيران نتائج التحقيقات، والاتصالات على أعلى المستويات لاستكشاف اتجاه هذه النتائج وما إذا كانت ثمة احتمالات بتوجيه إتهام مباشر لكيان الاحتلال، وماهية الدور المقرر، والعيون شاخصة نحو مفاعل ديمونا كهدف محتمل، إذا سارت الأمور بهذا الاتجاه، وهو ما يعني نذر حرب كبرى تخيّم على المنطقة، والوسطاء التقليديّون بين إيران والغرب يقولون إن أشدّ المراحل خطورة تمر على المنطقة، وإن العروض لتفادي التصعيد الإيراني المرتقب إذا صحّت التوقعات، قيد التداول، وإن أشياء كثيرة من طروحات كانت على الطاولة قد تغيّرت.

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