Notwithstanding the never-ending stream of all those based-on-reliable-intelligence-sources analyses, it is doubtful whether these same analysts would be willing to bet whatever is left of their 401K retirement accounts on their predictions that Israel will — or will not — attack Iranian nuclear sites this year.

And while research institutions have conducted interesting exercises to try to figure out the military, diplomatic and economic repercussions of a confrontation between Israel and Iran, the dictum that no military plan survives the contact with the enemy applies also here — in addition to the unintended consequences, blowbacks and the proverbial ‘black swans’ that are bound to show up even in the unlikely scenario under which Israel achieves all or most of its military goals.

If I can put my ten cents worth of strategic thinking, it seems to me that the ousting of Saddam Hussein and the American fiasco in Iraq helped tip the balance of power in the Persian Gulf and the Levant in the direction of Iran and its allies. And that made it more likely that Israel and other Sunni Arab players that regard the Islamic Republic as a threat to their core national interests would use all their available resources to deprive Iran from having access to a military instrument that would allow it to formalize the new regional balance of power.

In his magisterial study of the 1812-1814 military campaigns in Europe, Russia Against Napoleon, historian Dominic Lieven suggests that while Tsar Alexander recognized that France would never be able to control Europe, he also concluded that the price of adhering to Napoleon’s Continental System would have undermined Russia’s position as a great power and that the Russians had no choice but to use the full power of their military to prevent that from happening.

My guess is that Israel, as well the Saudis and their Arab-Sunni allies, know that it would be possible to contain a nuclear Iran — in the same way that Russia could have embraced a cost-effective strategy to contain Napoleon’s France. But as long as Israeli leaders believe that they have a realistic option of blocking Iran’s nuclear program — and by extension, of setting major constraints on its ability to assert its position as a regional power — they will probably use their military capacity. The Saudis and their Gulf partners would probably cheer them behind close doors while publicly condemning them.

But as quite a few Israeli and American military experts have warned, a military strike on Iranian facilities would not achieve the declared Israeli goal of ending Iran’s alleged nuclear military program and the expected costs in terms of Israeli casualties could be very high.
Moreover, if Iran gives the green light to its Shiite Hezbollah allies in Lebanon to attack Israel and mobilize the Shiites in Iraq and the Persian Gulf to retaliate against American and Saudi targets, Tehran would be in a position to strengthen its regional power. The ayatollahs would also be able to exploit an Israeli attack to ignite Iranian nationalism and win support even from those Iranians who actually oppose the ruling clerics and would like to see them removed from power.

And while the Obama administration insists that it wants to apply peaceful means to get Iran to freeze its nuclear enrichment program, it is not clear that Washington and its Europeans allies would succeed in coming up with a diplomatic formula that would be acceptable to Iran and to Israel (and its supporters in Washington) or that the Americans would be able to prevent Israel from taking military action against Iran. Those of us who believe that an Israeli military attack would not serve American and Israeli interests and may actually help consolidate the power of Iran in the Middle East and that of the clerics in Teheran should also recognize that President Barack Obama — who probably agrees with these assumptions — is not in a position for a diplomatic confrontation with Israel during a presidential election year.

In fact, even in a non-election year, there will be very little incentive for Mr Obama to launch a creative diplomatic opening to Iran at a time when the Iranian leadership does not have the power to make a deal with Washington and is facing strong opposition at home from liberal and conservative forces alike (who, despite their differences, want Iran to acquire nuclear military capacity).

And at a time when the Middle East is going through the political turmoil of the Arab Spring and the US is engaged in a steady drawdown from its military occupation of Iraq, the shaky balance of power in the region would make it difficult for Washington to try to reach a ‘grand bargain’ with Iran. Such a move, coming in the aftermath of the collapse of the pro-American regimes in Egypt and Tunisia, would be perceived by the Saudis and other Arab-Sunni governments as another sign of US weakness.

If Israel decides to attack Iran, expect the Obama administration to provide it with logistical and other support, including by vetoing a UN Security Council resolution condemning Israel (unlike the Reagan administration which did join the Security Council’s censure of the Israeli attack on the Iraq nuclear reactor in Osirak in 1981).

Leaf from History

Yet, in the same way that the outcome of the 1973 Middle East War provided the then Nixon administration with an opportunity to protect and even strengthen its position in the Middle East, by renewing diplomatic relations with Egypt and working to bring peace between the Egyptians and the Israelis, the Obama administration could find itself in a position to advance its interests in the aftermath of an Israel-Iran military confrontation and an ensuing Middle Eastern war. A potential leading player in such a post-war scenario would be Turkey which until now has played a clever diplomatic game vis-a-vis Iran. In the most significant act of military cooperation between Washington and Ankara since 2003, Turkey agreed last year to station sophisticated American radars, part of a US-led system to defend Europe against a potential Iranian missile attack, and has expressed strong opposition against any move by Iran to acquire nuclear military weapons.

At the same time, the Turks have also been in the forefront of the diplomatic opposition against a military strike against Iran and, working with Brazil, it proposed a diplomatic deal to freeze Iranian uranium enrichment in exchange for ending the US-led sanctions against Iran.
And while Turkey is a member of NATO and remains a close military ally of Washington, its recent diplomatic assertiveness and its tensions with Israel coupled with its strong support for democratic activists in the Arab World, has strengthened its status in the Middle East and could allow it to play the role of grand mediator between the US and Iran in a post-war scenario.

Indeed, working with Turkey and Saudi Arabia and the Arab League, as well with the permanent members of the UN Security Council and the European Union, the Obama administration could propose the convening of a Middle East Conference chaired by Turkey that would bring together all the Arab states, Iran and Israel and that would set the stage for the establishment of a nuclear-free zone in the region (which would apply also to Iran as well as to Israel’s nuclear arsenal) and to a series of diplomatic initiatives to help stabilize Iraq, Syria and Lebanon and revitalize the Israeli-Palestinian peace process along the lines of the old Arab League proposal.

In that context, the US and Iran could also start repairing their diplomatic ties and Teheran would be encouraged to support any resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that is agreed on both sides. Not for the first time in history, the end of a war could help create the conditions for stability, cooperation and peace. It could be worth the try.

The remaining advocates of Bashar Assad are working overtime to portray a vision of a completely chaotic Middle East if and when the Alawite regime finally collapses. To predict chaos in the Middle East is a safe bet, so what’s really new in this case? The threat of chaos is almost automatically linked to another round of Arab-Israeli war, this time a Shi’ite-led Iranian-Hezbollah-Alawite desperate attack on Israel. Well, while the Israelis may naturally take the proper precautionary steps to deal with the day after Assad, they are far from showing any sign of undue worry or panic.

There is concern about the arsenal of chemical warheads that is in Syrian hands, some of it was transferred to Syria from Iraq on the eve of the American invasion of March 2003. The fear is that these warheads may find their way to Hezbollah and Iran. Surely not a pleasant prospect, but not one that cannot be dealt with. Even Hezbollah and the Iranians know that any attempt to use these weapons against Israel will be calamitous to them. The thought that either of the two will risk their very existence [in the case of Hezbollah], or most vital national interests [in the case of Iran], in support of the Alawite dictatorship is good for psychological warfare, but not in the real world. The same applies to the possibility of Iranian closure of the straits of Hormuz in support of Assad. Really? Not really…

They will not do that. All this is relevant to the Syrian situation and its implications, not to the much talked-about scenario of an Israeli or American attack against the Iranian nuclear program. This is clearly a totally different opera. The connection between a final collapse of the Assad regime and the Israeli and/or American calculus regarding Iran is possible but not inevitable. Sure, a Syrian participation in an Iranian retaliation against a strike is not something cherished by Israeli and American planners and policy makers, but this is becoming a remote possibility since the Syrian Army is in a stage of disintegration. General Mustafa Al-Sheikh, the highest ranking Syrian defector, predicted some days ago that the Syrian Army will disintegrate until the end of February. This may be wishful thinking in terms of the timing, but not the process, which is very obvious, leading in the not distant future to that exact outcome. So, if we move away from the Israeli angle of the situation, what else can happen affecting neighboring countries and overall regional stability? First, we can expect a massive refugee problem, Alawites trying to cross to Lebanon and Turkey. Also, possible mass flight out of Ba’athi functionaries, not just Alawites. Chaos in Syria will inevitably take its toll of neighboring Lebanon.

Tripoli, a Sunni city with a sizable Alawite minority, is likely to explode, and that will be part of a bigger issue in Lebanon, as the traditional anti-Assad forces there, mainly the Sunnis and some Christian Maronite factions, will find the new circumstances conducive to put pressure on Hezbollah, demanding it dismantle its arms. The not so old wounds created by the assassination of former PM Rafiq Hariri will reopen with ferocity. Whether all that will lead Lebanon towards chaos is not clear, though it’s likely. Sheikh Nasrallah, however, will find himself and Hezbollah engaged in a conflict with the majority of the Lebanese people. So, under these circumstances, a war initiated by him against Israel may seem a good diversionary exercise, but still is highly unlikely. The Sheikh will fight for his own survival inside Lebanon as his first priority.

Another country that will feel the brunt of the Assad collapse will be Iraq, where the current Sunni-Shi’i tension may be greatly exacerbated, as the former will be much encouraged by the rise of a new regime in Syria, most likely Sunni-dominated. Not for nothing, the Maliki government in Iraq is the most pro-Assad Arab government. They know why.

Then there is Turkey. But for the expected Alawite flight across the northwestern border, the Turks should be greatly preoccupied by the fallout of a collapse in Damascus on the northeast border, where over 2 million Syrian Kurds live, just waiting to rid themselves of the Assad yoke. An unruly Kurdish population on the Syrian side of the border will not be good news to the Turkish government and military having to deal with their own unruly Kurdish population.

The Turks may gain, however, many political dividends from their support to the Sunni Syrian rebels. A Sunni-dominated regime in Damascus is likely to be friendly to Ankara, and so Turkey’s overall regional standing may be significantly enhanced. Such a regime in Damascus will also be friendly to the Saudis, and a Turkish-Saudi rivalry over influence in Damascus of the future is highly likely. The big losers will be Iranians. They cannot expect a friendly Syrian government in the near future. The overall regional Sunni-Shi’i schism will be in display in the most dramatic way. But even that is not really new, as this schism has been a feature of Middle East Islamic reality since the killing of Imam Hussein in 680 A.D.

The downfall of Bashar Assad is behind the door. No Armageddon, but still a significant challenge to regional stability.

*Adjunct Professor, University of South Carolina
Huffington Post

Al Arabiya also reported that according to media reports “the Quds Force , which is the foreign division of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard sent 15 thousand fighters to Syria, but Tehran has denied the reports.

The Syrian opposition has reported that the Iranian Revolutionary Guard and Hezbollah are helping the forces loyal to Assad in the crackdown

Hezbollah in Lebanon was formed by the Quds Forces in 1982

Turkey is seen as one of the main threats.

The move follows the announcement Sunday by the Noble Energy Co., of Houston and its Israeli partner the Delek Group, that they had made a new discovery off the Israeli coast that could contain 1.2 trillion-1.3 trillion cubic feet of gas.

Israel is already preparing to launch a major security operation to protect the offshore fields and the attendant facilities in its waters.

This will involve missile-armed patrol vessels, round-the-clock aerial surveillance by unmanned drones and other naval detachments, primarily to defend the energy zones against attack by Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed force in neighboring Lebanon.

Israel’s main gas zones, discovered by Noble in 2009-10, are the Leviathan field holding an estimated 16 tcf and the nearby Tamar field with 8 tcf. These are part of the Levant Basin which the U.S. Geological Survey reported in 2010 contains an estimated 122 tcf of natural gas and around 1.7 billion barrels of oil.

Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu is expected to ask the Cypriot government, which controls the southern two-thirds of the war-divided Mediterranean island, to allow Israeli air force combat jets to use the Andreas Papandreou air base outside the southwestern resort city of Paphos.

“It is unclear if the request will be to station a permanent presence on the island or to establish a base that could provide logistical support for the (air force) during operations in the region,” The Jerusalem Post’s military analyst Yaakov Katz reported.

Cyprus’ Famagusta Gazette newspaper said Tuesday that discussions about providing facilities for the Israeli air force are at “an exploratory stage.”

But Katz surmised that Israel’s objective is “to be able to more effectively protect the growing number of gas fields it is discovering in the Mediterranean.”

The prospect of the air force getting access to the Paphos base was heightened in December when Cypriot Defense Minister Demetris Eliades signed two military cooperation agreements with his Israeli counterpart, Ehud Barak, during a visit to Tel Aviv.

The Greek Cypriot government in Nicosia has no air force and only a miniscule naval force that’s heavily outgunned by the military might of Turkey, its longtime adversary to the north.

Eliades has made it clear the Israelis have approval “in advance” to operate in Cypriot air space and waters. Actually basing Israeli aircraft in southern Cyprus is guaranteed to rile the Turks.

Cyprus has launched its own gas exploration program in waters off its southern coast that abut the northern extremity of Israel’s Leviathan field.

Initial results, with Noble Energy handling the drilling, indicate the Greek Cypriots are sitting on an energy bonanza of their own.

Cyprus has been divided since Turkey invaded in 1974 after a short-lived coup by supporters of union with Greece. The Turks seized the northern third of the island and proclaimed it the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus. It is recognized only by Ankara.

Israel and Cyprus plan to pool resources and jointly export their gas through an underwater pipeline to the European Union via Greece.

Turkey says the Cypriots have no right to do that unilaterally, threatening a possible flare-up of the historic rivalry between the Turks and Greeks.

Ankara has dispatched warships and at least one seismic survey ship into the disputed zone and in 2011 stationed a squadron of F-16 fighter jets at a TRNC airbase.

Turkey is also at odds with Israel, its onetime strategic ally. It reversed the alliance in 2010 after the Israeli Navy killed nine Turks when intercepting a Turkish-run flotilla carrying humanitarian aid to the Israeli-blockaded Gaza Strip.

In recent weeks, Barak has pledged to upgrade Israel’s defense links with Greece as well.

Debt-ridden Greece, which is staring economic collapse in the face, is only too happy to hook up with a war-seasoned military power like the Israel to confound the Turks.

The Israeli air force has had joint exercises with the Greek air force in recent months.

Israel also faces threats from neighboring Lebanon, which also seeks to benefit from the energy boom. Beirut claims Israel is poaching on its territorial zone, which has yet to be demarcated by treaty.
UPI

Shimon Peres, an elder statesmen who is a Nobel Peace laureate, appealed to the people of Iran to look beyond the current crisis.

The U.S., Israel and the West believe Iran is trying to produce nuclear weapons. Iran denies that. This week the U.S. cranked up its sanctions on Iran to try to force it to stop its uranium enrichment, but Iran responded with defiance.

Speaking at a ceremony marking the 63rd anniversary of the founding of Israel’s parliament, Peres directed his remarks to the people of Iran.

“We were not born enemies and there is no need to live as enemies. Do not allow the flags of hostility to cast a dark shadow over your historic heritage,” Peres said. “Your people are a sensitive people that aspire for friendship and peace, and not for conflicts and wars.”

Israel and Iran had close relations before the Islamic Revolution in 1979.

Peres spokeswoman Ayelet Frisch said he had fond memories of Iran then.

“Peres is one of the few people in Israel who remember the warm ties between the two countries. He visited a few times before the revolution, he walked the streets of Tehran, ate at restaurants there and had many Iranian friends,” she told The Associated Press.

In contrast to his message to the people, Peres denounced the Iranian regime.

“Iran is not only a threat for Israel, it constitutes a real danger to humanity as a whole,” Peres said about the Iranian nuclear program. “The present Iranian regime is Imperialism-hungry, aspiring to be the region’s supreme ruler,” he said.

Peres, 88, fills a mostly ceremonial post as Israel’s president. He spoke after U.S. officials expressed concern that Israel might attack Iran’s nuclear facilities in the spring. Israel’s leaders rank Iran as their greatest threat because of its nuclear and missile development programs, frequent references by its leaders to Israel’s destruction and support for violent anti-Israel groups like Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in the West Bank and Gaza.

Earlier Wednesday, Meir Dagan, the former head of the Mossad spy agency said he does not believe Israel faces an existential threat from Iran, a view that contrasts with Israel’s prime minister and other leaders.

Since retiring a year ago, Dagan has become a surprisingly vocal critic, repeatedly and publicly accusing Israel’s top leaders of irresponsibly pushing for an attack on Iran.

At the launch of an electoral reform movement he chairs, he observed, “I don’t think there is an existential threat.” He did not specifically mention Iran, but the use of the phrase “existential threat” in Israel generally refers to Iran.

Although Israel says it hopes deepening economic sanctions will pressure Tehran to curb its nuclear ambitions, Israeli leaders haven’t ruled out military action, routinely observing that “all options are on the table.”

AP/ ABC

Gunmen kidnapped 11 Iranian pilgrims heading to the Syrian capital from Turkey last Wednesday. The group of 35 pilgrims was traveling on a bus outside the central city of Hama when armed men ambushed the group.

The gunmen took 11 men, leaving behind women, children and elderly men, after taking the group’s money and mobile phones from them. The pilgrims had been on their way to visit Shiite shrines in Syria, he said.

A statement released by the Free Syrian Army said on Monday that the rebel army released the 11 Iranians for humanitarian reasons after Turkey’s mediation. The rebel army alleged that the Iranians were actually sharpshooters firing on protesters and linked to the Iranian Revolutionary Guards.

The Syrian Free Army added that they have nothing against the Iranian people, but are against the Iranian regime, which supports the regime in Damascus. Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, a close ally of Iran, is under mounting international pressure to end a military crackdown on an 11-month-old popular uprising, which has escalated into an armed insurgency in some regions.

Syrians opposed to Assad come mainly from the country’s Sunni Muslim majority, while Assad and his ruling coterie belong to the minority Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shiite Islam. Iran is the Middle East’s Shiite power.

Five Iranian technicians were also kidnapped in the Syrian city of Homs in December and Tehran has demanded their immediate release. Iran has also condemned what it calls foreign interference in Syrian affairs and has praised reforms Assad pledged to undertake; however, it has tempered its rhetoric on Syria as the uprising drags on and the bloodshed worsens. At first Tehran wholeheartedly supported Assad’s stance in the face of public opposition, but has now begun encouraging reforms on account of popular grievances.

The UN says more than 5,000 people have been killed in Assad’s crackdown on protests. Syria says more than 2,000 security force members have been killed by militants.

The Free Syrian Army also praised Turkey’s position on Syria and thanked Turkey for its support for the rebel army and Syrian people.

Todayszaman

“Do we know all the dynamics inside of Iran? Absolutely not.

And I think one of the difficulties is that Iran itself is a lot more divided now than it was,” Obama told an NBC television interview taped on Sunday and aired on Monday morning.

“You’ve got, you know, the supreme leader contesting the president in some situation. Knowing who is making decisions at any given time inside of Iran is tough. But we do have a pretty good bead on what’s happening with their nuclear program,” he said.

Asked when the U.S. military would have “bunker busting bombs” ready that could hit underground nuclear sites in Iran, Obama said he would not discuss specific military programs or go into details of what the United States’ contingencies were.

“I will say this that we have done extensive planning over the last several years about all our various options in the Gulf. And you know, we are prepared to exercise these options should they, should the need arise,” he said.

Photo: From left: Parliament speaker Ali Larijani, judiciary chief Ayatullah Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Supreme Leader Ayatullah Ali Khamenei sit under a portrait of Ayatullah Khomeini during a meeting in Tehran on July 20, 2009. President Obama told NBC on Sunday : “It is tough to know who is making decisions in Iran”

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1912970,00.html#ixzz1lcMHc0N9

Reuters

Last week, Iran’s supreme clerical leader threatened reprisals for the West’s new ban on Iranian oil exports and the U.S. defense secretary was quoted as saying Israel was likely to bomb Iran within months to stop it assembling nuclear weapons.

Although broadened and sharpened financial sanctions have begun to inflict serious economic pain in Iran, its oil minister asserted on Saturday it would make no nuclear retreat even if its crude oil exports ground to a halt.

Iran says its nuclear program is for civilian energy purposes. But its recent shift of uranium enrichment to a mountain bunker possibly impervious to conventional bombing, and refusal to negotiate peaceful guarantees for the program or open up to U.N. nuclear inspectors, have thickened an atmosphere of brewing confrontation, raising fears for Gulf oil supplies.

“Any spot used by the enemy for hostile operations against Iran will be subjected to retaliatory aggression by our armed forces,” Hossein Salami, deputy head of the elite Revolutionary Guards, told the semi-official Fars news agency on Sunday.

The Guards began two days of military maneuvers in southern Iran on Saturday in another show of force for Iran’s adversaries associated with tensions over its disputed nuclear program.

The United States and Israel, Iran’s arch-enemies, have not ruled out a military strike on Tehran if diplomacy fails to resolve the nuclear stalemate.

Salami did not identify which countries he meant as possible hosts for military action against it.

The six, U.S.-allied Arab states in the Gulf Cooperation Council, situated on the other side of the vital oil exporting waterway from Iran, have said they would not allow their territories to be used for attacks on the Islamic Republic.

But analysts say that if Iran retaliated for an attack launched from outside the region by targeting U.S. facilities in Gulf Arab states, Washington might pressure the host nations to permit those bases to hit back, arguing they should have the right to defend themselves.

The Gulf states that host U.S. military facilities are Qatar, Bahrain and Kuwait.

THREAT TO SHUT VITAL OIL CHANNEL

Iran has warned its response to any such strike will be “painful,” threatening to target Israel and U.S. bases in the Gulf, along with closing the Strait of Hormuz used by one third of the world’s seaborne oil traffic.

Betraying nervousness about possible blowback from any military strike on Iran, two of its neighbors – Qatar and Turkey – urged the West on Sunday to make greater efforts to negotiate a solution to the nuclear row.

Speaking at the annual Munich Security Conference attended by top world policymakers, Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said an attack would be a “disaster” and the dispute over Iran’s nuclear program could be ended very rapidly.

“If there is strong political will and mutual confidence being established, this issue could be resolved in a few days,” he said. “The technical disputes are not so big. The problem is mutual confidence and strong political will.”

He added: “A military option will create a disaster in our region. So before that disaster, everybody must be serious in negotiations. We hope soon both sides will meet again but this time there will be a complete result.”

Turkey was the venue of the last talks between Western powers and Iran a year ago which ended in stalemate because participants could not even agree on an agenda.

Qatari Foreign Minister Khalid Mohamed al-Attiyah said an attack “is not a solution, and tightening the embargo on Iran will make the scenario worse.

“I believe that with our allies and friends in the West we should open a serious dialogue with the Iranians to get out of this dilemma. This is what we feel in our region.”

Tehran has warned several times it may seal off the Strait of Hormuz, throttling the supply of Gulf crude and gas, if attacked or if sanctions mean it cannot export its oil.

A military strike on Iran and Iran’s response, which might include an attack on the oilfields of No. 1 exporter Saudi Arabia, would send oil prices soaring, which could seriously harm the global economy.

Reuters

The other night I spoke to Alaa al-Sheikh, the Free Syrian Army’s Khaled Bin Waleed Brigade in Rastan, a city that’s home about 25,000 people and lies on the main Damascus-Aleppo highway in the province of Homs. Over the last several months, Rastan has become the frontline in the war between Syrian rebels and pro-Assad loyalists as well as a kind of de facto headquarters for the FSA. When I asked al-Sheikh about the rebels’ targeting of power lines and water mains in the country, I was surprised at his response. He said that this tactic was not in fact designed to rob the regime of electricity and water but rather to affect Lebanon: retaliation, he said, against Hezbollah’s provocations. “Hezbollah received information that the Iranians who were captured in Homs had been taken to north Syria,” he told me. “So Hezbollah started bombing us there with Katyushas. They fired around 21 rockets from near Al-Hermel in Lebanon, which is close to the Syrian border.”

The Iranians he’s referring to are seven nationals in FSA custody; five of them, the rebels insist, are members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) brought in to assist Assad’s Air Force intelligence in sniping. However, Syrian state media adamantly denies the allegation and insists that five Iranian engineers who were on their way to work at the Jandar power plant in Homs on 21 December were kidnapped by “terrorists”. Press TV, the Iranian regime’s propaganda outlet, says two more engineers were taken after they attempted to investigate the whereabouts of their missing colleagues.

Yet last week, James Hider and Nate Wright of the Times reported that Mahmoud Haj Hamad, the head financial auditor at the Syrian Defence Ministry who defected last month, confirmed that the Assad regime had indeed been paying “military consultants” from Iran and Hezbollah out of a US-dollar slush fund financed by Iran. These consultants, Hamad said, now number in the “thousands.”

Tehran’s facilitation of Assad’s brutality is matched by Moscow’s obstruction of any UN Security Council resolution that demands the dictator’s ouster, an obstruction that, even after yesterday’s intense diplomatic wrangling by the US, Europe and Arab states at Turtle Bay, shows absolutely no sign of abatement.

Clearly, Assad has used the Security Council deadlock to his advantage. In the last day, the regime has waged a comprehensive offensive and reprisal campaign in Idleb and the Damascus suburbs. One member of the Syrian Revolution Coordination Union (SRCU) told me yesterday that Rankous has been hit especially hard: there have been mass arrests, shabbiha gangs have confiscated cellphones and electronics, and houses have been burnt to the ground. Even animals, the SRCU activist said, have been killed “just for fun.”

Rastan, too, has been pounded by regular army forces, both with tanks shells and heavy artillery. “The army has used 130-millimetre towed field guns, which can hit a target at 28 kilometres,” al-Sheikh told me. “These are Russian-made. The tanks have pounded houses, one of which we saw collapse. It’s hard to say how many have been killed here because we are just now able to pull the bodies out from under the wreckage.” The rebels claim that yesterday they destroyed eight of the Syrian army’s tanks and captured four more in Rastan. A different activist told me that 300 more soldiers tried to defect but of them, 225 were killed by the loyalists they turned against.

“We hold the city right now,” al-Sheikh said of Rastan. But for how long? “A week, maybe two.” The aim is to weaken the regime by inflicting “painful” losses, not topple it, which is something the rebels can’t do so long as the regime receiving armaments and supplies from Iran and Russia. “Iran is sending weapons inside civilian airplanes,” al-Sheikh added, “landing in civilian airports.”

The only other “liberated” city in Syria is Zabadani, but the army now has it completely surrounded. Still, morale seems to be high among the FSA combatants. Al-Sheikh sent me the link to this YouTube video showing an urban side street littered with rubbish and rubble; out of a thick fog of pulverised concrete, a tank was being tentatively manoeuvred. “You see here, we captured a tank and they’re driving around in it,” he said, laughing. “Look at the driver, he is parking the tank like a taxi in front of his house.”
By: Michael Weiss
Telegraph.UK.

As delegates flooded into a vast auditorium next to a space needle in western Tehran, a screen showed images of the Iranian revolution in 1979, morphing seamlessly into footage of young Arab protesters in Tunisia, Egypt, Bahrain, Libya and Yemen.

But there was a catch. No one was invited from Syria, whose autocratic president, Bashar al-Assad, is a crucial Iranian ally. The Syrian protesters are routinely dismissed by Tehran’s government as foreign agents — despite the fact that they are Muslims fighting a secular (and brutal) dictatorship.

That inconvenient truth soon marred the whole script. As the conference began, a young man in the audience held up a sign with the word “SYRIA?” written in English. Applause burst out in the crowd, followed by boos. Audience members began chanting the slogan of the Syrian protesters: “God, Freedom and Syria!” But they were drowned out by others chanting pro-Assad slogans.

Soon afterward, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iran’s president, took the stage to deliver his opening remarks and tackled the subject with his characteristic bluntness.

“We must be vigilant: the West is trying to foment sectarian conflict in our societies, as part of their goal of keeping Israel alive,” he said. “Today Syria, tomorrow your country.”

Those words drew choreographed chants of approval from a claque in the audience. But many participants clearly weren’t buying, and the uprising inside the conference hall seemed to have left its mark. In the afternoon, journalists were barred from the proceedings.

“We were given strict instructions not to say anything about Syria,” said one smirking reporter at a state-run Iranian news agency, during a break.

The conference underscored Tehran’s uneasy position amid the dramatic changes battering the Arab world. In a narrow sense, events have broken Tehran’s way: Islamist parties are coming to power in Tunisia and Egypt and Morocco, and may well do so in Libya, Syria and Yemen.

But Iran’s system of rule by clerics seems very unlikely to prevail in those countries, where the “Turkish model” of electoral democracy and moderate Islam is widely hailed as a goal. Iran’s Shiite faith is also a serious obstacle in a region where Sunni Muslims are the majority, and sectarian tensions are on the rise. And many Arabs still resent Iran’s insurgent attitude toward their governments. As the conference began, the screen in the auditorium showed framed portraits of dictators falling, domino-style: first the Tunisian president, Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali, then Hosni Mubarak, Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi and Ali Abdullah Saleh of Yemen. But the falling dominoes continued: the still-ruling kings of Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Bahrain all went down, to swelling orchestral music.

The Tehran conference coincided with fresh signs of division between Iran and other Muslim countries. On Sunday, Turkey hosted a conference of the Syrian opposition, whose members denounced Iran’s assistance in the Syrian government’s crackdown on protesters. And on Tuesday, a Saudi delegation walked out of a pan-Islamic conference in Indonesia, after a former speaker of Iran’s Parliament, Nateq Nouri, said the Saudi monarchy was corrupt and oppressive. (Needless to say, there were no Saudis at the Tehran conference.)

The Iranian effort to hold up the struggle against Israel as an all-powerful crucible of Islamic unity comes across to many Arabs as doctrinaire and shop-worn, no matter how strongly they sympathize with the Palestinian cause.

The cast of characters presiding over the Tehran conference — seated at a table on the stage — seemed strangely removed from the events of the past year: gray-bearded clerics, a former prime minister of Iraq, and aging Islamist leaders from Hezbollah and a Palestinian faction.

During a news conference with Ali Akbar Velayati, an adviser to Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, a Jordanian reporter asked how to tell a real revolution from a foreign conspiracy, in a tone that seemed almost tongue in cheek.

“Good question,” Mr. Velayati said. The answer was dismayingly simple: “One of them favors the United States and the Zionists, and the other is against it.”

One Pakistani television reporter observed that some members of the Pakistani delegation had made vicious slurs against Shiites in their own country, and now mouthed mantras of pan-Islamic unity — presumably, he said, to hedge their bets or seek alliances with Tehran on political issues. “The talk here is of religion,” the reporter said. “But under the surface it is all raw politics.”

The participants seemed to have various motives for attending. Some said they respected Iran’s consistent patronage of the Palestinian cause. Others were grateful for an all-expenses paid holiday in a place they had never been.

During a break in the proceedings, a 31 year-old Libyan named Hafez al-Razi Abdollah stood outside in the bright winter sun, holding up a Libyan flag and talking to reporters.

“This conference is about the unity of Islam,” he said. “It’s a good thing.” But he quickly added that he and other Libyans were grateful to the United States for its help in overthrowing Colonel Qaddafi, and that he hoped for a democratic, secular government in his own country. Asked about Syria, he replied: “Bashar is a tyrant and must be overthrown.”

When asked why Iran still supported the Syrian leader, he smiled dismissively. “Ahmadinejad supports him because they’re both Shiites,” he said. (In fact, Mr. Assad is an Alawite, a heterodox strain of Islam, but that distinction is lost on many Arabs.)

Nearby, two turbaned clerics from the Iranian holy city of Qum were chatting. One of them, Yahya Jahangiri, conceded that many Iranians disagreed with their government about Syria. “But often that is just for internal reasons, they dislike Ahmadinejad so much,” he said.

The conference was widely reported in the Iranian news media, and posters bearing the words “Islamic Awakening” were plastered on walls near the conference hall. They were met in some Tehran quarters with dismissive sarcasm. One popular text message, circulated widely on cellphones around the capital, went: “If you’re having trouble sleeping at night, don’t worry: it’s not the high prices, poverty, or unemployment. You are suffering from Islamic Awakening.”

NYT