(Israel Hayom) Assaf Golan - IDF Lt.-Col. (ret.) Mickey Segall, formerly head of the Military Intelligence Directorate Research Division's Iran desk and a senior analyst at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, believes that although Iran and the U.S. are threatening one another publicly, in actuality they are implementing quiet understandings behind the scenes. "On one hand, the Iranians are accelerating their uranium enrichment, adding new centrifuges, and pro-Iranian elements are active in the region, for instance, the attack by Houthi rebels in Saudi Arabia over the weekend. All [these] indicate that the Iranians are signaling they have room to maneuver....On the other hand, the Iranian intelligence minister said in May that 'Iran needs to show courage and flexibility.'" "The Iranian foreign minister visited Oman, which helped mediate the previous nuclear deal. The German foreign minister is currently in Iran, while the U.S. and its allies in the region are presently gritting their teeth in the face of Iranian provocations. This tells us there is a comprehensive initiative in the works by both sides to reach understandings or to reinstitute calm." "This isn't assured to work and it's quite possible there will ultimately be a giant conflagration because some pro-Iranian actor has carried out too successful an operation or another form of miscommunication. It appears, however, that at least for now the sides don't want conflict, rather quiet understandings."
2019-06-13 00:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive