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Iran Out of Control

(Jerusalem Report) Ehud Ya'ari - Iran is removing its mask -- and its gloves. It no longer maintains the pretense of acting as a decent neighbor to Iraq, or tries to make us believe that it is adhering to the rules of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty; it is no longer knocking gently on the White House door or making passes at the European Union. Even the warnings of what will happen to Israel if it attacks Iran’s nuclear facilities have become apocalyptically violent. And the message from Teheran reaching the perpetrators of Palestinian terror is that given the disintegration of the Fatah faction, the agenda for attacks will from now on be set by the emissaries of the Iranian elite "Revolutionary Guards." The American army in Iraq is facing a direct Iranian challenge. The attempt to contain and isolate Iran has failed. Instead the real regional danger posed by the "Islamic Revolution" is ballooning at a pace that leaves little time for a delayed or hesitant response. The supreme religious leader Ayatollah Khamenei, the Rafsanjani faction and the officers of the Revolutionary Guards are going for broke. They are prepared to risk a head-on -- if still indirect -- confrontation with the United States on Iraqi soil. No less than 80 percent of the latest Palestinian attacks in the intifada have been set in motion by the Iranians via Hizballah. Incidentally, they not only fund and promote the attacks but are often involved down to the last detail, from the preparation of explosives to transferring them to the suicide bombers and choosing targets for attack. General Qassem Suleimani, head of the "Al-Quds Corps" of the "Revo-lutionary Guards" has long since coordinated Iran’s covert actions in Lebanon, among the Palestinian ranks and in other spheres, is also the main architect of the Shi’ite rebellion in Iraq. He even made the connection between Muqtada al-Sadr and his "Mahdi Army" and the all-Sunni Ba’athists and remnants of Saddam’s "Republican Guard" in Falluja, Samara and Ramadi.
2004-08-24 00:00:00
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