The Iranian assistance to Hezbollah is scarcely classified "Burn Before Reading" as the recent high visibility Israeli seizure of the latest gift from Tehran has made clear. The German owned, Antigua registered container vessel contained sufficient rockets, mortar shells, recoilless rifle ammunition, hand grenades, and small arms ammunition to start and maintain a fair sized war. It would have bolstered Hezbollah's already sizable stockpiles of warlike stores. It is interesting to note that at least some of the rockets are reportedly identical with those fired at US troops in Iraq a couple of years ago. A comparison of imagery makes that allegation credible in the extreme.
Less well publicized but equally indicative of Iranian trouble making ambitions is a recent report out of Yemen. Belatedly, the government of that hot and dusty insurgency ravaged geographical expression has announced it seized a boatload of Iranian origin arms bound for the Houthi insurgents.
Showing a rich appreciation of the need for cautious duplicity which is endemic in Mideast Arab diplomacy, the Yemeni government did not place the blame on Tehran. Whether or not this shipment was an exercise in free enterprise, it does represent an increase in the scale of Iranian efforts to assist their more-or-less co-religionists currently waging a defensive insurgency against the sort of central government.
The Iranian owned and flagged Mahan-1 was seized off the coast of Yemen. It had set sail from the Iranian port of Bandar Abbas laden with a cargo of small arms, RPG launchers and shells, and other items of use to guerrilla insurgents. Its crew consisted of five Iranians and one Indian who were taken to the capital of Saana for "interrogation." (Waterboarding, anyone?)
Despite repeated allegations by the Yemeni government of Iranian involvement with the Houthi rebels, this is the first time the bad boys have been caught with the goods. Previously, the accusations have focused on small scale transfers from Iran via Eritrea. The Eritrean connection meets the test of inherent probability particularly when the role of that country in the chaos called Somalia is kept in mind.
Shipments via Sudan have also been rumored. Accounts as to the final destination of the arms leaving Sudan to Yemen on fishing boats from that country differ. It is plausible to contend that the final destination is not Yemen but rather Hamas controlled Gaza. This would track with the attack conducted by the IDF on a convoy bound from Sudan to Gaza as well as the recent reports of exploding fishing boats at the island of Mydi, which is a convenient transit point for either Gaza or the Houthi dominated north of Yemen.
While the badly fractured government of Yemen often seems more at war with itself than with the Houthi or al-Qaeda or the southern insurgents and cannot keep its story straight, the weight of evidence is on the side of direct Iranian involvement with the Houthis--and perhaps other elements in the ill-flavored Yemeni goulash.
Even if Washington seems either out-to-lunch on the recent developments in Yemen--and their implications for the future--Saudi Arabia is most assuredly not. The Kingdom has made no bones about its conviction that Iran is the major actor in the Houthi drama. The Saudis see the arms supply effort as being simply one strand of the many in the web being spun by Tehran around the Sunni majority Arabian Peninsula.
The Saudi anxiety about the growth of Tehran's machinations has been manifested in the Kingdom's willingness to actually use force against the Houthi after the uppity rebels had the temerity to kidnap and kill some Saudi border guards and "occupy" a few acres of scrub covered mountainside on the Saudi-Yemeni border. Considering the rarity with which the House of Saud does more than talk about fighting, this has been a major development with equally major implications for both the Kingdom and the US. (The Geek posted on this a few days back.)
The use of proxies is a time tested way of waging war without much risk. Both the US and (to a much, much greater extent) the Soviet Union employed this method throughout the Cold War. It is not surprising that the Iranians have picked up on the concept with a fair degree of success and utterly no plausible deniability. Rather than attempt to effectively disguise their efforts on behalf of clients such as Hezbollah, Hamas, or the Houthi, Iran simply lies.
Now, it has to be acknowledged that Tehran has elevated the practice of blatant, full-throated mendacity to an unprecedented level. It deserves reiteration in passing that Islam, particularly Shia Islam, not only allows but requires tergiversation when necessary to protect or advance the interests of the Faith or the individual believer.
Iranian lying is not limited to its relationship with proxies. It extends across the board. A recent example of this is the accusation by Iran that the three American hikers who inadvertently crossed the poorly marked Iran-Iraq border a couple of months back are actually CIA assets and would face trial for espionage. The charge is baseless on its very face given the success US and other intelligence services have enjoyed penetrating Iran.
There is a method in Iran's lying. In this case it is a means by which messages are sent to the Obama administration. The Tehran regime has knowingly and calculatingly upped the ante in the game of nuclear poker. The Koran-toting Islamists of Tehran and Qom are also sending a sub-text to Obama and Company.
The sub-text is clear. It reads, "Nicey-nice works as well with the Iranian regime as trying to kiss a rabid gorilla."
The US has had no choice except to allow the doomed string of negotiations started in Vienna what seems like decades ago. The exercise in futility has been necessary so as to show the world we are patient, ever ready to give peace a chance. It has also been critical to massaging the Russians into at least tacit support for one more round of "crippling" sanctions.
The Iranians behaved as every informed observer expected them to. First they seemed to go along with the IAEA brokered agreement on low enrichment uranium being sent elsewhere for enrichment to twenty percent and then returned as fuel rods. Then, assorted legislators and other heavies entered objections, protests, allegations that the West (including Russia) was untrustworthy.
The litany of complaints and listings of "injustices" perpetrated on Iran by the Great Satan and his confreres was followed by demands for basic changes in the seemingly struck bargain coupled with demands for additional time to consider the initial offer and its ramifications. It was a clear case of ya-da-ya-da and dabba-dabba-do.
The providential peregrinations of the American hiking trio now entered stage left. Their bodies became the way to escalate pressure on the US government. In a way identical to the pirates of Somalia, the government of Iran counts on the tears of family, the hopes of friends, the sentimentality of the media to exert leverage on the Obama administration, which is perceived in Tehran as lacking in both backbone and intestinal fortitude.
The Iranian regime, like Islamists everywhere, is firmly convinced that the US is really an episode of Oprah writ large. The mullahs and their hetmen are of the view that We the People and our government are far more ruled by tender feelings than by the stern requirements of rational policy considerations. They believe that the personalization of conflict in the bodies of three young citizens will outweigh the comparative abstractions of policy.
Perhaps at the very least, the tergiversators of Tehran hope for a "hostage" crisis with an outcome equivalent to that manufactured by the North Koreans a few months ago. Remember, the two young female electronic journalists kidnapped on the border by the North Koreans, convicted of espionage or spitting on the river or something only to be freed to the personal custody of former president Bill Clinton?
A dramatic gesture, a metaphoric bended knee by a suitably heavy duty American politico would serve the interests of the Iranian government--particularly the less-than-completely-legitimate Ahmedinejad. It would also fit larger Iranian needs.
To put the matter with brutal simplicity: There is no need to fear American massive ordinance penetrators when you have the flesh of three mediagenic Americans to interpose between your bunkers and the MOPs. Cynical exploitation of American sentimentality? To quote Sarah Palin, "You bettcha."
Why not? It worked thirty years ago. Just ask Jimmy Carter.
Will it work now? We don't know. But, someone ought to ask President Obama.
1 comment:
"The Iranian regime, like Islamists everywhere, is firmly convinced that the US is really an episode of Oprah writ large."
Too true. A friend who used to live in rural Morocca tells me the number one shows there were Oprah and Desperate Housewives. The view of America was completely shaped by television and Disneyland.
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