May 19, 2008 • Vol. 13, No. 34
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Today's Iran's intelligence chief accused the U.S. and the Britain of sponsoring the bombing of a mosque in Shiraz in April. "The blast ... was caused by a bombing by a terrorist group with links to Western countries, especially Britain and America,” said Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei, Iran’s Intelligence Minister.
The bombing, which killed 14 Iranians and wounded more than 100, occurred as a cleric was "delivering his weekly speech against extremist Wahabi beliefs and the outlawed Bahai faith," according to the pro-government Fars News Agency. Last month, however, Iran denied the explosion was the result of a bombing. The deputy interior minister said at the time that the explosion was "the result of an incident." Officials said that ammunition that was recently on display in the mosque spontaneously exploded.
So what caused the Iranians to change their story? The accusations came just as a British court ruled that Britain’s designation of the People’s Mujahadeen Organization, or MEK, as a terrorist group was inappropriate, and the MEK should be removed from the list. The MEK has provided the U.S. and Britain with valuable and accurate intelligence on Iran’s nuclear program as well as Iran’s terror activities inside Iraq. The U.S. State Department still lists MEK as a terrorist organization, but members of the U.S. Congress and other government officials also seek to have MEK removed from the terrorist watch list.
The confrontation between Coalition forces and the Mahdi Army and the Iranian-trained Special Groups in Baghdad, Basra and the wider south is having some nasty consequences for the Iranian regime. The Iraqi government sent a delegation to Iran to present evidence of Iranian collusion with the Mahdi Army and other Shia terror groups attacking Iraqi civilians and U.S. and Iraqi security forces. This has shone an unwelcome light on the Iranian government’s complicity in the killing of their purported Shia brethren in Iraq. And as Bill Ardolino has reported from Baghdad, the Iraqi Shia have begun to recognize that Iran is behind for much of the violence against the Iraqi people.
But in perhaps the most surprising development, Iranian political leaders have been forced to admit that their country is responsible for the bloodshed. Former Iranian president Mohamad Khatami surprisingly criticized his country’s leadership yesterday for exporting terror to neighboring countries:
"What did Imam (Khomeini) want and what did he mean by 'exporting the revolution'? Taking up arms and causing explosions in other countries and establishing groups to carry out sabotage in other countries? Imam was strongly opposed to these behaviors," Khatami told students in northern Iran on Friday. "This is the biggest treason to Islam and the revolution."
This sparked a backlash from the Iranian regime:
"It is obvious that Mr Khatami must answer for his anti-patriotic comments and explain why he has taken such a stance," said Kayhan, whose editor-in-chief is appointed by supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei… "US media used Khatami's comments as a pretext for bringing up the US claims against Iran," it said.
Khatami’s statements also sparked a debate about the legitimacy of suicide bombings:
"Mr Khatami has not differentiated between the criminal acts of the Taliban and the martyr operations of Lebanon's Hezbollah or Muslim fighters in Palestine," Mehdi Kouchakzadeh [a member of parliament] was quoted as saying. "Mr Khatami has to make it clear whether using fervent martyrdom-seeking young men to combat occupiers is an ugly and violent act or a fully human and admirable one?" demanded the MP.
So we now have an influential Iranian cleric and politician [who is by no means the moderate he is portrayed to be] openly stating his country is behind terror attacks and the Iranian establishment having to defend itself in the domestic and foreign media.
It is springtime, so the "U.S. is going to attack Iran" rumors are in full bloom. With the USS Abraham Lincoln arriving in the Persian Gulf to replace the USS Harry Truman, there were three of the powerful warships in the waters off Iran for one day. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said the U.S. would keep two carriers in the gulf as a "message" to Iran.
The deployment of carriers in the gulf and the U.S. military's ire over the Iranian backing of Shia terror groups inside Iraq has fueled a new round of rumors. The Australian, based on anonymous sources, said the U.S. is preparing to conduct a "'surgical strike' against an insurgent training camp inside Iran if Republican Guards [sic] continue with attempts to destabilise Iraq." [Note to Michael Smith, the Republican Guards were Saddam Hussein’s' praetorian guard, while the Revolutionary Guards are the Iran's elite corps.]
As noted in July 2007 here, the movement of carriers into the Persian Gulf is merely a "message." Iran should actually start to worry when there are no aircraft carriers in the Gulf, as the U.S. would seek to minimize exposure of its $9 billion capital ships during any conflict with Iran.
The fact is that if the United States wanted to strike at Iranian terror camps in Khuzestan, it could do so without parking carriers in the gulf. The U.S. Navy has a wide array of submarines and cruisers equipped to launch Tomahawk missiles, while U.S. Air Force bombers can strike Iran from bases inside the US.
Seymour Hersh has made a living of late off of peddling Iran attack scenarios, but none have come to pass. This latest round of springtime attack likely have no more basis in truth.
Jane's reports:
F-14 Tomcat interceptor aircraft antenna, military specification night-vision goggles and body armour were among the "sensitive and stolen defence related items" that the US Government Accountability Office (GAO) found for sale on internet trading sites such as Ebay and Craigslist.
Compounding the problem? The only nation on earth that still flies the F-14 Tomcat is... the Islamic Republic of Iran.
Tehran can only fly approximately 20 of the 79 airframes delivered in the late 70s, as the remaining 59 are subjected to a complex cannibalization process that keeps the single squadron of operational jets in the air. So the numbers used to dictate that Iran needed 3 inert fighters to keep 1 flying. Now, it seems, all they need is an Ebay account.
Last summer Reuben F. Johnson reported in this magazine on the Navy's poor history of securing spare parts for the F-14.
As the dusts settles in Basra, more information about Iran’s involvement in the conflict comes to light. The Times reported yesterday that military and intelligence officials believe Iran’s covert military command assigned to direct operations in Iraq “were operating at a tactical command level with the Shi'ite militias fighting Iraqi security forces” during the recent fighting in Basra, and "some were directing operations on the ground.” This should come as no surprise to anyone following Iranian activities inside Iraq. Iran is fighting a thinly veiled, undeclared war against both the Iraqi people and the United States.
To streamline operations in Iraq, Iran’s Qods Force established a unified command, called the Ramazan Corps, and split Iraq into three roughly geographical regions. Last fall I obtained a detailed description of the Ramazan Corps’ command and control network, storage and distribution facilities, training camps, and supply lines into Iraq.
The Ramazan Corps is a military command with senior Qods Force generals in charge. They direct the flow of weapons, cash, rockets, mortars, and explosively formed projectiles into the hands of the Special Groups working in Iraq. The Ramazan Corps also brings Iraqi fighters into Iran to train them, and runs training camps inside Iraq as well. This news is doubly interesting as it was the commander of Qods Force that pressured Muqtada al Sadr to call his forces off the streets of Iraq.
Interesting discussion from Tom Ricks at the Washington Post:
As the experts poke the ashes, I think the emerging consensus is that Moqtada al-Sadr won more than he lost, because he and the government agreed to a cease-fire. That makes him 3 for 3 in taking on state powers (the U.S. in the previous two rounds, and now the Baghdad government). If nothing else, this guy is a survivor.
What puzzles me most is the role Iran played, especially in ending the fighting. There are lots of rumors that it brokered the ceasefire, but I have seen nothing definitive. If it did, that indicates that the Tehran government felt it had something to lose through the fighting.
Well, yeah. Iran's plan is to keep the United States--and to some extent, Israel--occupied on the military, diplomatic, and political fronts while they build a small arsenal of nuclear weapons. Their strategy, from a military perspective, has been very effective so far. Through effective use of proxies in Basra and southern Lebanon, Tehran exploits the West's greatest weakness--their low tolerance for chaos and unending conflict. All this while they strictly avoid direct contact with US/NATO/Israeli forces.
Al-Qaeda Iraq has been decimated by the surge, so if the Iranians lose Sadr and his militias, their ability to sow the seeds of discord in Iraq is sharply reduced. It's important to remember that Iran doesn't expect to win battlefield victories in Iraq, but rather to exploit the chaos there as a means to their nuclear end.
If they knock out the fledgling Iraqi government and kill a few Coalition troops in the process? All the better.
Michael Rubin has a good write-up at the Corner. I covered this yesterday here, but what I didn't know until reading Rubin:
To support dismissing President Bush’s stated concerns, they cite Joseph Cirincione. Fair enough, but wouldn't basic integrity mandate that they mention that Cirincione is not a disinterested analyst, but rather is advising Barack Obama?
That would seem like useful information for the Post to include. Instead, Cirincione is identified merely as an "expert on Iran and nuclear proliferation." His expert opinion: Bush's comments were "as uninformed as [Sen. John] McCain's statement that Iran is training al-Qaeda." That sounds objective...
Bush spoke directly to the Iranian people yesterday in an address broadcast over Radio Farda:
"[The Iranian government has] declared they want to have a nuclear weapon to destroy people -- some in the Middle East. And that's unacceptable to the United States, and it's unacceptable to the world..."
For some reason the Washington Post's Robin Wright took exception to this statement:
But most striking was Bush's accusation that Iran has openly declared its nuclear weapons intentions, even though a National Intelligence Estimate concluded in December that Iran had stopped its weapons program in 2003, a major reversal in the long-standing U.S. assessment.
Robin Wright seems to have taken a break from this story for the last few months, since anybody who's been following it knows that it's not the president who has recast the NIE, but the intelligence community. In an interview with WTOP on February 26 of this year, Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell explained:
As you know, there’s been confusion about what Iranian intentions are with regard to nuclear weapons. You know from our National Intelligence Estimate we released, we highlighted the fact that a specific portion of the program had been cancelled, and that was the technical design of the warhead.
What I’d just highlight for you is there are three parts to a nuclear-weapons program. First, you have to have fissile material. Second, you have a nuclear-weapons warhead design; and third, a means of delivery of that warhead, given that you had such a warhead. And what we highlighted that was cancelled was the specifics on the warhead design. They are still pursuing fissile material – which that is the most difficult challenge in a nuclear program. And they’re still doing the ballistic missile design and testing, which is probably the second-most difficult part.
It is an open question as to whether Iran has since restarted work on the warhead design. Regardless, given their progress in producing the fissile material, Iran could produce a workable nuclear device in "6 months to 12 months," according to testimony by McConnell to the House Intelligence Committee on February 7.
Also, in order to contradict the president's statement, Wright quotes Joseph Cirincione, a highly partisan "expert." Cirincione says "Iran has never said it wanted a nuclear weapon for any reason. It's just not true." So Wright's attack boils down to little more than the fact that the Iranians themselves haven't fessed up (despite talk of wiping Israel off the map and the "accidental" discovery of blueprints for a nuclear warhead during an IAEA inspection of an Iranian facility). Of course Cirincione takes a rather laissez faire view of proliferation. Last fall, when the Israelis took out what was widely reported to be a North Korean nuclear facility inside Syria, Cirincione told Foreign Policy magazine that "if North Korea gave them [the Syrians] anything short of nuclear weapons it is of little consequence." Perhaps he thinks that, likewise, until the Iranians actually assemble the device, it is of little consequence.
Other experts take a different view. One such is Gary Samore, a top arms control official in the Clinton administration and a director of studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, who told the Los Angeles Times in December that "The halting of the weaponization program in 2003 is less important from a proliferation standpoint than resumption of the enrichment program in 2006." You wouldn't know it from Wright's piece, but this view represents something of a consensus within the intel community as demonstrated by McConnell's statements over the past few months. Bush was simply stating the obvious, even if Robin Wright, Joseph Cirincione, and Mahmoud Ammadinejad don't agree with the assessment.
Iran isn't working with al Qaeda in Iraq? Tell that to some of al Qaeda's opposition. The NEFA Foundation has provided a transcript of an interview with a commander from "Hamas in Iraq," an insurgency group that was formerly a faction of the 1920 Revolution Brigades:
Q: "Is there any evidence of cooperation between the Al-Qaida network and Iran that you are aware of, since you are in a province bordering Iran?"
A: "We have irrefutable evidence of Iran supplying Al-Qaida with weaponry. This was exposed because of the weapons they used in the Diyala province several days ago - specifically on December 25, 2007. Our mujahideen from the Uthman bin Affan Brigade dismantled a car bomb in the Al-Onaq neighborhood in the region of al-Hadid [west of Baquba]. Hidden inside the car were three large rockets, three antitank mines, a quantity of TNT, 53 handgrenades, and a quantity of chlorine hidden inside the gas tank. [These items] were confiscated, and upon examining weapons, we discovered that they were Iranian-made. We also obtained confessions from some of those we have captured from [Al-Qaida] that they had transformed their wounded to border hospitals."
It is never safe to take these characters at their word. But he certainly does not have a pro-American bias. He refers to America as the "enemy" and says that his group will "never, ever cooperate" with American-led forces.
In addition, nothing he says about Iran's support for al Qaeda is all that surprising. As we have mentioned previously, the U.S. military and the new Iraqi intelligence service both confirm that Iran is hunting al Qaeda's enemies, not al Qaeda itself, inside Iraq. Iran is on al Qaeda's side in Iraq--not ours and not the Iraqi citizens. Some in the media seem to have trouble accepting this reality. As Steve Schippert explains, that includes the Boston Globe.
So Think Progress went batty when McCain, earlier this week, said that Iran was "taking al-Qaeda into Iran, training them and sending them back." Today, they continue to pound away on this issue by quoting a statement made by Lt. Gen. Ray Odierno last summer:
We don’t see any evidence, significant evidence, that shows that [Iranian-controlled] groups that are funding and providing arms to Shi’a extremists are directly related to al Qaeda. Now, we all know that al Qaeda uses Iran and they do in some cases traffic some of their individuals through Iran to Iraq, but it’s a very small number of people and it’s mostly through the Kurdish regions up north, where you have the old Ansar al-Sunna connections. But beyond that, there is no specific connection between the Shi’a extremists — excuse me — the [Iranian] Quds Force operations and supporting the Shi’a extremists and that of al Qaeda, and supporting al Qaeda.
Am I missing something, or isn't that exactly what McCain said? And since no one is disputing that Iran has control over its borders, we are now talking about degrees of support, which is to say, Iran is supporting al Qaeda, we just don't know to what extent.
Eli Lake, whose been covering this issue for years, reports for the New York Sun:
Mr. McCain's national security adviser, Randy Scheunemann, told The New York Sun, "There is ample documentation that Iran has provided many different forms of support to Sunni extremists, including Al Qaeda as well as Shi'ia extremists in Iraq. It would require a willing suspension of disbelief to deny Iran supports Al Qaeda in Iraq."
Responding to Mr. Scheunemann's remarks, a senior foreign policy adviser to Senator Obama, Susan Rice, yesterday told the Sun, "It's very bizarre." She noted that Mr. McCain had "made the same statement three times in as many days. Surely he must know, as Senator Lieberman reminded him, that Iran is not engaged with Al Qaeda in Iraq. I don't know if he is confused, or is he cynically trying to conflate Al Qaeda and Iran as Cheney and Bush did Al Qaeda and Iraq in 2002 and 2003?"
Ms. Rice stipulated in the interview that she was not saying Iran and Al Qaeda have never worked together, but that "there is no body of evidence to suggest Iran is aiding Al Qaeda in Iraq."
Rice echoes what Brian Katulis of the left-wing Center for American Progress said yesterday, calling the intelligence on this a "gray area." Likewise, Rice won't say that Iran and al Qaeda don't work together, so it's hard to see what all the fuss is about. And whatever relationship exists, Iran isn't going to advertise it. In this gray area, the Obama camp leans one way (assuming our enemies don't collaborate) and the McCain camp leans another (assuming they do). Fact of the matter is that what little evidence exists suggests they do work together--and of course when they don't work together there will be no evidence. If Obama makes it to the White House, he can raise the issue with Ahmadinejad during their summit at Camp David--I'm sure he'll get a straight answer (maybe there really is no al Qaeda, or homosexuality, in Iran).
With the ongoing imbroglio over Senator McCain’s comments linking Iran and al Qaeda, it is worth reviewing what Saddam’s own files have to say about Iran’s support for al Qaeda. Not only do Saddam’s Intelligence files confirm that his regime had a significant relationship with al Qaeda, but they also provide more evidence of Iran’s hand in al Qaeda’s terror. Some may say this is impossible: How could two states that hated each other as much as Saddam’s Iraq and the mullah’s Iran support the same terrorist group(s)? However, such thinking is very narrow-minded.
The IPP study proposes that we think of our terrorist enemies as cartels. In this sense, each of these parties competes in some important ways, but they are also capable of collaborating when it suits their interests. The IPP’s paradigm for understanding terrorism is very similar to the one Michael Ledeen proposed in his book, The War Against the Terror Masters. Ledeen has proposed that our terrorist enemies are best compared to rival mafia families, who can bitterly fight one another only to band together when facing a common foe, like law enforcement agencies. James Woolsey, the former head of the CIA, has proposed a similar way of understanding modern Islamic terrorism as well. For Woolsey, terrorist organizations and their sponsors are capable of forming "joint ventures" to fulfill their common interests--e.g. attacking Americans.
Numerous examples of such collaboration can be found throughout the history of Middle Eastern and Islamic terrorism. For example, Yasser Arafat and his PLO allied with both Iraq and Iran at various points throughout Arafat’s terrorist career. Hamas, a terrorist group which is the ideological cousin of al Qaeda and likewise an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood, has drawn support from Saudi Arabia, Iran, and previously Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. Today, the Sunni Hamas is strongly allied with Iran. And the man who served as Osama bin Laden’s protector and mentor from 1991 through mid-1996, Hassan al-Turabi, was quite open about his relationships with both Saddam Hussein (who he called a "close" ally) and the Iranian Mullahs. Turabi turned his Sudan into a melting pot of terrorism, bringing together disparate groups under a common anti-Western, anti-American banner. (See here and here for my two part series on Turabi.) This does not mean that Saddam’s Iraq and Iran necessarily had to cooperate with each other (although they did when it came to illicit deals under the oil-for-food program), just that each was capable of supporting terrorist groups that shared their immediate interests.
Continue reading "Reading Saddam’s Intelligence Files, Part 4: Iran & al Qaeda" »
McCain puts out a statement on the fifth anniversary of the war:
"Today in Iraq, America and our allies stand on the precipice of winning a major victory against radical Islamic extremism. The security gains over the past year have been dramatic and undeniable. Al Qaeda and Shia extremists -- with support from external powers such as Iran -- are on the run but not defeated."
The left can't stand this. In fact, they insist on calling it a "gaffe." It's clearly not, given that it's the third time he's said it in as many days. But I participated in a fantastic conference call with the lefty Center of American Progress this afternoon that focused on nothing but the statement. Jon Stoltz, founder of VoteVets.org, Brian Katulis, a senior fellow at CAP, and Ilan Goldberg of the National Security Network were the main players on the call.
Goldberg said McCain "fundamentally misunderstands the problem of what's actually going on in Iraq." He says each insurgent group has "its own interests" and "they're all fighting each other." Katulis then said that McCain "lacks a basic mastery of the facts," and that "he doesn't understand the challenges that America faces." (Hit them where they're strongest!)
Then the questions. First Laura Meckler of the Wall Street Journal asks if there are "groups within Iran" that have supported al Qaeda. Jon Stoltz replies that Iran "almost went to war with the Taliban." He says "I fought these people." She repeats, is there "any Iranian influence with al Qaeda?" Stoltz responds, "Not from what I saw on the ground in Iraq." Meckler again, "well you won't necessarily see from the ground in Iraq..." Stoltz cuts her off, "we're the ones who do the fighting." Meckler says "I understand that but you can't see every influence from a neighboring country, I mean are you really saying because you didn't personally see it, it doesn't exist?" Stoltz says "not from the people we fought."
Meckler again asks if it is inaccurate to say that there is any element within Iran that is supporting al Qaeda. Golldberg: "I don't have the intelligence to say that one way or the other." Stoltz jumps in, "I never saw that on the ground." Katulis then says "the facts on this are in a gray area...but it seems highly improbable that there is broad Iranian support for al Qaeda figures." Later he added that "one might be able to find in our intelligence agencies snippets of some information of some Iranian groups actually supporting some parts of AQI in particular for whatever reason..." Case closed, right?
I was struck by their insistence that Iran wouldn't collaborate with Sunni extremists, and that they had offered as evidence the fact that Iran had, at one point, almost gone to war with the Taliban. So I asked, how do they reconcile this with the deep Iranian support for Hamas, and support in the form of weapons and training for the Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan. Katulis said "I disagree with the premise of your question, because again it trends towards lumping together threats in a banner of Islamofascism that conservatives tend to do and frankly that type of analytical assessment is what's got us into this mess in Iraq." So I rephrase in the form of "do you deny" that Iran is supporting the Taliban or elements of the Sunni insurgency in Iraq. "Well, if you're going to ask that question in that sort of way, you can't deny that anything might be possible in those regards, and certainly on the Afghanistan front there has been strong evidence that Iran, feeling pressure and threatened from the U.S. encircling them, has supported some elements in the last few years of the Taliban. But the way that you ask the question is intended to get some sort of answer that fills whatever storyline you're trying to promote."
Yes, the storyline where Iran, often at odds with Sunni extremists, still assists them when there is a convergence of interests. And if Iran is willing to support the Taliban, whom they almost went to war with, because they feel pressure from the United States, why wouldn't they do the same for AQI? Of course, there is plenty of evidence that they have--but that doesn't fit the storyline at the Center for American Progress.
Eli Lake reports for the New York Sun:
The news that American forces had captured Iranians in Iraq was widely reported last month, but less well known is that the Iranians were carrying documents that offered Americans insight into Iranian activities in Iraq.
An American intelligence official said the new material, which has been authenticated within the intelligence community, confirms "that Iran is working closely with both the Shiite militias and Sunni Jihadist groups." The source was careful to stress that the Iranian plans do not extend to cooperation with Baathist groups fighting the government in Baghdad, and said the documents rather show how the Quds Force — the arm of Iran's revolutionary guard that supports Shiite Hezbollah, Sunni Hamas, and Shiite death squads — is working with individuals affiliated with Al Qaeda in Iraq and Ansar al-Sunna.
But yesterday the New Republic's film critic, Chris Orr, assured us that "Al Qaeda is, after all, a Sunni group, and Iran, a Shiite nation," so we needn't worry about collaboration between the two. Maybe the military just got the translation wrong.
A majority of people in 31 different countries not only oppose military action against Iran, they oppose economic sanctions as well. In fact, 14 percent of people do not even believe diplomatic efforts should be employed to discourage Iran’s nuclear program. The United States is one of only two countries where a majority of people support economic sanctions or military strikes. The other is South Korea. That means Israel, Australia, and a number of our closest allies all shirk at exerting even modest pressure to ensure Iran does not manufacture nuclear weapons. Predictably, the poll suggests the NIE report is to blame for these poor figures.
Why is Iran going after al Qaeda’s enemies in Iraq? A few days ago, Iraqi spymaster Mohammed Abdullah Shahwani accused Iran of trying to sabotage al Qaeda’s opposition. "We have information confirming that Iranian secret services have sent agents to sabotage the Sahwa [i.e. the "Awakening"] experience in Iraq," Shahwani said shortly before Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s visit to Iraq. Shahwani "stressed the need for the Iraqi people to be vigilant in facing these activities."
The U.S. Military has apparently confirmed and added supporting details to Shahwani’s accusation. According to Adnkronos International (AKI), U.S. military spokesman Adm. Gregory Smith explained: "the American military recently obtained confessions from detainees who are members of the Al-Quds Brigade and other Shia group who have been arrested in various parts of Iraq, who said that they were assigned to carry out armed operations to kill the leaders and the members of the Awakening Councils, in order to destroy this experiment."
So, here we have yet another instance in which Iran’s interests coincide with al Qaeda’s. Upon reading these latest accusations I cannot help but think of all those who believe that Iran and America have common interests in Iraq. For example, in "Iran: Time for a New Approach," America’s foreign policy elite, including Zbigniew Brzezinski and the now current Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates, argued:
Although they may differ profoundly on specifics, both the United States and Iran want postconflict governments in Iraq and Afghanistan that respect the rights of their diverse citizenries and live in peace with their neighbors. The hostility that characterizes U.S.-Iranian relations undermines these shared interests and squanders the potential benefits of even limited cooperation. As tenuous new governments in Baghdad and Kabul embark on precarious post-conflict futures, the United States and the region cannot afford to spurn any prospective contributions to the region’s stability.
What "shared interests" do the United States and Iran have in post-Saddam Iraq? Beats me. As for the "specifics," we are against al Qaeda and Iran is not. That is indeed a profound difference.
At some point we are going to have to recognize that Iran and al Qaeda are allies, no?
Matthew Levitt and Michael Jacobson of the Washington Institute recently visited Bahrain, where the government has recently convicted five men on terrorism charges including "receiving explosives and weapons training, engaging in terrorism overseas, and terrorism financing targeting 'friendly countries.'" They received relatively light sentences for their crimes, just six months in jail. One of the defense lawyers explained, "the six-month jail sentence is nothing, and we consider this to be an acquittal."
But this isn't the real story. As Levitt and Jacobson report:
Lost in the coverage, however, was the important role Iran played, either explicitly or implicitly. According to Bahraini investigators, several of the cell members traveled from Bahrain to Afghanistan via Iran. First, they flew to Tehran and met up with several al-Qaeda-affiliated individuals at the airport. Al-Qaeda facilitators then passed the cell members along from "person to person" until their arrival in Afghan training camps. . . .
Bahraini authorities do not know whether the Iranian government actively facilitated the cell members' travel to Afghanistan. But given the regime's track record, Iran's possible involvement with the cell is worth exploring further.
Indeed, this story is worth investigating further--as are the possible ties between Iran and Hezbollah on the one hand, and al Qaeda’s 9/11 hijackers on the other. As I wrote in my latest piece, the 9/11 Commission found that Iran and Hezbollah may have facilitated travel for a majority of the 9/11 hijackers in a manner very similar to this Bahraini al Qaeda cell. The Commission called for further investigation into the matter, but we are still waiting. If any such investigation is ever begun, the story of this Bahraini cell should also be looked into. The pattern of behavior is very similar.
This weekend, Senator Lieberman spoke at the Wehrkunde Security Conference in Munich--otherwise known as Davos for hawks--and delivered a tough speech on Iran, criticizing the confusion caused by the NIE and challenging the world to adopt a set of bold new sanctions against the Islamic Republic. Some key quotes.
On the sanctions and the threat of war with Iran:
Some nations are unfortunately using the sanctions regime as an opportunity to expand business ties to Iran and reap profits, at the expense of the rest of the world. For example, it is outrageous when Germany makes the principled decision to curtail its exports to Iran, only to watch as the People’s Republic of China moves in and exploits that decision for its own commercial advantage.
This is more than just self-serving behavior. It ensures that the sanctions regime is less likely to persuade Iran to suspend its illicit nuclear activities--and that, in turn, increases the likelihood of military confrontation.
The power to prevent war with Iran lies disproportionately with those who have the greatest economic leverage over Iran. They have a responsibility to use it, and soon.
On the NIE:
There are many people who make a habit of denigrating our intelligence services. I do not enjoy that sport; these men and women work very hard, many at great risk to themselves, to ensure the safety of America and its allies.
But neither do I make the mistake of believing in the infallibility or absolute impartiality of people in intelligence. Intelligence should be about informing decision makers; it should not be about empowering analysts and researchers to become decision makers.
Lieberman also issued a none-too-subtle criticism of Mohamed El Baradei, the Director-General of the IAEA, who was also on the panel with him. El Baradei has attempted to reduce the problem with Iran to a set of questions about its past nuclear work, which--once resolved through an IAEA “work plan”--will mean that Iran can once again be treated as a member of the international community in good standing, with the right--as a signatory to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT)--to enrich uranium. As Lieberman points out, however, the problem the international community has with Iran--and the reason that the UN Security Council has ordered it to suspend its uranium enrichment activities--is much, much deeper.
Of course, as a matter of international law, all signatories to the NPT bear the same burdens and obligations. But as a matter of common sense, the track record of a regime matters enormously in evaluating its nuclear intentions and its nuclear activities. Put more bluntly, a track record of deception and denying information to the IAEA and the UN is not one the world can afford to ignore. Until Iran restores international confidence that its program is peaceful, the international community is justified in demanding that Iran suspend its activities. Restoring confidence will take more than answering questions. It will require a sustained pattern of conduct that reassures other countries that Iran is not secretly embarked on a nuclear weapons program. That is why I think Chancellor Merkel got it exactly right when she said last year, “The world does not have to prove to Iran that Iran is building a nuclear bomb. Iran must convince the world that it does not want the bomb.”
Iran is back at making fantastic claims about its domestically built weapons. The latest announcement, via the Iranian regime-run Tehran Times, touts the beginning of the manufacture process of a newly developed "stealth" fighter--locally made, of course:
Air Force Commander Brigadier General Ahmad Miqani said here on Monday that Iran has launched the project to manufacture stealth aircrafts. “We have finished the design of stealth aircraft which cannot to be detected even by advanced radar systems, and the primary stages of its manufacture have started,” Miqani told reporters in a news conference.
The "stealth" program cannot be verified, but the regime has a long history of making outrageous claims about the capabilities of the domestic defense industry. The Islamic Republic's Air Force touted the Lightning, or Azarakhsh, as a fighter comparable to the U.S. F-18 in August 2006. In reality the plane is a refurbish/reengineered version of the 40-year-old U.S. F-5 export fighter.
The Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps touted a home-made "supersonic torpedo" with a top speed of 233 miles per hour in April 2006. "Even if enemy warship sensors identify the missile, no warship can escape from this missile because of its high speed," said General Ali Fadavi, the deputy commander of the Revolutionary Guard. The reality is this was a remanufacture of the Soviet-era VA-111 Shkval torpedo.
During the same timeframe, Iran claimed it developed stealthy ballistic missiles capable of deploying multiple warheads. This "advanced" missile appears to be the Soviet SS-26 theater ballistic missile.
In perhaps the most humorous example of Iranian-made "stealth" technology, in April 2006 the military touted its stealthy "super-modern flying boat" (which looks anything but). "Due to its advanced design, no radar at sea or in the air can detect it. It can lift out of the water," Iranian state television reported. The flying boat, called the Great Prophet, was "all Iranian-made and can launch missiles with precise targeting while moving." This boat is so "super-stealthy" it hasn't been seen deployed in the Persian Gulf since the announcement.
For more, check out this classic: "Iran's Super Missile Will Defeat Great Satan, Steal Your Girlfriend."
We've had a lot of discussion here about the recent incident in the Gulf. The informed conclusions have been uniform on at least one point: the U.S. Navy showed impressive restraint in the brief standoff. But as more information has come out, it now seems less clear that the explicit threat against the American warships--"I am coming at you. You will explode in a couple of minutes"--came from the Iranian Revolutionary Guard patrol boats:
Unnamed Pentagon officials said on Wednesday that the threatening voice heard in the audio clip, which was released on Monday night with a disclaimer that it was recorded separately from the video images and merged with them later, is not directly traceable to the Iranian military.
Apparently this kind of chatter on the radio is not uncommon in that part of the world. The Times quotes a retired sailor as saying "my first thought was that the “explode” comment might not have even come from one of the Iranian craft, but some loser monitoring the events at a shore facility."
A couple of points. First, the sailors we see on the tape would have been foolish to assume that the threat was not made by the Iranian ships that were then menacing their task force. Further, if the voice did not come from the IRGC ships, that does little to mitigate the conduct of those ships as seen on the tape. But the voice did come from somewhere. Even the man the Times quotes assumes that it came from a "shore facility"--presumably an Iranian shore facility. Either way, somebody verbally threatened to attack our ships just as the IRGC was physically threatening to do so. As a Navy spokesman told ABC News:
"It could have come from the shore, from another ship passing by. However, it happened in the middle of all the very unusual activity, so as we assess the information and situation, we still put it in the total aggregate of what happened Sunday morning. I guess we're not saying that it absolutely came from the boats, but we're not saying it absolutely didn't."
The confusion has now caused some to question the entire story as reported by the Navy. The Navy claimed that "white boxes" were being dropped into the water--though those boxes cannot be seen on the tape. Admiral Glenn Greenwald, the left-wing blogosphere's resident expert on all things military, is screeching conspiracy:
The bit about the "white boxes" being dropped into the water seems almost equally dubious [as the audio]. Neither the video of the incident released by the U.S. military, nor the video version released by the Iranian government, includes any such event, nor are there any references to it at all on the audio.
The Navy reported what its people saw and heard. If what they heard turns out to have been some bizarre transmission from shore, that doesn't change what we see on the tape: Iranian ships harassing and threatening American vessels in international waters. There's no reason to doubt our sailors' statements that the Iranians were dropping unidentified objects into the water--unless your default assumptions are that the American military is habitually mendacious, and that the Iranian regime is unerringly truthful.
I reviewed the tape--if we had had video this good at the Gulf of Tonkin, the world might be different today. I tend to agree with Michael's earlier post that our naval force responded correctly to the incident by capturing it all on tape and maintaining a defensive posture.
However, that tactic was not without risk. The type of boats used by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps are quite similar to the "cigarette boats" favored by drug smugglers off Florida and the Gulf Coast. Essentially big engines and massive fuel tanks wedded to the smallest possible hull, they are capable of speeds in excess of 40 knots, but are wildly unstable in anything other than calm seas, and therefore make lousy weapons platforms--if your weapon of choice is something like a gun, rocket, or shoulder-fired missile. On the other hand, you can fill one of those boats up with about a quarter ton of high explosives (more if you ditch some of the fuel), in which case you have a very nice manned torpedo (the Japanese were gearing up for that at the end of World War II). Because of their speed and maneuverability, it doesn't take too long for those boats to close inside the engagement zone of a major warship (e.g., the Ticonderoga class cruiser in the video), so if you let them get too close, there is a good possibility they could ram you, if that is their intent.
If you look at the video, you can see them crossing and recrossing the wakes of our ships, then pulling up alongside at a distance of a hundred meters or so, then breaking away and repeating the process. To me, it looked as if they were practicing for just such a suicide attack--checking out the angles, the times and the distances involved, looking over the ships to determine the arcs of fire for the close-in weapon systems.
Now, since the Cole incident, the U.S. Navy has invested a lot in close-in defense against small surface craft. They added pintle-mounted machine-guns along the rails, added electro-optical sensors to provide better target acquisition capability, and most of all, they modified the Mk.15 Phalanx Close-in Weapon System (CIWS) to engage surface as well as missile targets. So there is a good chance that, given adequate warning, our ships could destroy those boats before they could strike home. On the other hand, how long does it take a boat going 40 knots to close 100 meters? About two seconds. So, if the boats approach from the right angle, they may get inside our defenses before we have a chance to shoot. Or, assuming that we do hit the boat, it is moving so quickly and is so close that it could "go ballistic" even if severely damaged; i.e., it would continue on to hit the ship anyway.
If these provocations continue in the future, the U.S. will have to take some action, simply because treating them as "business as usual" creates an atmosphere of complacency. The first 99 times the Iranians do this, nothing happens--then on the 100th incident, they press the attack. This is a very old ruse of war--set up a routine to lull the enemy into a false sense of security, then strike. Worked for the Israelis in 1967, for the Egyptians in 1973--for that matter, it worked for Joshua more than 3500 years ago. The way to avoid the problem and minimize the danger is to swat the fly away--to show the enemy that you won't be diddled with impunity. You don't actually have to shoot at anyone, not when you're driving a 9100-ton cruiser and they have 30 ton speedboats--all you have to do is pass a little too closely while cranking 30 knots, and let your bow wave and wake do the rest. If you're feeling charitable, you can lower a boat and pick up survivors.
They come so frequently, it's hard to get worked up, but there's a dead giveaway this time. The teaser for the piece reads, "At the risk of sounding like an apologist for the Islamic Republic..." The author is Hooman Majd, who accuses the Pentagon of manufacturing the incident with Iran in the Gulf this week.
The Pentagon's version of the encounter in the Strait of Hormuz on Sunday morning, involving U.S. Navy warships and Iranian Revolutionary Guard patrol boats is, at the very least highly suspicious. On Tuesday, the Navy released video footage and an audiotape to back its claims that the Iranian boats acted in a threatening and provocative manner, but neither the video nor the audio are particularly convincing as proof that Iran had hostile intentions. The video, which shows what is claimed are Iranian boats speeding around U.S. ships, doesn't show any of the boats hurtling directly towards any of the navy ships, nor does it show what the Pentagon claimed the Iranians then did, namely dropped "white boxes" in the water.
It goes on like that--analysis of the accents, Iranian naval tactics, etc. And what are Mr. Majd's qualifications for such an analysis?
Hooman Majd has had a long career as an executive in the music and film businesses. He was Executive VP of Island Records, where he worked with a diverse group of artists including U2, The Cranberries, Tricky and Melissa Etheridge; and Head of Film and Music at Palm Pictures, where he executive-produced James Toback’s “Black and White” and Khyentse Norbu’s “The Cup” (Cannes 1999).
Watch the tape for yourself--no one but an apologist for the Iranian regime could possibly claim that the boats shown were not acting in a threatening and reckless manner. And Majd has absolutely no evidence on which to base his accusation that the Pentagon manufactured or concocted any of this.
It'd be one thing if Arianna got some expert in Naval tactics to write a piece saying that, from the video available, it isn't clear that the Iranian were acting in the aggressive manner the Pentagon alleged--though I doubt she could find a reputable expert to say any such thing. But to have some record producer accuse the military of a conspiracy based on...what exactly? The Huffington Post would have been better off just posting the Iranian regime's propaganda. It draws the same conclusion, yet much more elegantly.
Update: More here, and at HotAir. Also, a real expert, our own Stuart Koehl, breaks it down here.
No.
And I'm surprised that Ralph Peters--who is a razor sharp strategist--argued otherwise. If the U.S. Navy is to be in the statement-making business, as Peters suggests, better we choose a battle on our own terms rather than Iran's. While I normally enjoy Peters' writing, I found the following to be a bit...off:
Oh, from Washington's perspective we did the right thing by "exercising restraint." But Washington's perspective doesn't amount to a gum wrapper in a gutter. What matters is what the Iranians think.
They now believe that the Bush administration, our military and the entire United States are afraid of them.
Doubtful. Iran likes to bluster, but at the end of the day, the Supreme Leader and friends all understand who wields the big stick. But they're also well aware that we're addicted to foreign oil, and are thus reluctant to provoke OPEC's number two petroleum supplier, lest an attack further destabilize an already wobbly market. Ultimately, I think the evidence supports Goldfarb's contention that exercising restraint allows for a more flexible response--one than can be better tailored to freak the Mullahs out--rather than Peters' one-dimensional, screw the rules of engagement approach.
That's what Ralph Peters says:
We should've sunk every one of them.
Not because we're warmongers. But because the Iranians had made threats, verbal and physical, that amounted to acts of war. When will we learn that resolute action taken early saves vast amounts of blood and treasure later?
Oh, from Washington's perspective we did the right thing by "exercising restraint." But Washington's perspective doesn't amount to a gum wrapper in a gutter. What matters is what the Iranians think.
They now believe that the Bush administration, our military and the entire United States are afraid of them.
I suspect those American crews would have opened fire if they'd felt themselves in imminent danger. And further, I suspect it was the Iranians who were scared witless by the encounter. As Noonan pointed out yesterday, we've been around this block before with the Iranians--the result was devastating for Iran. But the Iranians have been engaging in acts of war against this country for a long time. If we are to respond in kind, wouldn't it be better to do so at a time and place of our choosing? Short of that, one trusts the Navy will take whatever steps it deems necessary to protect its forces. Their restraint in this case is almost certainly an example of their unbelievable professionalism. And there's no reason why we can't retaliate in some other form. We, too, can wage psychological warfare, and far more effectively than they can.
Of course the Iranians are calling it a simple "miscommunication," which is BS. Unless you think that I am coming at you. You will explode in a couple of minutes doesn't translate clearly from Persian to English.
Nothing is official yet, but it sounds like an obvious jab at our naval perimeter. That's why the Iranians warned us first, they wanted to see how we'd react. No accident that the bad guys were arrayed in the telltale Iranian swarming formation either, with five high-speed small craft involved in the "miscommunication."
It's worth pointing out that we've had dust ups with the Iranian Navy in the past. And, the U.S. Navy being the U.S. Navy, we've had responses, too.
Back in July, when Iran first launched Press TV, a state-subsidized, 24 hour, English-language news network, Louis Wittig wrote a piece for THE DAILY STANDARD analyzing some of the station's early reporting. His conclusion: "Press TV broadcasts a guy in a collarless shirt telling the story the Iranian government wants us to hear."
But Press TV also has a website, and like most internet propaganda from that part of the world, the people that put it together are often pretty lazy about where they pull their images from--which, on occasion, leads to a phenomenon commonly referred to in blogosphere geekspeak as "pwning." We've covered this here before, but I always find the result amusing. So here's the latest from a site called The People's Cube. It's a screen capture of a Press TV story about how Iranian Jews have denounced foreign press reports that they were helping some of their own get out of the Islamic Republic in order to emigrate to Israel. Whoever is getting their news from these clowns must have been a bit startled by the accompanying photo...
HT: Jawa Report
 Iraqi soldier with captured UAV. (AFP) News that a “spy plane” was discovered by Iraqi troops in the southern city of Basrah, where Iran is attempting to exert its influence with the various Shia militias, is certain to stir up a controversy. Earlier today, the Iraqi newspaper Voices of Iraq reported "a spy plane, heavy weapons and documentaries" were found in the southern city of Basrah. AFP ran a photo captioned "An Iraqi policeman holds a small drone during a press conference in Basra," in the Arab daily Asharq Al-Awsat.
So the question is whose "spy plane" is this? Is it an Iranian miniature Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (not a "drone" or a "spy plane") of the type used in Lebanon and flown into Israel? Perhaps this is an old, leftover UAV from the Saddam Area?
Looking at the photo provided by AFP, the answer looks to be much simpler. The UAV held by the Iraqi photo appears to be a direct match of the US made RQ-11B, or Raven B, a hand-launched, remote-controlled UAV with a range of six miles. In both images, the top wing of the Raven is detached.
Shia insurgents likely found a lost Raven, put it in their stockpiles, and forgot about it until the Iraqi troops uncovered the cache. The real question is how did this Raven not make it across the border into Iran for inspection?
Iran Kicks off War Games in 7,000-Mile Persian Gulf Area:
TEHRAN (Fars News Agency)- Iran began four-days of war games in the Persian Gulf Monday, designed to ensure it can protect the nation's territorial waters, islands and coastlines, as well as neighboring countries, from foreign threats.
According to Press TV, the war games will be held in three stages in an area that encompasses northern parts of Iran's coastal province of Bushehr and the southern region of Aslouyeh. During the games the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) will use a variety of weaponry.
The goal is to make sure the IRGC's state of the art equipment is working well so it can guarantee security in the Persian Gulf region for itself and neighboring states against future threats from foreign powers.
The war games will cover 7,000 square miles and employ hundreds of launching vessels, torpedoes, marines and divers.
Iran has a token force of a few frigates, subs, patrol craft, and missile boats, but those would quickly disappear in the event of a shooting war with the US-British-Australian fighting ships that patrol the gulf. The only value in Iranian symmetrical assets seems to be for PR purposes, which is evident in the silly, canned state-run news story quoted above.
However in asymmetrical warfare, the Iranian navy shows its fangs. Their primary mission is area denial, keeping enemies off of their islands and coastlines by using an aggressive swarming tactic. Iran has hundreds of small craft at its disposal, designed to overwhelm larger destroyers, frigates, and even carriers. A navy buddy of mine compared it to biplanes attacking King Kong. Because we're vulnerable to this, the occasional show of force in the contained waters of the Persian Gulf is an indicator that the threat of war with Iran is low, not high. It's when we sortie our carriers into the open blue of the Indian Ocean that's the real precursor to potential combat ops.
| | Sadr returns to Iraq, delivers sermon in Kufa. [AP Photo] Click to view. |
Muqtada al Sadr, the leader of the Sadrist political current and commander of the Mahdi Army, has decided to eschew politics in favor of hitting the books in a bid to rise up the ranks of the Shia religious establishment. Sadr's move comes as the violence in Iraq has reduced dramatically and U.S. and Iraqi security forces have been targeting the "rogue" elements of his fracture militia.
Currently, Sadr holds a low ranking clerical position in the Shia religious establishment. This prevents followers from turning to him for religious advice, and forces them to turn to more senior ayatollahs for guidance. Sadr himself seeks to become an ayatollah, but is adopting the Iranian strain of theocratic Shia Islam known as wilayet al-faqeeh. "The concept was adopted Iran's Khomeini, but carries little support among Iraq's Shiite religious hierarchy," the Associated Press noted late last week.
Sadr often portrays himself as an Iraqi Shia nationalist and attacks Iranian-born Grand Ayatollah Ali al Sistani, Iraqi's most influential Shia cleric, for his heritage. But Sistani rejects Iran’s theocratic version of Shia Islam. "Sistani supports an Islamic state that is compatible with elections, freedom of religion, and other civil liberties," the Council of Foreign Relations stated in a profile. Earlier this year, the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council, which is run by Sadr rival Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim, dropped the “Revolution” from its title and stated it would turn to Sistani for guidance in a clear effort to distance itself from Iran.
Sadr's decision to embrace the Iranian wilayet al-faqeeh along with his decision to withdraw from the political scene comes as the surge is having a significant impact on reducing the violence and sidelining al Qaeda and the Iranian-backed militias. While many reports indicate Sadr is attempting to reestablish control of his militia, Sadr appears to have decided it would benefit him to withdrawal from the political scene and deepen his relationship with the Iranians.
Many commentators wish to distance Sadr from the Iranians, but his acceptance of the Khomeinist style of theocratic Islam tells more about his relationship with Iran than any statement put out by Sadr's press flacks.
| | Qods Force logo, click to view. |
While U.S. and Iraqi forces focus on combatting al Qaeda as it shifts to the Northern provinces, Coalition Special Forces teams continue to target the Iranian-backed Special Groups terror cells operating in the central and southern provinces. Since December 4, Special Forces teams have conducted three raids against the Iranian-supported Shia terrorists in and around Baghdad. Each of the targeted individuals in the raids received "received special weapons training."
The largest raid occurred on December 6 in the Al Hayy region southeast of Baghdad. Coalition forces captured the targeted Special Groups leader along with five associates. Two others were killed and two wounded in a firefight. "The targeted individual reportedly received special weapons training in order to train Special Group criminal element members for insurgent operations," Multinational Forces Iraq noted in its press release. "His skills consist of improvised explosive device operation, sniper fire, rocket propelled grenades, operational security, mortars and insurgency combat tactics. He is also believed to be an associate of several other senior-level criminal element leaders who were involved in attacks on Coalition forces."
Coalition Forces conducted a second raid on December 6 in the city of Al Kut in Wasit province. "The operations targeted an individual who reportedly received specialized weapons and tactical training, including sniper rifle and rocket-propelled grenade employment, the construction of improvised explosive devices, and operational security," Multinational Forces Iraq stated. "He was also suspected of being involved in training Special Group criminal element members on weapons and operational tactics," as well as involved with other senior leaders.
It is unclear if the targeted Special Groups leader was captured, or if he was a Qods Force operative. "Identification is pending further exploitation, but we are reviewing information recovered on the scene as well as assessing the level of involvement of the detainees," Multinational Forces Iraq's Press Desk responded to an inquiry from the Long War Journal.
A third weapons trainer was targeted in the Khan Bani Said region north of Baghdad on December 4. "The targeted individual was reportedly a significant explosively formed penetrator facilitator and trainer within Special Group criminal elements," | | | |
