Latest Developments
Israeli forces entered Khan Younis — the largest city in southern Gaza — on December 5 after several days of intensified shelling of Hamas targets. The head of the Israel Defense Forces’ (IDF) Southern Command, Maj. Gen. Yaron Finkelman, said that IDF troops are engaged in the “most intense” battles since the war began as battles raged in southern Gaza.
Under Erdogan’s leadership, Ankara has demonstrated the extent of its moral and ethical failure.
James Carville coined one of the most quoted phrases in political discourse when he stated, “it’s the economy, stupid”—a reference to George Bush’s loss of the 1992 U.S. presidential election against his rival Bill Clinton. This also happens to be the very same reason why Erdogan is not serious about economically boycotting Israel. Since Hamas carried out the October 7 terror attacks, Erdogan has attempted to position himself as Israel’s premier critic in the Muslim world with rhetorical outbursts, equating Israel’s counterterrorism mission in Gaza as a clear demonstration of the Jewish state’s “genocidal” intentions towards the Palestinian people. Other than rhetoric, what has Erdogan done to advocate for Palestinians?
The threat of a nuclear-armed Iran must not be underestimated. Iran’s regime has frequently threatened to wipe a whole country — Israel — off the map, and is also increasing military cooperation with Venezuela and Cuba to threaten the US. Europe, too, remains a rich target for nuclear blackmail. Iran would not even have to use its nuclear bombs; the threat would be enough.
It is high time for the Biden administration and the European Union at least to stop Iran from selling its oil. If not, much of the planet will soon see itself either in World War III or a surrender.
It would have been so much less costly in life and treasure to stop Hitler before he sent the German army across the Rhine in 1936. Perhaps US President Joe Biden is trying to bribe the mullahs not to create any more mayhem before next year’s US presidential election – but the only result of such timidity is that the price goes up – with a worse war to follow. Biden would not have won WWII.
The Iranian regime, through its proxies, has already attacked US forces in Iraq and Syria at least 74 times since October 17. US retaliation – against the proxies, not Iran – apparently could not impress Iran’s regime less. Someone else takes the bullet: that is why Iran has proxies in the first place… The Biden administration is not only allowing to Iran’s mullahs to create a war cost-free, it is paying them to do it.
Iran is closer than ever before to obtaining nuclear bombs; meanwhile, the Biden administration’s only policy toward the ruling mullahs of Iran is to keep “rewarding” them with billions of dollars.
After the Iran-backed Hamas terror group launched its genocidal war against Israel and Jews, the Iranian regime ratcheted up its enrichment of uranium. The regime claims it now has enough enriched uranium to make three nuclear bombs, according to one of the two confidential reports by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and seen by Reuters.
On November 22, 2023, IAEA Director-General Rafael Grossi warned in his latest report on verification and monitoring:
"Iran's stockpiles of uranium enriched up to 5%, enriched up to 20% and enriched up to 60% – high enriched uranium – have all increased since we met in September with the increase of the 60% continuing at the same rate as I reported at the time of the last Board."The regime has also barred IAEA’s inspectors from entering Iran to monitor its nuclear activities. In a press briefing, Grossi said:
"Iran has ceased to implement lots of aspects and nuclear related obligations under the JCPOA [the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action] and it's not implementing mutually agreed additional measures under the joint statement of March 4th."The European Union and the Biden administration have been turning a blind eye to the escalation, ostensibly because they reportedly do not want to add “fuel” to the current hostilities in the Middle East (which Iran’s proxy Hamas started it in the first place). Nonsense. This is simply the most dangerous, disingenuous, cowardly appeasement policy in modern history. The West is basically saying, “Let’s not upset the mullahs! Instead, let’s allow the world’s top state sponsor of terrorism to continue its march toward having nuclear weapons in the hope that it will not use them.”
“There is a sort of paralysis, especially among the Americans… because they don’t want to add fuel to the fire,” said a senior European diplomat to Reuters on the condition of anonymity.
“The picture is pretty bleak, but the fact at the moment is that there is no appetite to provoke a reaction in Iran in the context of the war in the Middle East,” an unnamed senior diplomat told Agence France-Presse.
This feckless rush to appease aggressors and abdicate of responsibility for national security is exactly that Winston Churchill warned against: “Each one hopes that if he feeds the crocodile enough, the crocodile will eat him last.”
Once the Iranian regime gets access to nuclear weapons, it will most likely provide some of them to its proxies, including Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houthis in Yemen. The threat of a nuclear-armed Iran must not be underestimated. Iran’s regime has frequently threatened to wipe a whole country — Israel — off the map, and is also increasing military cooperation with Venezuela and Cuba to threaten the US. Europe, too, remains a rich target for nuclear blackmail. Iran would not even have to use its nuclear bombs; the threat would be enough.
General Hossein Salami, the commander in chief of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has made the regime’s plans vehemently clear: “Our strategy is to erase Israel from the global political map,” he announced on Iran’s state-controlled Channel 2 TV in 2019.
In case anyone had a doubt, Iran’s Supreme Guide Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, published “Palestine,” a 416-page “guide to destroying Israel,” and railing against “The Great Satan,” the United States
It is high time for the Biden administration and the European Union at least to stop Iran from selling its oil. If not, much of the planet will soon see itself either in World War III or a surrender.
The present strategy of Western powers is no different than enriching Nazi Germany during WWII or the Soviet Union during the Cold War. For the expansionist, hegemonic Islamic Republic of Iran, concessions and appeasements mean only weakness. It would have been so much less costly in life and treasure to stop Hitler before he sent the German army across the Rhine in 1936. Perhaps US President Joe Biden is trying to bribe the mullahs not to create any more mayhem before next year’s US presidential election – but the only result of such timidity is that the price goes up – with a worse war to follow. Biden would not have won WWII.
The Iranian regime, through its proxies, has already attacked US forces in Iraq and Syria at least 74 times since October 17. US retaliation – against the proxies, not Iran – apparently could not impress Iran’s regime less. Someone else takes the bullet: that is why Iran has proxies in the first place. The proxies – Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis, Palestinian Islamic Jihad — are Iran’s human shields. The more the US and the EU give Iran a pass, the more belligerent it will become. The Biden administration is not only allowing to Iran’s mullahs to create a war cost-free, it is paying them to do it.
Below is a report published by MEMRI on October 4, 2021:
The September 30, 2021 “Promise of the Hereafter[1] – Post-Liberation Palestine” conference, sponsored by Hamas leader in Gaza Yahyah Al-Sinwar and attended by senior officials from Hamas and other Palestinian factions, discussed preparations for the future administration of the state of Palestine following its “liberation” from Israel after the latter “disappears.”
On May 1, 2017, Hamas published a policy document approved by all the movement leaders. The leaders clarified that the document was not replacing the Hamas Charter[1] but was aimed at adapting the movement’s position to the current time. The document was presented by Hamas spokesmen as a development that did not compromise their principles.[2]
On October 10, 2023, three days after the Hamas attack on southern Israel, Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei set out Iran’s official position – i.e. that Iran had no hand in the attack.
However, statements by some senior Iranian officials and leaders of the Palestinian resistance groups indicate that one of the aims of the attack was to thwart the U.S.-Saudi-Israel initiative to expand Saudi-Israeli normalization, implement the Saudi solution to the Palestinian issue, and grant legitimacy to a Saudi nuclear program. This is because this joint initiative would cause strategic damage to Iran and to the resistance axis that it leads.
The Palestinian resistance movement Hamas has extolled as “historic” its latest retaliatory operation against the Israeli regime in the occupied territories and vowed that the attacks on the illegal entity will continue until the full liberation of Palestine.
The Iranian-backed Houthis fired missiles and drones at three commercial vessels and a U.S. warship in the Red Sea. The Houthis claimed credit for targeting the commercial vessels Unity Explorer and Number Nine, while the Pentagon confirmed that it downed missiles and drones that were fired from Yemen. Today’s attack is the latest by the Houthis against international shipping, which the terror group claims is designed to support Hamas as Israel targets it in Gaza.
About Deir Azzour
Syria’s Deir Azzour governorate encompasses the two most important remaining wilayat (provinces) of ISIS’ would-be caliphate, Wilayat al-Furat/Wilayat al-Badiya and Wilayat al-Khayr, in an area that runs south into Iraq on the Middle Euphrates River Valley (MERV) in eastern Syria. These two provinces, Wilayat al-Khayr/Wilayat al-Badiya (from the areas west of the city of Deir Azzour down the MERV to the area of Albu Kamal) and Wilayat al-Furat (the area of Albu Kamal in Syria to the area of Qa’im in Iraq), will be the next target of the U.S.-led coalition’s campaign. This area of the MERV is also the current target of forces loyal to the Bashar al-Assad government, which maintains a significant presence in the governorate via control over the Deir Azzour Airport and a large part of the city of Deir Azzour. The U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) coalition, mainly through its constituent organization the Deir Azzour Military Council, is also advancing toward the city of Deir Azzour.
The coalition between the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and the Arab tribes in Deir ez Zor is fracturing amid clashes over long-standing grievances. The SDF’s response to the clashes very likely will undermine its ability to maintain control in the province for at least the next several months. The SDF and the Deir ez Zor Military Council (DMC) began fighting after the SDF arrested the DMC commander on August 27. The conflict rapidly expanded after August 30, as other tribes joined the fighting driven by long-running grievances against the SDF.[1] These grievances included limited reconstruction in the Arab areas, repeated SDF abuses of the local populations, and a lack of representative Arab leadership.[2] The tribes captured the southern areas of SDF-administered Deir ez Zor province by September 2.[3] The SDF recaptured the territory on September 10 by force and through actions that local media portrayed as abuses. Anti-SDF tribal fighters began conducting hit-and-run insurgent attacks on September 6, meaning anti-SDF forces are contesting the SDF’s control of the population in Deir ez Zor. CTP defines control as “uncontested physical or psychological pressure to ensure that individuals or groups respond as directed.”[4] The SDF has not taken steps to address the tribes’ grievances as of September 14.[5]