Orientul Mijlociu

On May 15, 2019, Russian President Vladimir Putin conducted talks in Sochi with Austrian President Alexander Van der Bellen, who was in Russia for a working visit. Following their consultations, the President of Russia and the Federal President of Austria held a joint news conference. During the press conference, both leaders stressed their disapproval of the US withdrawal from the JCPOA.[1]

In an article titled “Talk of War against Iran – Our Country Is Not Outside the Campaign” in the pro-Hizbullah Lebanese daily Al-Akhbar, the daily’s editor, Ibrahim Al-Amin, discussed the possibility of an attack on Iran and the implications for Lebanon. He wrote that the U.S. position on Iran is not entirely clear and its moves do not necessarily herald an attack on Iran; nevertheless, America’s allies – Israel, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and some European countries – urge it to take military action against Iran, seeing this as the only way to get it to change its policies, and the U.S. is certainly preparing the ground for this option. Al-Amin compared the current tension between the U.S. and Iran to the tension between Israel and Hizbullah: just as Israel wants to attack Hizbullah, but experts within it warn that an attack will be costly and will not necessarily produce a decisive result, the U.S. wants to weaken Iran and its allies, but knows that war against it will come at a price. The proponents of war on Iran, he says, do not realize that Iran is very powerful on the economic, political and military levels, and has a large arsenal that can threaten even Europe, as well as fighting capabilities that can topple states. Moreover, its many allies in Afghanistan, Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Palestine and elsewhere will come to its aid if it is attacked. He declared that, if a war breaks out, Hizbullah, as part of the resistance axis, will be a major part of it, and that the flames will reach Israel, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and other countries.

Bottom Line Up Front:

-Tensions have spiked between the U.S. and Iran recently, with both countries engaging in a series of tit-for-tat actions and heated rhetoric.
-But conflict should not be considered inevitable; containing Iran is possible and presents a favorable alternative to direct military conflict.
-Iran’s ‘playbook’ is based upon empowering the IRGC-QF to build armed factions into political movements with increasing influence and capabilities.
-The Trump administration largely views Iran through the lens of ‘supporting terrorism,’ which it does, but this frame is short-sighted and fails to appropriately capture the comprehensive nature of how Iran operates.

Opinion: Iran-backed Lebanese terror group might justify a military conflict with Israel – all in the name of serving Iranian interests – by claiming large gas reserves worth billions of dollars are being exploited by Israelis in Lebanese waters.

The question is: who will take the reins in Iran and make sure that the vast country does not morph into yet another "ungoverned territory" in the heart of the Middle East?

I think the question is designed to dodge the issue of confronting a rogue regime that has provoked the current crisis. Iran has an old and well-established bureaucracy, dating back to the 16th century, and capable of operating within a strong culture of governance. Despite the serious damage done to state structures by the mullahs and their acolytes, the reservoir of experience and talent available is vast enough to ensure governance even on autopilot.

The mullahs are playing with fire and, "He who plays with fire risks being burned!"

Targeting terrorists and their networks brings only temporary success—but the long-term strategy needs to focus on discrediting the ideologies that attract attackers.

It was a chilly January evening, and Khadija Abd and her family had just finished supper at their farm when the two men with guns burst into the room.

In response to Iran’s increasingly bellicose foreign policy, which extends from military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan to civil war in Yemen, terrorist attacks on regional American allies to supporting Hamas in dropping 600 rockets on Israel this week, the Trump administration has squeezed the Iranian economy.

On Sunday, May 5, U.S. National Security Adviser John Bolton announced that the USS Abraham Lincoln Carrier Strike Group and a bomber task force had begun to make their way from the Mediterranean Sea toward the coastline of Iran. Iran, Bolton said, had made “a number of troubling and escalatory indications and warnings.” He was, characteristically, not specific. It was enough that Bolton—who has a history of making hazardous statements—had made these comments from the perch of the White House in Washington, D.C. “The United States is not seeking war with the Iranian regime,” he said rather incredulously. After all, what is the arrival of a massive war fleet on the coastline of a country but a declaration of war?

TWO DECADES ago al-Qaeda made its name by mounting a succession of bombings against America across the world. These included the American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998; an American destroyer moored in Yemen in 2000; and, most bloodily of all, the attacks of September 11th 2001 on American soil. Though Osama bin Laden, the group’s founder, had long railed against “Jews and Crusaders”, so giving a religious sectarian dimension to his global jihad, his central target was clear: “kill the Americans and their allies”.