Tag: Hezbollah

Making The Case For More War

This mash-up between Saudi Arabia and Lebanon all began when the Houthi tribesmen of Yemen were accused of a fired a missile into Saudi Arabia.

First the White House condemned the attack……

The White House on Wednesday condemned missile attacks by Yemen’s Houthi militias on Saudi Arabia, saying they threatened the region’s security and undermined efforts to halt the conflict.

‘Houthi missile attacks against Saudi Arabia, enabled by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, threaten regional security and undermine UN efforts to negotiate an end to the conflict,’ it said in a statement as US President Donald Trump began a visit to the Chinese capital.

Then the condemnation moved to the UN…….

The U.S. Mission to the United Nations news release said the missile the Houthi rebels launched toward Riyadh’s King Khalid International Airport on Nov. 4 may “also be of Iranian origin.”

“Saudi Arabia’s announcement confirms once again the Iranian regime’s complete disregard for its international obligations. By providing these types of weapons to the Houthi militias in Yemen, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corp‎s is violating two UN resolutions simultaneously,” Haley said in a statement.

Let’s stop right here for a moment……

Let me see if I have the right……Iran may have given a missile to the Houthi and they fired it into Saudi Arabia and the region went batcrap crazy and yet the US is given billions worth of military hardware to the Saudis which they have used on their neighbor Yemen and all is fine with the world.  Is that not he very definition of hypocrisy?

The United States has asked the world to “hold Iran accountable” on Tuesday, after Saudi Arabia accused Tehran of “direct military aggression” after a Yemeni rebel missile attack near Riyadh.

Washington’s Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley claimed Iran had supplied a missile to the Houthis that was fired into Saudi Arabia in July, and referred to Riyadh’s claim that the weapon used on the Saturday strike “may also be of Iranian origin”.

“By providing these types of weapons to the Houthi militias in Yemen, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps is violating two UN resolutions simultaneously,” Haley said.

How many missiles have been fired into the Kingdom from Yemen in the last couple of years?  And yet this most recent one has war written all over it……why?

Over the weekend Yemen’s Houthis claimed responsibility for a ballistic missile strike against Riyadh. Nonetheless, Saudi Arabia blamed Iran for being behind the attack, as well as the Lebanese movement Hezbollah in the same statement.

This was not the first Houthi Scud attack on Riyadh. In March 2017 the Houthis launched a Scud missile at King Salman air base. Then the kingdom did not make an issue of Iran being behind the attack or invoking Hezbollah. Why this time?

http://www.middleeasteye.net/columns/yemens-ballistic-missile-launch-and-saudi-arabias-ballistic-response-1343573120

If so then should the US also be held accountable for the carnage in Yemen?

Who is driving this scenario?  Israel has wanted someone to attack Iran for decades are they about to get their wish?

Will this new war in the Middle East begin with the Saudis attacking Lebanon?

Middle East: While You Were Otherwise Distracted

I know I am back on the Middle East….well it is more exciting than American politics……this coming from a guy with a degree in polisci……..what can you write about clowns….only that they are creepy and should be avoided.

There are many stories that are newsworthy but for some reason seldom make it to the talking heads……to be fair usually the talking heads are more focused on e-mails or whose butt is bigger or some random car chase in Po-Dunk California……you know the mundane crap that we all crave……..

So while you were otherwise distracted there is news in the War on Terror……..

Though there was no formal announcement of any policy change accompanying it, the latest Worldwide Threat Assessment, issued by the office of the Director of National Intelligence, conspicuously did not list either Iran or Hezbollah as terrorist threats to the United States.

The 2014 report declared both were direct threats to the US and its allies, and Iran had been given an entire segment of the terrorism section in the previous years.

This year, the assessment on Iran praised the nation for its attempts to “dampen sectarianism” and to “deescalate tensions with Saudi Arabia,” though they did warn that Iranian attempts to protect regional Shi’ites risked fueling a secfarian backlash against them.

An interesting turn in international relations……these two have been on the list since its inception…….but now we are cutting them some slack…….

There is another side to this coin……is it possible the US could be painted as protecting the Shi’a sect over the Sunni?  If so then this could be yet another of our trips that could provide recruitment opportunities for extremists.

I have been researching and analyzing the Middle East for decades and I cannot for the life of me understand what the US id doing…….since 2003 it has been one misstep after another……and now it looks more like some secret plan as opposed to accidents….

I understand that we are in negotiations with Iran and we are trying to prove to them that we can trust them and that they could benefit from a successful negotiations……but I think that this may be sending the wrong message within the extremist circles that could be disastrous….

Any ideas?

Is Israel Finished?

Fellow bloggers, do you ever feel like you are spinning your wheels……I do too….but I refuse to let my guard down and succumb to the feelings of inadequacy……I do the research so my readers do not and I try to keep them informed on how and where the next big bang will occur……..sorry had to get that off my chest…..now onwards and upwards!

I was asked the other day by a friend who knows that I keep up with the Middle East religiously…..do you think Israel is finished now?  I mean they have a tenuous ceasefire and all is quiet, as quiet as it gets on their southern border…….what could they possibly need to do more?

My personal opinion is that Israel is not through with armed conflict….not just yet.  They are finished with Gaza for they accomplished what they intended….to totally destroy the infrastructure……the tunnel crap was just that …..total crap!

If they are not finished but are finished with Gaza, for now…..where will they hit next?

Think Lebanon and Hezbollah.

 

I listen to a report from Israel’s channel 2………..

The report, for which the army gave Israel’s Channel 2 access to several of its positions along the border with Lebanon, featured an IDF brigade commander warning that such a conflict “will be a whole different story” from the Israel-Hamas conflict in which over 2,000 Gazans (half of them gunmen according to Israel) and 72 Israelis were killed. “We will have to use considerable force” to quickly prevail over the Iranian-backed Hezbollah, “to act more decisively, more drastically,” said Colonel Dan Goldfus, commander of the 769th Hiram Infantry Brigade.

The report said Hezbollah has an estimated 100,000 rockets — 10 times as many as were in the Hamas arsenal — and that its 5,000 long-range missiles, located in Beirut and other areas deep inside Lebanon, are capable of carrying large warheads (of up to 1 ton and more), with precision guidance systems, covering all of Israel.

Israel is catching grief from all over the world for the death and destruction in Gaza…..and they will go to southern Lebanon for, right now, they have little to lose.  Hezbollah is as much a pain in Israel’s butt as Hamas…..I cannot imagine that they, Israel, will let those rockets and such go for too long.

BiBi will need something to sure up his supports so that he can keep his power trip…….his latest okay of the theft of Palestinian land for settlements is his way of pacifying the right wing extremists………any Gaza investigation will lessen some of his support…..he will need a new “enemy” that is about to destroy Israel…..and Hezbollah fits that bill perfectly.

Of course they are not finished!  Israelis are famous, or infamous depending on your point of view, for brutality and destruction…..from Moses until today…….not much has changed with completion of their Gaza campaign.

Just wait for it………..