Not meant to scare, rather to serve as a wake-up call.
The author, surpassing her usual brilliance as a political analyst, connects the dots others seem unable to or simply won't
By Caroline B Glick -Jewish World review- April 7, 2006
Responding to the report, General Yuri Baluyevsky, Russia's deputy defense minister and the chief of the Russian military's general staff said, "Russia's General Staff has no information about whether Ukraine has given 250 nuclear warheads to Iran or not."
It is impossible to assess the accuracy of the newspaper report. The Ukrainian government has dismissed the allegations. Russia may well have invented the story to shift media attention away from the growing awareness that Russian support for Tehran, Damascus and Hamas effectively places it in the enemy camp in the US-led war against global jihad.
But whether this particular report is true or false, there is no doubt that the danger to Israel and the rest of the Western world emanating from Iran and its allies is growing by the day. In recent testimony before the US Congress, John Negroponte, Director of National Intelligence said that the danger that Tehran "will acquire a nuclear weapon and the ability to integrate it with ballistic missiles that Iran already possesses" is a cause "for immediate concern."
Iran's recent financial maneuverings also indicate general preparations for global war. The Swiss newspaper Der Bund reported the Iranian regime recently withdrew $31 billion of its gold reserves and foreign exchange from European financial institutions. Additionally, this week Iran renewed its gasoline rationing for the general public.
While Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's poisonous and apocalyptic rhetoric has caused the Western world to step away from him, Tehran is far from isolated. Indeed today Tehran perceives itself and is perceived as others as the leader of a regional Islamist axis.
In February Canada's Globe and Mail published a report where Lebanese parliament member for Hizbullah terror group Hussein Hajj Hassan declared that on January 20 the Islamist axis was formally cemented in Damascus. The parley which brought about the entente was led by Ahmadinejad and attended by axis members, Syrian President Bashar Assad, Hizbullah chief Hassan Nasrallah, Hamas chief Khaled Mashal, Islamic Jihad chief Ramadan Abdullah Shalah and the commanders of PLO breakaway front groups. Iraqi Shiite terror chief Muqtada al-Sadr also pledged his allegiance to the axis. The jihad summit took place five days before the Palestinian elections and on the same day a suicide bomb exploded in Tel Aviv.
Damascus's response to the establishment of the axis and to Hamas's electoral victory has been dramatic and disturbing. Damascus has harshly curbed all liberal political opposition to the Ba'athist regime. Voices of such dissent were empowered by the firm international position taken against Damascus during the UN investigation of the assassination of Lebanon's former prime minister Rafiq Hariri last year. Today many opponents of the regime are in prison. At the same time, Assad's Alewite minority regime, that has been radically secular since its establishment in the 1960s is beginning to open up to Islamist forces
For more than two years, the Israeli government and media have told the Israeli public that no matter how our enemies threaten us, they can do us no harm because America is protecting us. Protected by America, Israelis are told that we have no reason to fear the consequences of IDF retreats and the transfer of vacated lands to Hamas.
Sadly, this promise is largely untrue. The Bush administration today is bogged down in a swamp of strategic paralysis and political distress that prevent it from designing clear policies regarding the war against global jihad.
American policy towards the Palestinians is case in point: One day the Bush administration announces that it is cutting its ties with the Hamas-led Palestinian Authority and the next day it demands that Israel keep the borders with Gaza open and promises to find a way to give direct aid to the Palestinians that somehow will not strengthen Hamas.
As to Syria, the stubborn stance the administration maintained towards Damascus during the months of Detlev Mehlis's investigation of Hariri's murder last year has been replaced by no stance. Aside from finger pointing at Damascus, Washington offers no plan for ending Syrian support for terrorists in Lebanon, the PA and Iraq. On Wednesday, The Wall Street Journal noted that during her weekend pit stop in Baghdad, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice came down publicly against Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari's bid to maintain his position in the next government. Rice and her British counterpart Jack Straw announced their governments' support for Iraq's current Finance Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi. Mahdi serves as the head of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI) which is known to have strong relations with Tehran.
All of these recent developments demonstrate that the members of the Iran-led Islamist axis are actively pursuing and indeed progressing in their quest to encircle Israel and entrap the US. This they accomplish - both separately and together — while Israel and the US insist on doing everything they can to prevent any possibility of effectively meeting the rising threats. There is no doubt that the political leadership of at least one of these states has to snap out of its policy fog immediately. Our enemies have no consideration for our desire to ignore them.
I, myself, am a mid-eastern girl that went to school despite all the bombs that were falling on my country to scare the hell out of me .
lebanon was always the battle field for all neighbouring arab countries.
Lebanon was and still an obtsacles to all the regimes of the arab world.
Of course, it is ... It gives the right to women to vote, party, dress however they choose to, speak freely and bring down governements in the Cedar revolution of 2005.
They have tried in every possible way to un-westernize this country, so it joins the Islamic Jihad of Anti-Israel, America and the west.
None of their barbarian ways had gotten them anywhere.
Now, they are putting the last few drops to their receipe of terrorrism by passing weapons to hizzbollah in the south to threathen Israel and to detroy a country whith the same OLD ATTITUDE of BLAMING EVERYTHING ON THE WEST.
The author, surpassing her usual brilliance as a political analyst, connects the dots others seem unable to or simply won't
By Caroline B Glick -Jewish World review- April 7, 2006
Responding to the report, General Yuri Baluyevsky, Russia's deputy defense minister and the chief of the Russian military's general staff said, "Russia's General Staff has no information about whether Ukraine has given 250 nuclear warheads to Iran or not."
It is impossible to assess the accuracy of the newspaper report. The Ukrainian government has dismissed the allegations. Russia may well have invented the story to shift media attention away from the growing awareness that Russian support for Tehran, Damascus and Hamas effectively places it in the enemy camp in the US-led war against global jihad.
But whether this particular report is true or false, there is no doubt that the danger to Israel and the rest of the Western world emanating from Iran and its allies is growing by the day. In recent testimony before the US Congress, John Negroponte, Director of National Intelligence said that the danger that Tehran "will acquire a nuclear weapon and the ability to integrate it with ballistic missiles that Iran already possesses" is a cause "for immediate concern."
Iran's recent financial maneuverings also indicate general preparations for global war. The Swiss newspaper Der Bund reported the Iranian regime recently withdrew $31 billion of its gold reserves and foreign exchange from European financial institutions. Additionally, this week Iran renewed its gasoline rationing for the general public.
While Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's poisonous and apocalyptic rhetoric has caused the Western world to step away from him, Tehran is far from isolated. Indeed today Tehran perceives itself and is perceived as others as the leader of a regional Islamist axis.
In February Canada's Globe and Mail published a report where Lebanese parliament member for Hizbullah terror group Hussein Hajj Hassan declared that on January 20 the Islamist axis was formally cemented in Damascus. The parley which brought about the entente was led by Ahmadinejad and attended by axis members, Syrian President Bashar Assad, Hizbullah chief Hassan Nasrallah, Hamas chief Khaled Mashal, Islamic Jihad chief Ramadan Abdullah Shalah and the commanders of PLO breakaway front groups. Iraqi Shiite terror chief Muqtada al-Sadr also pledged his allegiance to the axis. The jihad summit took place five days before the Palestinian elections and on the same day a suicide bomb exploded in Tel Aviv.
Damascus's response to the establishment of the axis and to Hamas's electoral victory has been dramatic and disturbing. Damascus has harshly curbed all liberal political opposition to the Ba'athist regime. Voices of such dissent were empowered by the firm international position taken against Damascus during the UN investigation of the assassination of Lebanon's former prime minister Rafiq Hariri last year. Today many opponents of the regime are in prison. At the same time, Assad's Alewite minority regime, that has been radically secular since its establishment in the 1960s is beginning to open up to Islamist forces
For more than two years, the Israeli government and media have told the Israeli public that no matter how our enemies threaten us, they can do us no harm because America is protecting us. Protected by America, Israelis are told that we have no reason to fear the consequences of IDF retreats and the transfer of vacated lands to Hamas.
Sadly, this promise is largely untrue. The Bush administration today is bogged down in a swamp of strategic paralysis and political distress that prevent it from designing clear policies regarding the war against global jihad.
American policy towards the Palestinians is case in point: One day the Bush administration announces that it is cutting its ties with the Hamas-led Palestinian Authority and the next day it demands that Israel keep the borders with Gaza open and promises to find a way to give direct aid to the Palestinians that somehow will not strengthen Hamas.
As to Syria, the stubborn stance the administration maintained towards Damascus during the months of Detlev Mehlis's investigation of Hariri's murder last year has been replaced by no stance. Aside from finger pointing at Damascus, Washington offers no plan for ending Syrian support for terrorists in Lebanon, the PA and Iraq. On Wednesday, The Wall Street Journal noted that during her weekend pit stop in Baghdad, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice came down publicly against Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari's bid to maintain his position in the next government. Rice and her British counterpart Jack Straw announced their governments' support for Iraq's current Finance Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi. Mahdi serves as the head of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI) which is known to have strong relations with Tehran.
All of these recent developments demonstrate that the members of the Iran-led Islamist axis are actively pursuing and indeed progressing in their quest to encircle Israel and entrap the US. This they accomplish - both separately and together — while Israel and the US insist on doing everything they can to prevent any possibility of effectively meeting the rising threats. There is no doubt that the political leadership of at least one of these states has to snap out of its policy fog immediately. Our enemies have no consideration for our desire to ignore them.
I, myself, am a mid-eastern girl that went to school despite all the bombs that were falling on my country to scare the hell out of me .
lebanon was always the battle field for all neighbouring arab countries.
Lebanon was and still an obtsacles to all the regimes of the arab world.
Of course, it is ... It gives the right to women to vote, party, dress however they choose to, speak freely and bring down governements in the Cedar revolution of 2005.
They have tried in every possible way to un-westernize this country, so it joins the Islamic Jihad of Anti-Israel, America and the west.
None of their barbarian ways had gotten them anywhere.
Now, they are putting the last few drops to their receipe of terrorrism by passing weapons to hizzbollah in the south to threathen Israel and to detroy a country whith the same OLD ATTITUDE of BLAMING EVERYTHING ON THE WEST.
